A PowerPoint closer look on the rise of the Fourth-Wave of the Feminist Movement taking the movement to next level in the 21st Century.

1. THE FOURTH WAVE OF
FEMINISM: MEET THE REBEL
WOMEN
By Susan Graham

2. THE ORIGINS AND
UNRECOGNITION
• fourth-wave of feminism is not currently acknowledged as a
historical wave of feminism, but scholars have advocated for
its existence due to the lack of activism in other waves of
feminism regarding our current cultural issues.
• Waves of feminism are usually created as a partial response
to the failures of the previous wave. "Much like the third wave
lived out the theories of the second wave (with sometimes
surprising results), the fourth wave enacted the concepts that
third wave feminists had put forth.“
• Feminists who currently advocate for a fourth-wave of
feminism believe the circulation of feminist issues rely on
social media technology for communicating and organizing
their activism efforts. “It's defined by technology: tools that
are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive
movement online.”

3. ARGUMENTS AND
DEBATES
• In 2005, Pythia Peay first argued for the existence of a fourth wave of feminism,
combining justice with religious spirituality. According to Jennifer Baumgartner in 2011, a
fourth wave may exist, dated as beginning in 2008; is in her view important; was inspired
partly by Take Our Daughters to Work Days; incorporated online resources such as
social media; in turn inspired the Doula Project for children's services and inspired after-
abortion talk lines, pursuit of reproductive justice, plus-size fashion support,
transgenderism support, male feminism, and sex work acceptance; and led to
developing media including Feminizing, Racialicious, blogs, and Twitter campaigns.
• In 2014, Betty Dodson, who is also acknowledged as one of the leaders of the early
1980s pro-sex feminist movement, expressed that she considers herself a fourth wave
feminist. Dodson expressed that the previous waves of feminist were banal and anti-
sexual, which is why she has chosen to look at a new stance of feminism, the upcoming
fourth wave feminism. In 2014, Dodson worked with women to discover their sexual
desires through masturbation. Dodson says her work has gained a fresh lease of life with
a new audience of young, successful women who have never had an orgasm. This
includes fourth-wave feminists - those rejecting the anti-pleasure stance they believe
third-wave feminists stand for.
• In 2014, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter released their book, "The Vagenda."
The authors of the book both consider themselves fourth wave feminists and in a recent
interview about their new book, they explain, "you can be passionate about women’s
rights and still read Cosmo, have porn-inspired sex and do whatever the hell you want.
That’s what this fourth wave of feminism is all about – down-to-earth equality that lets
you make your own mind up."

4. RADICAL MEETS REBEL
• The women's movement may have been in hiding through
the 'ladette' years, but in 2013 it has come back with a
vengeance. Introducing the new feminists taking the struggle
to the web – and the streets.
• The campaign for women's liberation never went away, but
this year a new swell built up and broke through. Since the
early summer, I've been talking to feminist activists and
writers for a short book, All The Rebel Women, and as I tried
to keep up with the protests, marches and talks, my diary
became a mess of clashing dates. The rush was such that in
a single weekend in October, you could have attended a
feminist fresher's fair in London, the North East Feminist
Gathering in Newcastle, a Reclaim the Night march in
Edinburgh, or a discussion between different generations of
feminist activists at the British Library (this sold out in 48 hours,
was moved to a room four times bigger, and sold out again).

5. WELCOME TO THE FOURTH
WAVE OF FEMINISM
• This movement follows the first-wave campaign for votes for women,
which reached its height 100 years ago, the second wave women's
liberation movement that blazed through the 1970s and 80s, and the
third wave declared by Rebecca Walker, Alice Walker's daughter, and
others, in the early 1990s. That shift from second to third wave took
many important forms, but often felt broadly generational, with women
defining their work as distinct from their mothers'. What's happening
now feels like something new again. It's defined by technology: tools
that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement
online. Just how popular is sometimes slightly startling. Girl guiding UK
introduced a campaigning and activism badge this year and a
summer survey of Mumsnet users found 59% consider themselves
feminists, double those who don't. Bates says that, for her, modern
feminism is defined by pragmatism, inclusion and humor. "I feel like it is
really down-to-earth, really open," she says, "and it's very much about
people saying: 'Here is something that doesn't make sense to me, I
thought women were equal, I'm going to do something about it.'“

