LibGuides: Women's Studies in Credo: Third Wave Feminism

About the Third Wave

Third Wave Feminism From Feminist Philosophies A-Z

Heavily influenced by postmodern feminism and Third World feminism as well as strategically and critically employing the methodologies of a number of different types of feminism, third wave feminism embraces the contradictions that are generated by taking a pluralistic approach to the critical analysis of western culture, oppression, masculinity, femininity, class, race and colonialism.

Issues of the Third Wave

#MeToo Movement
From Opinions throughout History: Gender: Roles & Rights
This chapter discusses the #MeToo movement, a social media activist campaign that calls attention to sexual abuse and sexual harassment in the workplace. It has resulted in a series of accusations against high profile politicians and members of the popular media in 2017 and 2018.
Beauty Ideals and Standards
From The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality
The saying that “beauty is only skin deep” suggests that there is a certain triviality to physical attractiveness, and that appearance alone should not impact the way others view or treat people.
Dyke Manifesto
From The Literature of Propaganda
Written by the activist group Lesbian Avengers, the Dyke Manifesto (1992) disseminates the Avengers' mission and agenda—in short, to demand social and legal equality for lesbians.
Girl Power
From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
The social and economic power of young women as individuals in their own right, rather than as sexual stereotypes.
The Intersection of Race and Gender
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Rather than assuming that all women were similarly oppressed, women of color took issue with unitary theories of gender and addressed the differences among women's experiences.
Pornography
From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
In 1985, Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon proposed an ordinance that defined pornography as sex discrimination and an infringement on women's civil rights.
Reproductive Rights
From From Suffrage to Senate: America's Political Women
Reproductive rights are based upon the premise that human dignity and equality grant each person the right and the responsibility to make reproductive decisions for herself or himself. Information about human sexuality and reproduction is fundamental to making those decisions, as is access to the services necessary to act upon the decisions.
Riot Grrls
From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
A loose-knit grouping of feminist Punks formed in Washington, D.C., in the early 1990s. Their rallying cry was 'Revolution Girl Style Now!' and a chief aim was to combat the male dominance of the punk scene.
Take Back the Night
From Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements
An annual nighttime candlelit rally held in cities around the globe to symbolize the need for women's safety and freedom from violence.

Leaders and Activists of the Third Wave

Eve Ensler
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
US playwright. She achieved international success with her book and play The Vagina Monologues (1996), based on interviews with more than 200 women about their sexual experiences. After the success of the play, which won a 1997 Obie Award, Ensler initiated V-Day, an international effort to stop violence against women.
Guerrilla Girls
From Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics
The Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous women who use pseudonyms (names of women artists), gorilla costumes/masks, and vibrant pop art to reinvent feminism in the arts.
Judith Butler (1956- ): Topic
From The Women's Movement Today
Judith Butler’s (1956–) significant contributions to feminist theory are her engagement with the Foucauldian account of the body as the inscribed surface of regulatory discourses, an elaboration of gender as the performative stabilization of sexual difference, and considerations of the exclusion inevitable to any identity category.
Naomi Wolf (1962- )
From Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
Feminist author Naomi Wolf is known for her best-selling first book, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (1991), regarded as one of the central texts of third-wave feminism.
Pussy Riot
From Chambers Dictionary of Great Quotations
Russian feminist punk rock group. In 2012, after voicing opposition to the government of Vladimir Putin in a concert in Moscow, three members of the band were arrested and imprisoned on charges of hooliganism, leading to international protests.
Sheryl Sandberg
In 50 Classics Series: 50 Business Classics
What struck Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, as she rose up through corporate ranks, is that the female work revolution still has a long way to go. In historical terms, equality in the workplace is a pretty recent concept, but even so Sandberg wanted to explore the reasons why women have not reached the equality that her parent's generation expected to come about.