ABSTRACT
Since the second half of the 1980s, feminist scholars have revised the dominant narrative about “second-wave feminism” in a number of ways. They have shown that the idea of a lull in feminist activism between 1918–20, when suffrage was achieved in many Western countries, and the 1960s is questionable. Moreover, the movement did not just consist of white, middle-class women (whom Betty Friedan’s famous 1963 Feminine Mystique targeted and mobilized), neither was it focused only on challenging inequalities between women and men. Nonetheless, it has proven difficult to displace the hegemonic narrative, which also sees feminism as quintessentially Western. In that narrative, other parts of the world, whether former socialist states or so-called Third World countries, supposedly were behind regarding women’s rights and followed the Western lead. This idea of Western leadership in feminism took on a new life after 1989/1991, when feminists from the U.S. and Western Europe flocked to Russia and other former socialist countries to “bring” feminism there or to help build up an “autonomous” women’s movement.
