25: Social Movements, Part III

Late 20th to Early 21st Movements

“We are living in a world for which old forms of activism are not enough and today’s activism is about creating coalitions between communities.”

—Angela Davis, cited by Hernandez and Rehman in Colonize This!

The third wave feminist movement is in many ways a hybrid creature. It is influenced by second wave feminism, Black feminisms, transnational feminisms, Global South feminisms, and queer feminism. This hybridity of third wave activism comes directly out of the experiences of feminists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries who have grown up in a world that supposedly does not need social movements because “equal rights” for people of color, queer people, and women have been guaranteed by law in most countries. The gap between law and reality – between the abstract proclamations of states and concrete lived experience – however, reveals the necessity of both old and new forms of activism. In a country where women are paid only 84% of what men are paid for the same labor (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024), where Black people are killed by police at disproportionate rates despite being more likely to be unarmed (Sinyangway et al. 2023), where queer people continue to experience high levels of harassment and mistreatment by the police, particularly those who are trans or Black (Grasso et al. 2024), where 28% of queer youth experience homelessness and housing instability, which increase their risk of mental health challenges (DeChants et al. 2021), where Black and Brown families have considerably lower amounts of wealth than white families (Kent and Ricketts 2024), and where the military is the most funded institution by the government, feminists have increasingly realized that a coalitional politics that organizes with other groups based on their shared (but differing) experiences of oppression, rather than their specific identity, is absolutely necessary. Thus, Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (1997) argue that a crucial goal for the third wave is “the development of modes of thinking that can come to terms with the multiple, constantly shifting bases of oppression in relation to the multiple, interpenetrating axes of identity, and the creation of a coalitional politics based on these understandings” (Heywood and Drake 1997: 3).

The ACT UP demonstrations at NIH included various groups from different parts of the United States. This photograph shows the Shreveport, Louisiana ACT UP group at the NIH.

Black and white photo of ACT UP protestors marching and holding signs at the NIH.

“ACT UP Demonstration at NIH” by NIH History Office is in the Public Domain, CC0

In the 1980s and 1990s, feminist and queer activists took action in a number of forms. Beginning in the mid 1980s, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) began organizing to press the unwilling institutions of the state (US government) and medicine to develop affordable drugs for people with HIV/AIDS. In the latter part of the 1980s, a subset of individuals began to articulate a queer politics, which sought to develop more radical political perspectives and more inclusive sexual cultures and communities, explicitly reclaimed a derogatory term often used against gay men and lesbians, and aimed to center people of marginalized groups such as transgender and gender-diverse people, people of color, and working-class or poor people. This movement distanced themselves from the gay rights movement or the identity politics movement, which they felt mainly reflected the interests of white middle-class gay men and lesbians. Identity politics refers to organizing politically around the experiences and needs of people who share a particular identity, such as the identity gay or lesbian. The move from political association with others who share a particular identity to political association with those who have differing identities and share similar but differing experiences of oppression (coalitional politics), can be said to be a defining characteristic of the third wave. This involved an intersectional critique of the existing hierarchies within sexual liberation movements, which marginalized individuals within already marginalized groups. In this vein, Lisa Duggan (2002) coined the term homonormativity, which describes the normalization and depoliticization of gay men and lesbians through their assimilation into capitalist economic systems and domesticity –individuals who were previously constructed as “other.” These individuals thus gained entrance into social life at the expense and continued marginalization of queer people who were of color, disabled, trans, single or non-monogamous, middle-class, or non-western. Critiques of homonormativity were also critiques of gay identity politics, which left out concerns of many gay individuals who were marginalized within gay groups. Akin to homonormativity, Jasbir Puar (2007) coined the term homonationalism, which describes the white nationalism taken up by queer people that sustains racist and xenophobic discourses by constructing immigrants, especially Muslims, as homophobic.

Another defining characteristic of the third wave is the development of new tactics to politicize feminist issues and demands. For instance, ACT UP began to use powerful street theater that brought the death and suffering of people with HIV/AIDS to the streets and to the politicians and pharmaceutical companies that did not seem to care that thousands and thousands of people were dying. They staged die-ins, inflated massive condoms, and occupied politicians’ and pharmaceutical executives’ offices. Their confrontational tactics would be emulated and picked up by anti-globalization activists and the radical Left throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Queer Nation was formed in 1990 by ACT UP activists, and used the tactics developed by ACT UP in order to challenge homophobic violence and heterosexism in mainstream US society.

This photo depicts a mass “die-in” on the lawn of of the NIH, which closed the demonstration as ranks of uniformed officers, some on horseback, protected NIH headquarters during the “Storm the NIH” demonstration on May 21, 1990.

Black and white photo of people lying on the ground at a mass die-in protest on the lawn of the NIH.

