Encyclopedia
Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerned with the experiences of women. Most feminists are especially concerned with social, political and economic inequality between men and women; some have argued that gendered and sexed identities, such as "man" and "woman," are socially constructed. Feminists differ over the sources of inequality, how to attain equality, and the extent to which gender and should be questioned and critiqued. In simple terms, feminism is the belief in social, political and economic equality of the sexes and the movement organised around this belief.
Feminist political activists commonly campaign on issues such as reproductive rights , violence within a domestic partnership, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, street harassment, discrimination and
rape. Many feminists today argue that feminism is a grass-roots movement that seeks to cross boundaries based on social class, race,
culture and
religion. They also argue that an effective feminist movement should be culturally specific and address issues relevant to the women of the
society in question , and debate the extent to which certain issues such as
rape,
incest and
mothering are universal. Themes explored in feminism include patriarchy, stereotyping, objectification, sexual objectification and oppression.
Origins
Advocates of equality of the sexes and the rights of women can be found throughout history. For example, Empress Theodora of
Byzantium was a proponent of legislation that would afford greater protections and freedoms to her female subjects, and
Christine de Pizan, the first professional female writer, advanced many feminist ideas as early as the 1300s in the face of attempts to restrict female inheritance and guild membership. However, feminism as a widespread philosophy and social movement would not solidify for several more centuries.
Modern feminism as a
philosophy and movement is often dated to
The Enlightenment with such thinkers as
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the
Marquis de Condorcet championing women's 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.
Mary Wollstonecraft's
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the ea ...
is one of the first works that can unambiguously be called feminist.
Feminism became an organized movement in the
19th century as people increasingly came to believe that women were being treated unfairly. The feminist movement was rooted in the progressive movement and especially in the reform movement of the
19th century. The
utopian socialist Charles Fourier coined the word
féminisme in 1837, and had argued that the extension of women's rights underpinned all social progress as early as 1808. The organized movement was dated from the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. In 1869,
John Stuart Mill published The Subjection of Women to demonstrate that "the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong...and...one of the chief hindrances to human improvement."
Many countries began to grant women the vote in the late
19th century and early
20th century , especially in the final years of the
First World War onwards. The reasons varied, but they included a desire to recognize the contributions of women during the war, and were also influenced by rhetoric used by both sides at the time to justify their war efforts. For example, since
Woodrow Wilson's
Fourteen Points recognized self-determination as vital to society, the hypocrisy of denying half the population of modern nations the vote became difficult to ignore.
Feminism in many forms
Some feminist theories question basic assumptions about gender, gender difference and sexuality, including the category of "woman" itself as a holistic concept, other theories question the male/female dichotomy completely . Still other feminist theories take for granted the concept of "woman" and provide specific analyses and critiques of
gender inequality, and most feminist social movements promote women's rights, interests and issues. Several subtypes of feminist ideology have developed over the years. Early feminists and primary feminist movements are often called the first-wave feminists, and feminists after about 1960 the second-wave feminists. More recently, some younger feminists have identified themselves as third-wave feminists while the second-wave feminists are still active.
In her book
A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight from Equality, Wendy Kaminer identifies another conflict between forms of feminism: the
conflict between what she calls "egalitarian" and "protectionist" feminism. She sees egalitarian feminism as promoting equality between women and men through the granting of equal rights. Protectionist feminists prefer to focus on legal protections for women, such as employment laws and divorce laws that protect women, sometimes advocating restricting men's rights, such as
free speech . Though the book predates third-wave feminism, Kaminer identifies both protectionist and egalitarian currents within first-wave feminism and second-wave feminism.
Some radical feminists, such as Mary Daly,
Charlotte Bunch and Marilyn Frye, have advocated separatism—a complete separation of male and female in society and culture—while others question not only the relationship between men and women, but the very meaning of "man" and "woman" as well . Some argue that
gender roles, gender identity and sexuality are themselves social constructs . For these feminists, feminism is a primary means to human liberation
Many-- but certainly not all-- feminists are women. There are exclusively
male organisations sympathetic to the feminist view who believe the dominant model of manhood or masculinity is oppressive to women and
limiting for men.
