First wave

c.1800s-1914:

o the vote
o women’s education
o reform of marriage
o and employment laws

The Second Wave

1960s-1980s

 so this this idea (how typically defined as born or Girl) came through the secund wave
feminist movement and when people talk about feminist history
o they often talk about it in terms of these ways
o so the first wave is thought to be the end of the 1800s, the beginning at the 1900s and
ending with the First World War
 because that causes such a massive change in society.

So, in the first wave of feminism:

 the concerns were with these major aspects of political social inclusion for women
o their campaign
 that women should have to vote, emphasis on women’s education

and the second wave of feminism

 is thought to be in the 1960s to 1980s, later and deal with a whole difference sets of
concerns:
 so, it concerns around things that seems like they were private
o that were be shown by the feminist movement to be incredibly important for
women's participation in the political and social realm
 so things like
o sex, contraception, abortion
o this famous slogan of the second wave feminist movements “the personal is
political”
  this idea that things happen in the private life matter more broadly.

so secund wave feminism

 feminist wanted to make this distinguish between sex and gender,

 they wanted to say these things are separate and we should keep them separate, we should
try workout this distinction between them, we should keep them on two sides of our
understanding,
o so Secondly wave feminism:
 wanted to emphasise that sex in the biological “fact” and fact in a vertical
comma, because we are coming back to that and question that idea, but the
second wave feminism sex is a biological “fact”
 whereas gender was this kind of social construction that was sort of layered
on top of this biological distinction
 so sex they said is binary, sex is male or female. but then gender are
all these ideas we have about masculinity or femininity but just get
put on top this biological distinction, so they said that sex is natural,
and gender is cultural, it is social, it is created
 they said if you want to understand sex then you could look at biology
 but if you want to understand gender then had to look at Society.

Second-wave feminism and the sex/gender distinction

 Gender is “simply a social category imposed on a sexed body.” (Joan Scott, quoted in David
Glover and Cora Kaplan, p.xxiii.)
 “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” (Simone Beauvoir, 249, p.283.)

 Simone Beauvoir argues that gender is a kind of hierarchy:

o it is a way of oppressing women
 so male is always better due to masculinity they argued, in the way the
society understands those terms.
 so, they said that sex might be natural, but gender is cultural and
therefore is something that we can change or alter
  and they said we must change or alter it because it's away oppressing
women.

gender in that sense is the social and cultural ideas which cannot be associated with each sex.

 this idea was important for secund wave feminist

o and they used it to the campaign for women wrights by saying that gender is a
social construct and therefore we don't need to have this link between these ideas of
femininity and the biological distinction between male and female
o they said people keep trying to make it seem and this is in theory “female
characteristics” are based on biology
 so they said actually, that's wrong there's no reason to think female biology
with qualities like passivity and gentleness or lack of competitiveness, they
said those things are social constructs that have no inevitable link to biology.
o There are two quotations which articulate idea, famously from Simone Beauvoir
 “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” (Simone Beauvoir, 1949,
p.283)
 What that means is:
o that that woman is nothing to do with the biological
characteristics with which a person is born, woman in a
cultural identity that develops in Society and Joan Scott said
that Gender is:
 “simply a social category imposed on a sexed body.”
(Joan Scott, quoted in David Glover and Cora Kaplan,
p.xxiii)
 . so, there is sex and there is gender,
 so, they made this distinction

Reading and sources:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Masculine Literature,” Norton US vol II, pp. 593-594.

David Glover and Cora Kaplan, “Introduction: Gendered Histories, Gendered Contexts”
GIRES, “Terminology”

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier.
Vintage Books, 2011 [1949].