“ACT UP Demonstration on the Lawn of Building 1” by NIH History Office is in the Public Domain, CC0

Around the same time as ACT UP was beginning to organize in the mid-1980s, sex-positive feminism came into currency among feminist activists and theorists, amidst what is known now as the “Feminist Sex Wars.” Sex-positive feminism argues that sexual liberation, within a sex-positive culture that values consent between partners, would liberate not only women, but those of all genders including men. Drawing from a social constructionist perspective, sex-positive feminists such as cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin (1984) argued that no sexual act has an inherent meaning, and that not all sex, or all representations of sex, were inherently degrading to women. In fact, they argued, sexual politics and sexual liberation are key sites of struggle for white women, women of color, gay men, lesbians, and queer and transgender people – groups of people who have historically been stigmatized for their sexual identities or practices. Therefore, a key aspect of queer and feminist subcultures is to create sex-positive spaces and communities that not only valorize sexualities that are often stigmatized in the broader culture, but also place sexual consent at the center of sex-positive spaces and communities.

Part of this project of creating sex-positive feminist and queer spaces is creating media messaging that attempts to both consolidate feminist communities and create knowledge from and for oppressed groups. In a media-savvy generation, it is not surprising that cultural production is a main avenue of activism taken by contemporary activists. Although some commentators have deemed the third wave to be “post-feminist” or “not feminist” because it often does not utilize the activist forms (e.g., marches, vigils, and policy change) of the second wave movement (Sommers, 1994), the creation of alternative forms of culture in the face of a massive corporate media industry can be understood as quite political. For example, the Riot Grrrl movement, based in the Pacific Northwest of the US in the early 1990s, consisted of do-it-yourself bands predominantly composed of women, the creation of independent record labels, feminist zines, and art. Their lyrics often addressed gendered sexual violence, sexual liberationism, heteronormativity, gender normativity, police brutality, and war. Feminist news websites and magazines have also become important sources of feminist analysis on current events and issues. Magazines such as Bitch and Ms. as well as online blog collectives such as Feministing and the Feminist Wire function as alternative sources of feminist knowledge production. If we consider the creation of lives on our own terms and the struggle for autonomy as fundamental feminist acts of resistance, then creating alternative culture on our own terms should be considered a feminist act of resistance as well.

Feminist activism and theorizing by people outside the US context has broadened the feminist frameworks for analysis and action. In a world characterized by global capitalism, transnational immigration, and a history of colonialism that has still has effects today, transnational feminism is a body of theory and activism that highlights the connections between sexism, racism, classism, and imperialism. In “Under Western Eyes,” an article by transnational feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1991), Mohanty critiques the way in which much feminist activism and theory has been created from a white North American standpoint that has often exoticized “3rd world” women or ignored the needs and political situations of women in the Global South. Transnational feminists argue that Western feminist projects to “save” women in another region do not actually liberate these women, since this approach constructs the women as passive victims devoid of agency to save themselves. These “saving” projects are especially problematic when they are accompanied by Western military intervention. For instance, in the war on Afghanistan that began shortly after 9/11 in 2001, US military leaders and George Bush often claimed to be waging the war to “save” Afghani women from their patriarchal and domineering men. This crucially ignores the role of the West—and the US in particular—in supporting Islamic fundamentalist regimes in the 1980s. Furthermore, it positions women in Afghanistan as passive victims in need of Western intervention, in a way strikingly similar to the victimizing rhetoric often used to talk about “victims” of gendered violence. Therefore, transnational feminists challenge the notion held by many feminists in the West that any area of the world is inherently more patriarchal or sexist than the West because of its culture or religion through arguing that we need to understand how Western imperialism, global capitalism, militarism, sexism, and racism have created conditions of inequality for women around the world.

Third wave feminism is a vibrant mix of differing activist and theoretical traditions. Third wave feminism’s insistence on grappling with multiple points-of-view, as well as its persistent refusal to be pinned down as representing just one group of people or one perspective, may be its greatest strength. Similar to how queer activists and theorists have insisted that “queer” is and should be open-ended and never set to mean one thing, third wave feminism’s complexity, nuance, and adaptability become assets in a world marked by rapidly shifting political situations. The third wave’s insistence on coalitional politics as an alternative to identity-based politics is a crucial project in a world that is marked by multiple, fluid, overlapping inequalities.

Conclusion

These final chapters have developed a relational analysis of feminist and queer social movements while understanding the limitations of categorizing feminist resistance efforts within an oversimplified framework of three distinct “waves.” With such a relational lens, we are better situated to understand how the tactics and activities of one social movement can influence others. This lens also facilitates an understanding of how racialized, gendered, and classed exclusions and privileges lead to the splintering of social movements and social movement organizations. This type of intersectional analysis is at the heart not only of feminist activism but of feminist scholarship. The vibrancy and longevity of feminist movements might even be attributed to this intersectional reflexivity – the critique of race, class, gender, and sexual dynamics in feminist movements. The emphasis on coalitional politics and making connections between several movements is another crucial contribution of feminist activism and scholarship.

In the 21st century, feminist movements confront an array of structures of power: global capitalism, the prison system, war, racism, ableism, heterosexism, and cissexism, among others. What kind of world do we wish to create and live in? What alliances and coalitions will be necessary to challenge these systems of oppression? How do feminists, queer and trans people, people of color, disabled people, and working-class people go about challenging these systems? These are among some of the questions that feminist activists are grappling with now, and their actions point toward a deepening commitment to an intersectional politics of social justice and praxis.