There is debate
about feminism concerning which types should exclusively be labeled or considered. There are also overlapping beliefs such as in oppression by patriarchy and/or capitalism, and the belief they are synonymous.
Subtypes of feminism
}}" align="" valign="" |
- African feminism
- Amazon feminism
- Anarcha-Feminism
- Anti-racist feminism
- Black Feminism
- Chicana Feminism
- cultural feminism
- Difference feminism
- ecofeminism
- existentialist feminism
- feminism in Japan
- French feminism
- individualist feminism
- Islamic feminism
- lesbian feminism
- liberal feminism
- male feminism or Pro-feminist men
- Marxist feminism
| width="" align="" valign="" |
- material feminism
- New feminism
- pop feminism
- post-colonial feminism
- postmodern feminism which includes queer theory
- pro-sex feminism
- psychoanalytic feminism
- radical feminism
- separatist feminism
- socialist feminism
- spiritual feminism
- standpoint feminism
- third-world feminism
- transnational feminism
- transfeminism
- womanism
- Certain actions, approaches and people can also be described as proto-feminist or post-feminist.
|}
Relationship to other movements
Some feminists take a holistic approach to politics, believing the saying of
Martin Luther King Jr., "A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". In that belief, some self-identified feminists support other movements such as the
civil rights movement and the
gay rights movement. At the same time, many black feminists such as bell hooks criticize the movement for being dominated by white women. Feminist claims about the alleged disadvantages women face in Western society are often less relevant to the lives of black women. This idea is the key in postcolonial feminism. Many black feminist women prefer the term womanism for their views.
Feminism is often linked with gay,
lesbian and transgender studies and Psychoanalytic feminism places focus on psychosexual development. Some feminists are wary of the
transgender movement because they view it as challenging the distinction between men and women. Transgender and transsexual individuals who identify as female are excluded from some "women-only" gatherings and events and are rejected by some feminists, who say that no one who was assigned as male at birth can fully understand the oppression that women face. This exclusion is criticized as "transphobic" by transgender people, who assert that their political and social struggles are linked to those of feminists, and that discrimination against gender-variant people is a facet of the patriarchy.
Modern feminism
Most feminists believe discrimination against women still exists
worldwide. But there is disagreement within the movement regarding the severity of current problems, what the problems are, and how to confront them.
Extremes on the one hand include some radical feminists such as
Gloria Allred and Mary Daly who argue that human society would be better off with dramatically fewer men. There are also dissidents, such as Christina Hoff Sommers or
Camille Paglia, who identify themselves as feminist but who accuse the movement of anti-male prejudice.
Many feminists question the use of the term
feminist to groups or people who fail to recognize a fundamental equality between the sexes. Some feminists, like Katha Pollitt or
Nadine Strossen , consider feminism to be simply that "women are people." Views that separate the sexes rather than unite them are considered by these people to be
sexist rather than
feminist.
There are also debates between difference feminists such as
Carol Gilligan on the one hand, who believe that there are important differences between the sexes , and those who believe that there are no essential differences between the sexes, and that the roles observed in society are due to conditioning.
In Marilyn French's seminal works analyzing patriarchy and its effects on the world at large, she defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure and dominance over happiness. According to French, "it is not enough either to devise a morality that will allow the human race simply to survive. Survival is an evil when it entails existing in a state of wretchedness. Intrinsic to survival and continuation is felicity/pleasure. Pleasure has been much maligned, diminished by philosophers and conquerors as a value for the timid, the small-minded and the self-indulgent. "Virtue" too often involves the renunciation of pleasure in the name of some higher purpose, a purpose that involves power or sacrifice . Pleasure is described as shallow and frivolous in a world of high-minded, serious purpose. But pleasure does not exclude serious pursuits or intentions, indeed, it is found in them, and it is the only real reason for staying alive." . This philosophy is what Marilyn French offers as a replacement to the current structure where power has the highest value.
