Third Wave Feminism

The term ‘third wave’ was first used by Rebecca Walker in her article, titled “Becoming the Third Wave” in the January 1992 issue of Ms Magazine.[1] In her article, Walker states that “to be a feminist is to integrate an ideology of equality and female empowerment into the very fiber of my life. It is to search for personal clarity in the midst of systemic destruction, to join in sisterhood with women when often we are divided, to understand power structures with the intention of challenging them.”[2] This quotation beautifully encapsulates the essence of third wave feminism and its departure from the second wave. Walker points to systems of power and the need to deconstruct these. In the same article she talks about her own experience as a racialized woman and the need for an intersectional understanding of these systems of power; feminism needs to understand how systemic inequalities based on gender, race, class, and ability interact with each other in order for it to be a movement that is genuinely fighting for equality.

The transition from the image of the second wave feminist to the newly emerging third wave was not easy and faced much criticism and resistance. The June 29, 1998 cover of TIME Magazine reads “Is Feminism Dead?”[3] One of the articles inside the issue is titled “Girl Power: For the next generation, feminism is being sold as glitz and image. But what do the girls really want?” and features a picture of the Spice Girls, whose widely-known motto was “girl power”.[4] What women at the time, many of whom were second wave feminists, now mothers to the third wave, struggled to understand was the major shift in understanding of the need for, and goals of, feminism. While second wave feminists generally fought for equality at the institutional level, the third wave attempted to look at how the deeply rooted patriarchal beliefs, which then permeated societal institutions, could be deconstructed. Rather than fighting for women to reach the status of men, they sought to find empowerment through recognizing and embracing difference. 

The video featured here is of Rebecca Walker explaining how she came to understand the need for a new kind of feminism and the importance of empowerment.

[1] Rebecca Walker, "Becoming the Third Wave," Ms. Magazine, January 1992. 

[2] Ibid.

[3] TIME, June 29, 1998, http://archive.is/Xua3#selection-1497.0-1505.4, accessed March 21, 2014.

[4] Photocopy of TIME Magazine Article, 1996, girlSpace, 2000, File: 2007-0007.01.25, QPIRG Fonds, McGill University Archives.