SOC 0851 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Equal Rights Amendment, Abeyance, Radical Feminism
25 May 2018
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Various versions of feminism are just one manifestation of a
long, global history of questioning the gender status quo and
advocating the rights of women
Feminism assumes certain models of what it means to be a
woman, what the goals of women should be relative to their
status, and how to go about achieving those goals
Feminist model is a product of Anglo-European thought
o Waves if Feminism
First Wave of Feminist Movement
• Coincided with suffrage movements in both Europe and
the US
• The first phase in the women’s movement in the Anglo-
European world is specific to the historical context of
existing democracies in which male citizens had long ago
achieved the right to vote
• Voting rights, sexual freedom, expanding roles of
middle-class women in the workplace
• Gained the right to vote for women in 1920 in the US
• Social movement abeyance – a way to keep the basic
ideas of a movement alive during a period of decreased
activism often as a result of increased resistance and
hostility to the movement or to a shift in the
opportunities that make movements more or less
successful
o Period between first and second movement was
social movement abeyance
o Focus on creating alternative cultures to survive
rather than on directly confronting dominant
institutions
o Keep core ideas of the movement alive and to
maintain a small group of activists who can carry
the movement into its next phase
Second Wave of Feminist Movement
