The third wave of feminism rose during the last two decades of the 20th century to oppose the second wave of feminism. The second wave was built on essentialism and identity theories which assumed that all women have characters that are similar due to their biological make-up. From the perspectives of the third wave feminism, essentialism and identity are conformations that should not be embraced. Women, although biologically similar, have different problems that arise from their racial, class, and ethnic orientation. The feminists believe that the issues affecting women have to be dealt with from all perspectives and their differences sorted in order to empower the woman. The third wave feminism is broad and their schools of thought have been categorized into three specific sections namely black, post-structural, and post-colonial feminism. The three schools of thought view the women across the world as different and that their problems cannot be generalized into the universal male-female inadequacies.
Black Feminism
The non-white women had a different view of feminism and how it should be shaped to empower them. They were opposed to essentialist feminism which overlooked the differences amongst the women (Mann, & Huffman, 2005). The women of color and ethnicity identified a loophole in the representation of their issues because of their ethnicity, age, class, and sexual preferences. The second wave of feminism had assumed that all women face similar problems of oppression in a male-dominated world. The black feminists also considered the second wave of feminism as inadequate because it failed to address the issue of multiple oppressions (Mann, & Huffman, 2005). Additionally, black feminism also highlighted the need for equality among the women groups. There is no way women could achieve a high status in the society yet there was discrimination amongst them.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The black feminism theory focuses on the fact that oppression is not a singular process from outside forces alone. It acknowledges the fact that oppression is a result of multiple systems that within and without the gender factions (Carastathis, 2014). The differences amongst the women made some women more vulnerable to oppression than others. White women have always failed to consider the intersectionality of race, class, and gender in their quest for empowerment. These are important omissions that make women of different ethnicities feel left out and thus the necessity for exploring diversity and inclusiveness (Carastathis, 2014). Black feminists have come up with the theory because of the need to address the invisibility of the racial oppression when addressing gender issues. Women that have experienced both gender and racial oppression understand that the two are different and cannot be grouped together as one problem.
Post-Structural/Postmodern Feminism
According to Ratliff (2006), postmodern feminism is the consideration of gender as a discursive construction and performance and not a biological construct. This form of feminism regards gender as a mobile discourse that changes with experience and interaction and not a static determination made at a person's birth (Mann, & Huffman, 2005). Postmodern feminists believe that feminism includes the contribution of language and social norms to a person's identity. Basically, the identity of a woman is not just best on their biological categorization but how they can determine their destiny and work with their male counterparts. Ratliff (2006) states that a person's gender can be transformed through medical interventions and thus their biological orientation should not be the main means of categorization. Postmodernisms disputes the thoughts that gender exists in essential hierarchical dualism such as male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, among others (Mann, & Huffman, 2005). Postmodern feminists view gender as transformative and based on one's acquisition of language and performance abilities.
Postmodern feminism is about allowing the women to freely explore and identify with the genders of their choice and not the female categorization of the society (Mann, & Huffman, 2005; McCormick, 2014). It relies on the fact that women can play male roles and vice versa and still satisfy their feelings. A woman understands the self and can gain universal knowledge and experiences to become a feminist. There is also no single way of becoming a feminist as one can develop interests from the racial, class, gender, and economic point of view. Further, postmodernism gives a person the freedom and autonomy to do what they want and lead a life of their choice (McCormick, 2014). Postmodern feminism is no longer interested in physical power to the woman though positions. It is concerned with the intellectual development and freedom to help a woman love freely and choose where to belong.
Post-Colonial Feminism
Post-colonial feminism is a form of feminism where feminists dispute the assumption that the problems of a woman are universal. It originated from countries in Asia, Africa, and South America in response to a discourse imposed on all women by the Euro-American feminists (Tyagi, 2014). Post-colonial feminism seeks to address the fact that women from different cultures face different problems. The solutions to the problems cannot be universal because the women subscribe to other social norms that determine their way of life ((Mann, & Huffman, 2005; Tyagi, 2014). Identity feminism puts the women into essentialism of sisterhood. Those from the third world are seen as oppressed, vulnerable, and less fortunate because of the politics, religion, and culture of the area in question. These imperialist ideals have led to the development of the postcolonial feminism. It seeks to decentralize feminism and make it more specific to the different locations.
The problems that affect a woman in Europe and the United States are not necessarily similar to those that affect the women in Africa or Asia (Tyagi, 2014). These differences cannot be blindly generalized into feminist problems that have been constructed by Europeans and Americans. The white women did not face the same problems as the black women in the post-slavery United States. Whereas white women were concerned with equality with the men, the African and Asian woman still struggled with problems such as rape and extreme social injustices.
Conclusion
The different schools of thought of third wave feminism base their arguments on the fact that women are different. black, post-structural, and post-colonial feminism requires an extensive and open-minded approach to address the issues that affect the woman in the society today. All the three schools of thought argue that women are different and that feminism should not assume the universality of gender and women oppression as the main problem. Black feminism disputes the essentialism and identity discourses of feminism in that they faced other social, economic, and psychological oppression that the whites did not experience. They want feminism to include such differences and address intra-movement problems and not just the lesser representation of the women in the society. On their part, the postmodern feminists have a view that women are different and that gender is a mobile and changing aspect that can change with technological processes and a person's viewpoint. Postmodern feminists ask the women to stop looking at themselves from the biological points of view and empower themselves intellectually so as to choose what they want since they are different. It considers the gender identities such as transgender and bisexual that a woman can willingly join with the acquisition of knowledge and experience. Finally, postcolonial feminism aims to address the different problems that women in different continent experience. It disputes the universal generalization of women's problems into those faced by the American and European women. Each of the three schools of thought considers the difference in women but from different perspectives.
References
Carastathis, A. (2014). The concept of intersectionality in feminist theory. Philosophy Compass, 9 (5), 304-314.
Mann, S. A., & Huffman, D. J. (2005). The decentering of second wave feminism and the rise of the third wave. Science & Society, 69 (1: Special issue), 56-91.
McCormick, R. W. (2014). Politics of the self: feminism and the postmodern in West German literature and film . Princeton University Press.
Ratliff, C. (2006). Postmodern Feminism. In Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology (Illustrated ed., pp. 1018-1023). Alberta: Idea Group Inc. Print
Tyagi, R. (2014). Understanding postcolonial feminism in relation with postcolonial and feminist theories. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 1 (2), 45-50.
