Breaking the Waves:
Continuities and Discontinuities Between Second and Third Wave Feminism

a thesis in progress by Jenn Frederick

The Second Wave

While there are some who claim that the First Wave was actually made up of two distinct Waves, making what is known as the Second Wave the Third Wave of feminism¹, common usage declares Second Wave as starting in the 1960s.

Just as many of the First Wave feminists emerged from the abolition movement of the early and middle 1800s, the civil rights movement was a breeding ground for second wave feminists. The beginning of the Second Wave drew upon the experiences of women who became seasoned activists while fighting for civil rights, both as mentors and as leaders².

With the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 1963, many women joined together to combat this "feminine mystique" and gave rise to the Second Wave of feminism. These women began questioning the idea of gender roles³. The results of this questioning have helped restructure institutions around the world and continues to shape public and private life⁴.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, divisions began to appear in the Women's Movement. While some, Women's Rights activists, focused on the similarities between men and women and fought for equal rights for women; others, the Women's Liberation activists, focused on the deeply rooted differences between men and women and fought for more radical changes than formal equality⁵.

Despite these divisions, all Second Wave feminists instituted many changes in society for the benefit of all women. They "questioned nearly everything, transformed much of American culture, expanded the idea of democracy by insisting that equality had to include the realities of its women citizens, and catapulted women's issues onto a global stage. Their greatest accomplishment was to change the terms of debate, so that women mattered"⁶. The fight for equality, however, is not over. The Second Wave left much unfinished. "They were unable to change most institutions, to gain greater economic justice for poor women, or to convince society that child care is the responsibility of the whole society. As a result, American women won the right to 'have it all,' but only if they 'did it all'"⁷. The Second Wave is far from over. Many Second Wave feminists are still fighting. But a new generation, the Third Wave, has picked up where many Second Wave feminists left off, creating their own fight, their own activism.

 ¹Freeman, Jo. 1996. "Waves of feminism."
² Rosen, Ruth. 2001. The world split open: How the modern women's movement changed America. New York: Viking Press.
³Nicholson, Linda. 1997. "Early Statements." In The Second Wave: A reader in feminist theory. Edited by Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Rosen, Ruth. 2001. The world split open: How the modern women's movement changed America. New York: Viking Press.
⁷Ibid.