Timeline of feminism

See also: Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting), Timeline of women's suffrage, and Women's suffrage

The following is a timeline of the history of feminism.

18th century

• 1700: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest and Some Reflections on Marriage published by Mary Astell.
• 1767: Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be found in Mr. Hobbes's 'Philosophical Rudiments of Government and Society' published by Catharine Macaulay ^[1]
• 1790: "On the Equality of the Sexes" published by Judith Sargent Murray ^[2]
• 1791: Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen published by Olympe de Gouges.
• 1792: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published by Mary Wollstonecraft.
• 1793: Society of Revolutionary Republican Women is founded in France.

19th century

• First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred within the 19th and early 20th century throughout the world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote).
• 1824: "Men and Women: Brief Hypothesis Concerning the Difference in their Genius" published by John Neal ^[3]
• 1832: First speech in the US on women's rights by John Neal in Portland, Maine ^[4]
• 1854: "A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women", published by Barbara Bodichon.
• 1869: The Subjection of Women published by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill.
• 1872: Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States published by Susan B. Anthony.

1910s

• 1911: The Man-made world published by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
• 1913 British suffragette Emily Davison ran in front of the king's horse and died at the Epsom Derby race.
• 1919: The Wages of Men and Women: Should They be Equal? published by Beatrice Webb.

1920s

• 1929: A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf published.

1940s

• 1949: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir published.

1960s

• 1963: The Feminine Mystique was published; it is a book written by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with starting the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. ^{[5] [6]} Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the early 1960s in the United States, and spread throughout the Western world and beyond. In the United States the movement lasted through the early 1980s. ^[7]
• Black feminism became popular in response to the sexism of the civil rights movement and racism of the feminist movement.
• Body Positivity Feminism originated in the late 1960s. Body Positivity feminism is a social movement that incorporates feminist themes of equality, social justice, and cultural analysis based on the weight, curves, and general appearance of a woman or a non-binary feminine person. ^[8]
• Radical feminism emerged in the United States. ^[9] It is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts. ^[10] That said, radical feminists also recognize that women's experiences differ according to other divisions in society such as race and sexual orientation. ^{[11] [12]}
• 1967: "The Discontent of Women", by Joke Kool-Smits, was published; ^[13] the publication of this essay is often regarded as the start of second-wave feminism in the Netherlands. ^[14] In this essay, Smit describes the frustration of married women, saying they are fed up being solely mothers and housewives.
• 1969: Chicana feminism, also called Xicanisma, is a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections of Mexican-American women that identify as Chicana. The 1969 Chicano Youth Liberation Conference began the Chicano movement and eventually, MEChA. At the conference, women began to get involved in the male-dominated dialogue to address feminist concerns. After the conference, women returned to their communities as activists and thus began the Chicana feminist movement. ^[15]

1970s

• In its modern form, the Jewish feminist movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, the main grievances of early Jewish feminists were women's exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan , women's exemption from positive time-bound mitzvot (mitzvot meaning the 613 commandments given in the Torah at Mount Sinai and the seven rabbinic commandments instituted later, for a total of 620), and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce in Jewish religious courts. ^[16]
• In the 1970s, French feminist theorists approached feminism with the concept of écriture féminine (which translates as female, or feminine writing). ^[17]
• The term materialist feminism emerged in the late 1970s; materialist feminism highlights capitalism and patriarchy as central in understanding women's oppression. Under materialist feminism, gender is seen as a social construct, and society forces gender roles, such as bearing children, onto women. Materialist feminism's ideal vision is a society in which women are treated socially and economically the same as men. The theory centers on social change rather than seeking transformation within the capitalist system. ^[18]

1980s

• The radical lesbian movement is a francophone lesbian movement roughly analogous to English-language lesbian separatism. Inspired by the writings of philosopher Monique Wittig, ^[19] the movement originated in France in the early 1980s, spreading soon after to the Canadian province of Quebec.
• In Turkey ^[20] and Israel, ^[21] second-wave feminism began in the 1980s.
• Difference feminism was developed by feminists in the 1980s, in part as a reaction to popular liberal feminism (also known as "equality feminism"), which emphasizes the similarities between women and men in order to argue for equal treatment for women. Difference feminism, although it is still aimed at equality between men and women, emphasizes the differences between men and women and argues that identicality or sameness are not necessary in order for men and women, and masculine and feminine values, to be treated equally. ^[22] Liberal feminism aims to make society and law gender-neutral, since it sees recognition of gender difference as a barrier to rights and participation within liberal democracy, while difference feminism holds that gender-neutrality harms women "whether by impelling them to imitate men, by depriving society of their distinctive contributions, or by letting them participate in society only on terms that favor men". ^[23]
• Equity feminism (also stylized equity-feminism) is a form of liberal feminism discussed since the 1980s, ^{[24] [25]} specifically a kind of classical liberal feminism and libertarian feminism. ^{[25] [26]}

1990s

• The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf published.
• Third-wave feminism is associated with the emergence of riot grrrl, the feminist punk subculture, in the early 1990s in Olympia, Washington. ^[27] In 1991 Anita Hill testified in Washington, D.C. to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee that Clarence Thomas, nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States, had sexually harassed her. Rebecca Walker responded to Thomas's appointment with an article in Ms. Magazine , "Becoming the Third Wave" (1992), which coined the term third wave: "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-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave." ^{[28] [29]} The third wave focused on abolishing gender-role stereotypes and expanding feminism to include women of all races, classes and cultures. ^{[30] [31]}

2010s

• Fourth-wave feminism began around 2012 and is characterized by a focus on the empowerment of women ^[32] and the use of internet tools, ^[33] and is centered on intersectionality. ^[34]

