"Waves" of Feminism, II

The concept of "waves" of feminism and the origin and meaning of terms such
as "third wave" have received a good deal of attention on WMST-L. 
The following brief discussion in July 2002 may add a bit to the 
rather lengthy discussion Waves of Feminism. in May/June.  See also
the earlier Teaching 70s Feminism. For additional WMST-L Files now available
on the Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

Does anyone know who first used "third wave" to describe a form of feminism
different from "second wave"?  I've read many an article that argues that
women of color, like Barbara Smith, first used this term in the 1970s to
distinguish themselves and their issues/oppressions from those of the white
women dominating the movement, but I can't find the original source of this
term.

thanks for your help!

mary

Mary Celeste Kearney
Assistant Professor
Department of Radio-Television-Film
The University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512-475-8648
Fax:     512-471-4077

I doubt if it was coined in the 70's, since most people weren't even
using "Second Wave", at that point, to describe the activities,
usually called "the Women's Liberation Movement" or later, "the
Women's Movement."

 Jo-Ann Pilardi, Towson U. 
jpilardi    @    towson.edu

At this year's NWSA conference I attended the Third Wave focus group
(which combined with the bisexual+trans- focus group)
we talked about this label, Third Wave, among many other things

while the coining of the phrase "Third Wave" often gets credited to 90's
feminists (the authors of Manifesta, for instance)  indeed it was first
used in the 70's by women of color re: the feminist movement at that
time and the need to include the voices and concerns of non-white middle
class women

Emi Koyama, who headed the Third Wave focus group at NWSA is very
knowledgable on this subject...  her website is http://eminism.org/
and i have cc'd her in this email

but to put in my two cents, i feel that the way "Third Wave" is
colloquially being used now is more of a way to say hey, backlash,
Reagan, whatever -feminismS (plural) and feminist/womanist activism is
still happening and it has always been happening, it is alive and
growing and changing as a movement (although perhaps not as quickly as
it should) and it is of course connected to a powerful history (not just
feminist but all civil rights movements)


=heart=
 sady


Sarah Avery Sullivan
Staff
Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA   02138
617-496-3022
gcws  @  radcliffe.edu

I believe it was Rebecca Walker who first used the term. Third Wave.

Christine Smith
Department of Psychology
Minnesota State University Moorhead
Moorhead, MN  56563

Despite many people's belief that "third wave" was not used until recently,
I've found references which suggest otherwise.

For example, Lauren Kessler's book THE DISSIDENT PRESS (1984) labels 1970s'
feminism "third wave," post-civil war-to-19th Amendment feminism "second
wave," and pre-civil war "first wave."  I've seen other feminist histories
that label as "first wave" those feminists of the late 18th/early 19th
century woman's movement, which most wave taxonomies either ignore or lump
in with the later suffragist movement.

Just more food for thought about the waves!

Best,

mary


Mary Celeste Kearney
Assistant Professor
Department of Radio-Television-Film
The University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512-475-8648
Fax:    512-471-4077

It goes back even further than that when Simone de Beauvoir used in 1949 in
"The Second Sex" in which she explores Marxist, Freudian and Hegelian themes to
uncover the sources of the definition of women as the 'Other' of Man
(www.marxists.org/glossary/events/w/o.htm).

Sandra Basgall

Mary Celeste Kearney wrote:

> Despite many people's belief that "third wave" was not used until recently,
> I've found references which suggest otherwise.
>
> For example, Lauren Kessler's book THE DISSIDENT PRESS (1984) labels 1970s'
> feminism "third wave," post-civil war-to-19th Amendment feminism "second
> wave," and pre-civil war "first wave."  I've seen other feminist histories
> that label as "first wave" those feminists of the late 18th/early 19th
> century woman's movement, which most wave taxonomies either ignore or lump
> in with the later suffragist movement.

In response to Sandra Basgall: Sandra, unless I misunderstand your
comment: wasn't the original question about the label, "third wave,"
and not the issues it addresses? Beauvoir didn't use the label "the
third wave" in THE SECOND SEX (pub. 1949). In fact, she didn't know
about the Second Wave at that point, since it hadn't happened. Thanks
to her efforts, and those of many others, the Second Wave happened. In
her title, "Second" refers to women as the unimportant sex, i.e.,
"second" to men; it's not the same "second" as in "the second wave."

 Jo-Ann Pilardi, Towson U.  jpilardi  @  towson.edu
----------
S. Bagsall said: "(the third wave label) goes back even further than
that when Simone de Beauvoir used in 1949 in "The Second Sex" in which
she explores Marxist, Freudian and Hegelian themes to uncover the
sources of the definition of women as the 'Other' of Man."