ABSTRACT
Most scholars think that third-wave feminism officially started with the coining of the term in 1992 by Rebecca Walker and the activism of feminist/ womanist women of color. Third-wave feminism resists simple description. Its writers have produced numerous varied and multifaceted works in a short period, a phenomenon that makes the approach difficult to thematize. Third-wave feminists emphasize that soon not white people but people of color will constitute the majority of the US population. Oftentimes, in addition to being open to women's different racioethnic, social, economic, political, and cultural differences, third-wave feminists are open to women's sexual differences. On the surface, third-wave feminists seem better equipped than second-wave feminists to deal with women's differences. One of the most dynamic developments in contemporary feminist thought is the ascendancy of queer theory. One critique of queer theory is that by celebrating difference, queer policies leads to 'individualism' and 'fragmentation'.
