First-wave feminism

First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the world, particularly in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote).

The term first-wave was coined in March 1968 by Marsha Lear writing in The New York Times Magazine, who at the same time also used the term "second-wave feminism". At that time, the women's movement was focused on de facto (unofficial) inequalities, which it wished to distinguish from the objectives of the earlier feminists.

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