Feminism And Third Wave Feminism

In western, when one looks back at the history and development of feminism, the development of feminism progressed in three different stages. The stages are referred as “wave” and there are three stages that developed into the current feminism trend. Although the term “wave” was used to describe the history of feminist movement, the timeline of feminist movement was not developed in stage but it emerged in a continuous stage of collective thoughts and actions (Freedman, 2001). The start of the wave was known as “first wave” feminism that started around late nineteenth century and the main concern of first wave feminism was to gain equal rights for women, especially the rights to vote (Chowdhury, 2009; Janus, 2013). Then emerged the “second

In spite of the various feminist theories that developed during the second wave feminism and although the movement was considered as a successful social movement, the rise of third wave feminism was because of the objection from the youngsters during the mid-1990s (Yu, 2011; McRobie, 2011; Coleman, 2009). One of the biggest differences between second wave feminism and third wave feminism is that second wave feminism was perceived as only for “middle and upper class white females”; in third wave feminism, the term feminism does not only restricted using on middle and upper class of white females anymore, it expands the “target” of feminism to females who are from developing countries and with various skin colours and cultural background (Kendal, 2012; Snyder, 2008). Unlike second wave feminism which absolutely rejected every female’s stereotypes like girlishness; in third wave feminism, many individuals embrace being a girl, they accept the fact that there are gender differences and acknowledge it, they do not see themselves as victims but individuals that are equal to everyone regardless of the differences (Scanlon, 2009). In second wave feminism, females were encouraged to be independent from the role of housewife in a normal heterosexual family; whilst, feminists from the third wave feminism could able to manage both roles as a career woman and a housewife. An example of this would be Martha Stewart, she is a representative of third wave feminist; she has a wonderful career and at the same time she is excel in housekeeping which many feminists from the second wave feminism avoid themselves from (McNaughton,