The Objectification of Women and the Origins of the Feminist Movement
Over the past centuries, the status of women has changed significantly. What we now take for granted — access to schooling and university education, the right to inherit property, suffrage, employment opportunities, access to reproductive planning, and more — was fought for over many years in different countries around the world. It is feminism that we owe this progress to. For centuries, activists of the feminist movement have argued (and continue to argue) that women are human beings.
Feminism is a movement that advocates for social, political, and economic equality between men and women and seeks to eliminate gender discrimination, sexism, and patriarchal stereotypes. It is conventionally divided into waves, which mark the key issues for which women have sought equality: voting rights, access to education, reproductive rights, and others.
Women in Historical Perspective: Systemic Subordination
Throughout human history, women* have experienced systemic oppression. In medieval Asia and Europe, women were considered subordinate to men; later, as Europe colonized the Americas, similar social structures were imposed there as well. The role of the average woman (not an empress or queen) in society at that time was reduced to domestic labor and child-rearing.
The Enlightenment and the Emergence of Ideas of Equality
In subsequent historical periods, women gradually began to raise and defend the issue of equal rights. Female intellectuals of the Enlightenment (17th–18th centuries) observed that the new reformist rhetoric of freedom, equality, and natural rights — focused on inequalities of social class and caste — ignored the application of these principles to women.
In 1792, in her feminist work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft proposed granting women and men equal opportunities in education, work, and politics.
“Women are as naturally rational as men. If they are foolish, it is only because society encourages them to be so, in order to render them subordinate,” she wrote.
Abolitionism and the Beginning of the First Wave of Feminism
The ideas of the Enlightenment formed the foundation of abolitionism (18th–19th centuries), the movement to abolish slavery. In the United States, women abolitionists attempted to apply the concepts of freedom and equality to their own social and political status. Their activism led to cooperation with like-minded activists in England and culminated in the first women’s rights convention in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. This year formally marks the beginning of the First Wave of feminism.
The First Wave of Feminism (1848–1920)
At the convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, women participants and male allies signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which affirmed the equality of women and men and called for women’s access to education, property rights, leadership in organizations, and the right to vote.
The women’s suffrage movement in the United States largely marginalized or excluded Black feminists such as Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells. Although the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 achieved the primary goal of the First Wave — granting white women the right to vote — Black women and women of other racial and ethnic backgrounds continued to face systematic barriers until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In Europe, suffrage was also a central issue. In 1866, the first mass petition for women’s suffrage was submitted to the British House of Commons. In 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was founded, led by politician and writer Millicent Fawcett. Due to the limited success of the union, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in Manchester in 1903, which became known for its more “militant” methods of struggle — including arson and hunger strikes. Many participants were imprisoned. Women of this movement became known as suffragettes.
In 1918, the Representation of the People Act was passed in the United Kingdom, granting voting rights to women over 30 and men over 21. In other Western countries, suffrage was granted at different points during this period, including Canada and Germany in 1918. In France, women did not gain the right to vote during the First Wave and received it only in 1944.
Other achievements of the First Wave included opening higher education to women; reforming secondary education for girls, including access to national examinations; expanding access to professions, particularly medicine; recognizing married women’s property rights through the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 in Britain; and modest improvements in women’s custody rights in cases of divorce or separation.
After 1920, following the achievement of suffrage in several Western countries, the momentum of the feminist movement declined. Nevertheless, some activists continued to advocate for women’s rights through local organizations and special-interest groups.
In summary, the First Wave of feminism laid the foundation for women’s recognition as political subjects, most notably through suffrage, which formally acknowledged women as citizens of the state.
The Second Wave of Feminism (1963–1980)
In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, in which she wrote that “the problem that has no name” had buried millions of American women alive, arguing that women felt dissatisfaction and confinement within the roles of wives and mothers. The book was enormously influential and helped spark what became known as the Second Wave of feminism.
Inspired by the civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War, Second Wave feminists in the United States called for a rethinking of traditional gender roles and an end to sexist discrimination.
Radical feminists from the organization Redstockings joined a 1969 protest against beauty pageants. To demonstrate how women in such contests were treated like livestock — reinforcing the assumption that appearance matters more than what women do, think, or even whether they think at all — they staged a theatrical performance: crowning a sheep as “Miss America” and throwing “oppressive” gendered items such as bras, corsets, false eyelashes, high heels, and makeup into a trash can in front of journalists.
Placards reading “Cattle parades dehumanize us,” “Low pay: woman wanted,” and “Dead-end job: woman wanted” conveyed the message that women were victims of a patriarchal, commercialized, and repressive beauty culture.
In the 1970s, the Equal Pay Act was passed, and landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions related to reproductive freedom were issued in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973). In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court впервые articulated a woman’s right to privacy in reproductive matters by overturning a law that prohibited married women from accessing contraception. In 1973, Roe v. Wade granted women in the U.S. the right to abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy — a major victory for the feminist movement. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this decision.
Overall, Second Wave feminism politically secured women’s reproductive rights and the right to equal pay, while its various strands spurred a surge in research on women’s issues. Today, this has evolved into a diverse academic field known as women’s, gender, or feminist studies.
The Third Wave of Feminism (1990s – …)
The 1991 Anita Hill hearings, in which Hill testified against a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, accusing him of sexual harassment, triggered nationwide feminist support and encouraged other women to share their own experiences of sexual violence. African American feminists collectively purchased an advertisement in The New York Times and published the manifesto “African American Women in Defense of Ourselves,” condemning the racist and sexist treatment of Professor Anita Hill during the hearings.
