Feminist Movement
Feminist Movement
Feminist movement
Feminist movement
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The Suffrage movement (also known as the Womens Movement or Womens Liberation) is a series of campaigns on issues such as reproductive rights (sometimes including abortion), domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. The goals of the movement vary from country to country, e.g. opposition to female genital cutting in Sudan, or to the glass ceiling in Western countries.
History
The history of feminist movements has been divided into three "waves" by feminist scholars.[1][2] Each is described as dealing with different aspects of the same feminist issues. The first wave refers to the feminism movement of the 19th through early 20th centuries, which dealt mainly with the Suffrage movement. Writers such as Virginia Woolfe are associated with the ideas of the First Wave of feminism. In her book A Room of Ones Own Woolfe describes how men socially and psychically dominate women. The argument of the book is that women are simultaneously victims of themselves as well as victims of men and are upholders of society by acting as mirrors to men [1] She recognizes the social constructs that restrict women in society and uses literature to contextualize it for other women. The second wave (1960s-1980s) dealt with the inequality of laws, as well as cultural inequalities. It built upon the established goals of the First Wave and began to adapt the ideas to
Feminist movement
multifaceted incorporating the efforts of individuals who may not have affiliated themselves with the movement yet helped the goals of the movement become attainable. There are examples of different groups who were part of the movement that rejected the institution of the American system of capitalism, however, the agenda of the First and Second waves worked with the American political system in order to gain more rights. The feminist movement reaches far back before the 18th century, feminist movement were planted during the late part of that century. Christine de Pizan, a late medieval writer, was possibly the earliest feminist in the western tradition. She is believed to be the first woman to make a beautiful piece of writing. Feminist thought began to take a more substantial shape during The Enlightenment with such thinkers as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Marquis de Condorcet championing womens education. The first scientific society for women was founded in Middelburg, a city in the south of the Dutch republic, in 1785. Journals for women which focused on issues like science became popular during this period as well. The period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States is referred to as the first wave of feminism. It was sometime in the 1920s when feminism died in the US. It focused primarily on gaining the right of womens suffrage. The term, "first-wave," was coined retrospectively after the term second-wave feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist movement that focused as much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as further political inequalities.[5] In Britain, the Suffragettes campaigned for the womens vote, which was eventually granted to some women in 1918 and to all in 1928 as much because of the part played by British women during the First World War, as of the efforts of the Suffragists. In the United States leaders of this movement include Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who each campaigned for the abolition of slavery prior to championing womens right to vote. Other important leaders include Lucy Stone, Olympia Brown, and Helen Pitts. American first-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups (such as Frances Willard and the Womans Christian
Feminist movement
absolute rights such as suffrage, secondwave feminism was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as the end to discrimination.[5] The feminist activist and author, Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political" which became synonymous with the second wave.[6][7] Second-wave feminists saw womens cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures. In the early 1990s, a movement arose in responses to the perceived the failures of second wave feminism, it has been termed the "third wave". It is also described as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist thought for consideration of race related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but began to shift with the Freedom Ride 1992. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded with rhetoric that focused on rallying young feminists. For many, the rallying of the young is the emphasis that has stuck within third wave feminism.[5][8] The different waves of feminism are not only reflective of the cultural evolution in American since the 1920s but it is also the way in which the Feminist Movement used different social movement tactics to encourage women in America to become active and motivate individuals to make change for the whole of women in America. Although the Feminist Movement has spanned almost a century there are ways in which to breakdown the timeline and recognize how women have framed the ways they have achieved different goals throughout history. It is By rendering events or occurrences meaningful, frames function to organize experience and guide action, whether individual or collective [9] The Feminist Movement has been an ongoing presence in American culture and although some women might not have affiliated themselves with the movement their lives have been affected by the influence the movement
Feminist movement
what generation, age, gender, race, age, or sexual orientation.
