First Wave

Identifying yourself as a feminist isn’t as simple as you’d think. To some it’s worse than stating that you vote for the BNP. Often it’s followed by an exclamation regarding how ridiculous it is for a sensible girl to have such notions, or a diatribe against man-hating lesbians with hairy armpits. The media is full of articles that reduce women and girls to the roles of victim, whore or ball-breaker. The internet is a place that can demean, demoralise and brutalise a person for simply identifying as a women. Feminism is under attack, but it is also a resurgent movement that is gaining activists and supporters.

But the movement itself is a complex and sometimes divisive one. Rather than being a monolithic movement, it has ebbed and flowed for almost two centuries, with periods of prominence and notoriety, and periods of comparative quiet. It is a movement that has experienced different rates of success in different countries at different times. And like all movements it reflects the concerns of women the time so that, looking back, we can see just how far we have come and how far we have to go.

These (very) brief guides to feminism will introduce both you and I to the history, good and bad, of the movement to which we belong.

First up are the waves, and for obvious reasons, we start with the first.

This period covers the beginning of Feminism as a political movement in Europe and Northern America, rather than a literary or philosophical one. Figures like Catherine di Pizan in the 14^th Century, Aphra Benn and Sophia Elisbet Brenner in the 15^th Century, and Mary Wollenstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges in the 18^th century had published feminist literature and advocated woman’s rights, but political activism had not really taken root until the mid 19^th Century. It began with a focus on suffrage (the right to vote), and what are sometimes called legal disabilities, which means discrimination that is enshrined in law by either fact or omission e.g woman were not allowed to own property. Dedicated groups were established to focus efforts on changing the law.

The main platforms for these groups were enfranchisement, political representation, and worker’s rights. Success varied hugely with legislation often being piecemeal, especially in the US and Canada where the federal structure of government made sweeping legislation more difficult. But soon the movement began to chalk up small victories such as laws on property ownership, entrance to higher education institutions and employment rights for working women.

In the first decades of the twentieth century militant suffrage would come to dominate the headlines, causing outrage and inspiration in equal measure. In England the notorious Cat and Mouse Act, which allowed the authorities to release suffragettes made weak by hunger strikes only to re-arrest them once they recovered, was topped only by the horrors of force-feeding in prison cells. Emily Wilding Davies’ death at the feet of the King’s horse at Epsom in 1913 and acts of vandalism like the famous slashing of a painting of a female nude with a meat cleaver kept women’s rights in the public eye, not to mention Mary Leigh throwing a hatchet at PM Herbert Asquith. In 1913 militant suffragettes caused £54,000 worth of damage - equivalent to about £4 million today.

But it would be the devastating impact of the First World War that would help bring the First Wave of Feminism to its end. As a result of conscription and the length of wartime action, women took on the burden of work previously unavailable to them, taking their father’s, brother’s and husband’s places in offices, factories and fields. All of this helped to reorient (enough of) the political elite's attitude towards women’s rights and enfranchisement to see real and radical change implemented. Again this change would vary in its depth and scope, France for example would fall behind in allowing women full enfranchisement (they had to wait until 1944) but it would lead the way in allowing women to practise law.

The first wave of feminism saw the accomplishment of several significant legal steps towards equality, including the right to vote, gain a degree, and enter the workplace. A new generation of feminists would soon pick up the baton, seeking to address inequalities in the home, workplace and within our own cultural life.

A Quick Guide to Key Legislation

	Vote (Local) Restricted	Vote (National) Restricted	Vote (National) Full	Property/ Income	Political Office (National)
Britain	1894/1869	1918	1928	1882/1922	1918/ 1919
Canada	1884-1916	1918 (States)	By 1940		1919
Denmark	1906/ 1908		1915	1857
Finland	1863/ 1872		1906		1913
France				1907
Germany			1919
Netherlands			1919		1917
Norway			1913
Poland			1918
Russia			1917
Sweden	1862	1919	1921		1909
US	1869-1918	-	1920	1844-1895

Key figures

Britain - Emmeline Pankhurst, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Emily Wilding Davison, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Lydia Becker, Annie Besant, Emma Goldman.

America – Jane Addams, Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Rachel Foster Avery, Margaret Fuller.

Europe – Sophie Adlersparre, Jeanne-Elizabeth Schmahl, Gina Krog, Signe Bergman, Jane Brigode, Hubertine Auclert, Marianne Hainisch, Rosa Luxemburg, Katti Anker Møller, Louise Otto-Peters, Clara Zetkin.

Key Groups

French Union for Women’s Suffrage, Norwegian Association for Women’s Right, Swedish Society for Women’s Suffrage, Women’s Suffrage Union (Netherlands), Woman’s Social and Political Union (Britain), National Union of Woman’s Suffrage Societies (Britain), National Woman Suffrage Association (US), American Woman Suffrage Association (US).

Key literature

Mary Wollenstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Women

Olympe de Gouges Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen

Marie Stopes Married Love

Virginia Woolf A Room of One’s Own

Margaret Fuller Women in the Nineteenth Century

LMC