First Wave Feminism (Ca. 1848–1960s)

Abstract

First wave feminism refers to the earliest period of feminist activism during the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century in the United States and Britain. First wave feminism focused primarily on abolitionism, on obtaining female suffrage, and on eradicating inequalities between men and women inscribed in the legal system, such as women's lack of access to education and to medical, legal, and most other professions from which they were excluded. First wave feminists also fought for women's financial independence and the right to own and control property, and for equal salary and equal privileges at work. Later on in the movement, women's reproductive freedom, such as legal access to contraception, became an important part of first wave feminism, which included the right for women to own and take responsibility for their bodies in order to free married women from the tyrannical enslavement of their “owners” (husbands).