Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the
feminist movement that began in the early
1990s United States and continued until the
fourth wave began around 2012. Born in the
1960s and 1970s as members of Generation X,
and grounded in the civil-rights advances
of the second wave, third-wave feminists embraced
individualism and diversity and sought to
redefine what it meant to be a feminist. According
to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the "confusion
surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism
is in some respects its defining feature."The
third wave is traced to the emergence of the
Riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia,
Washington, in the early 1990s, and to Anita
Hill's televised testimony in 1991—to an
all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee—that
Clarence Thomas, nominated for the Supreme
Court of the United States, had sexually harassed
her. The term third wave is credited to Rebecca
Walker, who responded to Thomas's appointment
to the Supreme Court with an article in Ms.
magazine, "Becoming the Third Wave" (1992).
She wrote:
So I write this as a plea to all women, especially
women of my generation: Let Thomas' confirmation
serve to remind you, as it did me, that the
fight is far from over. Let this dismissal
of a woman's experience move you to anger.
Turn that outrage into political power. Do
not vote for them unless they work for us.
Do not have sex with them, do not break bread
with them, do not nurture them if they don't
prioritize our freedom to control our bodies
and our lives. I am not a post-feminism feminist.
I am the Third Wave.
Walker sought to establish that third-wave
feminism was not just a reaction, but a movement
in itself, because the feminist cause had
more work ahead. The term intersectionality—to
describe the idea that women experience "layers
of oppression" caused, for example, by gender,
race and class—had been introduced by Kimberlé
Williams Crenshaw in 1989, and it was during
the third wave that the concept flourished.
As feminists came online in the late 1990s
and early 2000s and reached a global audience
with blogs and e-zines, they broadened their
goals, focusing on abolishing gender-role
stereotypes and expanding feminism to include
women with diverse racial and cultural identities.The
third wave saw the emergence of new feminist
currents and theories, such as intersectionality,
sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism,
and postmodern feminism.
== History ==
The rights and programs gained by feminists
of the second wave served as a foundation
for the third wave. The gains included Title
IX (equal access to education); public discussion
about the abuse and rape of women; access
to contraception and other reproductive services
(including the legalization of abortion);
the creation and enforcement of sexual-harassment
policies for women in the workplace; the creation
of domestic-abuse shelters for women and children;
child-care services; educational funding for
young women; and women's studies programs.
Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave
such as Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Cherríe
Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston,
and other feminists of color, sought to negotiate
a space within feminist thought for consideration
of race. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa
had published the anthology This Bridge Called
My Back (1981), which, along with All the
Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But
Some of Us Are Brave (1982), edited by Akasha
(Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and
Barbara Smith, argued that second-wave feminism
had focused primarily on the problems of white
women. The emphasis on the intersection between
race and gender became increasingly prominent.
In the interlude of the late 1970s and early
1980s, the feminist sex wars arose as a reaction
against the radical feminism of the second
wave and its views on sexuality, therein countering
with a concept of "sex-positivity" and heralding
the third wave.
== Early years ==
=== Riot grrrl ===
The emergence of riot grrrl, the feminist
punk subculture, in the early 1990s in Olympia,
Washington, marked the beginning of third-wave
feminism. The triple "r" in grrrl was intended
to reclaim the word girl for women. Alison
Piepmeier writes that riot grrrl and Sarah
Dyer's Action Girl Newsletter formulated "a
style, rhetoric, and iconography for grrrl
zines" that came to define third-wave feminism,
and that focused on the viewpoint of adolescent
girls. Based on hard-core punk rock, the movement
created zines and art, talked about rape,
patriarchy, sexuality, and female empowerment,
started chapters, and supported and organized
women in music. An undated Bikini Kill tour
flier asked "What is Riot grrrl?":
BECAUSE in every form of media I see us/myself
slapped, decapitated, laughed at, objectified,
raped, trivialized, pushed, ignored, stereotyped,
kicked, scorned, molested, silenced, invalidated,
knifed, shot, choked, and killed. ... BECAUSE
a safe space needs to be created for girls
where we can open our eyes and reach out to
each other without being threatened by this
sexist society and our day to day bullshit.
... BECAUSE we girls want to create mediums
that speak to US. We are tired of boy band
after boy band, boy zine after boy zine, boy
punk after boy punk after boy. BECAUSE I am
tired of these things happening to me; I'm
not a fuck toy. I'm not a punching bag. I'm
not a joke.
