Fourth-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began around 2012 and is characterized by a focus on the empowerment of women, the use of internet tools, and intersectionality. According to Rosemary Clark-Parsons, digital platforms have allowed feminist movements to become more connected and visible, allowing activists to reach a global audience and act on it in real time. The fourth wave seeks greater gender equality by focusing on gendered norms and the marginalization of women in society. These online tools open up the doors for empowerment for all women by giving opportunities for diverse voices, particularly those from marginalized communities to contribute to a wide range of people pushing for a more inclusive movement.
Fourth-wave feminism focuses on sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual violence, the objectification of women, and sexism in the workplace. Internet activism is a key feature of the fourth wave, used to amplify awareness of these issues. Fourth-wave feminism broadens its focus to other groups, including the LGBTQ+ community and people of color, and advocates for their increased societal participation and power. It also advocates for equal incomes regardless of sex and challenges traditional gender roles for men and women, which it believes are oppressive. The movement further argues against sexual assault, objectification, harassment, and gender-based violence.
Some have identified the movement as a reaction to post-feminism, which argues that women and men have already reached equality. It also brought back some second-wave feminism ideas into discourse, with Martha Rampton writing that the movement criticises "sexual abuse, rape, violence against women, unequal pay, slut-shaming, the pressure on women to conform to a single and unrealistic body-type", and advocates for "gains in female representation in politics and business".
History and definition
Some feminists argue that in the 1980s conservative figures like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan challenged gains feminists had made up to that point. At the same time, feminists in North America, Latin America, and Europe had succeeded in some of their goals, including the creation of state-run institutions that explicitly promoted women's rights, or feminist involvement in government; however, these institutions also weakened feminist movements by letting the state take over implementation of feminist goals.
European and Latin American third-wave feminism began in the 1990s, as lipstick feminism and consumerist feminism started to come to an end and as feminist activists were rejecting queer theory espoused by American academics. Fourth-wave feminism developed slowly, globally via the media and the Internet. The wave emerged from a new generation of women who had largely not been informed about previous waves through their education at high school, institutions and university. Knowledge about feminism was gained informally and it developed a virtual academy where feminists learned that "the personal is political"; it did not emerge from structured feminist learning. Fourth-wave feminism, like other waves before it, in this period was not about the existence of a single ideology, entity, or collective. It was about drawing together in collective groups to work together towards a common goal of ending violence against women in order to free them for the options to take the paths they desire; it was about mutual commitment and support to other women.
The movement in Spain traces its roots to the murder of Ana Orantes; on 17 December 1997, she was burned to death by her husband in her house in Granada for speaking publicly on Canal Sur about how he abused her. Early fourth-wave Spanish feminism used television and newspapers as the primary social network. Orantes' death brought domestic violence against women to national attention, and resulted in RTVE changing its policies on how the station reported on gender-based violence. Similar conversations took place at other television networks and media organizations across the country. Jokes about domestic violence were no longer accepted on Spanish TV. Journalists from El Mundo, El País and infoLibre were among Spain's first participants in the fourth-wave, using their positions in the media to talk about a number of issues, mostly centered around sexist violence and its portrayal in the media. They later went on to talk about Spain's gender parity pay problems and promoted taking activism to virtual spaces.
The beginnings of this movement in this period took place in Latin America and Poland. Some of this global desire to act, particularly in a Polish context, came out of the World Conference on Women, 1995 in Beijing.
Social media had an amplifying effect as the fourth-wave feminist movement began to grow. Fourth-wave feminism began its peak in Spain, Argentina, Chile and Brazil in 2018 as a result of a number of different factors, with women mobilized on a large scale to take to the streets. Their mobilization also challenged for the first time, the legitimacy of Spain's judiciary, whereas in previous waves the focus had been more on political leadership and acts of the legislature. The wave in Spain would also face a major challenge, including the emergence of Vox, a far right political party who won seats in Andalusia. Vox was opposed to The Organic Law of Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender Violence and wanted to see it overturned. In Argentina, the peak would be around the abortion rights issue which saw thousands of women with green scarves take to the streets. Social media helped organize and connect these protests, allowing feminist movements to support each other across the world. It also gave opportunities for more voices to be heard, especially people from marginalized groups, and helped prove that gender inequality is linked to other issues like race, class, and sexuality.
In an Anglosphere feminist context, journalist Pythia Peay argued for the existence of a fourth wave as early as 2005, to focus on social justice and civil rights, and in 2011, Jennifer Baumgardner dated the start of the fourth wave to 2008. Twitter, the social network most popular with the 18-to-29 age group, was created in 2006, making feminism more accessible and giving rise to "hashtag feminism".
In 2013, Democratic Texas State Senator Wendy Davis staged a 13-hour filibuster in Texas, in an attempt to prevent an anti-abortion bill from passing. Other women showed support by rallying around the Texas State Capitol and those who were not physically present used the hashtag #StandWithWendy. Similarly, women protested the perceived sexist questions (for example, focusing on appearance or love life) often directed at female celebrities by tweeting the hashtag #askhermore.
