INTRODUCTION
What is feminism? It started as equal rights for women and then turned into giving women more rights and protections. As Christians, it’s important that we know what the Bible has to say about a topic before we engage in it and pick sides, yet most female Christians will accept the label of feminist without opening their Bibles. In today’s world, there is an increasing attack on women and their rights, but before we call out for the feminists to wake up, we need to take a moment and consult the Bible first. Once we’ve done that, we need to understand what it means to truly be a feminist and align that with what the Bible calls females to be. Only then can we choose to say, “I am both a Christian and a feminist.”
First off, it’s important to define the term “feminism.” According to the American Heritage Dictionary, feminism is defined as “belief in or advocacy of women’s social, political, and economic rights, especially with regard to equality of the sexes.”[@americanheritagerdictionaryoftheenglishlanguagefifthedition.Feminism] In theory, it sounds like a good thing to stand up for, but what exactly do they mean by women’s social, political, and economic rights?
There are three nationally recognized waves of feminism. The first wave occurred from 1848-1920, the second wave was from the 1960s-1970s, the third wave began in the 1990s, and the end between the fifth and the beginning of the fourth is difficult to pinpoint. There’s also the possibility of a fifth wave happening sometime soon.
FIRST WAVE
The first wave of feminism began in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized a convention for American woman’s rights. For nearly four decades, women fought to have the same basic rights as their male counterparts, mainly the ability to vote. Women like Miss Belle Sherwin, Beatrice Brown, and Harriot Stanton Blatch led suffragettes at conventions, picketing, and parades. Others like Miss Lucy Burns were imprisoned and brutally beaten for participating in pickets.[@pruittWhatAreFour2023] Hundreds of women fought for the right to vote and participate in national elections. Even black men could vote before women when the 15th Amendment was ratified (1870), an event that obviously angered quite a few women. It wasn’t until fifty years afterward in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed that women, specifically white women, were granted voting rights.
SECOND WAVE
After receiving their new rights to vote, some women started looking at what other rights men had over them and began to ask for equality in those areas too. It was during this wave that feminism drastically changed from focusing on giving equal rights between men and women to focusing on sex and work. And because of this massive shift from the original purpose of the feminist movement, the concept of the different “waves of feminism” was coined in the late 1960s. It all began in 1963 when Betty Friedan wrote a book chastising the restrictions placed on wives and mothers. Three years later, 3 million copies of The Feminine Mystique were sold, effectively launching a different kind of fight for women. Traditional gender roles and sexist discrimination were called out and heavily criticized.[@pruittWhatAreFour2023] It was during this time that Roe v. Wade (1973) and the Equal Pay Act (1972) were enacted. The Civil Rights Movement also fought for public attention as black women sought to escape marginalization and get their own rights.[@masterclassWavesFeminismWaves] This all came to an end in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected president. But the feminists didn’t rest for long this time.
THIRD WAVE
Moving on to the 1990s, the third wave of feminism finally began to address the racism and classism that the previous waves ignored. Black women officially joined the movement as powerful voices of intersectionality and inclusivity.[@masterclassWavesFeminismWaves] The catalyst struck in 1992 (“Year of the Women”) as Anita Hill, an African-American law professor, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee of her account of sexual harassment by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Rebecca Walker, daughter of second-wave leader Alice Walker, watched this event and declared that the time for third wave of feminism was now.[@pruittWhatAreFour2023]
FOURTH WAVE
The line between the third wave and the fourth wave is a bit fuzzy. Some, like @courtemancheFourthFifthWaves2019, say it was “the rise of girls’ fan culture on the internet in response to popular culture,” while others claim it’s simply a continuation of the third wave. Courtemanche continues her definition of the third wave by saying that it was less about abortion access and women voting as it was about inclusive popular culture. Marginalization against black Americans become the talk of the town again, and trans-rights became a thing. TheMeToo movement, started by Tarana Burke (2007), took off in 2017 when Harvey Weinstein, a popular film producer, was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017.[@masterclassWavesFeminismWaves]
FIFTH WAVE
Not everyone agrees that is a fifth wave, but @courtemancheFourthFifthWaves2019 argues that “The fifth wave looks more like the second wave, and so we recognize it as ‘feminism,’ whereas the fourth wave—which avoided the vocabulary of ‘opposition’ and ‘fighting’ in favor of identificatory feelings and personal stories—didn’t feel like a noticeable shift, even though it radically transformed the way women articulated their experiences.”[@courtemancheFourthFifthWaves2019] The Black Lives Matter movement was formed, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and “cancel culture” got a voice. If there is a fifth wave, we are living in it now. It does seem a bit like feminism has intertwined with cancel culture, critical race theory, and the LGBTQIA+ movement.
A SIXTH WAVE
There has been new talk about the rising “soft girl” era among some of the younger generation. Young women are rediscovering the true meaning of what a woman is, and they want to return to the traditional roles of a woman and a wife. They don’t want to be in the workplace doing what the men do, they want to be stay-at-home wives and raise kids. This fifth wave, if it even begins, will call for the traditional roles women had before second-wave feminism took place. But, as the Wilson brothers put it, the government has made it necessary for a dual-income family because you need a certain amount of money just to survive, and changing that is going to be difficult.[@wilsonbrothersReactionBrettCooper2023]
Conclusion
The feminist movement has had a large impact on society during the course of its existence. Most agrees that the first wave was fundamental and a good change for the country, but there are varying opinions on if the other waves were truly necessary. David Wilson claims that “The whole idea of feminism was to get women into the system to tax them”[@wilsonbrothersReactionBrettCooper2023] and it didn’t help as much as they thought it would. There are reports that women’s health took a hit during the 70s because they became victimized and felt wronged by the male population. Wilson’s brother Isaac stated it beautifully when he said, “if you’re a woman, and you go into a naturally very competitive marketplace that’s dominated by men for so many years, you have to be more masculine in order to compete. So that drive causes you to tap into that masculine energy, [and] there has to be consequences of that over time. It has to wear you down mentally, [and] emotionally.”[@wilsonbrothersReactionBrettCooper2023] Fornication rose, more children were born out of wedlock, and the number of men who abandoned their wives and children became a huge problem. Single-parent families became the new norm when the government started to offer incentives to single mothers based on the amount of children they had. As Michael Knowles said, “women had convinced themselves that they were empowered by sleeping with men.”[@thecommentssectionwithbrettcooperBrettReactsMichael2023] Back in March and April 2020, Pew Research Center surveyed 3,143 U.S. adults on their views regarding feminism. Their studies found that about 19% of women say that “feminist” describes them quite well, while 42% say it described them well. Women younger than 50, those with bachelor’s degrees or higher, and democrats are more likely to say that feminism has empowered them in some way.[@pewresearch]
Feminism likely won’t go away, it will continue to go through different phases and wear new and old masks, but the goal of enriching women’s social, political, and economic rights will always remain the same. Now, whether those rights are beneficial to women in the long run will be tested over time.