See also

• Timeline of feminism in the United States

References

1. Gunther-Canada, Wendy (2012). "Catharine Macaulay's 'Loose Remarks' on Hobbesian Politics". In Hirschmann, Nancy J.; Wright, Joanne H. (eds.). Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes. State College, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. pp. 190–216. doi:10.1515/9780271061351-012. ISBN   978-0-271-06135-1 . Retrieved January 18, 2025.
2. Galewski, Elizabeth (2007). "The Strange Case for Women's Capacity to Reason: Judith Sargent Murray's Use of Irony in 'On the Equality of the Sexes'". Quarterly Journal of Speech. 93 (1): 84–108. doi:10.1080/00335630701326852. S2CID   143833177.
3. Fleischmann, Fritz (1983). A Right View of the Subject: Feminism in the Works of Charles Brockden Brown and John Neal. Erlangen, Germany: Verlag Palm & Enke Erlangen. p. 163. ISBN   9783789601477.
4. Sears, Donald A. (1978). John Neal. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. p. 98. ISBN   080-5-7723-08.
5. Margalit Fox (5 February 2006). "Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
6. "Publication of "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan - Jewish Women's Archive". jwa.org.
7. Sarah Gamble, ed. The Routledge companion to feminism and postfeminism (2001) p. 25
8. Boling, Patricia (2011). "On Learning to Teach Fat Feminism". Feminist Teacher. 21 (2): 110–123. doi:10.5406/femteacher.21.2.0110. ISSN   0882-4843. JSTOR   10.5406/femteacher.21.2.0110. S2CID   143946770.
9. Willis, Ellen (1984). "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism". Social Text. 9/10: The 60's without Apology (9/10): 91–118. doi:10.2307/466537. JSTOR   466537.
10. Willis, Ellen (1984). "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism" . Social Text (9/10): 91–118. doi:10.2307/466537. JSTOR   466537.
11. Giardina, Carol. (2010). Freedom for women : Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953-1970. University Press of Florida. ISBN   978-0-8130-3456-0. OCLC   833292896.
12. "Feminist Consciousness: Race and Class – MEETING GROUND OnLine" . Retrieved 2020-09-15.
13. Kool-Smits, J. E. (1967). "Het onbehagen bij de vrouw" (PDF) (in Dutch). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 February 2010.
14. "Joke Smit: feministe en journaliste". 6 October 2012.
15. "Exploring the Chicana Feminist Movement". The University of Michigan. Retrieved 2015-06-09.
16. Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. History of Jewish Philosophy, Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003.
17. Wright, Elizabeth (2000). Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters). Totem Books or Icon Books. ISBN   978-1-84046-182-4.
18. Jackson, Stevi (May–August 2001). "Why a materialist feminism is (Still) Possible—and necessary". Women's Studies International Forum. 24 (3–4): 283–293. doi:10.1016/S0277-5395(01)00187-X.
19. Turcotte, Louise. (foreword) The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Monique Wittig, Beacon Press, 1992, ISBN   0-8070-7917-0, p. ix
20. Badran, Margot, Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences (Oxford, Eng.: Oneworld, 2009) p. 227
21. Freedman, Marcia, "Theorizing Israeli Feminism, 1970–2000", in Misra, Kalpana, & Melanie S. Rich, Jewish Feminism in Israel: Some Contemporary Perspectives (Hanover, N.H.: Univ. Press of New England (Brandeis Univ. Press) 2003) pp. 9–10
22. Voet, Rian (1998). Feminism and Citizenship. SAGE Publications Ltd.
23. Grande Jensen, Pamela. Finding a New Feminism: Rethinking the Woman Question for Liberal Democracy. p. 3.
24. Black, Naomi (1989). Social Feminism. Cornell University Press. ISBN   978-0-8014-2261-4.
25. Halfmann, Jost (28 July 1989). "3. Social Change and Political Mobilization in West Germany". In Katzenstein, Peter J. (ed.). Industry and Politics in West Germany: Toward the Third Republic. p. 79. ISBN   0801495954. Equity-feminism differs from equality-feminism
26. "Liberal Feminism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 18 October 2007. Retrieved 24 February 2016. (revised 30 September 2013)
27. Piepmeier, Alison (2009). Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism. New York: New York University Press. p. 45.
28. Walker, Rebecca (January 1992). "Becoming the Third Wave" (PDF). Ms. : 39–41. ISSN   0047-8318. OCLC   194419734. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-15. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
29. Baumgardner, Jennifer; Richards, Amy (2000). Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p.  77. ISBN   978-0-374-52622-1.
30. Hewitt, Nancy (2010). No Permanent Waves . Rutgers University Press. pp.  99. ISBN   978-0-8135-4724-4.
31. Tong, Rosemarie (2009). Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (Third ed.). Boulder: Westview Press. pp. 284–285, 289. ISBN   978-0-8133-4375-4. OCLC   156811918.
32. Abrahams, Jessica (14 August 2017). "Everything you wanted to know about fourth wave feminism—but were afraid to ask". Prospect. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
33. Grady, Constance (2018-03-20). "The waves of feminism, and why people keep fighting over them, explained". Vox. Retrieved 2020-06-27.
34. Munro, Ealasaid (September 2013). "Feminism: A Fourth Wave?". Political Insight. 4 (2): 22–25. doi:10.1111/2041-9066.12021. S2CID   142990260. Republished as Munro, Ealasaid (5 September 2013). "Feminism: A fourth wave?". The Political Studies Association. Archived from the original on 2 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018. / "Feminism: A fourth wave? | The Political Studies Association (PSA)". Feminism: A fourth wave? | The Political Studies Association (PSA). Retrieved 2020-06-27.