Riot grrrl was grounded in the DIY philosophy
of punk values, adopting an anti-corporate
stance of self-sufficiency and self-reliance.
Its emphasis on universal female identity
and separatism often appeared more closely
allied with second-wave feminism. Bands associated
with the movement included Bratmobile, Excuse
17, Jack Off Jill, Free Kitten, Heavens to
Betsy, Huggy Bear, L7, Fifth Column, and Team
Dresch.
Riot grrrl culture gave people the space to
enact change on a macro, meso and micro scale.
As Kevin Dunn explains:Using the do-it-yourself
ethos of punk to provide resources for individual
empowerment, Riot Grrrl encouraged females
to engage in multiple sites of resistance.
At the macro-level, Riot Grrrls resist society’s
dominant constructions of femininity. At the
meso-level, they resist stiﬂing gender roles
in punk. At the micro-level, they challenge
gender constructions in their families and
among their peers.The demise of riot grrrl
is linked to commodification and misrepresentation
of its message, mainly through media coverage.
=== Anita Hill ===
In 1991 Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas,
an African-American judge who had been nominated
to the United States Supreme Court, of sexual
harassment. Thomas denied the accusations,
calling them a "high-tech lynching". After
extensive debate, the United States Senate
voted 52–48 in favor of Thomas. In response,
Ms. Magazine published an article by Rebecca
Walker, entitled "Becoming the Third Wave",
in which she stated: "I am not a post-feminism
feminist. I am the third wave." Many had argued
that Thomas should be acquitted because of
his plans to create opportunities for people
of color. When Walker asked her partner his
opinion and he said the same thing, she asked:
"When will progressive black men prioritize
my rights and well-being?" She wanted racial
equality but without dismissing women.In 1992,
dubbed the "Year of the Woman", four women
enter the United States Senate to join the
two already there. The following year another
woman, Kay Bailey Hutchison, won a special
election, bringing the number to seven. The
1990s saw the first female United States Attorney
General and Secretary of State, as well as
the second woman on the Supreme Court, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, and the first US First Lady,
Hillary Clinton, to have had an independent
political, legal and activist career.
== Purpose ==
Arguably the biggest challenge to third-wave
feminism was that the gains of second-wave
feminism were taken for granted, and the importance
of feminism not understood. Baumgardner and
Richards (2000) wrote: "[F]or anyone born
after the early 1960's, the presence of feminism
in our lives is taken for granted. For our
generation, feminism is like fluoride. We
scarcely notice that we have it—it's simply
in the water."Essentially the claim was that
gender equality had already been achieved,
via the first two waves, and further attempts
to push for women's rights were irrelevant
and unnecessary, or perhaps even pushed the
pendulum too far in women's favor. This issue
manifested itself in the heated debates about
whether affirmative action was creating gender
equality or punishing white, middle-class
males for the biological history that they
had inherited. Third-wave feminism therefore
focused on consciousness-raising—"one's
ability to open their mind to the fact that
male domination does affect the women of our
generation, is what we need.Third-wave feminists
often engaged in "micro-politics", and challenged
the second wave's paradigm as to what was
good for women. Proponents of third-wave feminism
said that it allowed women to define feminism
for themselves. Describing third-wave feminism
in Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism And The
Future (2000), Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy
Richards suggested that feminism could change
with every generation and individual:
The fact that feminism is no longer limited
to arenas where we expect to see it—NOW,
Ms., women's studies, and redsuited congresswomen—perhaps
means that young women today have really reaped
what feminism has sown. Raised after Title
IX and William Wants a Doll [sic], young women
emerged from college or high school or two
years of marriage or their first job and began
challenging some of the received wisdom of
the past ten or twenty years of feminism.
We're not doing feminism the same way that
the seventies feminists did it; being liberated
doesn't mean copying what came before but
finding one's own way—a way that is genuine
to one's own generation.
Third-wave feminists used personal narratives
as a form of feminist theory. Expressing personal
experiences gave women space to recognize
that they were not alone in the oppression
and discrimination they faced. Using these
accounts has benefits because it records personal
details that may not be available in traditional
historical texts.Third-wave ideology focused
on a more post-structuralist interpretation
of gender and sexuality. Post-structuralist
feminists saw binaries such as male–female
as an artificial construct created to maintain
the power of the dominant group. Joan W. Scott
wrote in 1998 that "poststructuralists insist
that words and texts have no fixed or intrinsic
meanings, that there is no transparent or
self-evident relationship between them and
either ideas or things, no basic or ultimate
correspondence between language and the world".