6. HOW TO DESCRIBE THE
FOURTH WAVE OF FEMINISM
• Fourth wave feminism is not universally acknowledged
as a real thing among feminists, but it can be used to
refer to any sort of feminism that wasn't a feature of
third wave feminism.
• Some consider online activism a form of fourth wave
feminism, and some consider the man-bashing, "rape
culture" brand of feminism to be fourth wave.
• Like most cultural movements, we probably won't know
until we're out of it.

7. FEMINISM'S FOURTH
WAVE IN AMERICA
• ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, California psychotherapist Kathlyn Schaaf was
overwhelmed by a powerful thought. Watching the violent images on television,
she suddenly felt the time had come to "gather the women." She wasn't alone.
• Schaaf and 11 others who shared her response soon created Gather the Women,
a Web site and communications hub that 5,000 women have used to chronicle
their local events in support of world peace. As women assembled near the
pyramids in Egypt and held potluck dinners in Alaska, staged candlelight vigils
and other rituals in countries around the world, it confirmed Schaaf's gut instinct
that an untapped reserve of energy "lies like oil beneath the common ground the
women share."
• Since then, the group has organized a series of congresses to connect women's
groups. Their work is one example of a new kind feminism, slowly growing for a
decade and now bursting out everywhere. At its heart lies a new kind of political
activism that's guided and sustained by spirituality. Some are calling it the long-
awaited "fourth wave" of feminism -- a fusion of spirituality and social justice
reminiscent of the American civil rights movement and Gandhi's call for
nonviolent change.

8. THE CONNECTIONS OF THE
FIRST-WAVE AND THE
FOURTH-WAVE
• Previous advances in American feminism have rarely happened
smoothly; the gains of one generation have often both shaped and
conflicted with the ambitions of the next. First-wave feminists fought for
women's suffrage. Led in the 1970s by icons like Gloria Steinem and
Betty Friedan, a second wave pushed for economic and legal gains.
Their ideals would eventually clash with the spirited individualism of third-
wave feminists, women in their 20s and 30s who still advocate for
women's rights while embracing a "girlie culture" that celebrates sex,
men, gay culture, and clothes.
• But as never before, today's conservative political environment has
united women across the feminist spectrum. The result differs from earlier
forms of feminism in several ways. For one, it espouses a new activism
based not in anger, but in joy. It also tends to be focused outward,
beyond the individual to wider issues, often global in scope. In the
words of author Carol Lee Flinders, "Feminism catches fire when it draws
on its inherent spirituality," which means something else can happen as
well. "When you get Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi women
all practicing their faith in the same room," she recently said, "another
religion emerges, which is feminine spirituality.“

9. RECONNECT AND LESSONS
LEARNED FROM 9/11
• THOUGH FLINDERS AND other writers have been calling on women to reconnect with the sacred for
years, many agree that the tipping point was 9/11. Before then, a women's spirituality conference
called Sacred Circles, held biannually at Washington National Cathedral in the nation's capital, had
focused on personal spirituality. More recently, however, program director Grace Ogden said she felt
compelled to use the gatherings to address religious violence. "There was this sense of something
gone terribly wrong," she said, "of communities splitting apart and a growing suspicion of people of
Arab descent or other traditions." Her planning committee has since become more interfaith than in
the past. Recent Sacred Circles conferences have stressed the role of compassion and tolerance in
addressing political, economic, and religious differences.
• Appalled by the lack of women in positions of religious authority on 9/11, Dena Merriam, a New York
arts writer and public relations executive, joined others trying to form an international network of
women religious leaders from the major faiths. In October 2002, they launched the Global Peace
Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders in Geneva, Switzerland. Associated with the United
Nations, the initiative wants to get religious leaders more involved in U.N. peace-building plans.
Specific programs aim to help young women of different faiths to communicate in places like
Jerusalem that have been torn by conflict.
• Feminism's new direction was perhaps most striking at the Women & Power conference sponsored by
the Omega Institute and V-Day in New York City last September. The 3,000 participants heard
celebrity feminists like Jane Fonda, Sally Field, and Gloria Steinem herself note the shift. Playwright Eve
Ensler, founder of V-Day, a movement to stop global violence against women and girls, addressed
the need to change the face of power. Today, she said, our power is seen in terms of "country over
country, tribe against tribe." The new paradigm, however, has to be about power "in the service of" --
collaboration, not conquest.

