Third Wave Feminism?

What is that we hear you say?
Aren't there only two waves of feminism?

Yes, there are.
Have some feminist history.

The first wave of feminism began with a woman called Mary Wollstonecraft.  She published her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792.  It was a long way ahead of it's time, stating that women should be considered companions to their husbands rather than as simply wives.  She felt that women should also have equal rights to men because they were the ones educating the children.  This makes her a genius.  Unfortunately, she died at the age of 38 from septicaemia only five years later, leaving behind two daughters and several unfinished manuscripts.

Source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwollstonecraft.htm

Roughly a century later, women began campaigning for the vote in Britain.  This really launched the first wave of feminism into action.  By the time Britain even started thinking about women getting votes, ladies in Utah and Wyoming (1870) were allowed to vote.  After a series of gradually worsening protests from the suffragettes and a world war, female property owners over thirty were granted the vote in 1918, then all women aged twenty one and over from 1928.  This was excellent, because we could all vote on getting other liberal rights, like access to more university places and even more liberation.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_suffragette_clipped.jpg

The second wave came in the 1960s, when women realised that they had not yet achieved equality to men.  Some feminists decided to become radical and try and get a matriarchy rather than a patriarchy, some went liberal and fought instead for equal pay to men.  This was achieved in theory in 1970 with the Equal Pay Act, and the revision of this act in 2010.  Radical feminists have not quite got to their matriarchy yet.

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_levy

 

The third wave is yet to come, or is occurring now depending on your opinion. Women seem to be recognising that we are still oppressed as a gender and often even by ourselves.  Feminists such as Caitlin Moran believe that the third wave is necessary to completely free us from the patriarchal society we have found ourselves in.  There is no firm movement from the third wave, however.  Women in the last thirty years have not yet decided quite what they want from feminism. 

All we know is that we're definitely not equal to men yet.  So we need to keep going.  Some of the women in our society are helping, some really aren't.  Women get leered at in the street. Men do not.  Women get less pay and less hours when returning from maternity leave and the same is not true of men coming back from paternity leave.  Equally, men get far less maternity leave and are leered at if they are stay at home dads.

In essence, the third wave is all about finally getting what we need as a gender, no matter what that is.  Maybe this blog will go a little towards that and maybe it won't.  We might as well have a crack at it.