Thursday, April 24, 2025

On to the 4th wave we go

By the end of the third feminist movement, around the end of the 2020s, a large number of women had collectively woken up. 

"What is a woman?" Women were accustomed to being defined, molded, and confined within a certain perimeter. 

The definition of women was primarily established by men throughout human history, as they were viewed as being intended for sexual satisfaction, domestic companionship, and childbearing. 

Therefore, the process of defining "what is a woman" was intertwined with determining the specific roles men needed women to play, which best served them: wife, mother, daughter, sister, older or younger relative, lover, neighbor, maid, female friend, female student, female professional — each came with a menu elaborating on what was considered "good" and "bad", according to men's established social status and convenience. 

At its center was a woman's relationship to a man who could claim ownership of a majority of her life: her husband. 

Therefore, "what is a woman" was constrained mainly to the box of "what is a good wife" or "what is a good wife-to-be." 

Feminism, in its first three movements, was predominantly a struggle for freedom, specifically within the confines of the "ideal wife" or certain social roles predefined by men. 

Starting from the fourth wave, women garnered enough wisdom and strength to crack open the rusting box and recreate their self-image. 

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