Defining The Third Wave

The F word. Feminism. It's about the human right to be a woman. A woman seeking equality and liberation in a society which often refuses to recognize the female species as worthy of the same treatment and expectations as men.

The First Wave was essential: get the vote. The Second Wave was instrumental: get the choice. The Third Wave starts with a question: is feminism dead?

No. Feminism is not dead. As long as there are women who face misogynistic attacks from the media; who face rape but the rapists don't face trial; who are told they are not beautiful unless they are thin; who are paid less than their male counterparts; who are seen as less instead of as more; who are beaten by husbands, boyfriends and fathers; who are unable to receive health care; who cannot escape the confirms of heteronormativity; who are educated to be nurses instead of doctors, teachers instead of engineers, secretaries instead of elected officials; until these and more realities facing women around the world disappear, feminism will remain.

Feminism is not dead. But where it is going is hard to define.

The Third Wave is innately ambiguous due to the fact that there has yet to be a legal achievement or formalized goal associated with it, like voting rights with the First Wave and Roe vs. Wade with the Second Wave. Many of the outstanding goals seem to be relics of the Second Wave movement, such as striving to elect the first female president in the United States. The stigmatization of the feminist movement by the New Right during the 1980s damaged the pillars of the women's movement and allowed for many women to fall away from the feminist movement and claim to be part of a post-feminist era.

One moment that catalyzed the Third Wave was the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991, when the Senate Judiciary Commission suppressed information about Thomas' alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill. The hearings brought into focus the intersection between race and gender, and this widely-viewed public controversy created an renewed awareness of the feminist movement, and that it had not yet ended and, in fact, a new generation of activists were just getting started.

Women such as Rebecca Walker, who founded the Third WaveFoundation, have helped to formulate the Third Wave movement. Additionally, Third Wave-focused organizations like National Organization for Women, Women's Action Alliance, Voters for Choice, Students Organizing Students, Take Back the Night, Code Pink, Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood, Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance also add to the movement. Third Wave feminists, however, also make it clear that making change in your community - and defining yourself as a feminist - doesn't have to mean joining a preexisting organization. Instead, Third Wavers offer a laundry list of more individualistic titles to define contemporary feminism: power, postmodern, girlie, pro-sex, global, punk, eco, queer, womanism, Latina, and cultural feminism. Plus, many Third Wavers champion issues that are not defined by gender, but instead focus on inequalities of all kinds.

With such a broad set of issues and identities at hand, and the fact that many modern women do not self-identify as feminists, it has been difficult for women's organizations and feminists to call upon a collective action agenda for the women's rights movement.

In order to understand the Third Wave of feminism, you have to be able to see in both forwards and backward time. You have to realize that there is precedent within the feminist movement: the 19^th Amendment, Roe v. Wade, financial liberation, Title IX, and many other action items that were achieved in the name of women's rights. The Third Wave, however, seeks to not only maintain those rights but break through even deeper societal norms. The Third Wave can serve as a movement of equality for women, gay rights, immigrants, transgenders, the disenfranchised, and any underrepresented individual.

Still with a diverse group of interests, we know that feminism does exist, but it's hard to answer the question: what IS feminism today? Is it a catch-all term or does it have a specific purpose and place? Without the lens of history in front of us - showing us the connection between the victories of yesteryear and today's struggles - it is still difficult to truly define what the Third Wave is and what it means to women. But one purpose of the Third Wave has been made abundantly clear: to raise awareness of what discrimination still exists and who is out there, ready to face it.