Did you know that, according to some folks, we are now experiencing a fourth wave of feminism? It’s impossible to view our own historical time objectively, so future historians may classify our time differently. But from our close-up perspective, it certainly seems as if the feminist events of the past 15 years differ greatly from the feminist events we experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe they even differ enough to constitute a new, fourth wave of feminism.

On a different, but related, topic: I spent over a decade doing historical research into the Elizabethan Age of England. (This was for a historical novel that’s still nowhere near ready for publication. I’ll go back to it one day.) I uncovered information about men, men, more men, even more men, Queen Elizabeth herself, and some more men. Oh, and there were a few women who had the misfortune of damaging men’s reputations by getting themselves pregnant—how could they?! And that’s the Elizabethan Age in a nutshell. (In a nutsack? Sorry, that joke was inappropriate. Scratch that one, please!)

A new book of history, published last year, focuses on Elizabethan and Jacobean women who were highly literate and literary, who’ve been glossed over in the historical record for far too long. This article will focus on them, as well as two questions relevant to us, here in the Trump Era, aka the Fake News Age: What is the fourth wave of feminism? And why is feminism important?

What Are the Waves of Feminism? What Is the Fourth Wave of Feminism?

To keep straight the three or four waves of feminism, I made a cheat sheet that doesn’t get too deep into the weeds. Here it is:

Feminism Wave 1

Women should be able to vote. Women are as smart and capable as men.

Time period of wave 1: In the U.S., women were granted the right to vote in 1920 with the passing of the 19th Amendment. Suffragists had been fighting for this since the mid-1800s, but the idea of women’s rights had been around for centuries.

Feminism Wave 2

Women should be able to work at any job and be respected and compensated as highly as men. Let’s burn our bras!

Time period of wave 2: 1960s and onward.

Feminism Wave 3

Gen X women (like me!) came of age in an era of freedom and opportunity for women. We take this for granted. Also, we kinda like our bras. The lucky among us even like our hard-won jobs and careers. Some of us prefer to present as feminine, and some of us don’t. Some of us prefer to stay home with the kids. Some of us want to be a CEO or even the POTUS. Many of us are intersectional: female and black, female and queer, etc.

Time period of wave 3: 1980s and onward.

Feminism Wave 4

#MeToo. Sharing stories of abuse, harassment, and oppression on social media. Cancel culture. Protesting rape culture and “Blurred Lines.” Maybe let’s not listen to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” anymore. Even more intersectionality. Feminism can encompass the nonbinary.

Time period of wave 4: 2010s and onward.

Before the Four Waves of Feminism: the Elizabethan Age and Jacobean Age of England

I’m excited to share that I’ll be teaching a class on Shakespeare’s Sonnets on June 11, 2025, which can be attended in person or online. As part of my research into Shakespeare’s life, I read the 2024 book Shakespeare’s Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance, by Ramie Targoff.

Shakespeare had sisters (and brothers), but this book is not about them. It’s about female writers and poets living in the mid-1500s through the mid-1600s: the era of Shakespeare. The early part of this time period is called Elizabethan, after Queen Elizabeth I, who died in 1603. The later part is called Jacobean, after King James I of England (who was also King James VI of Scotland), who reigned over the newly united British Isles from 1603 until his death in 1625. Shakespeare’s Sisters goes beyond this time period a bit, into the reign of James’ son Charles I, who is mainly famous for being beheaded, in 1649. All of this is considered part of a larger time period known as the English Renaissance.

Shakespeare’s Sisters highlights four women of this place and time who wrote. It’s a myth that women of the past were unable to write, or write well. It’s not a myth that many of them were constrained from reaching their full potential as writers and authors, due to their gender. Indeed their contributions were often (but not always) ignored by contemporary printers and publishers, as well as later scholars and historians, almost all of whom were men.

Correcting Lapses in the Literary History of the English Renaissance

Enter Targoff, the author of this history book, who sets out to highlight four literary-minded women of the English Renaissance. Women during this time period wrote creative and lyrical works like poetry, plays, and translations. Women were also diarists who documented their lives and times in a nonfictional vein. Either way, they participated in the flourishing literary culture of the era, and many of their works were read by their extensive networks of friends and family. Some of their works were even published and read even more widely.