10. WOMEN POWER FOR THE
21ST CENTURY
• The free flow of creative expression at these assemblies marks a radical
departure from the church coffees of our mothers' era. Participants
often join together in fashioning new rites and rituals from ancient
traditions, shaping forms at once old and new. Organizers at the
Women & Power conference draped one room in carpets and labeled
it the Red Tent area, evoking the Jewish ritual popularized by the book
of that name. Elizabeth Lesser, a co-founder of the Omega Institute,
said the room was like "an ancient gathering place where women were
laughing, crying, brushing each other's hair, praying, and meditating. It
seemed to satisfy women's deepest longings and was spiritual in a very
feminine way."
• Meanwhile, as feminism allows more women to reach positions of
power in American culture, increasing numbers have discovered that
material success does not satisfy their hunger for meaning and
connection. Women are becoming increasingly clear and vocal about
the need to integrate an emerging set of feminine-based values into
the culture. As the Democratic Party searches for a guiding set of
values, it might consider turning to the women's spirituality movement
for inspiration.

11. MILLENNIALS AND THE “4TH WAVE”
OF FEMINISM
• Third-wave feminism has been heavily influenced by academic
investigations of queer theory. Queer theory posits that gender and
sexuality are fluid categories, and do not easily map onto binary
understandings of ‘male’ and ‘female’. Increased understanding of
bisexual and trans identities characterize the third wave – although as
the Moore/Burchill furore shows, this is an ongoing process, with the
increasingly visibility of trans people within feminist activism prompting a
concurrent rise in discrimination, most notably from within the radical
feminist movement.
• Many commentators argue that the internet itself has enabled a shift
from ‘third-wave’ to ‘fourth-wave’ feminism. What is certain is that the
internet has created a ‘call-out’ culture, in which sexism or misogyny
can be ‘called out’ and challenged. This culture is indicative of the
continuing influence of the third wave, with its focus on micro politics
and challenging sexism and misogyny insofar as they appear in
everyday rhetoric, advertising, film, television and literature, the media,
and so on. The existence of a feminist ‘fourth wave’ has been
challenged by those who maintain that increased usage of the internet
is not enough to delineate a new era. But it is increasingly clear that the
internet has facilitated the creation of a global community of feminists
who use the internet both for discussion and activism.

12. SO WHAT IT MEANS TO BE
A MODERN FEMINIST?
• There has been ‘first wave feminism’, as defined by the Suffragette
movement; ‘second wave’, referring to the Women’s Liberation
movement and; ‘third wave’ applied to ‘Generation X’ with a focus on
gender identity. But what next?
• Can today’s feminist landscape be neatly categorized? If so, are we
now riding the ‘fourth wave’? What is it to be a modern-day feminist?
And who decides, anyway?
• Modern-day feminism has multiple facets – from populism and pop
culture to new-media and new activism – but it would seem the
common denominator is inclusivity. No longer the preserve of extreme
activists and intellectual theorists, feminism is shedding its stigma and
going mainstream.
• Here are some of the many strands of modern-day feminism and the
pioneers behind them.

13. MODERN PIONEERS OF THE
FOURTH-WAVE
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter - singer,
songwriter, and actress. Although she’s
a registered member of the Republican
Party, Beyoncé uploaded pictures of her
paper ballot on Tumblr, confirming she
had voted in support for the Democratic
Party and to encourage others to do so.
Malala Yousafzai - a Pakistani activist for
female education and the youngest-ever
Nobel Prize laureate. She is known mainly
for human rights advocacy for education
and for women in her native Swat Valley
in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of
northwest Pakistan, where the local
Taliban had at times banned girls from
attending school. Yousafzai's advocacy
has since grown into an international
movement.

