Question 13, Feminism and the 3 waves

The first wave of feminism takes a quantitative approach. It basically strives for obtaining equal rights through thing like political legislation. The second wave also advocates women’s rights, but they take a more qualitative approach. They focus more on the symbolic such as the stigma associated with a man holding open a door for a women. Second wavers preach about the need for women to assert themselves. The third wave of feminism maintains many of the same underlying principles found in both the first and second wave of feminism, but they focus on things such as empowerment, agency, and embracing articulation. Although third wavers may look upon things like stripping negatively, like first and second wavers, they would advocate that the woman has the write to strip and should be able to go into that line of work if that is what she wants to do. All three waves of feminism have points that can be reflected through the image I have attached. The image is of the iconic poster of Rosie the Riveter. I will discuss how the three waves might look on this image positively. When examining this image through the eyes of a first wave feminist, one might appreciate the fact that it represents the women’s progress to obtaining certain rights in the work place since the poster is about how the women stepped into the jobs that the men left behind to go to war. Second wavers might look at this image and appreciate the fact that it represents an image of women being able to do just as well the jobs that men can do. Third wave feminist might be pleased that the image shows not only the factors mentioned for the first and second wave, but also the women now have the right to choose weather or not they want to go into these different lines of work.