Fourth-wave feminism in the context of "Feminist movement"

The feminist movement in Norway has made significant progress in reforming laws and social customs in the nation, advancing the rights of the women of Norway. It emerged in the 19th century as part of the liberal feminist tradition, centered on women's rights to education, suffrage, and political participation, with the liberal Norwegian Association for Women's Rights as the dominant organization. Today, the movement is marked by a strong fourth wave of feminism, emphasizing intersectionality, inclusivity, and solidarity across gender, sexuality, race, ability, and class, with initiatives such as the Initiative for Inclusive Feminism at the forefront. In 2025, 25 feminist organizations and academic communities came together to adopt the consensus statement "No feminism without trans people: We stand together for an inclusive feminism."

Third-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began in the early 1990s; it was prominent in the decades prior to the fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, Gen X third-wave feminists born in the 1960s and 1970s embraced diversity and individualism in women, and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist. The third wave saw the emergence of new feminist currents and theories, such as intersectionality, sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism, and postmodern feminism. According to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the "confusion surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism is in some respects its defining feature."

The third wave is traced to Anita Hill's televised testimony in 1991 to an all-male all-white Senate Judiciary Committee that the judge Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her. The term third wave is credited to Rebecca Walker, who responded to Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court with an article in Ms. magazine, "Becoming the Third Wave" (1992). She wrote:

Self-love, defined as "love of self" or "regard for one's own happiness or advantage", has been conceptualized both as a basic human necessity and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness, synonymous with amour-propre, conceitedness, egotism, narcissism, et al. However, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries self-love has adopted a more positive connotation through pride parades, Self-Respect Movement, self-love protests, the hippie era, the modern feminist movement (3rd & 4th wave), as well as the increase in mental health awareness that promotes self-love as intrinsic to self-help and support groups working to prevent substance abuse and suicide.

Postfeminism (alternatively rendered as post-feminism) is an alleged decrease in popular support for feminism from the 1990s onwards. It can be considered a critical way of understanding the changed relations among feminism, femininity and popular culture. The term is sometimes confused with subsequent feminisms such as postmodern feminism, xenofeminism, and the fourth wave.

Research conducted at Kent State University in the 2000s narrowed postfeminism to four main claims: support for feminism declined; women began hating feminism and feminists; society had already attained social equality, thus making feminism outdated; and the label "feminist" has a negative stigma.

The Initiative for Inclusive Feminism (Norwegian: Inkluderende feminisme-initiativet; IFI) is a Norwegian intersectional feminist and human rights organization, and Norway's main intersectional feminist organization. It grew out of a national network of feminists who called for a feminism grounded in human rights, solidarity, and inclusion, and who sought to build a broad, intersectional movement rooted in the universality and indivisibility of human rights. IFI promotes an understanding of feminism as a democratic and universal human rights project that opposes all forms of exclusion and discrimination.

The organization originated in the Call for Inclusive Feminism of 2020, a broad cross-party appeal signed by 2,476 feminists from across Norway, including equality ministers Anette Trettebergstuen and Lubna Jaffery, along with numerous politicians, scholars, and activists. The call set out a vision of trans-inclusive feminism based on human rights and solidarity. It led to the creation of the Inclusive Feminism Network, which became one of the country's largest feminist communities and formally established IFI in 2022. Since then, IFI has coordinated Inclusive March 8 in Oslo together with Amnesty International and other partners, positioning itself at the centre of Norway's third- and fourth-wave feminism and a generational renewal of the feminist movement. Inclusive March 8 is one of the capital's two major International Women's Day events and is usually held at Eidsvolls plass outside the Norwegian Parliament.

Feminism is aimed at defining, establishing, and defending a state of equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. It has had a massive influence on American politics. Feminism in the United States is often divided chronologically into first-wave, second-wave, third-wave, and fourth-wave feminism.

As of 2023, the United States is ranked 17th in the world on gender equality.