Timeline of feminism

The following is a timeline of the history of feminism. It should contain events within the ideologies and philosophies of feminism and antifeminism. It should, however, not contain material about changes in women's legal rights: for that, please go to the article Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting), or, if it concerns the right to vote, to Timeline of women's suffrage and Women's suffrage. See also: Timeline of feminism in the United States.

Timeline of feminism

19th and early 20th century

• First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought, that occurred within the time period of the 19th and early 20th century throughout the world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote).

1960s

• Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that first began in the early 1960s in the United States, and eventually spread throughout the Western world and beyond. In the United States the movement lasted through the early 1980s.
• Black feminism became popular in the 1960s, in response to the sexism of the civil rights movement and racism of the feminist movement.
• Fat feminism and the related fat acceptance movement originated in the late 1960s.

1970s

• In the 1970s, French feminist theorists approached feminism with the concept of écriture féminine (which translates as female, or feminine writing).

1980s

• The radical lesbian movement is a francophone lesbian movement roughly analogous to English-language lesbian separatism. Inspired by the writings of philosopher Monique Wittig, the movement originated in France in the early 1980s, spreading soon after to the Canadian province of Quebec.
• In Turkey and Israel, second-wave feminism began in the 1980s.
• Difference feminism was developed by feminists in the 1980s, in part as a reaction to popular liberal feminism (also known as "equality feminism"), which emphasized the similarities between women and men in order to argue for equal treatment for women. Difference feminism, although it still aimed at equality between men and women, emphasized the differences between men and women and argued that identicality or sameness are not necessary in order for men and women, and masculine and feminine values, to be treated equally. Liberal feminism aimed to make society and law gender-neutral, since it saw recognition of gender difference as a barrier to rights and participation within liberal democracy, while difference feminism held that gender-neutrality harmed women "whether by impelling them to imitate men, by depriving society of their distinctive contributions, or by letting them participate in society only on terms that favor men.”

1990s

• Third-wave feminism refers to several diverse strains of feminist activity and study, whose exact boundaries in the history of feminism are a subject of debate, but are generally marked as beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to the present. The movement arose partially as a response to the perceived failures of and backlash against initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and the perception that women are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and cultural backgrounds". This wave of feminism expands the topic of feminism to include a diverse group of women with a diverse set of identities.

See also

• Timeline of feminism in the United States