A History of U.S. Feminisms

Thoroughly updated and expanded, the second edition of A History of U.S. Feminisms is an introductory text that will be used as supplementary material for first-year women’s studies students or as a brush-up text for more advanced students. Covering the first, second, and third waves of feminism, A History of U.S. Feminisms will provide historical context of all the major events and figures from the late nineteenth century through today.

The chapters cover: first-wave feminism, a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which focused primarily on gaining women's suffrage; second-wave feminism, which started in the ’60s and lasted through the ’80s and emphasized the connection between the personal and the political; and third-wave feminism, which started in the early ’90s and is best exemplified by its focus on diversity and intersectionality, queer theory, and sex-positivity.

Rory C. Dicker is the coeditor of Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century (Northeastern University Press, 2003). A native of New York State, Dicker completed her undergraduate studies in English and French at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. After teaching for several years at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, she returned to Nashville, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She teaches courses in English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Vanderbilt University.