Feminist – Political Standpoint

Female – Gender (Matter of biology)

Feminine – A set of traits in society

“Sexism” was coined in the 1960’s along with “Racism” in the American civil rights movement. It refers to the ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically.

Virginia Woolf was part of the first wave of feminism, and she stated that women should have the same opportunities that men have. She used the metaphor of Shakespeare being a woman as an example to show what we have missed out on culturally by not giving women the same chances that we have given men throughout the years.

The second wave of feminism started around the late 60’s early 70’s, and was based around women working for the right to vote

THIRD WAVE FEMINISM

Third wave feminism was coined in the late 90’s by Naomi Wolf, challenging and re-contextualizing some of the definitions of femininity during the second wave of feminism. The third wave of feminism sees women’s lives as intersectional. The third wave of feminism follows these characteristics:

• an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
• individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
• fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
• cyberactivism
• the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
• sex positivity

According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation,and on the other, it may well be playing out the same old patterns of exploitation, objectification and misogyny?

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ . – Ariel Levy 2006

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’ – Hendry & Stephenson 2018

Intersectionality

The articulation of intersectionality began to take shape in 2013, “In an attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression”. Although early ideas of intersectionality can be traced back to the 80’s through work by Kimberle Crenshaw or propositions asserted around Queer Theory.