Second-wave feminism
From Free net encyclopedia
Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was concerned with independence and greater political action to improve women's rights.
If the period associated with First-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage (which led to women attaining the right to vote in the early part of the 20th century), the period of the second-wave feminist movement was concerned with the issue of economic equality (including the ability to have careers in addition to motherhood, or the right to choose not to have children) between the genders and addressed the rights of female minorities.
Second-wave feminism also addressed female admission to formerly all-male institutions, especially in the realms of business, politics, and higher education. While first-wave feminism for the most part remained shrouded in the "cult of domesticity" that relegated women to their separate sphere of wifedom of and motherhood, second-wave feminism broke women out of the home and kitchen and into the world of independent economic, political, and academic achievement.
One phenomenon included the recognition of lesbian women within the movement, due to the simultaneous rise of the gay rights movement, and the deliberate activism of lesbian feminist groups, such as the Lavender Menace. The developments led to explicit lesbian feminist campaigns and groups, and some feminists went further to argue that heterosexual sexual relationships automatically subordinated women, and that the only true independence could come in lesbian relationships ("lesbian separatism").
The second wave is sometimes linked with radical feminist theory.
Contents |
The rise of intentional communities
One interesting and underdocumented aspect of the second-wave was the rise of women's cooperative living communities. An example of one such intentional community was the Chatanika River Women's Colony.
Second-wave feminists
References
Roth, Benita. Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
See also list of feminists.