1. Overview Third Wave of Feminism Heywood and Drake Walker hooks
Characteristics
Heywood and Drake
Walker
hooks

2. U.S. Feminist Movements 1st Wave- 1840s 2nd Wave- 1960 – 70s
Suffrage, abolition
Elimination of barriers to women’s participation in public life
2nd Wave – 70s
Civil rights, women’s rights
Equality with men, entering male-dominated fields, male world
Gender was major site of discrimination

3. U.S. Feminist Movements 3rd Wave- 1990- ??? Sexism, racism, homophobia
Multiple identities, oppressions
Body image, beauty, animal rights, environmental justice
Critiquing men, patriarchy and women and feminism
More individually-oriented, expression
Embracing the “feminine”, valuing the feminine, “girl”

4. 3rd Wave Overview Context of new rights
Women came of age in the wakes and gains of the 2nd wave
For example, today, 43 percent of U.S. women under 45 have had abortions, and young women today cannot imagine not having that right
Right was granted in 1973

5. Major Texts of 3rd Wave
Manifesta, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards
Listen Up! Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, Barbara Findlen
Cunt, Inga Muscio
Colonize This!
Magazines Bitch and Bust
The Vagina Monologues

6. Strategies of 3rd wave
Cultural production- art, film, writing, magazines
Bust, Bitch, Vagina Monologues, and Cunt
Personal narratives
Sexual politics
But does cultural production translate to political power, more female politicians, more female CEOS, media execs, etc.?

7. 3rd wave- Intergenerational Conflict
Constructed as intergenerational conflict between 2nd and 3rd waves
Problems
Constructs 2nd wavers as outdated, racist, patriarchal, boring
Constructs 3rd wavers as the “future” of feminism, the older generation leaves a gift for the younger- not reciprocal
Is there a way to construct a relationship between the two waves?

8. Heywood and Drake Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism
Contains elements of 2nd wave critique of power structures, sexual abuse, beauty culture
Adds pleasure and desire
Deconstruction and reconstruction
Hybridity, contradiction
Product of all contradictory definitions and differences of feminism
Lived messiness

9. Heywood and Drake Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism
Postfeminist (conservative feminists) vs. third wave feminists
Many conservative feminists have become the spokespersons for the next generation- Christina Hoff Sommers, Katie Roiphe, Naomi Wolf
Anti-victim feminism and into power feminism (individualistic, not aware of discrimination, racism, etc.)

10. Rebecca Walker Women’s empowerment vs. women’s liberation
3rd wave- created around the context of a backlash against feminism
Myth of equality
Continued restrictions of women’s personal and political power
Silence
Conciliatory voice

11. Rebecca Walker Third Wave Agenda Hooks
Beyond voting, beyond reading feminist theory, beyond voice in a discussion
Personal clarity amidst systemic destruction
Join in sisterhood with women
Hooks
Abandoning the idea of sisterhood as an expression of political solidarity weakens and diminishes feminist move.