Origin of Feminism

We all have heard about feminism a lot but ever wondered how did the women's empowerment start? All of these began many years back in Europe and the United States. There were many contributions made to the development of social cause, justice, equality, and the women's movement.

It all started back in 1610 when a lady from France started her first salon. It was a gathering for intellectual talks and to share the ideas. She was the first woman to engage with the men’s conversation.

Thereafter, there were main 4 waves that brought feminism to what it is now.

The First Wave

Talking about the first wave of feminism, it came in 1800. According to Dicker, an average married woman gave birth to roughly seven children. Of course, the education was off the charts at that time. However, the main concert was for equal contracts and properties. The women's movement resulted in the right to vote, sexual and reproductive matters, and focused on property and rights.

The Second Wave

The second wave of feminism for empowerment came between 1960 and 1980. It was mainly to broaden the debate. The main focus was one the things like sexuality, family, reproductive rights, and the workplace. Many wrong things were happening at that time of the decade. There were many movements where women took part such as the Gay/Lesbian movement, the Black civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam movement, the Asian American civil rights movement, etc. Women fought for gender equality so that their voices could reach the right people and all the negative things could be stopped. During the movement and the support of the groups, many women felt their voices were not heard. As a result, the second wave began.

The Third Wave

This ended in the early 2000s and was started 10 years back. The women's movement here was more of a micropolitics of gender equality. The third wave was used for the personal narratives for the feminist theory. Many personal experiences gave women a strike to understand that they were not alone in this entire women's movement. The oppression, discrimination, lack of equality and justice, etc was faced by women all over the world. Therefore, the third wave of the women's movement or feminism was for gender and sexuality. To be more precise, it was for the post-structuralist interpretation of sexuality and gender.

The Fourth wave

The last wave was recent and is started in 2012. As the generation started changing, the problems are also changing. In most of the places, women are now given proper justice and equality. The fourth wave focused on crimes against women. Sexual harassment, rape, body shaming, etc are the main things that feminists are focusing on. Social media is the main weapon used here to educate other women and for their empowerment. Some other women movements like #MeToo are started to focus this fourth wave.