The Evolution of Feminism in India: A Comparative Analysis of First, Second, Third, Fourth

and Fifth Wave Feminism.

Feminism is a social, cultural, and political movement that advocates for the equal rights and
opportunities of women. At its core, feminism seeks to challenge and dismantle systems of
patriarchy, sexism, and gender-based oppression that limit the potential and agency of women in
society. The origins of feminism can be traced back to the 19th century, when women began to
challenge their exclusion from public life and demand access to education, suffrage, and legal
rights it started from all different waves of feminism which escalated into a bigger movement
later on

The first wave basically begins with the Seneca Falls convention of 1848. There, almost 200
women met in a church in upstate New York to discuss “the social, civil, and religious condition
and rights of women.” Attendees discussed their grievances and passed a list of 12 resolutions
calling for specific equal rights — including, after much debate, the right to vote. The whole
thing was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who were both active
abolitionists 1

In the early stages, the first wave of feminism in the United States was interwoven with other
reform movements, such as abolition and temperance, and initially closely involved women of
the working classes. However, it was also supported by Black women abolitionists, such as
Maria Stewart (1803–1879), Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), and Frances E. W. Harper (1825–
1911), who agitated for the rights of women of color. The 15th Amendment’s passage in 1870,
granting black men the right to vote, became a spur that politicized white women and turned
them into suffragettes 2. Despite its racism, the women’s movement developed radical goals for
its members. First-wavers fought not only for white women’s suffrage but also for equal
opportunities to education and employment, and for the right to own property.

And as the movement developed, it began to turn to the question of reproductive rights. In 1916,
Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US, in defiance of a New York state
law that forbade the distribution of contraception. She would later go on to establish the clinic
that became Planned Parenthood.

In 1920, Congress passed the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. (In theory, it
granted the right to women of all races, but in practice.

The term second-wave feminism refers mostly to the radical feminism of the women’s liberation
movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Second-wave feminists called for a reevaluation of
traditional gender roles in society and an end to sexist discrimination with Betty Friedan’s The

1 Humm, M. (1995). The dictionary of feminist theory. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
2 Reger, J. (Ed.). (2005). Different wavelengths: Studies of the contemporary women’s movement.
London, UK: Routledge 3(1).
Feminine Mystique, which came out in 1963. There were prominent feminist thinkers before
Friedan who would come to be associated with the second wave — most importantly Simone de
Beauvoir, whose Second Sex came out in France in 1949 and in the US in 1953 — but The
Feminine Mystique was a phenomenon. 3

The second wave worked on getting women the right to hold credit cards under their own names
and to apply for mortgages. It worked to outlaw marital rape, to raise awareness about domestic
violence and build shelters for women fleeing rape and domestic violence. It worked to name and
legislate against sexual harassment in the workplace it cared deeply about the casual, systemic
sexism ingrained into society — the belief that women’s highest purposes were domestic and
decorative, and the social standards that reinforced that belief — and in naming that sexism and
ripping it apart.

The second wave cared about racism too, but it could be clumsy in working with people of color.
As the women’s movement developed, it was rooted in the anti-capitalist and anti-racist civil
rights movements, but black women increasingly found themselves alienated from the central
platforms of the mainstream women’s movement. Even with its limited scope, second-wave
feminism at its height was plenty radical enough to scare people — hence the myth of the bra
burners. Despite the popular story, there was no mass burning of bras among second-wave
feminists4.

But women did gather together in 1968 to protest the Miss America pageant and its demeaning,
patriarchal treatment of women. And as part of the protest, participants ceremoniously threw
away objects that they considered to be symbols of women’s objectification, including bras and
copies of Playboy. Like the suffrage movement, second-wave feminism drew criticism for
centering privileged white women, and some Black women formed their own feminist
organizations, including the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO)

Second-wave feminism is not one, but many. As expressed by feminist communication scholar
Julia Wood (1994), the question may not be whether you are a feminist, but which kind of
feminist you are. This question is multiplied by the emergence of third-wave feminism. But
before we turn to emergent feminisms, let us conclude that second-wave feminisms have been
highly theoretical and consequently have had strong affiliations with the academy5. Starting in
the 1970s, second-wave feminisms have generated an explosion of research and teaching on
women’s issues, which has now grown into a diverse disciplinary field of women’s, gender, or
feminist studies.

