Feminism is defined as the belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities. It arose from the understanding that historically, women have been unable to fully participate in social institutions and have often been treated differently than men. Feminism aims to remedy this situation by eliminating old assumptions about gender roles. There have been three major waves of feminism. The first wave in the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women's suffrage and legal rights. The second wave from the 1960s-90s took on issues like reproductive rights and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. The third wave since the 1990s challenges concepts like universal womanhood and promotes defining femininity on women's own terms.

2. Abad Agha

3. FEMINISM
 The belief that women and men are, and have been, treated differently by our
society, and that women have frequently and systematically been unable to
participate fully in all social arenas and institutions.
 A desire to change that situation.
 That this gives a "new" point-of-view on society, when eliminating old
assumptions about why things are the way they are, and looking at it from the
perspective that women are not inferior and men are not "the norm."

4. • “I myself have never been able to figure out precisely what feminism is: I only
know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that
differentiate me from a doormat”.
Rebecca West

5. EVOLUTION OF FEMINISM

6.  Women began fighting for equal rights centuries ago. In the early 1600s, French
women began holding salons where educated women could interact equally with
men. Women's rights movements were also influenced by the Revolutionary War
and the French Revolution in the late 1700s. Then, in the 1800s, women began
fighting harder to attain equal rights.
 According to Joan Kelly, author of "Women, History and Theory," the word
"feminism" only came to the United States from France in 1910. Suffragettes
fought for the right to vote, but feminism also includes issues like legal rights and
financial independence. The feminist movement splintered off from suffrage-
oriented groups after U.S. women were granted the right to vote under the 19th
Amendment in 1920.
 The Women's Liberation Movement, popular in the 1960s and '70s, came about
when more women began entering colleges and the workforce after World War II.
They wanted to revolutionize the way women lived in terms of education,
employment, domesticity and sexuality. Prominent feminists like Betty Friedan
formed the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. This group was
made up predominantly of older, white, college-educated women. The first
national feminist conference took place two years later. At the same time,
energized by anti-Vietnam War movements and the Civil Rights Movement,
younger and more radical feminists started a more loosely organized group called
Red stockings, which "Daring to be Bad" author Alice Echols says demonstrated
more militantly and more publicly than NOW.

7. WAVES OF FEMINISM
Following are the three waves of Feminism.
First Wave:
 The first wave of feminism took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
emerging out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics.
The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on
suffrage. The wave formally began at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when 300
men and women rallied to the cause of equality for women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(d.1902) drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration outlining the new movement's ideology
and political strategies.
 In its early stages, feminism was interrelated with the temperance and abolitionist
movements, and gave voice to now-famous activists like the African-American
Sojourner Truth (d. 1883), who demanded: "Ain't I a woman?" Victorian America
saw women acting in very "un-ladylike" ways (public speaking, demonstrating, stints
in jail), which challenged the "cult of domesticity." Discussions about the vote and
women's participation in politics led to an examination of the differences between
men and women as they were then viewed. Some claimed that women were morally
superior to men, and so their presence in the civic sphere would improve public
behavior and the political process.

8. First Wave

9. Second Wave:
 The second wave began in the 1960s and continued into the 90's. This wave
unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the
growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world. The
New Left was on the rise, and the voice of the second wave was increasingly
radical. In this phase, sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and
much of the movement's energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights
Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex.
 This wave began with protests against the Miss America pageant(ceremony) in
Atlantic City in 1968 and 1969. Feminists parodied what they held to be a
degrading "cattle parade" that reduced women to objects of beauty dominated by
a patriarchy that sought to keep them in the home or in dull, low-paying jobs.
The radical New York group called the Red stockings staged a counter pageant in
which they crowned a sheep as Miss America and threw "oppressive" feminine
artifacts such as bras, girdles, high-heels, makeup and false eyelashes into the
trashcan.

10. Second Wave

11. Third wave
 The third phase of feminism began in the mid-90's and is informed by post-
colonial and post-modern thinking. In this phase many constructs have been
destabilized, including the concept of "universal womanhood," body, gender, and
sexuality. An aspect of third phase feminism that mystifies the mothers of the
earlier feminist movement is the readoption by young feminists of the very lip-
stick, high-heals, and cleavage proudly exposed by low cut necklines that the first
two phases of the movement identified with male oppression. Pinkfloor expressed
this new position when she said; "It's possible to have a push-up bra and a brain
at the same time.“
 The "girls" of the third wave have stepped onto the stage as strong and
empowered, eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for
themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy. They have developed
a rhetoric of mimicry, which reappropriates derogatory terms like "slut" and
"bitch" in order to downfall sexist culture. The web is an important aspect of the
new "girlie feminism." E-zines have provided "cybergirls" and "netgirls" another
kind of women-only space. At the same time — rife with the irony of third-wave
feminism because cyberspace is disembodied — it permits all users the
opportunity to cross gender boundaries and so the very notion of gender has been
become more problematic.

12. Third Wave

13. STEREOTYPED GENDERED ROLES
Femininity Masculinity
Caring Tough
Nurturing Providing
Emotional Rational
Domestic Public,
Sensitive Thick-skinned
Passive Active
Gentle Rough
Soft Hard

14. Thanks for your Attention!
Any Question?