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3 waves of feminism in easy words
Three waves of feminism essay
Three waves of feminism essay
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We live in a world where a 21st century woman can vote, work full time, and raise a family on her own terms. Woman can choose when to have children, if they want to achieve a higher education, and obtain jobs that women in the 60’s only dreamt about. Most of these accomplishments were brought on by the Women’s Movement of the 1960’s. They brought up conventional thoughts and ideas that changed the course of history. However, in their quest for women’s rights and equality amongst men, there were some that were left out of the mass movement. Lesbians of the 1960’s were considered to be social pariahs by the Woman’s Movement of the 1960’s and not to be connected with. By being the outcasts, Lesbians created and founded their own movement that focused on not only Women’s Rights, but Gay Women’s rights as well. This movement was just as controversial if not more as the Women’s Movement of the time, but made just as big of an impact.
Lesbian Feminism emerged from the second wave of feminism. The second wave of feminism finds its roots within Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. In her book, Friedan focuses on the need for women to find their independence socially and economically. “For women to have full identity and freedom, they must have economic independence…Only economic independence can free a woman to marry for love, not for status or financial support, or to leave a loveless, intolerable, humiliating marriage, or to eat, dress, rest, and move if she plans not to marry”[Friedan 14]. Freidan’s book was the push that women needed in order to take the necessary first steps to become independent in the traditional patriarchal society. Critique against Friedan’s book for only focusing on white, middle-class, Americans came fast am...
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...://whataboutpeace.blogspot.com/2013/02/reconciliation-lesbian-and-liberal.html>.
Echols, Alice. Daring to be bad: Radical feminism in America, 1967-1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P, 1989.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd girls and twilight lovers: A history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.
Meeker, Martin. Contacts desired: Gay and lesbian communications and community, 1940s-1970s. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 2006.
Radicalesbians. "Woman-Identified Woman." Duke Special Collections Library- Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement. 1997. Know, Inc. 21 Nov. 2013 .
Westerband, Yamissette. "Lesbian History: Lesbian Feminism." Lesbian History: Lesbian Feminism. University of Michigan. 05 Dec. 2013 .
In Vicki L. Eaklor’s Queer America, the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the years since the 1970s gay liberation movement are described as a time of transformation and growth. The antigay movement, threatened, now more than ever, created numerous challenges and obstacles that are still prevalent today. Many of the important changes made associated with the movement were introduced through queer and queer allied individuals and groups involved in politics. Small victories such as the revision of the anti discrimination statement to include “sexual orientation”, new propositions regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion, were met in turn with growing animosity and resistance from individuals and groups opposed to liberal and
The media considers the1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City the spark of the modern gay rights movement. This occurred after the police raided the Stonewall bar, a popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Allyn argues that the new energy and militancy generated by the riot played a crucial role in creating the gay liberation movement. Arguably, the Stonewall Riots have come to resemble the pivotal moment in gay rights history largely because it provided ways for the gay community to resist the social norms. In fact, the riots increased public awareness of gay rights activism (Allyn 157). Gay life after the Stonewall riots, however, was just as varied and complex as it was before. In the following era, ho...
McCann, C., & Kim, S. (2013). Feminist theory reader, (3d ed.). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
MacLean, Nancy. A. The American Women's Movement, 1945-2000. A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, a.k.a.
...n Duberman, and Martha Vicinus, eds. Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian past. New York: Penguin Group, 1990.
In this essay, Gay deconstructs the stereotypical view of a feminist, by showing that you can be a feminist, even if you’re not in the small box the rest of the world thinks you should be in, in order to qualify as a ‘feminist’. Throughout the essay, Gay uses several quotes and stories from other women who are either afraid to say that they’re feminists, or don’t quite understand you don’t have to be in the limiting ‘box’, even though in their moral beliefs and actions, these sourced women are, in fact, feminists. According to Gay, if we didn’t have this stereotype, then maybe more women with diverse lives and views would be able to ‘come out’ as
Nussbaum, Felicity. “Risky Business: Feminism Now and Then.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 26.1 (Spring 2007): 81-86. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Moran, Mickey. “1930s, America- Feminist Void?” Loyno. Department of History, 1988. Web. 11 May. 2014.
But when the “Women’s Movement,” is referred to, one would most likely think about the strides taken during the 1960’s for equal treatment of women. The sixties started off with a bang for women, as the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman, and Betty Friedan published her famous and groundbreaking book, “The Feminine Mystique” (Imbornoni). The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s was a ground-breaking part of American history because along with African-Americans another minority group stood up for equality, women were finished with being complacent, and it changed women’s lives today.
Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print.
Hewitt, Nancy. "Beyond the Search for Sisterhood: American Women's History in the 1980's."Social History. Vol. 10: No. 3 (1985): 299-321
Abrams 1604 - 1606. Peterson, Linda H. "What Is Feminist Criticism?" Wuthering Heights. Ed. Linda H. Peterson, Ph.D. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992.
Dixon, M. (1977). The Rise and Demise of Women's Liberation: A Class Analysis. Marlene Dixon Archive , Retrieved April 12, 2014, from the Chicago Women's Liberation Union database.
Hooks begins by stating that Feminism in the United States did not emerge as a result of victimized, underprivileged women who faced sexist oppression so much so they have internalized it , but in fact by bourgeois upper-class white women whose idea's of equality were far different. She begins this criticism with Betty Friedan, a leading figure in the women's movement and the author of the classic The Feminine Mystique claiming that the book ignored the difficulty and even the existence of non-white, poor women with the assumption that her concerns were harmonious wi...
By positing the lesbian as ‘excess’ in the patriarchal system we may fail to note the identities that function as ‘excess’ within our own newly created lesbian community.