Talking in Waves: A Generational and Secular Metaphor

It is almost impossible to speak of feminist history without “talking in waves”; such is the pervasiveness of this image for depicting the development of the feminist and women’s movement. Since the wave metaphor began to appear at the start of the second stage of feminism—often credited to Marsha Weinman Lear’s (1968) article “The Second Feminist Wave” in the New York Times Magazine (Henry, 2004, p. 58)—the wave is now a familiar and much-loved trope for capturing the unfolding story of feminism.1 And there is good reason. Waves signify the constancy of the women’s movement: even on an apparently still stretch of water, there are ongoing ebbs, flows, peaks, ripples, and swells as the water rises and falls. There is energy as one wave crashes on the shore, and is drawn back out to the sea by the current to rejoin tidal streams. Waves overlap and undulate but always belong to a larger body of water, dependent upon previous and consecutive surges, but it is possible to see the distinct breaks. As Cathryn Bailey notes, “As feminists, we could do much worse than be associated with this phenomenon” (1997, p. 17), its power, poetry, and beauty.