Feminism  political, cultural, economic movements that aim to establish equal rights and

legal protections for women.

Campaigns for issues: -

Over time, feminist activists have campaigned for issues such as women’s legal rights
especially in regard to:
 Contracts, property and voting;
 Body integrity and autonomy;
 Abortion and reproductive rights including contraception and prenatal care;
 Protection from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape;
 Workplace rights including maternity and equal pay;
 And against all forms of discrimination women encounter.

History of feminism
Feminist history can be divided into three waves.

1. First Wave Feminism

Dates: occurring in 19th century and early 20th century
Main concern: Women’s right to vote
Further elaboration: First-wave feminism promoted equal contract and property
rights for women, opposing ownership of married women by their husbands. By the
late 19th century, feminism activism was mostly centered around the right of women
to caste vote / enfranchisement of women / granting women suffrage.
Solution: American first-wave feminism ended with the passage of the 19th
Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919, granting women voting rights. However,
in Canada, Aboriginal women living on the reserves would not win the right to vote
until 1960.

2. Second Wave Feminism

Dates: At its height between 1960 and 1970
Main concern: Women’s liberation movement for equal legal and social rights. Key
struggles were around affirmative action, pay equity, rape, domestic violence,
pornography and sexism in the media, and reproductive choices.
Further elaboration: The second wave of feminism focused on issues of equality and
discrimination in workplaces and broader society. The second wave slogan, “The
Personal is Political”, identified the women’s cultural and political inequalities as
inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand how their personal lives
reflected sexist power structures.
The fight for reproductive rights included a fight to have information about and
access to birth control (selling and promoting birth control was illegal in Canada until
1969) as well as the struggle to decriminalize abortion.
Betty Friedan was a key player in second wave feminism. In 1963, her book The
Feminine Mystique criticized the idea that women could find fulfilment only through
childrearing and house-making. According to Friedan’s New York Times obituary, her
book ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result
permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around
the world. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential non-fiction books of
 the 20th century. Friedan hypothesizes that women are victims of false beliefs
requiring them to find identity in their lives through husbands and children. This
causes women to lose their own identities in that of their family.
Solution: In 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down abortion laws noting
that it fundamentally violated a woman’s right to ‘liberty and personal autonomy’ as
guaranteed in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A subsequent attempt to
one year later to introduce a new abortion law failed in the Senate due to a tie vote.
During this time frame both the United States (in 1963) and Canada (in 1967)
launched investigations into the status of women and through the subsequent
reports made public the depth and breadth of the inequalities experienced by
women.
The National Action Committee on the Status of Women was set up following the
Canadian Royal Commission on the Status of Women to advocate for women’s
equality and become an important focal point for feminist action in Canada in 1970s
and 80s.

3. Third Wave Feminism

Dates: Began in the 1990s
Main concern: Continuation of and reaction to second wave feminism
Further elaboration: It was a response to the perceived failure of second wave and a
backlash against second-wave initiatives. This ideology seeks to challenge the
definitions of femininity that grew out of the ideas of second wave, arguing that the
second wave overemphasized the experiences of the upper middle-class white
women. The third wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating how
race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality are all significant factors when
discussing feminism. It examines issues related to women’s lives on an international
basis.
Solution: Mobilizing and organizing across age, race, class and other differences as
women remains a challenge in continuing the fight for equality for women.