IV.

The Second Wave

The original impetus for the so-called second wave of feminism came from the civil rights movement and antiwar protests that emerged in the 1960s in North America and from social protest movements in Europe and Australasia. The women’s liberation movement, which started in the United States, combined liberal, rights-based concerns for equality between women and men with demands for a woman’s right to determine her own identity and sexuality. These two strands of ideology were represented in the seven demands of the movement, established between 1970 and 1978. These were equal pay; equal education and equal opportunities in work; financial and legal independence; free 24-hour day care for children; free contraception (see Birth Control) and abortion on demand; a woman’s right to define her own sexuality and an end to discrimination against lesbians (see Homosexuality); and freedom from violence and sexual coercion (see Domestic Violence; Family Violence; and Rape).

Central to second-wave feminism is the notion that the personal is political—that is, individual women do not suffer oppression in isolation but as the result of wider social and political systems. This ideology was greatly influenced by the writings of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and American feminist Kate Millett, who drew attention to ways in which women were oppressed by the very structure of Western society. In The Second Sex (1949) de Beauvoir argued that Western culture regarded men as normal and women as an aberration (“the Other”), and she called for the recognition of the special nature of women. Kate Millett, in Sexual Politics (1970), drew attention to the pervasiveness of patriarchy and to the ways in which it was reenforced through the family and culture, notably in literature. The recognition of the rampant nature of patriarchy fueled the feminist idea of universal sisterhood—that women of all cultures and backgrounds can be united within their common oppression.

Second-wave feminism emphasized the physical and psychological differences between women and men. Some feminists criticized traditional psychoanalysis, notably the work of Sigmund Freud, for assuming that all people are, or should be, like men. They became concerned with ways in which women’s perceptions were determined by the particular nature of the female body and by the female roles in reproduction and childbearing (see Pregnancy and Childbirth). In France, feminist theorists Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray explored ways of creating knowledge from the viewpoint of the female body, including the idea of écriture féminine (women’s writing) that will look at history from a female point of view. This strand of feminism, which became known as cultural or radical feminism, focused on differences between women and men that they believed make women superior to men, and it advocated female forms of culture. It was regarded as a step backwards by many people who were working toward reducing the reproductive emphasis in women’s lives. Its opponents criticized it for being “essentialist”—that is, for reducing women to bodies and for assuming that all women are the same. Arguments continue over determinist ideas that women are always bound to be caring and nurturing and that men are naturally aggressive.

A powerful strand of feminism is concerned with the ways in which men have controlled and subordinated women’s bodies. For example, American scholar Mary Daly argued in Gyn/Ecology (1979) that patriarchy coerced women into heterosexuality, using violence to suppress women’s powers and sexuality. Feminists have argued that sexual and domestic violence are not isolated incidents but are central to the subordination of women by patriarchy. Feminists, notably American Andrea Dworkin, wrote powerfully against pornography as a means by which patriarchy exploits women’s bodies and incites violence against women. In response to these threats, feminists asserted women’s legal rights to their own bodies, including the importance of the right to choose motherhood. They have also looked at ways in which women might use motherhood as a source of strength and as a way of influencing future generations, rather than as a means of reproducing patriarchy. In particular, some feminists have advocated different forms of parenting, as single mothers or within lesbian relationships.