Preview

Writings of the Third Wave-Gilley

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1493 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Writings of the Third Wave-Gilley
However, one need only look at the cover images to see what is wrong with Bellafante’s picture. McBeal, lest we forget, is not a real person.
For the popular media to decry young feminism based on popular media depictions of it is truly a postmodern example of pop culture eating itself.
These writers, while not following any unified stance, define themselves as the third wave, an appellation that serves to distinguish them from the first and second waves of feminism while simultaneously marking them as a continuation thereof.
The “waves” metaphor is used to denote continuity of movement containing swells and troughs rather than discrete, isolated periods of political involvement.
The theoretical underpinnings of the third wave, therefore, come from three widely divergent streams of thought that coexisted during this time.
Many third-wave writers talk about how their feminist mothers or fathers gave them the sense of entitlement that made them feel feminist struggle might no longer be necessary.
A second predominant message of the time was that feminism had gone too far and, in fact, was to blame for the exhaustion of women trying to do double duty as career women and wives and mothers. Media stereotypes of the hairy-legged, bra-burning, anti-male, strident feminist permeated the culture. This led to the phenomenon of “I’m not a feminist, but…” syndrome.
These three books claimed that contemporary feminism had devolved into what they called victim feminism, in which women derived all of their rhetorical power from claiming to be victims, particularly of sexual violence.
Wolf, along with Roiphe and Paglia, argued for power feminism, a worldview in which women are still being oppressed simply because we are allowing it to happen.
The third stone in the bedrock of third-wave feminism is that, contrary to being unnecessary or having gone too far, the movement had not gone far enough, limiting itself to the narrow interests of its white, liberal majority.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Third Wave Agenda Summary

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The edited volume Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism aims to answer the question, “What is the third wave?” in order to establish a theoretical framework to define third wave feminism (13). The editors Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake collected works from writers, who work as cultural critics, activists, and teachers, that combine research and theories with life stories. Thus, these works set out to address the core of this new feminism: the focus on individual identities. The book is divided into four sections that address a variety of issues in a third wave feminism context.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The editors Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon have done an incredible job establishing the roots and depth of the second-wave feminist movement. By collecting all the materials into one volume, which were once spread thin among private collections, university archives and out of print anthologies and journals the editors show a diverse movement. It has reminded me how far we have come for not to long ago that domestic violence against women was kept quite, that abortions were done in the shadows, pregnancy and childbirth were thought of as sicknesses, and girls had restricted chances to participate in sports and education defining what women¡¯s liberation embodied. Women¡¯s liberation was just that, setting women free from all these social and political restrictions on their lives. The ideal of the ¡°feminine mystic¡± only applies to a certain class of women, a stay at home mother who also is a sexy wife who pleases her husbands every need. This ideal left many women out, and unable to obtain. Even when this ideal was obtained, many were left unfulfilled. Women then were able to get together as a group to build a consciousness awakening, able to define what is missing in there lives and what needed to be changed. The women's liberation movement, which Dear Sisters discusses, described all that.…

    • 1189 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although The Feminine Mystique is often hailed as the harbinger text of third-wave feminism, Stephanie Coontz is quick in the opening lines of her A Strange Stirring to revoke the piece of its grandiose status, instead affectionately remembering it as a “brilliant artifact— and not a timeless classic.” Published in 2011, Coontz’s A Strange Stirring was written in the challenge of the previously held notion that the feminist movement of the 50s and 60s had come about due to a national “dissatisfaction in domestic life” resulting from the “personal inadequacy” woman had felt during the previous decades. Her challenge to ideas that founded the basis of Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique feed her writing as she takes an equally controversial stance to Friedan’s book, raising the question of the validity of Feminine Mystique and its impact on the feminist movement when the piece itself neglected to narrate the struggle of women outside the wealthy and white bubble that could afford to read Friedan's book.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Feminist were the ones to speak up when things were not right. These women willingly take a stand for their rights and beliefs. This essay was an attempt to activity speak about women emotionally, authority, and give reason. For many years women were bound to slavery of society. Often women were deprived of their inner self to respect the life that they were born to.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Within the third-wave feminism it seeks to challenge or escape what is assumed in the second wave's key definitions of femininity, which according to these feminists over-emphasize the experiences of upper middle-class white women. It can be seen within the post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to a large portion of the third wave's ideology. Third-wave feminists often focus on the "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's description as to what is, or isn’t, good for females. Many black feminists, sought to negotiate a space within the feminist through the consideration of race-related subjectivities. Third-wave feminism also contains internal debates between different feminists, as some believe that there are important differences between the sexes and then there are other feminists who believe that there are no differences between the sexes and they argue that gender roles are due to social and cultural…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    This book looks at the ever present controversial topic of women in ministry. Since the 1990’s and what has been called the “third wave of feminism,”1 men and women have been advocating gender equality in society.2 The theological implications of this have resulted with the question of whether or not limits should be placed on the leadership roles of women in the church. There are two primary views concerning this topic. First, there is the complementarian or traditionalist view which limits the role of women in leadership positions in the church. Second, there is the egalitarian view, characterized by a belief in the equality of all people, which believes that no limits should be placed on the role of women in leadership in the church. The title of this book is a misnomer; the main issue is not women in ministry, but women in leadership positions in the church hierarchy. There does not appear to be a middle ground in this on-going controversial subject, as shown by the four essays and the critical responses to them in this book.…

