LibGuides: Feminism: Women's Movement

Waves of Feminism

In the United States and the United Kingdom the feminist movement is often described as developing in "waves" of activism.

The "First Wave" of feminism is usually considered to be the activism of women during the mid-nineteen and early twentieth centuries who sought the right to vote ("Suffragettes"), as well as seeking access to higher education, property rights for married women, birth control, and equitable marriage laws.
The "Second Wave" of feminism is generally seen as the "women's rights movement" of the 1960s and 1970s. It was strongly influenced by the civil rights movement.
The "Third Wave" of feminism, beginning in the 1990's, saw the rise of "intersectionality" as a core concept - the idea that women experience "layers of oppression" caused by gender, race and class which overlap one another.

The sub-pages on each of these three waves contain numerous resources that look at the goals, achievements, and people most involved in each of them. Keep in mind, however, that there is considerable overlap between waves, both in goals and in the people working to reach them. The links below are general resources that span and bridge all three periods, and extend up to the present.

19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.D. In this series, Brookings scholars and other subject-area experts analyze how gender equality has evolved since the amendment’s passage and the forces that have kept the United States from reaching true equality. They examine gender parity through a local, national, and global lens and propose policy recommendations to put an end to gender-based discrimination.