Carol Tavris, author of
Anger: the Misunderstood Emotion and
The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex, maintains that as long as men's experiences are considered to be the default human experiences, women will always face discrimination in North America or elsewhere. She holds that too much emphasis is placed on innate differences between men and woman, and that it has been used to justify the restriction of women's rights.
Effects of feminism in the West
While a number of feminists argue that there are many battles for equity to be waged, others disagree and observe that many challenges have been overcome. For example, in developed nations, women now outnumber men in both high school graduation rates and university enrollment . Women are admitted to professional schools at rates equal to or greater than males, the only notable exception being dentristy.
Effects on civil rights
Feminism has effected many changes in Western society, including
women's suffrage, broad employment for women at more equitable wages, the right to initiate divorce proceedings and the introduction of "no fault" divorce, the right to obtain contraception and safe abortions, and the right to
university education.
Effect on language
Many
English-speaking feminists are often proponents of what they consider to be non-sexist language, using "Ms." to refer to both married and unmarried women or "he or she" in place of "he" where the gender is unknown.
Feminists are also often proponents of using
gender-inclusive language, such as "humanity" instead of "mankind".
Feminists in most cases advance their desired use of language either to promote what they claim is an equal and respectful treatment of women or to affect the tone of political discourse. This can be seen as a move to change language which has been viewed by some feminists as imbued with sexism, providing for example the case in the
English language in which the word for the general pronoun is "he" or "his" , which is the same as the masculine pronoun . These feminists argue that language then directly affects perception of reality .
In postcolonial feminism the issue of language is often less emphasized as many non-
Indo-European languages do not have grammatical gender.
A different tendency can be seen in feminism inspired changes to the
French language. Grammatical gender is much more pervasive in French than in English, making it virtually impossible to create inclusive language. Instead, nouns that originally had only a masculine form have had feminine counterparts created for them. "
Professeur" , once always masculine regardless of the teacher's sex, now has a parallel feminine form "
Professeuse". In cases where separate masculine and feminine forms have always existed, it was once standard practice for a group containing both men and women to be referred to using the masculine plural. Nowadays, forms such as "
Tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes" are becoming more common. Such phrasing is common in
Canada and in France, where President Jacques Chirac routinely uses "Françaises et Français" in political speeches, but is practically unknown in other French-speaking countries.
An equivalent tendency in
Germany where male and female terms are both required in the plural is to use the male term, followed by the female plural ending. An example of this is instead of the bulky phrase
sehr geehrte Kollegen und Kolleginnen, meaning
dear male colleagues and female colleagues, is the use of
sehr geehrte KollegInnen, which expresses the plurality of both genders.
Effect on heterosexual relationships
The entry of women into the workplace and the demands of childrearing has modified gender roles.
Some men counter that this expectation is unrealistic, claiming that a deemphasis on breadwinning harm their ability to attract mates; while many women have the choice to try to "have it all", they claim that societal expectations placed on men preclude them from devoting themselves further to domestic chores and childrearing. Several studies support the view that, although men are derided for not devoting enough time to childrearing and domestic tasks, few women seem attracted to men who engage in these activities to the detriment of their careers.
Some argue that men devote less time to household chores because they devote more time to work outside the home. According to the International Labor Organization, "the average American father works 51 hours a week, whereas those mothers of young children who do work full time work a 41-hour week." . It has also been argued that women hold the power of the relationship because they direct the majority of purchases made by a household, whereas men direct the few large purchases .
As a counter to these arguments,
sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild's books
The Second Shift and
The Time Bind present evidence that married men contribute much less time towards child care and housework than their wives. However, Hochschild presented statistical evidence that this was not the case for two-career couples: according to the studies she cites, in two-career couples, men and women on the average spend about equal amounts of time working, but women still spend more time on housework. Hochschild's work mainly centers on two-career couples, but most disputes about the role of men in child care and domestic work center around two-career couples: feminist critiques of men's contribution to child care and domestic labor are typically centered around the idea that it is unfair for the woman to be expected to perform more than half of a household's domestic work and child care when both members of a couple also work outside the home. In general, in couples where one or both partners do not work outside the home, gender-based division of labor is less of a point of contention for feminists. . Moreover, several studies provide statistical evidence that married men contribute a smaller share of housework, regardless of whether or not they earn more than their wives.ould be noted that the preceding arguments mainly apply to
middle-class women.