14. MODERN PIONEERS OF THE
FOURTH-WAVE
Ellen Page - Canadian actress
best known to Comic Book fans
as Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde in X3
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
and X-Men: Days of Future Past
(2014) Page describes herself as
a pro-choice feminist. In
February 2014 Ellen Page
came out as gay in a speech
at the Human Rights
Campaign's "Time to Thrive"
conference. She also practices
a vegan lifestyle
Kelly Rowland - singer, songwriter,
actress and television personality who
rose to fame in the late 1990s as a
member of Destiny's Child, one of the
world's best-selling girl groups of all
time. From the album Destiny
Fulfilled the song “Girl” written by Kelly
and her bandmates Beyoncé,
Michelle Williams along with
Darkchild, and produced by
Beyoncé, Rowland and Douthit. the
soul song was written about an
abusive relationship Rowland went
through during the time of writing.

15. PIONEERING LGBT FEMINISTS OF THE
FOURTH-WAVE AND PREVIOUS WAVES
Laverne Cox an actress, reality television star,
television producer, and LGBT advocate, best
known for her portrayal of Sophia Burset on the
Netflix television series Orange Is the New Black,
for which she became the first openly transgender
person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy
Award in the acting category.
Cox has been noted by her LGBTQ peers, and
many others, and has won numerous awards for
her activist approach in spreading awareness. Her
impact and prominence in the media has led to a
growing conversation about transgender people,
specifically transgender women, and how it
intersects with one's race and identity.
Nell Carter (September 13, 1948 –
January 23, 2003) singer and actress.
She won a Tony Award for her
performance in the Broadway musical
Ain't Misbehavin', as well as an Emmy
Award for her reprisal of the role on
television. Best known for Gimme A
Break! In the 1980’s then Hangin' with
Mr. Cooper from 1993-95. Carter passed
away in early 2003 due to
complications of diabetes and brain
aneurism

16. FOURTH-WAVE SUPERHEROINES
Shelby Watkins is the Pink Dino Charge
Ranger of the Dino Charge Rangers in
Power Rangers Dino Charge currently the
22nd season of the Power Rangers
franchise.
Shelby is the 1st African American Pink
Ranger in Power Rangers History.
Batgirl/Tiffany Fox the youngest daughter of the
Fox Family. She lives with her family in Gotham
City and is sister of Batwing. She is the newest
Batgirl in town with Batman and Oracle's
blessings.
falling into the family tradition is one thing, but
taking on the Batgirl mantle in such a unique
way, more intellectual and then physical fits the
Fox name as much as it honors a significant part
of who Batgirl is meant to be and she’s nothing
to play with even at 15 years old. Batgirl/Tiffany
not only uses the Batarangs but she also uses her
primary battle weapons the Pink Bat-Nunchuks.

17. FOURTH-WAVE SUPERHEROINES
Stephanie Brown was born the daughter of the Clue
master, one of Gotham City's third-rate villains.
Stephanie's father spent most of her childhood in prison or
away from the family. Brown not only worked beside
Cassandra Cain, but also succeeded her as Batgirl. One
night, after Bruce Wayne's apparent death, they were
fighting a group of thugs; when the fighting ended, Cain
simply took off her outfit saying that since Batman was
gone she saw no reason to continue wearing the
costume. Stephanie took it and began to wear it, saving
people as Batgirl. However, everyone noticed that
something was a little off about Batgirl.
Stephanie eventually confronts and defeats Scarecrow,
which impresses Barbara and shows that she now has the
maturity for the responsibility and is capable of facing her
fear and failures, and allows her to continue on as Batgirl.
Barbara later takes a job as an assistant professor at
Stephanie's school in order to continue to keep in
contact with her. Barbara also designs Stephanie a
costume for her to replace Cassandra's tattered
costume.