Feminist movement
impossible to translate into a program without centrifugal results [17] about the first wave of the movement. What made a change in gender order feel necessary to so much of society was the fate of the family wage system; the male breadwinner/female homemaker idea that shaped government policies and employment in businesses. In the years of the movement women accomplished many of the goals they set out to do. They won protection from employment discrimination, inclusion in affirmative action, abortion law reform, greater representation in media, equal access to school athletics, congressional passage of an equal rights movement and so much more. Demographic changes started sweeping industrial societys; birth rates declined, life expectancy increased, and women were entering the paid labor force in massive amounts and new public policies emerged fitted to changing family forms and individual life cycles.[18] The work of these women also changed the popular understanding of marriage and the very meaning of life; women came to want more out of their marriages and from men, education, and themselves. The efforts and accomplishments of these women and organizations throughout the womens movement inspired many authors of that time to write about their personal experiences with feminism. Jo Freeman and Sara Evans were to such authors. Both women participated in the movement and wrote about their firsthand knowledge of feminism. Freeman, American feminist and writer, wrote several feminist articles on issues such as social movements, political parties, public policy toward women and many other important pieces about women. Evans wrote her experiences in books such as The Roots of Womens Liberation in the Civil Right Movement and the New Left and Born for Liberty. Her works focused more on young women activists recognizing that the personal is political as well as showing how these women used discussion sessions to expand understanding of the social roots of personal problems and worked towards developing different practices to address those issues.[19] Part of what made feminism so successful was the way women in different situations developed their own variants and organized for the goals most important to them. All women, Native American women, working class women, Jewish women, catholic women, sex workers, and women with
Feminist movement
situation is hopeless, that they can do nothing to break the pattern of domination [4]
Social changes
The feminist movement affected change in Western society, including womens suffrage; the right to initiate divorce proceedings and "no fault" divorce; and the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy (including access to contraceptives and abortion); and the right to own property.[20][21] Feminism has effected many changes in Western society, including womens suffrage, broad employment for women at more equitable wages and access to university education. The United Nations Human Development Report 2004 estimated that when both paid employment and unpaid household tasks are accounted for, on average women work more than men. In rural areas of selected developing countries women performed an average of 20% more work than men, or an additional 102 minutes per day. In the OECD countries surveyed, on average women performed 5% more work than men, or 20 minutes per day.[22] At the UNs Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Womens Association 21st International Conference in 2001 it was stated that "in the world as a whole, women comprise 51 percent of the population, do 66 percent of the work, receive 10 percent of the income and own less than one percent of the property".[23] The social climate in America has definitely evolved throughout history. The definitions of Feminism, Feminist, and Feminist Theory now are not a monolithic term. There are multiple dimensions to the movement that encompass all different aspects of American culture. In America most people are socialized to think in terms of opposition rather than compatibility [24]. Social changes have not only included the right to vote, greater equality in the workforce, as well as reproductive rights but also the recognition of injustices and the ways in which both men and women can work to change them. According to bell hooks, in order to create change it is essential to recognize that exploited and oppressed groups of women are usually encouraged by those in power to feel that their
Language
Feminists are often proponents of using non-sexist language, using "Ms." to refer to both married and unmarried women, for example, or the ironic use of the term "herstory" instead of "history". Feminists are also often proponents of using gender-inclusive language, such as "humanity" instead of "mankind", or "he or she" in place of "he" where the gender is unknown. Gender-neutral language is a description of language usages which are aimed at minimizing assumptions regarding the biological sex of human referents. The advocacy of gender-neutral language reflects, at least, two different agendas: one aims to clarify the inclusion of both sexes or genders (gender-inclusive language); the other proposes that gender, as a category, is rarely worth marking in language (gender-neutral language). Gender-neutral language is sometimes described as non-sexist language by advocates and politically-correct language by opponents.[25]
Heterosexual relationships
