Final answer:
The first wave of the women's movement is best known for the fight for women's suffrage, but it also addressed wider legal and social discrimination against women.
Step-by-step explanation:
First Wave Feminism and Its Central Cause
The cause most identified with the first wave of the women's movement was the struggle for women's suffrage. Aside from the fight to secure the right to vote, first-wave feminism was characterized by efforts to challenge legally-mandated discrimination against women regarding property laws, control over children, and more broadly, social and legal inequalities.
The first-wave feminists faced significant opposition, often from those in power, predominantly men, who believed and propagated the notion that women were physiologically less capable than men. This social attitude was reflected in various aspects of daily life, including the infamous incident at the University of Athens, where a female scientist was demeaned by her male counterparts. Despite such resistance, these early feminists laid the groundwork for future waves of feminism, focusing on achieving legal equality and battling societal norms that restricted women's roles to being primarily wives and mothers.
During this era, women sought to participate more fully in public life, leading to a broader involvement in movements dedicated to improving the conditions of the working class and the urban poor. While the eventual goal was to realize total equality for women, suffrage was considered a pivotal aspect that would enable them to further their fight for equal rights within other spheres of society.