Other feminist movements and "calls to action" have arisen from the fourth wave. One is the "HeForShe" campaign which originated from Emma Watson's viral UN Women speech in 2014 and her subsequent activism. Several other incidents have galvanized the movement, including the Delhi gang rape (India, 2012), Jimmy Savile allegations (UK, 2012), Bill Cosby sexual assault cases (US, 2014), Isla Vista killings (US, 2014), trial of Jian Ghomeshi (Canada, 2016), Harvey Weinstein allegations (US, 2017) and subsequent Me Too movement and Weinstein effect, the Westminster sexual scandals (worldwide and UK, 2017) and the La Manada gang rape case in Spain (2018).
Due to the simultaneous existence of multiple waves of feminism – namely the second, third and fourth – many scholars are questioning the use of the wave metaphor in feminism. However, it is still the terminology most commonly used and most easily understood by the public. As the fourth wave finds much of its definition in relation to the previous ones, it is important to understand what the other waves were.
Internationally, comparisons between waves can be difficult. Anglospheric first-wave feminism is second-wave for Europeans and Latin American feminists. Second-wave American and British feminism is also third-wave for Europeans and Latin Americans. Spanish feminism went through several waves in the Franco era.
Broadly speaking, there are first-wave feminism taking place from the mid-nineteenth century to 1965, second-wave feminism taking place from 1965 to 1975 and third-wave feminism taking place from 1975 to 2012. Fourth-wave feminism in Spain began in the mid-1990s. When resolving waves around the work of important Spanish-speaking feminists discussing wave theory like Amelia Valcárcel, the Spanish fourth-wave may at times actually represent an international fifth wave, not a fourth one.
Each feminist wave has a separate identity, although they get harder to distinguish and define clearly as time goes on, due to debate among activists and scholars. In an Anglospheric feminist context, the first wave was characterized by the suffragette movements and had the aim of legalizing women voting in public elections. In the same context, second wave is more difficult to comprehensively define, but is thought to have roots in the 1960s. Its focus shifted to social and personal rights, such as equal pay, choice over bodily issues, sexual liberation and resistance to the gendered double standard in society. There is much debate among Anglosphere academics and activists regarding the true definition of the third wave of feminism. It is most commonly understood as a push by younger generations to create a feminism more centered on inclusivity; privileging the plights of queer and non-white women in their messaging. American poet Natasha Sajé has written, "[It] is an amalgamation of many different streams of theorizing—including that of women of color and younger women disillusioned with what they perceive to make up the body of 'second wave' feminism—in intrinsically different formulations than the theorizing coming from anti-feminists".
Ideas
British journalist Kira Cochrane and British feminist scholar Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain describe the fourth wave as focusing on justice for women, particularly opposition to sexual harassment (including street harassment), violence against women, workplace discrimination and harassment, body shaming, sexist imagery in the media, online misogyny, campus sexual assault and assault on public transport and rape culture. They also say it supports intersectionality, social media activism and online petitioning. Its essence, Chamberlain writes, is "incredulity that certain attitudes can still exist". Events and organizations involved in fourth-wave feminism include Everyday Sexism Project, UK Feminista, Reclaim the Night, One Billion Rising and "a Lose the Lads' mags protest".
Books associated with the fourth wave include:
Cosslett and Baxter's book aims to debunk stereotypes of femininity promoted by mainstream women's press. Bates, a British feminist writer, created the Everyday Sexism Project on 16 April 2012 as an online forum where women could post their experiences of everyday harassment.
Third-wave feminists began introducing the concept of male privilege in their writings in the 1990s and fourth-wave feminists continue to discuss it in academia and on social media. American Peggy McIntosh was one of the first feminists to describe the phenomenon of privilege in 1988, calling it (in regards to white privilege) "an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks." Fourth-wave feminists have taken action to reduce and combat this "knapsack" by raising awareness of privileged and unprivileged groups. Alliance is greatly encouraged by these feminists, who believe that males and other privileged groups can still take action for social change within their communities.
London author Nikki van der Gaag discusses the damaging effects of raising young boys with privilege, citing the Consultative Group on Early Child Care and Development, "a tendency to privilege boys [...] does not teach boys responsibility, nor clarify what will be expected from them". Fourth-wave feminists have begun promoting solutions to avoid these issues, such as raising children as gender-neutral. Professor of Neuroscience at Chicago Medical School Lise Eliot points out that infants and growing children are so impressionable that any small differences in raising the child can lead to large personality differences over time, resulting in reinforced gender stereotypes.
Fourth-wave feminists have argued that reinforced gender stereotypes create pressure for men to be breadwinners, as opposed to women, who feel obligated to take on the role of homemakers. Feminists argue that these pressures to conform socially can cause gender discrimination in the workplace and more widely in society. According to Pew Research, a majority of women working in male-dominated workplaces believe that sexual harassment is a problem in their industry.