Feminist = a political position
Female = a matter of biology
Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics
First wave of Feminism
In the past men were regarded greater at creating literally pieces and writings then woman were. Virginia Woolf stating that simply if women were not stereotyped and given equal opportunities to men originally, then more literacy pieces would have been made. These opportunities being not regarded as worse or beneath men and given the correct education and same rights as men.
Mary Wollstonecraft: was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She was one of the first advocate for woman’s rights and created a piece in 1792 named “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects” which is about as the name states, a moral and vindication of women’s rights.
SECOND WAVE OF FEMINISM
‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’
Indeed feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless,
This period is often termed second wave feminism – after the first wave of feminism, which was galvanised by organisations such as, the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867), the International Council of Women (1888), the The International Alliance of Women (1904), and so on who, in early part of the 20th Century, worked to get women the right to vote.
In contrast, ‘at the beginning of the 1970’s the Women’s Liberation Movement set great store by the process of consciousness raising’, ‘influencing everyday conduct and attitudes.’ and ‘exposing the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is, the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality’ .
THIRD/ FOURTH WAVE FEMINISM – raunch culture
‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)
The third wave of feminism emerged in the mid-1990s. It was led by so-called generation x who, born in the 1960s and ’70s in the developed world, came of age in a media-saturated and culturally and economically diverse milieu. Although they benefitted significantly from the legal rights and protections that had been obtained by first- and second-wave feminists, they also critiqued the positions and what they felt was unfinished work of second-wave feminism. Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. in summary is different from feminism of the 60s, its similar but different. it tries to embrace plural identities ( PLUARLISM ) this is shown in the maybeline boss up advert.
third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has following recognisable 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
‘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 (2018:50)
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?
3rd to 4th wave feminist critical thinking
The shift in critical feminist studies that reconciles exploitation against empowerment illustrates the shift in feminist thinking towards the 3rd Wave of feminist thought, see for example, groups such as Third Wave Foundation.
However, a 4th wave feminism also looked to explore these contradictary arguments and further sought to recognise and use the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochrane, 2013). As such, from the radical stance of #MeToo to the Free the Nipple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported (which may encourage you to re-evaluate your initial reading of her video Wrecking Ball above), the use of new media technologies has been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out in this line of critical thinking.
Intersectionality:
‘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’. Put another way, there was a tendency to be either ‘preoccupied with the experiences of white middle-class women or to ignore completely the experiences other women’ (Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013, 129). It is from this that the development and articulation of intersectionality began to take shape. The early ideas around intersectionality can be traced to theoretical developments from the 1980’s, see for example, the work by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) or some of the propositions asserted around Queer Theory (see below) that brings together a set of complex ideas around the ‘multidimensionality of subjectivity and social stratification’ (ibid, p.131). In other words, you cannot ‘understand Black women’s experiences of discrimination by thinking separately about sex discrimination and race discrimination’ (ibid).
Van Zoonen
Similarly, Lisbet Van Zoonen also highlights the idea that the concept of ‘woman’ is not a homogenous, collective noun. That students need to be aware of the differences between women, that ‘gender is not the defining quality alone for women, and intersects with race, sexuality and class.’ (Hendry & Stephenson 2018:52). Van Zoonen, develops and applies ideas of cultural hegemony (GRAMSCI) and interpellation (ALTHUSSER) towards feminist studies, which are explored in this blogsite on these pages: link1, link2). Van Zoonen, prioritises the realm of popular culture as the site of struggle, where identities are continually being reconstructed.
Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality
As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed ot the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’ (ibid).
As a way of exploring this notion of intersectionality ie the idea that an approach such as feminism, is NOT UNIVERSAL, SINGULAR or HOMOGENEOUS as this is a REDUCTIONIST and ESSENTIALIST way of seeing the world. Rather intersectionality highlights the way ideas and concepts such as ‘female‘, ‘feminist‘, ‘feminine‘ (Moi 1987) intersect with other concepts, ideas and approaches, such as, sexuality, class, age, education, religion, ability. A way of exploring these ideas is through the work of bell hook.
bell hook (always spelt in lower case – real name: Gloria Jean Watkins) advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to understand class struggle, domination, renegotiation and revolution. Put another, encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’.ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation‘
Queer Theory
In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141). In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/female; feminine/masculine, man/woman. Arguing, that this is too simple and does not account for the internal differences that distinguishes different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures‘ (14:2004).
