Third Wave Feminism

Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism" title="Feminism" >feminist</a> activity and study, whose exact boundaries in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography" title="Historiography" >historiography</a> of feminism are a subject of debate, but are often marked as beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present. The movement arose as a response to the perceived failures of and backlash against initiatives and movements created by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Wave_Feminism" title="Second Wave Feminism" class="mw-redirect" >Second-Wave feminism</a>during the 1960s to 1980s, and the realization that women are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultural backgrounds".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Tong-0" >[1]</a> The third wave embraces diversity and change.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Tong-0" >[1]</a> In this wave, as in previous ones, there is no all-encompassing single feminist idea.

Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism" title="Essentialism" >essentialist</a>" definitions of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femininity" title="Femininity" >femininity</a>, which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized the experiences of upper-middle-class white women. The shift from second wave feminism came about with many of the legal and institutional rights that were given to women. In addition to these institutional gains, third-wave feminists believed there needed to be further changes in stereotypes of women and in the media portrayals of women as well as in the language that has been used to define women. Therefore, third-wave ideology focuses on a more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralist" title="Post-structuralist" class="mw-redirect" >post-structuralist</a> interpretation of gender and sexuality. In "Deconstructing Equality-versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism," <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_W._Scott" title="Joan W. Scott" class="mw-redirect" >Joan W. Scott</a> describes how language has been used as a way to understand the world, however, "post-structuralists insist that words and texts have no fixed or intrinsic meanings, that there is no transparent or self-evident relationship between them and either ideas or things, no basic or ultimate correspondence between language and the world"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-1" >[2]</a> Thus, while language has been used to create binaries (such as male/female), post-structuralists see these binaries as artificial constructs created to maintain the power of dominant groups.

Third-wave theory usually incorporates elements of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory" title="Queer theory" >queer theory</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-racism" title="Anti-racism" >anti-racism</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color" title="Person of color" >women-of-color</a> consciousness; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womanism" title="Womanism" >womanism</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_power" title="Girl power" >girl power</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-colonial_theory" title="Post-colonial theory" class="mw-redirect" >post-colonial theory</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism" title="Postmodernism" >postmodernism</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationalism" title="Transnationalism" >transnationalism</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecofeminism" title="Ecofeminism" >ecofeminism</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualist_feminism" title="Individualist feminism" >individualist feminism</a>; new <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory" title="Feminist theory" >feminist theory</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender" title="Transgender" >transgender</a> politics, and a rejection of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_binary" title="Gender binary" >gender binary</a>. Also considered part of the third wave is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positivity" title="Sex-positivity" class="mw-redirect" >sex-positivity</a>, a celebration of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_human_sexuality" title="Female human sexuality" class="mw-redirect" >sexuality</a> as a positive aspect of life, with broader definitions of what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex" title="Sex" >sex</a> means and what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression" title="Oppression" >oppression</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empowerment" title="Empowerment" >empowerment</a> may imply in the context of sex. For example, many third-wave feminists have reconsidered the opposition to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography" title="Pornography" >pornography</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_work" title="Sex work" class="mw-redirect" >sex work</a> of the second wave, and challenge existing beliefs that participants in pornography and sex work are always being exploited.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Johnson-2" >[3]</a>

Third-wave feminists such as Elle Green often focus on "micro-politics", and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for women.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Freedman-3" >[4]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Henry-4" >[5]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Gillis-5" >[6]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Faludi-6" >[7]</a>

Proponents of third-wave feminism claim that it allows women to define <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism" title="Feminism" >feminism</a> for themselves by incorporating their own identities into the belief system of what feminism is and what it can become through one's own perspective. In the introduction to the idea of third-wave feminism in Manifesta, authors <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Baumgardner" title="Jennifer Baumgardner" >Jennifer Baumgardner</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Richards" title="Amy Richards" >Amy Richards</a> suggest that feminism can change with every generation and individual:

"The fact that feminism is no longer limited to arenas where we expect to see it — <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Women" title="National Organization for Women" >NOW</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._(magazine)" title="Ms. (magazine)" >Ms.</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_studies" title="Women's studies" >women's studies</a>, and redsuited<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Congress" title="Member of Congress" >Congresswomen</a> — perhaps means that young women today have really reaped what feminism has sown. Raised after <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX" title="Title IX" >Title IX</a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%27s_Doll" title="William's Doll" >William Wants a Doll</a> [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic" title="Sic" >sic</a>], young women emerged from college or high school or two years of marriage or their first job and began challenging some of the received wisdom of the past ten or twenty years of feminism. We're not doing feminism the same way that the seventies feminists did it; being liberated doesn't mean copying what came before but finding one's own way-- a way that is genuine to one's own generation."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism#cite_note-Baumgardner_Richards-7" >[8]</a>

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<ul >

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch_(magazine)" title="Bitch (magazine)" >Bitch (magazine)</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_(magazine)" title="Bust (magazine)" >Bust (magazine)</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_1950s_Britain" title="Feminism in 1950s Britain" >Feminism in 1950s Britain</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-wave_feminism" title="First-wave feminism" >First-wave feminism</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_power" title="Girl power" >Girl power</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Valenti" title="Jessica Valenti" >Jessica Valenti</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Butler" title="Judith Butler" >Judith Butler</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf" title="Naomi Wolf" >Naomi Wolf</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_social_movements" title="New social movements" >New social movements</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PaVEM" title="PaVEM" >PaVEM</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_feminism" title="Postmodern feminism" >Postmodern feminism</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life_feminism" title="Pro-life feminism" >Pro-life feminism</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Walker" title="Rebecca Walker" >Rebecca Walker</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_feminism" title="Sex-positive feminism" >Sex-positive feminism</a></li>

<li ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_left_and_feminism" title="The left and feminism" class="mw-redirect" >The left and feminism</a></li>

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Third Wave Feminism

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