The increased entry of women into the workplace beginning in the twentieth century has affected gender roles and the division of labor within households. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in The Second Shift and The Time Bind presents evidence that in twocareer couples, men and women, on average, spend about equal amounts of time working, but women still spend more time on housework.[26][27] Feminist writer Cathy Young responds to Hochschilds assertions by arguing that in some cases, women may prevent the equal participation of men in housework and parenting.[28] Feminist criticisms of mens contributions to child care and domestic labor in the Western middle class are typically centered around the idea that it is unfair for women to be expected to perform more than half of a households domestic work and child care when both members of the relationship perform an equal share of work outside the home. Several studies provide statistical evidence that the financial income of married
Feminist movement
Because this equality has been historically ignored, Christian feminists believe their contributions are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. While there is no standard set of beliefs among Christian feminists, most agree that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex. Their major issues are the ordination of women, male dominance in Christian marriage, and claims of moral deficiency and inferiority of abilities of women compared to men. They also are concerned with the balance of parenting between mothers and fathers and the overall treatment of women in the church.[34][35] Within Christian feminist theology, there are many branches of prominent religious thought. After these Christian feminists fought for suffrage rights, they concentrated their efforts ethics and the meaning of injustice and justice. [36] The following quote demonstrates the intention of this switch of concentration as an attempt to thematize and scrutinize such terms we need a somewhat indirect, oblique, mode of approach to the use of justice [36] Early feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton concentrated almost solely on making women equal to men. However, the Christian feminist movement chose to concentrate on the language of religion because they viewed the historic gendering of God as male as a result of the pervasive influence of patriarchy. Rosemary Radford Ruether provided a systematic critique of Christian theology from a feminist and theist point of view. She called for the language of God and religion to become something that represents the ability of God to be either male or female and to be neither male nor female concurrently. [37] Ruether claimed that the male personification of God resulted from the tradition of Judeo-Christian leadership that failed to recognize gender inequalities as problematic. She also suggests that it might have been difficult to note, because of the numerous women that filled roles of power. In her view, the recovery of female qualities, along with the use of appropriate female language for God, would help correct the improper hierarchical social structure of male over female. [38] William P. Alston asks the question, in his article Speaking Literally of God, of whether it is possible to form subject-predicate sentences to be asserted truly of God conceived as an incorporeal
Effect on religion
The feminist movement has affected religion and theology in profound ways. In liberal branches of Protestant Christianity, women are now allowed to be ordained as clergy, and in Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism, women are now allowed to be ordained as rabbis and cantors. Within these aforementioned Christian and Jewish groups, some women are gradually obtaining positions of power that were formerly only held my men, and their perspectives are now sought out in developing new statements of belief. These trends, however, have been resisted within Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity. Feminist theology is a movement that reconsiders the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining womens place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religions sacred texts.[33] Christian feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand Christianity in light of the equality of women and men.
Feminist movement
Reuther continued her argument with the idea that male monotheism perpetuates the social stratification of patriarchal rule, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as demonstrated by the portrayal of males as positive-neutral figures and females as negative.[38] Men are seen as representatives of God and responsible partners of the covenant with him [36] Yet, women do not traditionally have a direct connection with the Divine; theirs is derived from marriage to men. Thus the hierarchy of God-male-female does not merely make woman secondary in relation to God, it also gives her a negative identity in relation to the divine. Whereas the male is essentially seen as the image of the male transcendent ego or God, woman is seen as the image of the lower, material nature [36] Christian feminists identify these connections as problematic in creating inclusive religious language because they not only deprive women of a place to involve themselves in religion, but also support the notion that males are the only ones in touch with surrounding reality. [36] The prominence of patriarchy in male monotheism indicated a certain systematic depreciation of femininity in relation to religion. [36] There is no God and Goddess power dynamic in traditional Judeo-Christian male monotheism as it existed in older Greek religious traditions. Further, the Judeo-Christian tradition does not represent a true male-female duality. Male monotheism maintains that God is essentially male and that men represent his image. [36] Through marriage women are supposedly able to have a positive connection to the Divine, but this relationship implies that women must remain subservient to and subordinate to their male husbands and male God. [36] Yahweh is depicted as the angry and threatening husband who will punish his unfaithful bride with summary divorce. But he is also described as winning her back and making her faithful to him by drawing her out into the desert wildness.
