The abolition of the slave trade raised this issue again, but it was not until the 1870s that suffrage meetings were held in Britain. The first ‘wave’ of the movement began in the early nineteen hundreds and was focused on obtaining the vote. The militant suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst, endured ten prison hunger strikes in eighteen months. In 1913, one of her colleagues, Emily Davidson, threw herself in front of the King’s racehorse and was killed. In 1917, Mrs Pankhurst agitated for the right to work in the First World War and formed the Women’s Party, which advocated ‘equal pay for equal work, equal marriage and divorce and the same rights over children.’ British women over thirty gained the vote in 1918 and the full vote in 1928.
The second wave of the Feminist Movement, from the 1960s to the 1980s, dealt with official and everyday inequalities. Betty Friedan is credited with starting off this part of the movement with her book, The Feminine Mystique, 1963. In referring to society’s attitude to women, she is quoted as calling it a ‘problem that has no name – which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities – is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.’ Germaine Greer added to this debate in 1970 with The Female Eunuch and in 1984 with The Politics of Female Fertility. Simon de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, which ‘delves deep into the history of women’s oppression’ (Wikipedia) and Kate Miller’s Sexual Politics have also added to the development of the movement. Some feminists view the early roots of feminism as ‘ahistoric’, while others see them as ‘a self-conscious and systematic ideology beginning in the late eighteenth century.’ (Wikipedia)
The third wave of the Feminist Movement, from the 1990s onwards, is addressing those issues not previously answered. Its influence was felt in various countries. In Japan, for example, the Kawaii Culture, or culture of cuteness, which was particularly applied to female products, slowed when faced with the third wave of feminism. The Paddington Bear Credit cards were no longer popular and designers realised women were not satisfied with being treated as large children. Amongst other issues, modern feminist activists work towards the autonomy of women in reproductive terms and sexual relationships, freedom from domestic violence, equal treatment in the work place and an end to social domination that causes women to follow stereotypes and transfer them to the next generation. Some of their aims have been partially achieved and others not, according to national culture and other factors.
