The Evolution of the Feminist Movement

Subject and Section Professor’s Name Date Feminism in Canada: First, Second, and Third Waves Introduction The course of social movements reflects the evolution of the societies that these movements want to change, and Canadian feminism is no exception to this rule. What emerged from the fight for the vote and the most elementary civil liberties has turned into a force that fights against racism, queerphobia, state violence, misogyny, ableism, and the like. The National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC), Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Dominion, Women’s Enfranchisement Association (DWEA), and Women’s Institute (WI) are examples of the organizations that helped impose women’s suffrage in Atlantic Canada (MacDonald 23). This transformation underscores a fundamental reality: if the goals of social movements are achieved, there is change as the social movement evolves through a process of environmental adjustment and transformation (Mintz, Close, and Croci). In line with this, this essay will seek to maintain that the change that has occurred in the kinds of Canadian feminism from what was solely campaigning for the right to vote of women to the ever-evolving and complex intersectional advocacy is evidence of the movement's ability to respond to historical wrongs as well as current trends. This kind of analysis shows how the feminist movement in Canada has evolved from its formative years to include race, class, and Indigenous appeals, making it a persistent agent of justice reform. Early-Stage Suffragists and the Part Played by the CWSPU The first wave of suffragettes in Canada comprised organizations, including the NCWC and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, urging for votes for women in reaction to their political disfranchisement. These organizations were mainly spearheaded by educated, middle- and upper-class Anglo-Protestant women who sought women's enfranchisement to effect social and moral improvement and marginalized Indigenous and French-Canadian women (Forestell). It is essential to disclose that the fight for women's rights could have been more effective due to numerous religious and cultural barriers. However, French-Canadian suffragists were still making efforts since they were underrepresented (Forestell). Women in Quebec, for instance, were only allowed to vote in 1940 (Lindeman). The omission of these groups during the early calls for women's suffrage provides a background for the subsequent calls for a more inclusive feminism. At the same time, the early suffrage movement certainly did help to pave the way for additional aspects of the feminist agenda while at the same time establishing it within a context that was, in the earliest days at least, dominated by issues of interest primarily to middle-aged, middle-class white women (Barbaro). The analogy of early suffragist campaigns for voting rights as a backlash, even though they led to significant victories such as the 1918 federal enfranchisement, highlights the limitations of the first-wave feminism that excluded women of color, queer women, and working-class women, and therefore prepared the ground for the integration of intersectionality into the second-wave feminism. Cultural Feminism and the Integration of Intersectionality Davis looked at the question of how white middle-class women benefitted from the initial phase of mainstream feminism while at the same time framing the struggles of working-class women and women of color as “other.” Speaking about this exclusion, Davis acknowledges that it established a somewhat limited and problematic agenda for feminism (57-65). It asserts that when liberating women, the issue of race and class were not considered, thus causing the movement to be unsuccessful in its quest to reform society in its entirety. The analysis drew attention to the need for a new feminist project incorporating anti-racism, anti-economic oppression, and sexism; the term 'intersectionality' would later emerge from this (Davis; Hooks). The incorporation of intersectionality into feminism worked out new avenues of struggle. For instance, Davis gives details on the experiences of Black women in the labor and civil rights movements and how these exposed how one form of oppression complemented the other, forcing feminism to embrace other forms of discrimination (Davis 78-83). Furthermore, in Taylor’s How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which collects essays and interviews with members of the Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist lesbian organization from the 1970s, intersectionality is also addressed. The statement of The Collective underlines the importance of the approach that combines the fight against discrimination based on different aspects of people's identity. Through Taylor's works, it is evident that the expansion of women's liberation has come because of integrating different perceptions of women, and the resultant change came when the various ...