[36]
Though the some made the argument that males can also be subject to the punishment of an angry God, others saw this language as something that reduces women to roles as wives to be subservient instead of independent and subordinate instead of dominant like their male counterparts. By patriarchy we mean not only the subordination of females to males, but the whole structure of Fatherruled society: aristocracy over serfs, masters over slaves, king over subjects, racial overlords over colonized people. Religions that reinforce hierarchical stratification use the Divine as the apex of this system of privilege and control [36] Modern Judeo-Christian theists proclaim that their tradition is against oppressions of all kinds. However, many of their teachings cannot simply be interpreted as being against all systems of oppression, while in most of the language a certain degree of patriarchy remains. The Davidic monarchy established at the heart of Biblical religion a motif or protest against the status quo of ruling-class privilege and deprivation of the poor. God is seen as a critic of this society, a champion of the social victims [36]. While the Judeo-Christian tradition is seen as a movement of revolution, it has not traditionally been opposed to gender oppression. Although Yahwism dissents against class hierarchy, it issues no similar protest against gender discrimination [36] One question answered in feminist theology is the following, Is tradition, here, a roadblock in making (male) monotheism inclusive and free of gender discrimination? Is religious text sexist in the Judeo-Christian tradition primarily may be the result of the tunnelvision of those prophets in power, or in direct connection with God. While male prophets may have been aware of the class oppression they might have been experiencing it might have been difficult for them to also realize the conditions of many women on their side. Fighting for gender equality might have been incredibly uninteresting or unimportant to those male prophets. The class hierarchy male prophets contended themselves with protesting cannot be equalized with a protest against gender oppression, because an anticlass structure reality need not also be an anti-gender subjugation reality. Those male prophets who were aware of oppression by rich urbanites or dominating empires were not similarly conscious of their own
Feminist movement
Advocates of the movement seek to highlight the deeply rooted teachings of equality in the Quran and encourage a questioning of the patriarchal interpretation of Islamic teaching through the Quran, hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and sharia (law) towards the creation of a more equal and just society.[42] Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of Judaism. In its modern form, the movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, who has focused on feminism in Reform Judaism, the main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan, the exemption from positive timebound mitzvot, and womens inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce.[43] The Dianic Wicca or Wiccan feminism is a female focused, Goddess-centered Wiccan sect; also known as a feminist religion that teaches witchcraft as every womans right. It is also one sect of the many practiced in Wicca.[44]
See also
Feminist Majority Foundation Independent Womens Forum National Organization for Women NARAL Pro-Choice America Feminists For Life Planned Parenthood Roe V. Wade New Thought Jewish feminism Equity feminism Individualist feminism Radical Women Feminist Art Movement Womens Peace Party Womens Peace Union
References
[1] ^ Humm, Maggie. 1995. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, p. 251
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[15] Hooks, Bell (2000). Feminist theory: from margin to center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-614-3. [16] MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23 [17] MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23 [18] MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23 [19] MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23 [20] Messer-Davidow, Ellen, Disciplining feminism: from social activism to academic discourse (Duke University Press, 2002), ISBN 9780822328437 [21] Butler, Judith, Feminism in Any Other Name, differences vol. 6, numbers 2-3, pp. 44-45 [22] "Section 28: Gender, Work Burden, and Time Allocation in United Nations Human Development Report 2004". [Link] hdr04_complete.pdf. (page 233) [23] PPSEAWA International Bulletin - Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Womens Association 21st International Conference [24] hooks, bell. 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Cambridge: South End Press. p. 31) [25] "Gender Neutral Language." University of Saskatchewan Policies, 2001. [Link] Accessed March 25, 2007. [26] Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Second Shift (Penguin, 2003), ISBN 9780142002926 [27] Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (Owl Books U.S, 2003), ISBN 9780805066432 [28] The mama lion at the gate - [Link] [29] Scott J. South and Glenna Spitze, "Housework in Marital and Nonmarital Households," American Sociological Review 59, no. 3 (1994):327-348 [30] Sarah Fenstermaker Berk and Anthony Shih, "Contributions to Household Labour: Comparing Wives and Husbands Reports,", in Berk, ed., Women and Household Labour
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Transcending Matriarchy and Patriarchy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press [38] ^ OCHS, Ruether, Rosemary Radford (1998). Women and Redemption A Theological History. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers. [39] Parsons, Susan Frank (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [40] Cone, James H. (1991). A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. [41] II International Congress on Islamic Feminism [42] Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture | Islamic feminism: whats in a name? [43] Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. History of Jewish Philosophy, Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003. [44] Falcon River (2004) The Dianic Wiccan Tradition. From The Witches Voice. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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