Second-Wave Feminism

Second-wave feminism is usually defined as the period of reemergence of women’s awareness of sexual inequality in many aspects of political, economic, and social life. While often linked to the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique in 1963, there is less consensus on when second-wave feminism effectively ended. Psychology as a discipline was relatively late to acknowledge and integrate feminism into the field, so the second wave is often conceived as beginning in the late 1960s and ending in the late 1970s or even in the late 1980s. This entry presents a brief history of second-wave feminism; it discusses feminist ideology and activism and its contributions to the integration of women’s issues into the college curriculum. The entry focuses on the impact of second-wave ...