Study On Third Wave Feminism

Women, about half of the world’s population, play an essential role in people’s life. They have been doing indelible contribution for the continuity of human being, but didn’t get due respect and interests. Therefore research on women has attracted more and more people’s attention, and now the third wave feminism is in full swing, leading the advancement of women, whose theory is worthy of our in-depth study. This paper attempts to summarize the third wave feminism. Firstly, it presents three reasons for the rise of the third wave feminism, respectively from the economic globalization, high-tech development, postmodernism and post-colonialism. Secondly, it introduces the main branches of the third wave feminism:Cyborg feminism, Eco/feminism, Post-colonial Feminism and Post-Marxist feminism. Thirdly, it summarizes the main features of the third wave feminism:shift from grand narrative of the Enlightenment to micro-political aspirations, shift from the pursuit of equality to the differences between men and women, shift from the focus on women’s issues to cultural fair. Finally, the paper focuses on the development of feminism in China and the argument is that China should learn from the third wave feminism for our own use.Many thoughts of the third wave feminism have enlightenment to us. The difference theory let us pay more attention to the interests of different classes of women; the theory of "discourse is power" is in favor of women to fight for their right to speak for themselves; the deconstruction of the hierarchy of the binary opposition helps us to promote gender harmony. Third wave feminism is still in full swing, it has great significance for gender equality, so there is a lot of theoretical study has yet to be discovered, and we should track it down.