Jessica Abrahams
On 22nd January, the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, millions of women marched across dozens of countries to demand equal rights. The women’s march was organised in reaction to the hyper-masculinity of Trump’s election campaign, and his attitude towards women throughout— from his stance against reproductive rights, at one point threatening to jail women who had abortions, to his boasts of “grabbing ’em by the pussy.” But the day also became a focal point for grievances that have been building since the emergence of what is now being called the fourth wave of feminism— following on from previous waves that began with the struggle for the right to vote in the late 19th century, moved through the liberation movements of the 1960s and on to the debates surrounding pop culture and gender theory in the 1980s.
But what exactly is fourth-wave feminism, where did it come from, and what does it want?