    • 2130 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    “According to Cheryl Torsney, feminist criticism is not a single method, but rather a patchwork or “a quilt” of different methods stitched together with common conviction.” (Lynn 235). Feminist criticism was developed in the late 1960’s and its main focus is women in literature. There are two major concerns when dealing with feminist criticism how women are written and how women have been written. (Lynn 235). Michael Meyer defines feminist criticism as “An approach to literature that seeks to correct or supplement what may be regarded as a predominantly male-dominated critical perspective with a feminist consciousness. Feminist criticism places literature in a social context and uses a broad range of disciplines, including history, sociology, psychology, and linguistics, to provide a perspective sensitive to feminist issues. Feminist theories also attempt to understand representation from a woman’s point of view and to explain women’s writing strategies as specific to their social conditions.(Meyer). I will be applying feminist criticism to the movie Revolutionary Road.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Third Wave Feminism

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Modern strands of second-wave feminism are often associated with identifying patriarchy as the overarching oppressor, and therefore calling for the destruction of patriarchal society and promoting female liberation from male oppression. Second-wave feminists believe that the actions that third-wave feminists believe are empowering or liberating are actually oppressive and this is because it harms women on both a micro and macro level. While third-wave feminists support and encourage the consumption of pornographic material second-wave feminists believe that it should be eradicated as a form of entertainment; even ‘feminist porn’ replicates heteropatriarchal ideas of female submission. Sheila Jeffreys stated that “the new feminist erotica looked a lot like the old antifeminist pornography: it eroticized dominance and submission” showing that even ‘feminist porn’ mimics the patriarchal stereotypes seen in traditional porn and society as a whole. This type of sexual activity is not empowering or liberating for women, and by partaking in these sexual acts women are perpetuating the idea that they are naturally subordinate or submissive. Not only does pornography replicate gender stereotypes in…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women were told by the media to be submissive, passive, beautiful, happy, and weak. Television, magazines, and movies either portrayed women as the beautiful damsel in distress who needed rescuing or the gorgeous sexual object of which males take advantage. The message was clear and was going out to women of all ages.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Burke, Sally. “The Second Wave: A Multiplicity of Concerns.” American Feminist Playwrights: A Critical History (1996): 139-190. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.…

    • 3312 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Feminism: a topic of discussion in many homes and classrooms, which asserts the utmost attention amongst its listeners. A crazy ideal that believes women hold fundamental rights among men, and deserve the same treatment, the same opportunities. Feminism has grown since its conception in the early 20th century, and has catapulted upward in a grand and illustrious fashion, clinging to the souls of women who will no longer be oppressed by an abusive patriarchy. However, in this decade, feminism has become the topic of crude humor, has been made the punchline of jokes directed toward women. Feminism has become merely a way to generalize women as “crazy, hormonal monsters” who should never have a say in democracy because their “time of…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thus, in an attempt to further promote equal opportunity between men and women, a second wave of feminism emerged between 1968 and the 1980’s, which can be best characterized by women’s refusal to acclimate to society’s rigid belief of what an ideal woman should be or act like (Mancia, Class, 12/2). This problem is perfectly illustrated in the Feminine Mystique, written by Betty Friedan, in which Friedan discussed the unhappiness of many young women in the 1950’s and early 1960’s despite many of them being married and having children, living the life a woman is “supposed” to have. Furthermore, Friedan complained of young women who were being taught that “truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights” (Friedan, p. 271). Instead, they were being taught that it was a woman’s “job” to essentially be a housewife (i.e. stay home, clean the house, make food for her family, take care of the kids, etc...) (Friedan, p. 273). However, Friedan largely opposed this view and believed that it embodied the false prototypical stereotype about women. Rather, Friedan believed that a truly feminine woman would do just the exact opposite and does aim for a career, higher education, and political rights in the same way that a man would (Mancia, Class,…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Legally Blonde Analysis

    • 1837 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Gilles, S. and Munford, R. (2003) Harvesting our Strengths: Third Wave Feminism and Women’s Studies, Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 4.…

    • 1837 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    5 Schwamberger, M. (2008, January 2). Women 's and Gender Studies Blog. Retrieved January 21, 2015, from http://feminism-gender.blogspot.ca/2008/01/radical-feminism.html…

    • 1565 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second wave of feminism directly followed the first wave. It occurred during the mid-1920s up until the 1990s and was focused on challenging and expanding biologically gendered assumptions, such as women's' traditional societal roles and their sexuality. As a result, sexuality and violence against women became major areas of concern. The traditional role of woman as sexual objects renders them susceptible to non-consensual sexual activity, such as rape. Margaret Atwood’s short story “Rape Fantasies” demonstrates the misconceptions concerning rape. The story is narrated by Estelle, who discusses her coworker’s lunch stories of their ‘rape fantasies’ to a man at a bar. She adds humour to the fantasies in an attempt to disguise her discomfort…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics