Second-Wave Feminism

(noun)

Second-wave feminism is a period of feminist activity. In the United States it began during the early 1960s and lasted through the late 1990s. It was a worldwide movement that was strong in Europe and parts of Asia, such as Turkey and Israel, where it began in the 1980s, and it began at other times in other countries.

Related Terms

Examples of Second-Wave Feminism in the following topics:

  • The Feminist Perspective

    • Feminism is a broad term that is the result of several historical social movements attempting to gain equal economic, political, and social rights for women.
    • First-wave feminism focused mainly on legal equality, such as voting, education, employment, marriage laws, and the plight of intelligent, white, middle-class women.
    • Second-wave feminism went a step further by seeking equality in family, employment, reproductive rights, and sexuality.
    • Although there was great improvements with perceptions and representations of women that extended globally, the movement was not unified and several different forms of feminism began to emerge: black feminism, lesbian feminism, liberal feminism, and social feminism.

  • Gender and Social Movements

    • Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity beginning in the early 1960s and through the late 1980s.
    • Second Wave Feminism has existed continuously since then, and continues to coexist with what some people call Third Wave Feminism.
    • Second wave feminism saw cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked.
    • Finally, the third-wave of feminism began in the early 1990s.
    • Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "essentialist " definitions of femininity , which (according to them) over-emphasized the experiences of upper middle class white women.

  • The Feminist Perspective

    • Feminist thought has a rich history, which is categorized into three waves.
    • At the turn of the century, the first wave of feminism focused on official, political inequalities and fought for women's suffrage.
    • In the 1960s, second wave feminism, also known as the women's liberation movement, turned its attention to a broader range of inequalities, including those in the workplace, the family, and reproductive rights.
    • Currently, a third wave of feminism is criticizing the fact that the first two waves of feminism were dominated by white women from advanced capitalist societies.
    • The relationship between feminism and race was largely overlooked until the second wave of feminists produced literature on the topic of black feminism.

  • The Feminist Perspective

    • The first and second waves of the feminist movement were primarily driven by white women, who did not adequately represent the feminist movement as a whole.
    • Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical discourse.
    • Radical feminism, in particular, evaluates the role of the patriarchy in perpetuating male dominance.
    • Feminism focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on the assertion of male supremacy.
    • The first and second waves of the feminist movement were primarily driven by white women, who did not adequately represent the feminist movement as a whole.

  • The Feminization of Poverty

    • The feminization of poverty refers to the fact that women represent a disproportionate share of the world's poor.
    • The feminization of poverty describes a phenomenon in which women represent a disproportionate percentage of the world's poor.
    • Lone mother households, or households without a second parent or guardian, are the households with the highest risk of poverty.
    • Increasing health services to women could, therefore, mitigate the feminization of poverty.

  • Gender Roles in the U.S.

    • Before the rise of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s and the influx of women into the workforce in the 1980s, women were largely responsible for dealing with home matters, while men worked and earned income outside the home.
    • Parsons contrasted this first model with a second that involved the total integration of roles.
    • In the second model, men and women would be educated in the same institutions and study the same content in classes.

  • Behavior and Environmental Influences on Health

    • Another illustration of this is the finding that feminists are less likely to consider "ultra-thin" the ideal body image than non-feminists, indicating the culture and philosophy of feminism countermands the effects of popular media.
    • In the years from just after the Second World War until 1960 the average person's weight increased, but few were obese.