Identities Case

* Movements and Frameworks

In the 20th century, there were at least three identifiable mass women's movements, or "waves." First wave feminism grew from women activists' involvement in nineteenth century movements such as the anti-slavery movement. They also work for things like gaining legal rights for women, such as the right to vote. In 1840 Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton began paving the way for feminist today. They first met at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Where they both were so passionately opposed to slavery and were stunned to know that women delegates could not speak at the convention. (Kirk, ) In 1848 they called together the first conference to address Women's rights and issues in Seneca Falls, New York.

The rise of feminism in the mid- to late 1960s, especially the locally organized, community-based forms of women's liberation, was based in part on young women's recognition of sexism within the movement, made up of male. This is known as the second wave. Doing this period of time there were a Black feminist group started in Boston. They were known as the Combahee River Collective. They are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement, a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity as used among political organizers and social theorists. These women have been meeting since 1974, with the general statement of, "we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual and class oppression" (Wallace, 1975). These women believe that Black women are inherently valuable, that their liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because of their own need as human persons for autonomy and expressed a particularly commitment to working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression.( Wallace, 1975) Some of the concerns these women take on are any situation that impinges upon the lives of women, Third World and working people, sterilization abuse, abortion rights, battered women, rape and health care. But one major concern of theirs is racism in the white women's movement.

The third wave was said to describe contemporary versions of feminisms that evolved from the early 1980s to the present. Some have associated this term with young feminists who were influenced by the legacies of feminism's second wave, which began in the mid-1960s. The category of feminism's third wave is a multiplicity of movements, philosophies and practices. Initially the term "third wave feminisms" characterized a feminism mediated by the terrains of race and multicultural alliances, rather than age. Often it "talked back to" and challenged dominant and exclusionary forms of white feminisms, while incorporating dimensions of "consciousness raising" in powerful narrative and autobiographical style. (Overton, 2013) This concept has been central to describing a new generation of critical insurgent feminists, primarily women of color with multiple ethnicities, cultural and class experiences whom, in the early 1990s, began to describe their work as third wave. Many of these younger feminists had grown up during or after the 60s and 70s era of social movements and consequently had the advantages of either formal or informal feminist education. (Overton, 2013) For example, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (2000), were both born in 1970 and raised by second wavers who had belonged to organized feminist groups, questioned the sexual division of labour in their households, and raised their daughters to be self-aware, empowered, articulate, high-achieving women. (Walker, 2009)

* Theories and Theorizing

In this course a theory is a Conceptualization