The Three Waves Of Feminism Through The Years

Women through time had always been repressed and stripped off of all their right even as a simple human being and that because the male had been looked at as a superior, adding to it, the society view itself towards women. And among them, women themselves who stood against their sisters, mothers and daughters and held them down framing them under the same value that they saw they should follow through.

Through time there were certain limits that women dared not to even think about surpassing and could not even dream off accomplishing that certain ambition of them one day. As a reaction, came the creation of a movement that manifested itself in, “Feminism is a noble concept against ignoble thought of discrimination on the grounds of sex.” (Ranjan 120), in which they were and still are the speaker on behalf all the community of women and standing up to deliver their rights to them as a gender that is equal to the male.

This movement created certain waves to send their message to the entire world, starting with the first wave that came as follow, “The first wave of feminism was from 19th to early 20th century and issues raised during this period were suffrage, working conditions and educational rights.” (Ranjan 120). In which, the first step of feminism came to establish the minimum rights of liberations to their gender focusing on demanding their legal rights from working and education, to their political right to vote.

Followed by the second one that stated “The second wave of the movement was from 1960’s to early 1980’s and it brought forward issues like inequality of laws, cultural inequalities and role of women in society.” (Ranjan 120). Therefore, this period represented the desire of said women to come out of the zone under the name of the second gender, in which is a step behind the male gender in society, thus, calling for equality in matters such as law sexist discrimination, work for women and the unfairness presented by society towards them.

The third wave came to lights as stated, “The third wave of feminist movement started in 1991 when Rebecca Walker an American feminist published an article `Becoming the third wave’, following establishment of `Riot Grrrl Movement’ in Washington.” (Ranjan 121), and it can be said that up today this wave was the one that focused on diversity the most and that by including women of colors, different sexualities and religions and so on, as a result, the focus fell more about the identity of the individuals of the female gender rather than the previous ones with politics rights and law.

As for the current period of time a new wave has been created, “The fourth-wave feminism is a resurgence of interest in feminism which started in 2012 and is associated with the use of social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram , YouTube, Tumblr, and blogs.” (Ranjan 121). From the quote it is understood that the fourth wave is clearly taking advantage of Social Medias of nowadays to send their messaged to a wider range of audience. The message being presented in the way they try to protect women from different cases of harassment, violence, body shaming, and shedding the light on rape crimes.