Exploring the Third Wave of Feminism Through Hierarchical Clustering and Sentiment Analysis

Abstract

Although much had changed throughout the feminist movement during the first wave (the 1800s–1960s) and second wave (1960s–1980s), with the inclusion of distinct minority groups into the idea, most of the contemporary approaches had been developed within the third wave. The purpose of this study is twofold: First, to investigate the works published during the third wave of feminism through unsupervised clustering methods. Second, to determine the driving emotional structures for each of these consequent clusters using sentiment analysis. To conduct the analyses, sizeable data is gathered using the literature published after the mid-1990s. The data is then cleaned and prepared according to the bag of words methodology before the usage of the hierarchical clustering technique. As a final step, sentiment analysis based on Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion has been used to illustrate the magnitudes of eight distinct emotions. Results demonstrate that there are clear points of distinction between the 3 waves’ sentiment analysis and main ideas. One of the significant findings was the 3rd wave’s feminism understanding being not only about women but all types of disadvantaged minority groups. Another important finding is that the aggression level of the ideas that do not change during the 3 waves increases significantly over time. This research contributes to the literature by providing an objective framework to analyze how the feminism ideology is evolved.