Opinion: On the Second Wave

A common misconception about the second wave of feminism in the USA is the notion that intersectionality – or, before Kimberle Crenshaw, the concept that there are multiple axes of oppression – simply did not exist. This misconception is oft-repeated even within feminist pegagogical spaces. Second wave feminism, it is said, was exclusively the province of the white and middle class and its participants allegedly did not see any power structure outside of sex. Yet this notion is problematic not only for its inaccuracy, but also for its stunning erasure of the countless women of color and poor women that were engaged not only in feminist movement but also in the creation of feminist thought and theory. This is not a denial of significant issues of racism and classism within the movement, but rather a call to steer away from the eradication of marginalized voices for the sake of facile distinction between second and third wave feminisms. Although the terminology of intersectionality did not come until later, women were still cognizant of the multiplicity of oppressive forces on their lives. They have expressed this awareness in a variety of ways.

The Combahee River Collective’s 1977 “A Black Feminist Statement,” now a staple of introductory-level Women’s Studies classes, is an excellent example of early contribution to corpus of feminist theory that explicitly outlines an approach to women’s movement that simultaneously seeks to address racism, “heterosexism and economic oppression capitalism.” They simultaneously address the threatening nature of feminist movement to Black Nationalist movements and the appalling racism (or racist ignorance) of white feminists.

In La Chicana, Elizabeth Martinez writes of the Chicana experience with “triple oppression… the forces of racism, imperialism and sexism.” There is some irony to be drawn from the fact that Martinez eschews open identification with the “women’s liberation movement” because it is concepts of multiple oppressions that have carried forth and dominated modern feminist discourse. In fact, there are increasingly significant segments of the modern feminist population that are hesitant to explicitly describe gender as a hierarchical organizational category of domination.

Donna Kate Rushin’s The Bridge Poem describes the frustration and heartache of serving as a forced intermediary between the component portions of her communities and personhood. Although she does not overtly discuss multiple axes of oppression, her lines describing unending explanation provide a self-evident awareness of the variability of consciousness along those multiple axes:

“I explain my mother to my father my father to my little sister / My little sister to my brother my brother to the white feminists / The white feminists to the Black church folks the Black church folks / To the ex-hippies the ex-hippies to the Black separatists the / Black separatists to the artists the artists to my friend’s parents… / Then / I’ve got to explain myself / To everybody”

Those lines, and her poem as a whole serve as a powerful reminder of the need for approaches to feminism that can fully integrate people’s entire personhoods. It also contains a warning about the simultaneous danger of tokenization as she examines her frustration and fatigue at being used as little more than a political figurehead.

Although second wave feminism should by no means be immune to criticism, it is problematic to act as if intersectional awareness did not exist, albeit if not in name. The women of second-wave feminism were more diverse and aware of racism and classism than they are typically given credit for. It is important that the desire to promote intersectional theory and praxis not become an inadvertent tool of erasure against the very voices that its adherents wish to honor in the first place.