Observing these events, Rebecca Walker — daughter of Second Wave feminist icon Alice Walker — began describing the political climate as the “Third Wave.”
The early 1990s also saw the emergence of feminist punk rock bands in the underground, united within the Riot Grrrl movement. These “grrrl” groups combined punk culture with politics, feminism, and style.
One of the leaders of the movement, Kathleen Hanna of the feminist band Bikini Kill, together with other Riot Grrrl activists, created the Bikini Kill Zine. These zines used punk rock culture to discuss feminist issues. In 1991, the Bikini Kill Zine published the Riot Grrrl Manifesto, which clearly articulated the reasons for the renewed surge of feminist activism through music.
Because we girls want records, books, and zines that speak TO US, that we feel included in and can understand in our own ways.
Because we want to make it easier for girls to see and hear each other’s work, so we can share strategies and critique and support each other.
Because we do not want to assimilate to someone else’s (male) standards of what is acceptable and what is not.
Because we are angry at a society that tells us: Girl = dumb, Girl = bad, Girl = weak [11].
Excerpts from the Riot Grrrl Manifesto, published in 1991 in Bikini Kill Zine 2
Other Riot Grrrl feminists made new information technologies the central starting point of their activism. Calling themselves cybergrrls or Netgrrls, they introduced girls and women to the basics of working online, digital self-presentation, online communities, and activism, presenting the internet as a space for self-expression, solidarity, and resistance to sexism — challenging the idea of technology as an exclusively “male” domain.
At the same time, the movement criticized sexist language, reappropriated derogatory terms such as “slut” and “bitch,” and invented new words and forms of communication that affirmed self-worth. Rather than rejecting stereotypes aimed at them, Third Wave feminists often exaggerated these stereotypes — starting with the word “girl” itself.
Overall, Third Wave feminism is characterized by a diversity of perspectives. Some feminists encouraged women to express their sexuality and individuality, emphasizing that women themselves should decide how they wish to present themselves to the world.
Others questioned whether phenomena such as revealing clothing, high heels, or amateur pole dancing truly symbolize sexual freedom and gender equality, or whether they are merely old forms of oppression repackaged in a new way.
Bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Heavens to Betsy brought feminism into popular music, creating songs that addressed sexism, patriarchy, violence, racism, and rape. Additionally, Third Wave feminism sought to be more inclusive in terms of race and gender. Particularly influential was Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work on the concept of intersectionality — the idea that different forms of oppression (based on race, class, gender, and more) intersect and shape people’s lived experiences.
Contemporary Debates: The So-Called Fourth Wave of Feminism
Although the Fourth Wave of feminism is difficult to define — some see it simply as a continuation of the Third Wave — the rise of the internet has created space for a new form of activism fueled by social media. For example, the #MeToo movement, started by Tarana Burke in 2007, enabled young women of color to share their experiences of sexual violence. In 2017, the hashtag went viral following revelations of sexual abuse by influential film producer Harvey Weinstein.
Actress Alyssa Milano helped popularize the #MeToo movement by tweeting: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” In less than 24 hours, 4.7 million people joined the conversation, generating over 12 million posts, comments, and reactions on Facebook.
In November of that year, the “Me Too Survivors” march against sexual violence and the “Take Back the Workplace” march against workplace harassment took place. The two marches met at a single point and united to advocate for social reforms and legislation supporting survivors.
Beyond demanding accountability for sexual crimes, Fourth Wave feminism focuses on intersectionality and is part of a broader awareness of oppression alongside racism, ageism, classism, ableism, discrimination based on sexual orientation, and more.
Conclusions and a Critical Perspective on the Waves of Feminism
In summary, each wave of feminism can be seen as a response to a critical mass of discrimination, restrictions, and stereotypes that functioned as the status quo of a given historical moment.
The First Wave sought to secure women’s recognition as political subjects of the state, acknowledging them as citizens with the right to vote. This foundational achievement made further feminist progress possible — without political status, how can one demand rights from the state?
Second Wave feminists, having formally gained political voice, emphasized reproductive rights, equal pay, and the recognition of women as human beings rather than “livestock” existing to serve men’s interests. Slogans such as “Dead-end job: woman wanted” and “Low pay: woman wanted” highlighted the persistent link between being a woman and being treated worse, especially in professional life.
The Third Wave addressed a kaleidoscope of issues resonating with different groups in society. Sexism and violence were central to Riot Grrrl activism, while freedom of expression became the focus of other feminist groups. Intersectionality moved the understanding of oppression beyond the binary of man/woman, offering a holistic view in which gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and other factors intersect.
The Fourth Wave emerges from the previous ones and now exists largely in online spaces and social media, where women can publicly expose violations of their rights and support one another.
Given that hard-won rights can be partially or fully revoked — as seen with abortion rights in the United States — the Fourth Wave is unlikely to be the last. As long as women’s rights exist only “on paper” and are not fully realized in practice, true equality does not exist.
Sources:
- BBC News – Four ways the end of Roe v Wade has changed America
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65956103 - Britannica – Feminism
https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism - Britannica – The Third Wave of Feminism
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https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/women-s-studies-and-feminism/feminism-overview - Feminism and Freedom – Three Waves of Feminism: From Suffragettes to Grrls (PDF)
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About the Author:
Liudmyla Tsyganenko, activist.
*This publication was prepared with the financial support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Council of Europe.
