Where is the Fourth Wave?

The popular discourse has divided feminism into “waves,” the first of which is the suffrage movement, the second the feminism that accompanied 1960s Marxist liberation movements, and the third the consolidation of the American cultural revolution. So we could see the first wave as setting the stage for female political power, which led directly to the second wave of actively striving for that power, and finally the third of exercising it. Thus, the first was largely a moralistic appeal, reminiscent of the propaganda and agitation that usually precedes revolutions, the second a more ascetic, combative effort, and the third the implementation of the revolutionary program and the expression of feminism’s nature. It is interesting to see how the different waves each had their own distinct character despite all sharing the same fundamental goal: the establishment of institutional female political power.

Finally, we have arrived at a point where victory has been achieved, and there really isn’t any farther to go. Sure, feminists will argue that there are still many decades of struggle ahead, but the reality is that any further gains would eventually come at the expense of women, because structural necessities for feminism, such as maintaining a police state and economic viability, are already taxed to the limit.

So, whither feminism now?

Let’s start by looking at the last wave of feminism — the third wave. Third wave feminists came to prominence in the 1990s as the younger cohort that was educated under the old revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s – many ideologically lesbian – who viewed the feminist effort in warlike terms. Unlike their mentors, they never faced real sex discrimination in school or at work, and they had already had the opportunity to benefit substantially from policies that started to come into force in the 1980s, when the affirmative action began to be implemented on a wide scale.

Third wave feminists were women who slid effortlessly into institutions, and began to surpass men academically by the 1990s. Their vanguard would be over 40 years old today (e.g. Elizabeth Wurtzel), and many of them are already in positions of considerable power, having jobs in entertainment, law, medicine, politics and writing. They are most overrepresented, perhaps, in cultural pursuits, such as journalism, opinion, marketing, etc.

In practice, they differed from the second wave by exercising power through sexuality; where the second wave frequently dismissed the notion that men had any utility at all, third wavers embraced sex as long it was on their terms. One could see the second wavers as having adopted the self-sacrificial, ascetic ideology common to militants/revolutionaries, and the third a pragmatic, self-interested approach more common to administrators.

Because the third wave corresponds with what is known as “Generation X,” the youngest are currently in their early 30s. Sure, there are a few academic hangers on who are younger, just as there were still kids calling themselves “hippies” into the 1990s, but these are the exception rather than the rule — there is a fairly clear demarcation between third wave feminists and women in their 20s today. In short, the third wave is getting kind of old.

Now that the third wave has aged out of activist mode, what has come about to replace it? Evidently, very little. As far as I can tell, young women could care less about feminism, and are simply living life as they please. There is no doubt that they are enjoying many of the benefits feminists fought for, such as higher pay than men of the same age, better education and career prospects than men in general, and a very strong legal advantage over any male partner they may choose to cohabit with, but they don’t have the fire in their belly that would lead to any renewed activism. Rather than vigilant, they are complacent; they are characterized more by sass and entitlement than ambition and a will to power.

Will this change? Probably not. There is no indication that some new generation of women will rise up and utterly subdue and conquer men, setting up some militant matriarchy of the sort envisioned by the more radical second wave feminists.

So, from today’s perspective, it looks as though 20th century feminism has almost run its course, and there will be no more “waves” in the foreseeable future. As for what the implications of this are, one can only speculate, but I imagine there will be a slow movement toward legal equality and away from the current model of female supremacism, which will accompany a return to a more normal family model as the advantages women can currently accrue from promiscuity and divorce begin to fade away.

Rather than defeat through some spectacular clash, feminism will likely slowly fade away, until it is remembered only by old, single women whose one remaining glory is the memory of their vanished youth.