Third-wave feminism

Third-wave feminism is an iteration of a feminist movement. It began in the United States in the early 1990s as well as continued until the rise of the fourth wave in the 2010s. Born in the 1960s in addition to 1970s as members of Generation X & grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, third-wave feminists embraced diversity and individualism in women and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist. The third wave saw the emergence of new feminist currents and theories, such(a) as intersectionality, sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism, and postmodern feminism. According to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the "confusion surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism is in some respects its determine 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 African-American judge Clarence Thomas, nominated for and eventually confirmed to 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 come on you to anger. refine that outrage into political power. do not vote for them unless they clear for us. Do non 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 determining 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 belief that women experience "layers of oppression" caused, for example, by gender, brand and class—had been presents by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, and it was during the third wave that the concept flourished. As feminists came online in the slow 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.

Issues

] a central issue. Organizations such(a) as V-Day formed with the goal of ending gender violence, and artistic expressions, such(a) as The Vagina Monologues, generated awareness. Third-wave feminists wanted to transform traditional notions of sexuality and embrace "an exploration of women's feelings approximately sexuality that mentioned vagina-centred topics as diverse as orgasm, birth, and rape".

One of third-wave feminism's primary goals was tothat access to contraception and abortion are women's reproductive rights. According to Baumgardner and Richards, "It is not feminism's purpose to control any woman's fertility, only to free used to refer to every one of two or more people or things woman to control her own." South Dakota's 2006 effort to ban abortion in any cases, apart from when fundamental 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 subjected mandatory waiting periods, parental-consent laws, and spousal-consent laws.

English speakers continued to usage 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 represent 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 advantage 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'sthat "women should avoid dressing like sluts in layout not to be victimized." extra 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.

Third-wave feminists expanded the second-wave feminist'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 theory that women should embrace their sexuality as a way to take back their power.

Third-wave feminism regarded race, social class, and transgender rights as central issues. It also paid attention to workplace things such as the glass ceiling, unfair maternity-leave policies, motherhood help for single mothers by means of welfare and child care, respect for workings mothers, and the rights of mothers who resolve to leave their careers to raise their children full-time.