Folk Rock: Third Wave Feminism
- Music History Hall
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
The Third Wave
As a new generation of women entered the workforce in the 1990s, issues like sexual harassment and the Anita Hill hearings launched a new wave of feminism as female-driven music took center stage.
Feminism had already had a couple of heydays - the 1920s with the women’s suffrage movement and the 1970s with the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment (which was never ratified) and the sexual liberation of women. In the 1990s, the United States experienced a third wave of young women standing up for their rights.
In the 1990s, women were graduating from college at an equal or higher rate than men for the first time in American history. Women were entering the workforce in cities across the country in large numbers.
An Earthquake
Between the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 and the Northridge earthquake of 1994 – a cultural earthquake occurred. A major event that rattled women across the country – the 1991 televised U.S. Senate Hearings of Attorney Anita Hill. She was mistreated as she testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings regarding the conduct - in a professional setting - of Clarence Thomas, who was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Year of the Woman
The backlash to the treatment of Anita Hill led to women organizing and running for public office in record numbers. 1992 became known as the “Year of the Woman.” In the 1992 national elections, the United States raised the number of women in the House of Representatives from 28 to 47 and put 4 new women in the Senate – bringing the total to 6 women. California became the first state to elect women to occupy both of its Senate seats. Illinois elected the first Black American woman to the U.S. Senate.
In 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsberg became the second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court – joining the first woman to serve, Sandra Day O’Connor.
Feminism Rocks
In the 1990s, feminist art and music started seeping into the culture. This female-driven music declared that girls are strong, smart, and intrinsically good.
Then, in the mid-1990s, a music festival took the country by storm. The idea for Lilith Fair came about in 1996 when musician Sarah McLachlan became frustrated with concert promoters and radio stations that refused to feature two female musicians in a row. They also balked at booking concerts with a female opener and a female headliner – they did not think that a concert of only female performers would sell.
The Girls Go It Alone
Lilith Fair was a traveling music festival founded by Sarah McLachlan in 1997. The festival toured the country for three years in the summers of 1997, 1998, and 1999. It consisted solely of female artists and female-led bands.
Lilith Fair performers included:
Sarah McLachlan
Sheryl Crow
Tracy Chapman
Jewel
Paula Cole
Suzanne Vega
Fiona Apple
Joan Osborne
Natalie Merchant
The Indigo Girls
Sarah McLachlan named the festival after the Jewish Biblical character Lilith – in folklore, Lilith was the first wife of Adam who refused to be subservient to Adam. Sarah McLachlan considered the character Lilith to be the “first feminist.”
Lilith Fair was a 35-stop U.S. summer tour playing to massive crowds. It was enormously successful and garnered sixteen million dollars — making it the top-grossing touring festival of 1997.
