Concept
Second-wave feminism
Overview
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred throughout the Western world and aimed to increase women's equality by building on the feminist gains of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Second-wave feminism built on first-wave feminism and broadened the scope of debate to include a wider range of issues: sexuality, family, domesticity, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. First-wave feminism typically advocated for formal equality and second-wave feminism advocated for substantive equality. It was a movement focused on critiquing patriarchal or male-dominated institutions and cultural practices throughout society. Second-wave feminism also brought attention to issues of domestic violence and marital rape, created rape crisis centers and women's shelters, and brought about changes in custody law and divorce law. Feminist-owned bookstores, credit unions, and restaurants were among the key meeting spaces and economic engines of the movement.
Because white feminists' voices have dominated the narrative from the early days of the movement, typical narratives of second-wave feminism focus on the sexism encountered by white middle- and upper-class women, with the absence of black and other racialized women and the experience of working-class women, although black women wrote and founded feminist publications and political activist groups throughout the movement, especially in the 1970s. At the same time, some narratives present a perspective that focuses on events in the United States to the exclusion of the experiences of other countries. Writers like Audre Lorde argued that this homogenized vision of "sisterhood" could not lead to real change because it ignored factors of one's identity such as race, sexuality, age, and class. The term "intersectionality" was coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw at the end of the second wave. Many scholars believe that the beginning of third wave feminism was due to the problems of the second wave, rather than just another movement.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Again, since the first or spontaneous stage of education is entirely to be left to women, it is most desirable that they should themselves have passed through the second or systematic stage. The only department with which they need not concern themselves, is what is called professional education. But this, as I have before observed, is not susceptible of regular organization. Professional skill can only be acquired…
Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life
States what Second-wave feminism is.
The transient nature of the electronic media has compelled people to recognize and accept upfront the concept of life cycles in place of permanency. Digital standards have to be developed and set in a cooperative context to ensure efficient exchange of information. Moreover, during this transition period, greater flexibility concerning how concepts such as backup copies and archival copies in the CXP are defined is…
Library of Congress, Workshop on Electronic Texts
States what Second-wave feminism is.
In 1831, the first working-class rising took place in Lyons; between 1838 and 1842, the first national working-class movement, that of the English Chartists, reached its height. The class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie came to the front in the history of the most advanced countries in Europe, in proportion to the development, upon the one hand, of modern industry, upon the other, of the newly-acquired…
Friedrich Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
Close in meaning to Second-wave feminism; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Second-wave feminism
Related ideas
- The Independent
- Yale University Press
- Turkey
- Feminism
- The Feminine Mystique
- Basic Books
- Ivy League
- Gay liberation
- Harvard University
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Birth control
- Nuclear family
- Western world
- Native Americans in the United States
- Northern Ireland
- Princeton University
- Betty Friedan
- Richard Nixon
- Sigmund Freud
- Sexism
- Los Angeles Times
- The New York Times
- Time (magazine)
- Constitution of the United States
Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.