Kate Millett's Feminism And The Third-Wave Feminism

Kate Millett is well-known as one of the most important women in the 20th century. As a vanguard of American local feminism, she has been a focus of her peers and later generations. Even four decades later, her feminism still corresponds to the recent feminist development. This thesis is to analyze the organic affiliation between Kate Millett's feminism and the third-wave feminism to show that there is continuity between these two and Millett's feminism is an inevitable proposition for the third-wave feminism. To address the topic, feminist theories, deductive and inductive approaches are employed for the research work.The thesis begins with some theoretical issues, giving a brief introduction to key terms relevant to the analysis work of this thesis and a general review of researches on Kate Millett's feminism and the third-wave feminism. In chapter one, Millett's gender discourse is to be discussed incorporated with third-wave perspectives. Millett offered a political view to look at gender and defined gender to be the fundamental base of sexual politics. Based on her perception, third wavers, like Judith Butler and Bell Hooks, extend the connotation of gender and corresponding resolution incorporating philosophical and race-related approaches respectively. Chapter two investigates the conflicts and bridges between Millett and third-wave feminism around the issue of sexuality. Three spokeswomen, namely Naomi Wolf, Camile Paglia, and Kimberly Klinger embrace a pro-sexism attitude towards pornography and prostitution, whereas Millett raised awareness of female sexuality with raw anger. Chapter three carries out a discussion around the politics of motherhood, wherein Millett's and three third-wavers'perspectives upon mothering is to be studied in full length. In contrast to Millett's"the personal is political", third wavers, for instance, Katie Roiphy, Rebecca Walker, and Amy Richards, resort to a strategy of"the personal is personal". The last part is to conclude the contents and academic value of this thesis.Through the research work of this thesis, it is made explicit that the third-wave feminism has critically received and transformed Kate Millett's feminism. Millett's insightful perspectives cast much light on the third-wave feminism, both in theory and practical movement. What's more significant, the acceptance and transcendence, conflict and subversion between Millett's feminism and the Third-wave feminism can illuminate for building and developing feminist theories in China. It is inadequate to totally learn from the latest development in western academic circle, and it should be unwise to blindly worship Western theories of the latest development. We should construct and improve our local feminism on the basis of selectively absorbing and learning from classic feminist legacy. In so doing, it is possible to develop a local feminism combining our traditions and national conditions, with independent mind and insight.