Second-Wave Feminism

Examples of Second-Wave Feminism in the following topics:

• The Women's Rights Movement

  • Second-wave feminism is a period of feminist activity.
  • In the United States, second-wave feminism, initially called the Women's Liberation Movement , began during the early 1960s and lasted through the late 1990s.
  • Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality (i.e. voting rights, property rights), second-wave feminism broadened the debate to a wide range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities.
  • This book is widely credited with having begun second-wave feminism.
  • Compare and contrast the first and second waves of feminism in the United States

• The Feminist Movement

  • The second wave, generally taking place from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, was concerned with cultural and political inequalities, which feminists perceived as being inextricably linked.
  • The third wave, starting in the 1990s, rose in response to the perceived failures of the second wave feminism.
  • It seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity, which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized the experiences of upper-middle-class white women.
  • The first wave of women's feminism focused on suffrage, while subsequent feminist efforts have expanded to focus on equal pay, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, and others.
  • Compare and contrast the three waves of feminism in the United States and their historical achievements

• Liberalism

  • The early waves of liberalism popularized economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary authority.
  • Later waves of liberal thought were strongly influenced by the need to expand civil rights.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s, feminism in the United States was advanced in large part by liberal feminist organizations.Many liberals also have advocated for racial equality, and the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s strongly highlighted the liberal crusade for equal rights.

• Non-Democratic Governments: Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism, and Dictatorship

  • The wave of military dictatorships in Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century left a particular mark on Latin American culture.

• Civil Rights of Latinos

  • The wave of immigration in the latter half of the 1800's was dominated by the Irish and Germans, although other European ethnicities arrived in significant numbers.
  • Because the majority of foreign-born Latinos in the United States speak Spanish as a primary language, and many second-generation continue to speak Spanish in their households, controversies surrounding language are sometimes considered to be civil rights issues affecting Latinos.