Transnational feminism
In the "Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements", Valentine Moghadam says that "women have worked together across borders since at least the mid-1800s. (55)" What is now called first wave feminism started in the early twentieth century in the West with a focus on women's suffrage. 
During World War II, the United States government gave women jobs because the war had caused a national shortage of labor. After the war ended, Irene Tinker says (oxford transnational), these jobs were taken away but women were no longer satisfied going back to their previous gender roles. Starting in the 1960s in the United States, second wave feminism emerged, defined by women's organization around "equal right to education, employment, and equal pay for equal work, and on sexual and reproductive rights."
First-wave feminism
The organized women's movement begun in 1873, when Married Woman's Property Rights Association was co-founded by Anna Hierta-Retzius and Ellen Anckarsvärd. The prime task of the organization was to abolish coverture. In 1884, Fredrika Bremer Association was founded by Sophie Adlersparre to work for the improvement in women's rights. The second half of the 19th century saw the creation of several women's rights organisations and a considerable activity within both active organization as well as intellectual debate. The 1880s saw the so-called "Sedlighetsdebatten", were gender roles were discussed in literary debate in regards to sexual double standards in opposed to sexual equality. In 1902, finally, the National Association for Women's Suffrage was founded.