Lipstick feminism, girlie feminism, riot girl feminism, cybergirl feminism, transfeminism, or just
girl feminism—feminism is alive and kicking. Born with the privileges that first- and second-
wave feminists fought for, third- wave feminists generally see themselves as capable, strong, and

3 Constance Grady 2018 , ‘The waves of feminism, and why people keep fighting over them, explained’
<https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth> accessed on 4th
March 2023
4 Cathryn baile, 'Making Waves and Drawing Lines: The Politics of Defining the Vicissitudes of Feminism' [1997]
12(3) Jstor 26-28

5 Tong, Rosemarie. ‘Feminist thought: A complete introduction’ [1989] New York: Westview Press.
assertive social agents “The Third Wave is buoyed by the confidence of having more
opportunities and less sexism”. But generally, the beginning of the third wave is pegged to two
things: the Anita Hill case in 1991, and the emergence of the riot grrrl groups in the music scene
of the early 1990s. 6

In 1991, Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her at work. Thomas made his way to the Supreme
Court anyway, but Hill’s testimony sparked an avalanche of sexual harassment complaints, in
much the same way that last fall’s Harvey Weinstein accusations were followed by a litany of
sexual misconduct accusations against other powerful men. And Congress’s decision to send
Thomas to the Supreme Court despite Hill’s testimony led to a national conversation about the
overrepresentation of men in national leadership roles. The following year, 1992, would be
dubbed “the Year of the Woman” after 24 women won seats in the House of Representatives and
three more won seats in the Senate.

Early third-wave activism tended to involve fighting against workplace sexual harassment and
working to increase the number of women in positions of power. Intellectually, it was rooted in
the work of theorists of the ’80s: Kimberlé Crenshaw and Judith Butler. Third-wave feminism is
also inspired by and bound to a generation of the new global world order characterized by the
fall of communism, new threats of religious and ethnic fundamentalism, and the dual risks and
promises of new info- and biotechnologies . This new “new” feminism is characterized by local,
national, and transnational activism, in areas such as violence against women, trafficking, body
surgery, self-mutilation, and the overall “pornofication” of the media. While concerned with new
threats to women’s rights in the wake of the new global world order, it criticizes earlier feminist
waves for presenting universal answers or definitions of womanhood and for developing their
particular interests into somewhat static identity politics7.

Another significant perspective that has contributed to third-wave feminism is Donna Haraway’s
(1987/1991) “cyborg,” which has also inspired the development of cyberfeminism. What makes
this perspective unique is Haraway’s appropriation of technology and her posthuman
acknowledgment of the interaction between humans and nonhumans, which blurs the distinctions
between humans, animals, and machines

Third-wave feminism is tied up with the effects of globalization and the complex redistribution
of power, which challenge feminist theory and politics. It also mirrors the diversification of
women’s interests and perspectives and the breakdown of master stories of oppression and
liberation. For example, postcolonial, third-wave feminism is concerned with establishing a new
critical global perspective and creating alliances between Black, diasporic,and subaltern
feminisms, whereas queer theory and politics create a platform for what has now split into the
lesbian, gay, bi-, and transsexual and transgender movements. Queer and transgender feminists
attack what they see as the crux of the problem: heteronormativity. An interesting and important

6 Alvarez, Sonia E , ‘ Advocating Feminism: The Latin American Feminist NGO ‘Boom.’ International Feminist
Journal of Politics [1999] 1(2): 181-209.

