WOMEN AND FEMINIST ACTION
Today, Maxine Molyneux, Professor of Sociology at the Institute of the Americas, University College London, presents global feminism as constituting four distinct waves of action. She has participated in several of these.
IN THIS LESSON
Our learning objectives today are:
To understand what the focus of feminist action has been through history.
To locate feminist demands for education, social and sexual justice, and equal rights through the last three centuries.
To date the various discussions about women’s place in society and gender equality.
KEY POINTS
I leave you today with the key learning points to focus on in her talk.
The first historic wave of feminism through to the early part of the 20th century forefronted demands for the right to education and to vote.
From the 1970s, the second wave demanded cultural as well as structural change. For example, campaigning for the law to recognize and penalize violence against women in the home as well as out of it.
The third wave saw women entering into government, justice systems, and institutions and propelling change towards equal rights on grounds of gender and race from the inside.
The fourth wave. Since 2010, there has been an explosion of youth protest across the globe, which includes black, LGBT and environmental struggles. All call for an end to violence against women whatever their colour and insist on gender parity.
Feminism has focused on three points of action: social justice (which includes campaigns against misogyny and sexism); equal rights and political representation
