Picture this: women burning their bras, protesting for the end of beauty pageants, and refusing to wear make up. What group of women do you think of? I’m sure that “feminists” are one of the first things that comes to mind. This is the image that people today, young and old, have of a century long movement that resulted in getting women the right to vote, the right to go to college, paved the way for women to have their own career, and petitioned for equal pay in the workplace. Now when you think of the first scenario, would you want to be associated with those “radicals?” If you said “no”, you’re with the majority these days. We overlook pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, and Susan B. Anthony who spearheaded the movement. Betty Friedan, a name that we learn in school, is known as a historical figure but many don’t realize the controversy and movement that she sparked by writing The Feminine Mystique. These are women that put themselves on the line to make sure that this generation would have the right to vote and equal pay for equal work. While there have been great improvements from the days where women were essentially property of their husbands and lost their identity when they got married, we are still far behind the vision that these women had for us. Women are still paid, on average, $0.80 for every $1.00 a male in the same job would make. They are put under enormous pressure to raise a family while still having a career, leaving them pressured to still adhere to a cookie cutter model that Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem worked against. These conditions are a far cry from true equality, so what can actually be done? Do we need another push for a constitutional amendment requiring equal rights or do we really need a cultural movement to change the notion that people have about a women’s role in society? Something needs to be done in order to truly give women the equality that they deserve and the opportunities that follow said equality. In essence, a large grassroots movement is needed that incorporates qualities from first, second, and third wave feminism to make sure that true fairness is reached. After the success is reached and people’s thought process has changed, it needs to be solidified with legislation.
In order to truly understand the state that women’s equality and the feminist movement are in, I think it’s essential to be aware of the basic parts of the first, second, and third waves of feminism.
The first wave of feminism came on the coattails of industrialization and after a surge in liberal politics (Krolokke 2005). It began in the late 19th century and continued into the early 20th century. Primarily concerned with access and equal rights for women, in 1848 they had one of the most notable (and first) women’s rights conventions in Seneca Falls. Out of this convention emerged a pioneer of the first wave, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, when she outlined the “Seneca Fall Declaration.” 
It claimed the “natural equity of women and outlin[ed] the political strategy of equal access and opportunity” (Krolokke 2005). This was the official beginning of the suffrage movement with the declaration as it’s sacred text. These women broke the mold of the “traditional woman” and spoke their mind. They actually used their voice to try to further a cause and didn’t conform to predisposed gender roles. In 1913, Rebecca West said, “People call me a feminist when I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute” (Friedan 1967). West accurately shows how the status quo of society was changed with the feminist’s voices. The “suffragettes”, who fought solely towards voting rights for women, define this wave. However, there were some interwoven reforms such as abolition that also captured some of the same supporters. Finally, in 1920 the “Susan B. Anthony” amendment was added to the constitution. With this amendment the first wave of feminism concluded and it was unconstitutional to ban someone from voting based on gender.
After World War 1 and World War 2, there was a halt in the rapid movement towards equality. The nation, as well as the women’s rights advocates, was preoccupied by the wars. Rather than rallying around individual causes, citizens gathered around patriotism to support our country while at war. It was not until the late 1960s and 1970s that there was a resurrection of feminism. It came after the baby boom where women were having more children than ever and they were staying home to raise them. Shows like “Leave it to Beaver” portrayed a “cookie cutter” family where the wife/mother always had dinner waiting on the table when her husband came home from work. Women also felt an obligation to get married; the average age at marriage dropped to twenty and more girls were foregoing a college education to find a husband instead (Friedan 1967). A widely taught concept was, “feminine women don’t want careers, higher education, political rights—the independence and opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for [was unnecessary]” (Friedan 1967). At a high school reunion, Betty Friedan (one of these cookie cutter wives at the time), noticed that her female classmates were not very happy. Sure they had the joy of raising a family but after making beds, preparing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and working to please their husband’s day in and day out they started to wonder, “Is this all that my life will become?” Although everyone was thinking it, no one said anything until the publishing of Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. This second wave of feminism was radicalized pretty quickly. It started with a highly publicized protest of the “Miss America” pageant where women compared the contestants to cattle and threw bras,
girdles, and fake eyelashes into the trash in protest (Krolokke 2005). These women truly believed in empowerment through others so they tried to recruit other women to gain strength in numbers. With more strength, a group of women advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). They had seen other minority groups such as African Americans, making headway in their own civil rights battle through legislation, so they thought the next logical step was a piece of legislation of their own. Unfortunately, the ERA was not successful in the least bit. However, the ERA is not what most people think of when looking back on this era but rather the radicalism that ensued. Various arms of feminism manifested such as “difference second-wave feminism” and “standpoint feminism” all of which had their own interpretation of women’s superiority to men and how that should be recognized by society as a whole. Some refused and condemned those that wore makeup or bras because they constrained their true femininity. Overall the wave’s impact was more social with victories in women pursuing careers and the right to have an abortion with Roe v. Wade in 1973.
The last major wave of feminism, sometimes known as “grrl feminism”, began in the early 1980s and there are still some inklings of it in present day society. This was a more aggressive and less pompous attempt to resurrect the values that the pioneers instilled into the movement. Society had changed from that of the 1960s; people were faced with the fall of communism and the rise of new threats to the world order. Women were being subjected to serious crimes of a more violent nature: trafficking, pornography, and body mutilation. The media was much more prevalent than in the previous waves and played a part in decreasing the status of women once again (mainly with pornography and demeaning storylines in movies and television). The movement is identified by two main aspects: cyberfeminism and new alliances with other movements. They used the new technology and the increasing globalization within the world not only to further their message but also as a tool to criticize. Many of the third wave feminists tried to establish a community known as “cyberfeminism” to empower women and realize their true worth in society. These communities were seen in feminist websites but also chat groups that women could participate in to express their grievances. . Another technique they used
was to embrace derogatory words such as “slut” and “bitch” and turn them around to make a point that these terms are used too casually and how ludicrous it is to use these words in the first place. Additionally, they started to form alliances with their “competitors” rather than try to work independently. These “competitors” included African Americans as well as homosexuals. While there were concerted efforts within the members of this movement, unfortunately, nothing substantial was achieved.
This trip through feminist history has now landed us in October of 2011. Since the end of the third wave of feminism there has been a “backlash”. Women now are almost evenly represented in the work force but there is still large-scale discrimination and as mentioned earlier women are still getting paid less money for equal work. While women are now integrated into the workforce they are still feeling the same 1950s pressure to get married and have children. There is a balance that women need to find with getting an education and having a career with settling down with a man to have a family. While women’s roles are expanding, men’s are not and they are not helping take care of their family despite the diminishing extra time that women possess. Additionally, among the women that choose to put a career before marriage and family there is the feeling that men are not attracted to powerful women and there actually is a “shortage of men” (Faludi 1991). This deters women from pursuing a powerful career and opting for the “M-R-S” Degree instead. Faludi argues that these are myths solely constructed and solidified by the media in various television shows and movies. Movies implant these myths into society and therefore subliminally become fact to women. These factors have all led to the “backlash” where women no longer have the fight in them to continue down the path created by the original pioneers. After all of their hard work, how can we as women, give up? Something needs to be done.
I propose that my generation of women take a stand against this backlash and instead move forward into this next decade with guns-a-blazing. There needs to be a cultural revolution of some sort where views towards women change substantially. Once this change is done, legislation that solidifies this equality will be much more politically feasible.
While it may seem that the past three feminist movements were unsuccessful because of the emergence of this backlash, there are qualities of each wave that should be adopted into this “fourth wave” or my self-deemed cultural revolution. To begin, the suffragettes focused on one thing: voting rights for women and therefore it was much easier to achieve. This next movement, instead of spreading resources among many women’s issues, needs to focus on one main goal just like those before us. This goal should be to establish the foundation for the cultural movement. Changes need to happen that alter the viewpoints that men and women alike have towards women’s position in society. Instead of having women bear the weight of child rearing, men and women should share the responsibility. Women fought for equality in the work place but did not shift some accountability to men when it came to raising a family. We like to think that we can do it all but at a certain point we need to shed some responsibility. Men should pick up the slack in the home; on average women hold 70% of household responsibility and have careers (Dokoupil and Romano 2010). Even when the man of the household is unemployed the woman still handles a majority of the domestic workload and if both are working, women spend 400% more time with their children (Dokoupil and Romano 2010). A focus should be on evening out this number. More men are becoming stay at home dads and “trophy husbands” but we need to increase this number and instead of stigmatizing these men and making fun of them they should be commended for having the courage to go against the status quo. There are established gender roles in society and now that women are altering theirs by having careers, men also need to alter their role by allotting more time to take on domestic responsibility. What is concerning is that people in my generation are not thinking about changing these roles; rather they are only solidifying them. With the increasing popularity of a website, “Total Frat Move,” college students think it’s the “cool thing” so be misogynistic. A perfect example of the behavior that they promote is this post: “Moving the library’s cookbooks into the women’s studies section. TFM.” (Total Frat Move 2011). This website is highly trafficked by college-aged students who see these posts and think that this is the way they should behave and act towards women. Men post on this website because they believe it to be cool and funny and therefore women think that they need to fit that mold to be attractive to them. Men who post on this website are embracing their already established gender role and amplifying it. I think there has been a resurgence with this website of behavior and attitudes that try to put women in their “rightful place”-the home. Websites such as Total Frat Move need to be disbanded in order for a change of viewpoint (in regards to equality) towards women in society. With thoughts like these floating around, there is no way that women would be treated fairly and with respect in the workplace or even in day-to-day life. By placing all of our hard work on establishing new gender roles in society it will be more successful than if we were to spread out our efforts. With this being said, a lot of work needs to be done in order to achieve this goal.