=== Relationship with second wave ===
Amy Richards defined the feminist culture
for the third wave as "third wave because
it's an expression of having grown up with
feminism". Second-wave feminists grew up where
the politics intertwined within the culture,
such as "Kennedy, the Vietnam War, civil rights,
and women's rights". In contrast, the third
wave sprang from a culture of "punk-rock,
hip-hop, 'zines, products, consumerism and
the Internet". In an essay entitled "Generations,
Academic Feminists in dialogue" Diane Elam
wrote:
"This problem manifests itself when senior
feminists insist that junior feminists be
good daughters, defending the same kind of
feminism their mothers advocated. Questions
and criticisms are allowed, but only if they
proceed from the approved brand of feminism.
Daughters are not allowed to invent new ways
of thinking and doing feminism for themselves;
feminists' politics should take the same shape
that it has always assumed."
Rebecca Walker, in To Be Real: Telling the
Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism (1995),
wrote about her fear of rejection by her mother
(Alice Walker) and her godmother (Gloria Steinem)
for challenging their views:
"Young Women feminists find themselves watching
their speech and tone in their works so as
not to upset their elder feminist mothers.
There is a definite gap among feminists who
consider themselves to be second-wave and
those who would label themselves as third-wave.
Although, the age criteria for second-wave
feminists and third-wave feminists is murky,
younger feminists definitely have a hard time
proving themselves worthy as feminist scholars
and activists."
== 
Issues ==
=== 
Violence against women ===
Violence against women, including rape, domestic
violence, and sexual harassment, became a
central issue. Organizations such as V-Day
formed with the goal of ending gender violence,
and artistic expressions, such as The Vagina
Monologues, generated awareness. Third-wave
feminists wanted to transform traditional
notions of sexuality and embrace "an exploration
of women's feelings about sexuality that included
vagina-centred topics as diverse as orgasm,
birth, and rape".
=== Reproductive rights ===
One of third-wave feminism's primary goals
was to demonstrate that access to contraception
and abortion are women's reproductive rights.
According to Baumgardner and Richards, "It
is not feminism's goal to control any woman's
fertility, only to free each woman to control
her own." South Dakota's 2006 attempt to ban
abortion in all cases, except when necessary
to protect the mother's life, and the US Supreme
Court's vote to uphold the partial birth abortion
ban were viewed as restrictions on women's
civil and reproductive rights. Restrictions
on abortion in the US, which was mostly legalized
by the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe
v. Wade, were becoming more common in states
around the country. These included mandatory
waiting periods, parental-consent laws, and
spousal-consent laws.
=== Reclaiming derogatory terms ===
English speakers continued to use words such
as spinster, bitch, whore, and cunt to refer
to women in derogatory ways. Inga Muscio wrote,
"I posit that we're free to seize a word that
was kidnapped and co-opted in a pain-filled,
distant past, with a ransom that cost our
grandmothers' freedom, children, traditions,
pride and land." Taking back the word bitch
was fueled by the single "All Women Are Bitches"
(1994) by the all-woman band Fifth Column,
and by the book Bitch: In Praise of Difficult
Women (1999) by Elizabeth Wurtzel.The utility
of the reclamation strategy became a hot topic
with the introduction of SlutWalks in 2011.
The first took place in Toronto on 3 April
that year in response to a Toronto police
officer's remark that "women should avoid
dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."
Additional SlutWalks sprang up internationally,
including in Berlin, London, New York City,
Seattle, and West Hollywood. Several feminist
bloggers criticized the campaign; reclamation
of the word slut was questioned.
=== Sexual liberation ===
Third-wave feminists expanded the second-wave
feminists's definition of sexual liberation
to "mean a process of first becoming conscious
of the ways one's gender identity and sexuality
have been shaped by society and then intentionally
constructing (and becoming free to express)
one's authentic gender identity". Since third-wave
feminism relied on different personal definitions
to explain feminism, there is controversy
surrounding what sexual liberation really
entails. Many third-wave feminists supported
the idea that women should embrace their sexuality
as a way to take back their power.
=== Other issues ===
Third-wave feminism regarded race, social
class, and transgender rights as central issues.