7 Cott, Nancy F, ‘Karen Offen’s ‘Defining Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach.’ Signs 15(1) (Autumn):
203-205
contribution to third-wave feminist thinking is the notion of “transversal politics.” Nira Yuval-
Davis, the author of Gender and Nation (1997), who is herself a British Jew, launched this
notion, which is based on the possibility of dialogue between women across national, ethnic, and
religious boundaries. Theoretically, her work has been inspired by Gayatri Spivak’s theory of
strategic essentialism and Patricia Hill Collins’s theory of the partiality of standpoints and of
situated and unfinished knowledge. Yuval-Davis has also been inspired by the politics of
feminist activist groups such as the London-based Women Against Fundamentalism (WAF),
which includes Christians Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and others, and the Bologna feminists,
who work with women from groups in conflict, such as Serbs and Croats or Palestinian and
Israeli Jewish women. 8

Feminists have been anticipating the arrival of a fourth wave since at least 1986, when a letter
writer to the Wilson Quarterly opined that the fourth wave was already building. Internet trolls
actually tried to launch their own fourth wave in 2014, planning to create a “pro-sexualization,
pro-skinny, anti-fat” feminist movement that the third wave would revile, ultimately miring the
entire feminist community in bloody civil war But over the past few years, as #MeToo and
Time’s Up pick up momentum, the Women’s March floods Washington with pussy hats every
year, and a record number of women prepare to run for office, it’s beginning to seem that the
long-heralded fourth wave might actually be here. And now the fourth wave has begun to hold
our culture’s most powerful men accountable for their behavior. It has begun a radical critique of
the systems of power that allow predators to target women with impunity.

The feminist movement in India has a long and complex history, and has evolved over time in
response to changing social, economic, and political circumstances. The first feminist
movements in India emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when women began to
demand the right to education and the right to participate in public life. Some of the key figures
in these movements include Pandita Ramabai, Tarabai Shinde, and Sarojini Naidu. 9

The Indian nationalist movement, which began in the early 20th century, also had a significant
impact on the feminist movement. Many women activists participated in the nationalist struggle
and used it as an opportunity to highlight the importance of women's rights. After India gained
independence in 1947, the feminist movement became more focused on issues of gender equality
and women's empowerment. The formation of the All India Women's Conference in 1927 and
the National Federation of Indian Women in 1954 were significant in this regard.10

The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of a second wave of feminism in India, which was
characterized by a focus on issues such as violence against women, reproductive rights, and
equal pay. The Forum Against Oppression of Women, founded in 1978, was a key organization
during this period.

8 Mansbridge, Jane. 1995. What is the Feminist Movement? In Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the new
Women’s Movement, eds. Myra Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancey Martin, Philadelphia: Temple University Press
27-34.

9 Radha Kumar, ‘Contemporary Indian Feminism’ Ltd. [1989] 33 Sage Publications.

10 Sarbani Guha Ghosal, ‘Major Trends Of Feminism In India’ [2005] 66(4) The Indian Journal of Political
Science.
It was the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) which brought about a shift from ‘development’ to
‘empowerment’ by introducing special programs. The flow of benefits to women in the three
core sectors of education, health and employment were monitored vigorously11. Women were
enabled to function as equal partners and participants in the developmental process with
reservation in the membership of local bodies. Some major initiatives undertaken during the
Eighth Plan for women included the setting up of the National Commission for Women to work
towards safeguarding the rights and interest of women, and of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh to meet the
micro credit needs of poor and assetless women. Other initiatives included the adoption of a
National Nutrition Policy in conformity with the Constitutional commitment to ensure an
adequate nutritional standard for the people, the launching of the Mahila Samridhi Yojana to
promote thrift activities amongst women and of Indira Mahila Yojana basically for awareness
generation and the economic empowerment through self-help groups. 12

The Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002) envisaged: the empowerment of women and socially
disadvantaged groups such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes
and Minorities as agents of socio-economic change and development. Promoting and developing
people’s participatory institutions like Panchayati Raj institutions, cooperatives and self-help
groups was also taken up.

The Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007) was formulated to ensure requisite access of women to
information, resources and services, and advance gender equality goals. It spoke of the need for
gender Budgeting.

The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-2012) proposed to undertake special measures for gender
empowerment and equity. The Ministry of Women and Child Development would make
synergistic use of gender budget and gender mainstreaming process.

The Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) focused on four key aspects, viz., health, education,
urbanization and governance. It also focused on single women, particularly those who are single
by choice, and provided assistance under various government schemes.

In recent years, the feminist movement in India has continued to evolve and adapt to changing
circumstances. Issues such as sexual harassment, gender-based violence, and discrimination in
the workplace have become major concerns, and feminist activists have used social media and
other digital platforms to mobilize and raise awareness. Overall, the feminist movement in India
has been shaped by a variety of factors, including colonialism, nationalism, and globalization.
Despite significant progress, many challenges remain, and feminist activists continue to work
towards achieving gender equality and women's empowerment in India.

References

Tong, Rosemarie. 1989. Feminist thought: A complete introduction. New York: Westview Press.
11 Aparna Basu, ‘Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947’ [1995] 7(4) The Johns Hopkins University
Press,7-12.

12 Narayanamoorthy Nanditha, ‘Exclusion in #MeToo India: rethinking inclusivity and intersectionality in Indian
digital feminist movements’ [2021] 35(5) Taylor & Francis Online.
Kahn, Karen. 1995. Front line feminism, 1975-1995: Essays from Sojourner's first 20 years San
Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute

Jaggar, Alison M. 1988. Feminist politics and human nature. New York: Rowman and
Littlefield.

Cochrane, K. (2013). All the rebel women: The rise of fourth wave feminism. London, UK:
Guardian Books.

Coward, R. (1984). Female desires: How they are sought, bought and packed. New York, NY:
Grove Weidenfeld.

Aronson, P. (2003). Feminist or ‘‘postfeminist"? Young women’s attitudes towards feminism

and gender relations. Gender & Society, 17, 903-922

Barretti, M. (2001). Social work, women, and feminism: A review of social work journals, 1988–
1997. Affilia,16, 266-294.

Davis, A. (1981). Women, race, and class. New York, NY: Random House

Genz, S. (2006). Third Way/ve. Feminist Theory, 7, 333-353

Ruxton, S. (2004). Gender equality and men: Learning from practice. Oxford, England: Oxfam

Whelehan, I. (1995). Modern feminist thought: From the second wave to ‘‘post-feminism.’’
Edinburgh, England: Edinburgh University Press

Wollstonecraft, M. (1792). Vindication of the rights of women. Boston, MA: Peter Edes.

Grant, Judith. 1993. Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory.
New York: Routledge

Heywood, Leslie L., ed. 2006a. The Women’s Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third-
Wave Feminism, vol. 1, A–Z. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

2006b. The Women’s Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third-Wave Feminism, vol. 2,

Primary Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Kelly, Elizabeth A. 2005. “Review Essay: A New Generation of Feminism? Reflections on the
Third Wave.” New Political Science 27(2):233–43.

Aparna Basu, "The Role of Women in Freedom Movement"; Lakshmi Menon, "Women and the
National Movement," in Indian Women, ed. Devaki Jain (New Delhi, 1975).

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, "The Women's Movement, Then and Now," in Indian Women

P. J. Thomas, Indiana Women Through the Ages (Bombay, 1964), 331.

Meera Kosambi, "Women's Emancipation and Equality: Pandita Ramabai's

Contribution to Women's Cause," Economic and Political Weekly 23 (October 1988) WS-48.

Sita Ram Singh, Nationalism and Social Reform in India: 1805-1920 (Delhi, 1967), 206.

J. Murdoch, comp., Twelve Years of Indian Progress, The Resolutions of its Thirteenth Session
(Madras, 1898), 36.