and laws that restricted women’s activities or placed them in a position subservient to men were numbingly common throughout the world, which can make studying women’s or gender history often seem quite depressing. Along with individuals and groups that ignored or overcame these restrictions through their actions, however, there have also been many that developed ideas supporting greater gender egalitarianism or otherwise enhancing the situation of women; since the mid-nineteenth century, these ideas have slowly been translated into legal changes. Such ideashave generally been labeled “feminism,” a word developed first in French in the 1890s, though there are great disagreements about the limits, meaning, and implications of this word. Some advocates of women’s rights have used and continue to use other words to describe themselves, such as “womanist” or “mujerista,” while others note that feminism should always be used in the plural to emphasize its diversity.
Individuals and groups have challenged or rejected gender hierarchies for centuries. In Europe, Christine be Pizan (1364–1430), a well-educated Italian woman, wrote The Book of the City of Ladies in 1402, the first extended defense of women by a female author. Because her work challenged misogyny and extolled the achievements of women, Christine is often termed the “first feminist,” but she was soon followed by others. The Venetian poet Modesta Pozzo (1555–1592), writing under the pen name Moderata Fonte (“moderate fountain”), produced The Merits of Women: Wherein Is Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men (first published 1600), the main point of which is captured in the title. In The Equality of Men and Women (1622), Marie le Jars de Gournay, the protégée of the French writer Michel de Montaigne and editor of his works, built on the arguments of Christine de Pizan to argue that the equality of men and women rested on divine law. In the seventeenth century, English women petitioned Parliament, arguing that they had an “equal interest with the men of this Nation” in the “good Laws of this Land.” In the late eighteenth century, women extended language about the rights of man that had been proclaimed in the American and French Revolutions to women. The English writer Mary Wollstonecraft asserted in 1792, “Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated.”[5]
Women in some Native American groups already had political rights and responsibilities in the eighteenth century that European women sought to gain. In North America, Cherokee governing councils included women, as did those of other tribes. Cherokee women were part of the diplomatic missions sent to negotiate with Europeans and after the American Revolution with Americans. They were surprised to see no women among the Euro-American negotiators, and occasionally asked about this, or admonished them: “Let your Women hear our Words.”[6]
Much early research within women’s history involved finding and celebrating “feminist foremothers.” The works of women such as Christine de Pizan and Mary Wollstonecraft were reissued and translated, and the writings of other feminists – most, though not all, of them women – were discovered and analyzed. These investigations generally focused first on white European or American women whose ideas led directly to the nineteenth-century women’s rights movements, but by the 1980s research into pioneering advocates of women had broadened to include Buddhist and Catholic nuns, female Native American tribal leaders, Quaker missionaries, Black schoolteachers, and many other types of individuals and groups. White European feminism was also increasingly recognized as diverse: nineteenth-century English (and American) feminists emphasized equality of individual rights, while continental Europeans emphasized the equally important responsibilities of women and men. Socialist feminists focused on working conditions and class inequalities, while middle-class feminists called for expanded education and financial independence.
In both the past and the present, feminists have often been involved with other movements advocating social change, such as abolitionism, anticolonialism, or the civil rights movement, and have developed very diverse ideas about the intersection among their various aims. (For more on modern women’s rights movements, and women’s actions in reform and revolutionary movements, see Chapter 8.) The variety within both historical and contemporary feminism makes it a difficult word to define to everyone’s satisfaction, with the ideas of some types of feminists regarded by others as not especially positive for women. Some ecofeminists, for example, view women as more caring and environmentally conscious because they have the possibility of motherhood, while others see such ideas as dangerously close to the old notion that “biology is destiny,” which has often been harmful to women. The diversity within feminism has allowed its opponents to highlight the ideas and activities of more flamboyant groups, such as those women who allegedly burned their bras at a Miss America competition, in their criticisms. (This story was, in fact, invented by a reporter, but it has had a very long life.) Such characterizations have led some who oppose gender inequity to reject the label feminist while still advocating women’s rights, a position expressed in the phrase “I’m not a feminist, but . . .”
Feminism has also continued to change. The 1990s brought “third-wave” feminism, a word coined by the American writer Rebecca Walker (1969–) to describe the feminism of her own generation, which incorporated new currents. As part of their emphasis on women’s power to shape their own lives and the culture around them, third-wave feminists have reclaimed derogatory words for women. Riot grrrl punk bands and grrlzines, important parts of third-wave feminism, supported women’s music, art, and sexual expression. The editors of Bitch magazine, which began publication in 1996, provided (and continue to provide) feminist analysis of pop culture. At the time, some feminists wondered whether “girl” and “bitch” were not best left unreclaimed, but 20 years later in the 2017 Women’s March over seven million women around the world donned pink “pussy” hats, the name taken from the resemblance of the top corners of the hats to cat ears, and in reference to recently-elected US president Donald Trump’s widely reported 2005 remarks that because he was a “star,” women would let him “grab’em by the pussy.” It was the largest single-day protest in the history of the United States and perhaps the world. Third-wave feminism has emphasized intersectionality and diversity, with calls to “decolonize feminism,” and increasing attention to the ideas and actions of African, Asian, Latin American, Caribbean, and Indigenous feminists, as well as those of nonwhite populations within North America, Australia, and Europe.
Some analysts see a fourth wave of activism starting in the 2010s, again with a wide variety of concerns: sexual harassment, gender violence, reproductive rights, workplace discrimination, rape culture. The #MeToo movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment, begun by activist Tarana Burke, has sought to empower women to come forward by demonstrating just how widespread the problem was; it spread internationally, prompting survivors to share their stories and in some cases leading to high-profile firings of abusive men or those who enabled a hostile work environment. In Latin America, highly visible movements emerged from Mexico to Argentina raising awareness about gender violence; spreading access to social media mobilized regionwide support for the anti-feminicidio campaign and protests such as the #NiUnaMenos women’s strikes and demonstrations (Figure 2.2). Much of this activism was intersectional, such as the March for Black Trans Lives in Brooklyn in June 2020, which drew 15,000 people, all wearing white, to protest violence and harassment of transgender people. Around the world, feminists now use digital and social media to organize, share ideas, and accomplish their aims (sometimes derisively termed “hashtag feminism”), but also protest the widespread misogyny of online culture.
Figure 2.2 #NiUnaMenos March in Lima, Peru, 2016.
This march in Lima, reportedly the largest protest in Peruvian history, was one of many demonstrations organized as part of #NiUnaMenos (not one less), a Latin American feminist campaign against gender-based violence. Wikimedia Commons. Source, Lorena Flores Agüero.
However they have chosen to label their ideas, and whatever wave they happen to be in, over the past century and a half many people have worked to transform ideals of greater gender equity into laws.
Mary Wollstonecraft,
Nancy Ward (Nanye’hi), “Speech to the U.S. Treaty Commissioners,” in Lisa L. Moore, Joanna Brooks, and Caroline Wigginton, eds.,