It also paid attention to workplace matters
such as the glass ceiling, unfair maternity-leave
policies, motherhood support for single mothers
by means of welfare and child care, respect
for working mothers, and the rights of mothers
who decide to leave their careers to raise
their children full-time.
== Criticism ==
=== Lack of cohesion ===
One issue raised by critics was a lack of
cohesion because of the absence of a single
cause for third-wave feminism. The first wave
fought for and gained the right for women
to vote. The second wave fought for the right
for women to have access to an equal opportunity
in the workforce, as well as the end of legal
sex discrimination. The third wave allegedly
lacked a cohesive goal and was often seen
as an extension of the second wave. Some argued
that the third wave could be dubbed the "Second
Wave, Part Two" when it came to the politics
of feminism and that "only young feminist
culture" was "truly third wave". One argument
ran that the equation of third-wave feminism
with individualism prevented the movement
from growing and moving towards political
goals. Kathleen P. Iannello wrote:
"The conceptual and real-world 'trap' of choice
feminism (between work and home) has led women
to challenge each other rather than the patriarchy.
Individualism conceived of as 'choice' does
not empower women; it silences them and prevents
feminism from becoming a political movement
and addressing the real issues of distribution
of resources."
=== Objection to "wave construct" ===
Feminist scholars such as Shira Tarrant objected
to the "wave construct" because it ignored
important progress between the periods. Furthermore,
if feminism is a global movement, she argued,
the fact that the "first-, second-, and third
waves time periods correspond most closely
to American feminist developments" raises
serious problems about how feminism fails
to recognize the history of political issues
around the world. The "wave construct" also
focused on white women's suffrage and continued
to marginalize the issues of women of color
and lower-class women.
=== Relationship with women of color ===
Third-wave feminists proclaim themselves as
the most inclusive wave of feminism. Critics
have noted that while progressive, there is
still exclusivity of women of color. Black
feminists argue that "the women rights movements
were not uniquely for the liberation of Blacks
or Black Women. Rather, efforts such as women's
suffrage and abolition of slavery ultimately
uplifted, strengthened, and benefited White
society and White women". One way to make
future waves of feminism more inclusive is
to include women of color in the conversation
of defining feminism and setting the agenda.
=== "Girly" feminism ===
Third-wave feminism was often associated,
primarily by its critics, with the emergence
of so-called "lipstick" or "girly" feminists
and the rise of "raunch culture". This was
because these new feminists advocated for
"expressions of femininity and female sexuality
as a challenge to objectification". Accordingly,
this included the dismissal of any restriction,
whether deemed patriarchal or feminist, to
define or control how women or girls should
dress, act, or generally express themselves.
These emerging positions stood in stark contrast
with the anti-pornography strains of feminism
prevalent in the 1980s. Second-wave feminism
viewed pornography as encouraging violence
towards women. The new feminists posited that
the ability to make autonomous choices about
self-expression could be an empowering act
of resistance, not simply internalized oppression.
Such views were critiqued because of the subjective
nature of empowerment and autonomy. Scholars
were unsure whether empowerment was best measured
as an "internal feeling of power and agency"
or as an external "measure of power and control".
Moreover they critiqued an over-investment
in "a model of free will and choice" in the
marketplace of identities and ideas. Regardless,
the "girly" feminists attempted to be open
to all different selves while maintaining
a dialogue about the meaning of identity and
femininity in the contemporary world.
Third-wave feminists said that these viewpoints
should not be limited by the label "girly"
feminism or regarded as simply advocating
for "raunch culture". Rather, they sought
to be inclusive of the many diverse roles
women fulfill. Gender scholars Linda Duits
and Liesbet van Zoonen highlighted this inclusivity
by looking at the politicization of women's
clothing choices and how the "controversial
sartorial choices of girls" and women are
constituted in public discourse as "a locus
of necessary regulation". Thus the "hijab"
and the "belly shirt", as dress choices, were
both identified as requiring regulation but
for different reasons. Both caused controversy,
while appearing to be opposing forms of self-expression.
Through the lens of "girly" feminists, one
can view both as symbolic of "political agency
and resistance to objectification". The "hijab"
could be seen as an act of resistance against
Western ambivalence towards Islamic identity,
and the "belly shirt" an act of resistance
against patriarchal society's narrow views
of female sexuality. Both were regarded as
valid forms of self-expression.
== Timeline ==
=== 1990s ===
=== 2000s ===
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
== 
External links ==
interview with Rebecca Walker in Satya Magazine
Interview with Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy
Richards
