Lacey Skorepa
Journal 2
Linda Nicholson: “Feminism in ‘Waves’: Useful Metaphor or Not?”
Summary
In her essay, Linda Nicholson wants to interrogate the usage of the “wave” metaphor and the
division of the feminist movement/history into “waves” in an attempt to learn whether or not
such division via the term is beneficial or not. Ultimately, Nicholson is going to argue that the
reduction of the feminist movement/history to the wave metaphor is not useful: “the wave
metaphor has outlived its usefulness” (para 3). One of the reasons Nicholson believes the
metaphor is no longer useful is because it’s only really being used by the people who know the
history of the feminist movement and thus only has meaning to those people. Another reason she
believes it’s outlived its usefulness is because the metaphor implies the existence of one singular
united group/cohort that makes up the feminist movement and there is also the additional
implication that, like a wave, the action of this implied single cohort “peaks at certain times and
recedes at others” (para 3).
Response
I have no inherent attachment to the wave metaphor, but neither do I think that Nicholson
makes a strong argument for its dissolution. One significant reason I believe her argument is
weak is because in her acceptance of “first wave” and “second wave” she is admitting that the
metaphor was at one point useful. The usefulness of the term, however, seems to have eroded by
the time we reach “third wave.” In essentially claiming this, I do not feel Nicholson takes into
account the breadth and complexity of the “third wave.” Secondly, I feel as though her
investigation into “feminism” writ large is slightly off topic for her goal and I neither agree with
some of these moments nor do I think they accomplish much for her point. Lastly, in the final
moments of the essay she admits that the wave metaphor is useful in some cases, which I think
really hurts the argument as a whole.
In an attempt to expand on her point that the wave metaphor implies the existence of a single
group/cohort that makes up the feminist movement, Nicholson states: “The different kinds of
activism around gender that have taken place since the early nineteenth century in this country
cannot be reduced to one term, feminism” (para 3). As Nicholson has already pointed out by this
time in the essay, the people most likely to rely on or use the wave metaphor are those who are
aware of the feminist movement and the history of the movement itself. I think that is an accurate
claim, however, given that understanding I think it is slightly absurd to say that the people who
have a knowledge and understanding of the feminist movement writ large would claim that we
could reduce the movement to one singular cohort. Additionally, I consider “feminism” to be an
umbrella term similar to “Christianity,” for example. Thus, I believe many forms of activism can
fall under the term “feminism.” I do not have to be a Christian to perform an act that
would/could be considered as Christian; likewise, I can perform a feminist act without
identifying as a feminist. So, while the various activist groups may not have identified as
feminist groups, this does not mean the groups did not perform feminist acts and for the sake of
categorization and study I do believe these acts can be “reduced to one term, feminism” (para 3).
I have a problem with the fact that when Nicholson gets to “third wave” she does not offer any
specific reasons for why the wave metaphor no longer works. She accepts the metaphor as useful
for “first wave” and “second wave,” but suddenly in “third wave” its use has deteriorated and she
merely states: “When I think about what has transpired in the period from the 1990s to today, I
don’t think that the metaphor of a third wave is the best way to describe what has gone on” (para
7). That is a rather weak argument and I think, perhaps, Nicholson struggles with the
complexities of the third wave. Here is my suggestion: The 90s mark a time when feminist
theory begins to morph into the larger category of gender theory. Butler comes out with Gender
Trouble in 1990 and it is an academic game-changer; it, essentially, revolutionizes gender theory.
However, this larger umbrella category of gender theory complicates, perhaps, feminist history,
feminist theory, and even the wave metaphor. What I mean by this is that feminist theory in
many ways ceases to stand theoretically alone, as it always had before, and becomes a subset to a
larger category, which is gender theory. Suddenly, there is a question of what coming out of this
larger gender theory field falls under the subset of feminist theory? What actions, activism, or
theories fall to feminism proper versus falling to either another specific gender theory (i.e. queer
theory or masculine theory) or even a blend of the categories (i.e. this action or theory could be
applied to both feminist and queer theory). Gender theory becomes a new umbrella term beneath
which the umbrella term of “feminism” falls which is an added obscurification which can easily
complicate understanding as it becomes more difficult to clearly organize and delineate specific
actions, types of activism, or theories. However, while gender theory now houses feminist theory
one can choose to work only with feminist theory thus, delineations between theories do exist,
but the expansion into gender theory complicates identification. Yet, I don’t know if the
usefulness of the wave metaphor is negated by the breadth and complexity of the field.
Finally, at the end of the essay, Nicholson states, “To be sure, there is one use that the wave
metaphor is suited for - to identify those moment in history” (para 16). So, let me get this
straight, “first wave” and “second wave” are useful to a degree (and she has told us why), and the
wave metaphor as a whole is useful as timeline function, and the metaphor is really only used by
people who understand the field or have some knowledge of it (according to Nicholson)...so why
is the metaphor not useful again? It seems that the usefulness of the metaphor is contingent upon
the perception of “third wave” and if we want to prove that the metaphor cannot encapsulate
third wave, then what we really need to be doing is talking about what the metaphor is supposed
to do, because really it’s a categorization tool, and how, perhaps, it fails to do this, and this is
something Nicholson fails to address.