Queering feminism: Women paving the way for change
“The fight is far from over… 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-feminist feminist. I am the Third Wave.”
The American feminist movement dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in its primal stages was based around the most fundamental American right: the vote. Heralded through women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both co-founders of the Women’s Temperance Movement, journalists like Margaret Fuller, political activists like Margaret Mackworth, and novelists like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, sexual orientation – and patriarchy – were not factors in political fight. Though one might speculate that many of the leaders in the First Wave, like authors Gilman and Kate Chopin used literature as a form of activism, which allowed them to come out, even if only through the work they left behind.
It was, however, Second Wave feminism that rejected patriarchy, dissatisfied with the mere right to vote when woman were still being consigned to unfulfilling, predetermined roles in the home and family.
One of the biggest Second Wave leaders was Betty Friedan who through her writing attempted to give a voice to women who felt pigeonholed into housewife and motherhood roles. She brought women’s liberation to the forefront in the book she wrote in 1963, The Feminine Mystique:
“In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination – tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she ‘adjust’ to prejudice and discrimination.”
Chris Talbot, a historian and professor of women’s studies at the University of Northern Colorado said that the biggest achievement of First Wave feminism was a consciousness of the woman’s political identity. First Wave feminism is more easily realized now, she said, because everyone knew what the key issue and problem was.
“It was really focused on getting the vote and there were all sorts of debates and discussions about to do that,” she said.
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