These works by women center female characters and their unique circumstances. Some of them center females of their own time, and some center females in stories from the Bible or ancient Greece and Rome. We are used to seeing Shakespeare plays with prominent female roles, but the most important protagonists of his plays are always men (or jointly shared between a male and female). It’s fascinating to hear of these centuries-old, seldom-read works with distinctly female themes and protagonists.

In her epilogue, Targoff writes:

“When I graduated with a BA in English in May 1989, I had never read a word written by a woman before the nineteenth century. Nor did I imagine there were things to be read.”

Why Should We Include Underrepresented Voices in the Literary Canon? Why Is Feminism Important?

Targoff’s story of her own educational history makes me sad. The literary canon exists because one can’t read everything, so therefore, we should try to focus on the very best.

But deciding what’s “the very best” is tricky. Approaching objectivity isn’t totally impossible, in my opinion. But as humans, we can’t help being heavily swayed by our own biases. And the game of history has been rigged by centuries of male voices crowding out most female initiative and thought.

I’m not going to lie to you: The female writers featured in Shakespeare’s Sisters are amazing, but they do not approach the poetic heights of William Shakespeare. However, no writer generally does. These female writers of the English Renaissance certainly did match the heights of other male authors of the time.

Thus, Shakespeare should continue to be highlighted prominently in the canon. But there’s room to include other talents, both male and female.

To Celebrate the Fourth Wave of Feminism, Let’s Highlight Some Literary Women of the English Renaissance

I’m also not going to lie to you about Shakespeare’s Sisters: As far as modern history books go, this one is fairly dry. It was not a particularly riveting read, which I attribute to the writing style of the book, not the interesting lives of the women featured.

The reason this book captivated me, and kept me reading, is its focus on women for their own sake, not their participation in a man’s story. I’m telling you—this is a rare thing in books about this time period, and not to be undervalued.

Let’s celebrate a book about literary women from the 16th and 17th centuries, which was published during the fourth wave of feminism, our Fake News Age, a time when some things are still really true, and we as a society are starting to fully appreciate the value of female voices. To celebrate, I’d like to share with you information about two of these long-ago women:

Mary Herbert, née Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (left portrait above)

In most history books, Mary features as the sister of the poet Philip Sidney. Philip died tragically young (in a battle in the Netherlands) after becoming famous for writing poetic works. Mary also features as a wealthy, aristocratic patron of the arts who supported writers financially. And she features as the mother of another famous patron who supported writers (including Shakespeare), William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. (William may be the Fair Youth of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.)

But did you know that Mary prompted and helped her brother Philip in the creation of his literary works? And did you know that, after his death, she published fabulous literary works in her own right? Her legit writing was published either under Philip’s name, or under her aristocratic title, to try to hide her gender from potential book buyers. She was an excellent poet, translator, and playwright who centered women in her works.

Aemilia Lanyer, née Aemilia Bassano (right portrait above)

In most history books, Aemilia features as a lowbrow slut who may be the Dark Lady referred to in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Her father was a musician from Venice, and she may have had darker skin than the average English person. As a young woman, she became the kept mistress of a wealthy aristocrat 45 years older than her. When she got pregnant, she was hastily married off to a poor musician on his staff.

But did you know that Aemilia got a great education, in part because she lived, in her younger years, with literate, aristocratic women? Did you know that she was passionate about poetry and published a book of poems about women’s rights? Did you know that Shakespeare, who also seemingly “got around” and may also have had an “illegitimate” child, did not suffer anywhere near the reputational damage for this that Aemilia did, only because of their difference in gender?

Aemilia, like Shakespeare and other writers of this time, wrote flowery dedications to wealthy aristocrats to try to find patronage for her literary endeavors. She was not successful, whereas so many men were. It breaks my heart.

So What? Why Are the Three or Four Waves of Feminism Important?

Unlike Targoff, I do remember reading female authors as part of my BA in English literature. This was important to me not because I thought they were better than Shakespeare (they weren’t), but because I could see myself in them, in many ways. The men in my classes (there were a few) had the opportunity to experience a female perspective, too.

The whole point of literature is to communicate the experience of being human. Let’s approach the sublime with Shakespeare, but let’s also remember the multitudinous other voices surrounding him, and us. Here in the fourth wave of feminism, we are finally truly doing that.

Have you read anything written by a woman before the 1800s?

Featured in this post: Shakespeare’s Sisters by Ramie Targoff Buy it now