Word.ws English Dictionary

first-wave feminism

first-wave feminism noun: the original period of concerted feminist activity during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on de jure gender inequalities, primarily that of suffrage (the right to vote).

Noun

first-wave feminism (uncountable)

  1. The original period of concerted feminist activity during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on de jure gender inequalities, primarily that of suffrage (the right to vote).
    • The question that many lesbians asked was whether all this work was being accomplished at the expense of other goals of the organization. Some made the frightening comparison to the "First Wave" of feminism, which dissolved after women achieved the right to vote.1978 December 16, Cnidy Stein, “The Lavender Menace Lives”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 21, page 9

Questions about first-wave feminism

What does first-wave feminism mean?
First-wave feminism means the original period of concerted feminist activity during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on de jure gender inequalities, primarily that of suffrage (the right to vote).
What part of speech is first-wave feminism?
First-wave feminism is a noun.

Words near first-wave feminism in the dictionary

  1. first-time
  2. first-time buyer
  3. first-time buyers
  4. first-timer
  5. first-timers
  6. first-wave feminism
  7. first-waver
  8. first-wavers
  9. first-world problem
  10. first-world problems
  11. first-worldish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first-wave feminism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “first-wave feminism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/first-wave_feminism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.