While many think that the work the women in the past generations have achieved all that needs to be done, there is a silent assault against women within the media. Movies such as “The Ugly Truth” and television shows such as “Private Practice” act as a catalyst for myths that professional women cannot find husbands and there’s an “infertility epidemic” (Faludi 1991). In “The Ugly Truth,” a powerful woman cannot seem to find a boyfriend and she’s convinced that something is wrong with her. The movie embellishes the idea that women with careers will have a hard time finding a relationship and then once they find it, actually maintaining it becomes an issue. In “Private Practice”, the main character Dr. Addison Montgomery spent so much time devoted to becoming a world-class surgeon that she now is faced with fertility problems when she wants to have children. This exemplifies the notion that people think it’s a complete tradeoff between motherhood and a career. When women watch these movies and television shows they believe that this is reality and are deterred from pursuing a powerful career because they are afraid of the opportunity costs. Changing the way that media portrays women and these “problems” is part of the cultural revolution that I am advocating for. The media needs to have a shift where instead they have shows about powerful women who “have it all.” A new movie, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” focuses on a strong woman who manages to create a balanced life while still doing everything she desires (including have a successful career and a husband and children). Movies like this should be the new “norm” rather than the others that I have mentioned. In a world where media is available in all forms (Internet, print, broadcast, etc.), minds are molded from a young age. By changing the messages in the media, it would change the actions and viewpoints in society from the bottom-up.
The second wave of feminism is one of the most influential out of all three. While the first wave resulted in a significant legal victory, the second wave had more of a social impact. Much of the stigma of being a “feminist” resulted from the radical women in this movement that protested traditional values and burned their bras in front of reporters. Women in 2011 are afraid that they’ll be classified as “raging liberal feminists” if they participate in a current movement or advocate the ideals of one. When they think of feminism there is an association with other “ism’s” all of which are negative; racism, communism, sexism, etc. so they are less likely to participate or be open to hearing the general beliefs (Finkbeiner 2004). However, these women that were radicals did incorporate a few positive elements into the movement that should be resurrected now. They believed in empowerment with numbers. That is truly one of the problems now, only a small amount of women are angry enough to do something and get involved. In the late 1960s women were not only angry about the dissatisfaction that they got from their “careers” in the household but also the headway that other minority groups were making. The Civil Rights Act was passed and African American’s were slowly gaining equality while women were still stuck in the same spot. This anger fired them up to do something about it. Modern women need to be relayed the information about the inequality in salary and within the workplace, socially, as well as the notion that women are still solely given the domestic responsibility. This is enough to get me angry, so why aren’t others in my generation working to do something about it? We need to embrace other women and band together to truly start a movement towards equality.
Although there are still remnants of the third wave of feminism present in society, they need to disban and join the fourth movement that I am proposing. These “grrls” did a great job of integrating other movements where interests overlapped. They reached out to the gay community and saw that there was a need for equality there as well. Many of the women that are advocating for women’s equality also believe in homosexual rights so they wanted to join forces. It is important for people in other movements that may believe in women’s equality as well to realize that they do not have to give up that loyalty when they help the women’s movement. This is smart because the more people that participate and advocate for equal rights, the more prevalent the message becomes. The more people that talk about it, the quicker the message disseminates throughout society. As mentioned before, there is empowerment in numbers. It is much easier for people in power to shut down an idea when there are only a few people advocating for it but it’s much harder when everyone’s constituency is asking for the same thing. The third waver’s also utilized technology by creating cyberfeminism to create a community of supporters. With popular social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter there should be a utilization of this “new” technology. Social media is a way to connect with people on the large scale and spread the message. Many nonprofits have created entire departments for social media outreach, so why shouldn’t our new wave of feminism take to the computer and spread our message as well?
Once this cultural revolution takes place, there will be room for effective legislation. Without a change in the way that people view gender roles and women’s equality changes, any legislation will be useless. Yes, there may be a law that outlaws discrimination in the work place but it still happens all the time just because of people’s inherent views that women should be in the home and they can’t do things as well as men. The climate needs to be favorable in order for politicians to feel comfortable passing legislation. If their constituents don’t believe it then they won’t either (even if they personally do, they politically won’t).
I truly believe that we have made some headway in the realm of women’s rights since the days of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. These women would have never guessed that women such as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Bachmann would ever be running for president or much less be in the United States House of Representatives and Senate. With my proposed cultural change, and later legislation to back it up, I truly believe that one-day women will get equal pay for equal work. Someday, the United States will follow suit to countries such as Germany, that have elected women as heads of state. If we start now, I know that in my lifetime there will be significant change in the way of women’s equality and the days of unequal pay and skewed responsibility in the household will be unimaginable.
Faludi, Susan. Backlash. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 1991. Print.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1963. Print.
Krolokke, Charlotte. “Three Waves of Feminism.” Gender Communication Theories and Analyses. Sagepub. Web. 27 Sept 2011.
Romano, Andrew and Tony Dokoupil. “Mens Lib.” The Daily Beast, Sep 20 2010 Web. 27 Sept 2011.
Rowe-Finkbeiner, Kristin. The F Word: Feminism in Jeopardy. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2004. Print.
The Alice Paul Institute. The Equal Rights Amendment. Web. 7 Oct 2011.
Total Frat Move. 6 Oct 2011. Web. 7 Oct 2011.
“Women’s Earnings and Income” catalyst.org. Catalyst, April 2011. Web. 27 Sept 2011.
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