While there is no agreed upon “start” to the so-called “fourth wave of feminism,” its beginnings are often loosely affiliated with the early 2000s when the popularization of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allowed for online advocacy campaigns to reach mass audiences and make significant cultural impacts. Technological advancements also enabled digital methods for organizing in recent years, becoming an important module for fourth wave feminists to meet and plan acts of activism online, as well as discuss and debate feminist discourse. Activists today continue to work on many of the same issues as their predecessors—equal pay, reproductive rights, and sexual assault, for example—but with the innovative tools of the digital age at their disposal. While much fourth wave activism continues to take place both on the Internet (#MeToo, Time’s Up, and the “Believe Women” campaigns) and on the street (Women’s Marches), it’s largely conceived and disseminated online, making social media platforms a powerful tool in the fourth wave era.
Learn more in this guest curator-led walk-through of our new exhibit, "Feminism: The Fourth Wave."
