Feminisms do not always occur in the linear, discreetly bounded ways suggested by the first-, second- and third-wave categories used in conventional histories of feminist movements. The wave metaphor is limited for two reasons: it both simplifies the range of debates within feminisms and implies that very little happened during the "lulls." While there are ebbs and flows within social movements, the conceptualization of feminist "waves" overlooks the ways in which the energies within these movements often take multiple forms or are engaged elsewhere at different times and in different spaces. Alternately, I suggest a rhizomatic approach to feminist histories that would follow multiple - rather than single and linear - trajectories. One of the benefits of this model is that it offers a conceptualization of feminist histories that does not cut them off from other activisms and has the potential to acknowledge the important work done between the "waves."

Elizabeth Groeneveld is a doctoral candidate in the School for English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Her dissertation is entitled Do It Yourself: Third-Wave Magazines and Feminist Public Culture.

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