The feminist movement is often referred to in terms of waves. The first wave of feminism from the mid-19th through the early 20th century defined oppression principally in terms of women’s exclusion from voting and property rights. The first wave of feminism from the mid-19th through the early 20th century defined oppression principally in terms of women’s exclusion from voting and property rights. The second wave of feminism that began in the early 1960s was a much broader movement.

It was concerned with such issues as reproductive freedom, domestic violence, rape, and the participation of women in domains—such as upper management and politics—that were previously reserved for men (women have always been a significant portion of the workforce but until the last 30 years or so have been denied a significant presence in the upper echelons of organizations). Liberal feminism focused on voting and property rights, but the feminist second wave was a much broader movement.

When people think about gender and feminism, they typically think about women’s issues. This tendency is partly because, for much of its history, feminism has been concerned with women’s rights and advancement, but it’s also because, from a commonsense perspective, women have gender and men do not. However, as we have already learned, masculinity is just as much a product of social constructions and power relations as femininity is.

The case is simply that those groups possessing the most power tend to position themselves as the norm and therefore are relatively invisible (the glass slipper is not visible on men, for example). Hence, masculinity typically has not been held up to the same kind of scrutiny as femininity has. So, in this section, we will take a closer look at the relationship between masculinity and organizing. Masculinity, then, is worthy of our consideration because it is usually taken for granted in the wider culture and has profound implications for how we view men, women, and their relationships with each other.