In her 1996 book
Dubious Conceptions, Kristin Luker discusses the effect of feminism on teenage women's choices to bear a child, both in and out of wedlock. She argues that as childbearing without being married has become more socially acceptable for women. Young women, while not bearing children at a higher rate than in the 1950s, now see less reason to get married before having a child, especially in the case of poor young women. To explain this, she argues that the economic prospects for poor men are slim thus poor women have a low chance of finding a husband who will provide reliable financial support, and that husbands tend to create more domestic work than they contribute. Though the feminism has had minimal impact on the economic prospects and contributions of poor young men, feminism may have contributed to the increasing social acceptability of bearing children outside of marriage.
There have also been changes in attitudes towards sexual morality and behavior with the onset of second wave feminism and "
the Pill": women are more in control of their bodies, and are freer to experience sex with more social acceptability. This sexual revolution was seen as positive as it enabled women and men to experience sex in a free and equal manner. However, other feminists claim that the sexual revolution benefitted only men.
Evangelical feminists sometimes argue that life-long monogamy ideally promotes egalitarianism in sex, especially when viewed in light of other common alternatives to monogamy . On the other hand,
Friedrich Engels's essay
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State –- sometimes considered an early feminist work-– argues that monogamy was originally conceived as a way for men to control women. Moreover, some modern feminists endorse
polyamory, open marriage, cohabitation and swinging as egalitarian lifestyles .
Effect on religion
Feminism has had a great effect on many aspects of
religion. In liberal branches of Protestant Christianity women are ordained as
clergy, and in
Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist
Judaism, women are ordained as rabbis and
cantors. Within these
Christian and
Jewish groups, women have gradually become more equal to men by obtaining positions of power; their perspectives are now sought out in developing new statements of belief.
The leadership of women in religious matters has also been resisted within
Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism has historically excluded women from entering the priesthood and other clerical positions, limiting women to the roles of nuns or laypeople.
Feminism also has had an important role in embracing new forms of religion. Neopagan religions especially tend to emphasize the importance of
Goddess spirituality, and question what they regard as traditional religion's hostility to women and the sacred feminine. In particular, Dianic Wicca's origins lie within radical feminism. Among traditional religions, feminism has led to self examination, with reclaimed positive Christian and Islamic views and ideals of
Mary, Islamic views of
Fatima Zahra, and especially the Catholic belief in the
Coredemptrix, as counterexamples.
Worldwide statistics
The following is a sampling of statistics related to the relative status of women worldwide.
Nations Unies...
, on average, women work more than men, when both paid employment and unpaid household tasks are accounted for. 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.
- By population, women are underrepresented in all of the world's major legislative bodies . In 1985, Finland had the largest percentage of women in national legislature at approximately 32 percent . Currently, Rwanda has the highest number of women at 49 percent. The United States has 14 percent. The world average is 9 percent. In contrast, half of the members of the recently established Welsh Assembly Government are women.
- In the US in 2003, for every $1 males earn, women earn 75.3 cents on average.
Contemporary criticisms of feminism
Criticism of feminism as a
whole ideology, criticism of specific
types of feminism, and criticism of
specific feminist ideas have come from feminists themselves, non-feminists, masculists, social conservatives, and social progressives.
Some feminists, such as Canadian journalist Kate Fillion, Carol Tavris and Camille Paglia, emphasize the importance of women's responsibility as moral, sexual, and social actors who sometimes do bad things for which they are accountable.
Postcolonial feminists criticize certain ideas of Western forms of feminism, notably radical feminism and its most basic assumption, universalization of the female experience. They argue that this assumption cannot so easily be applied to women for whom gender oppression comes second to, for example, racial or class oppression.
From the perspective of some strands of feminism, as well as the men's movement and queer theory, inequalities and stereotypes based on gender are detrimental to both men and women and both sexes suffer from the expectations of traditional gender roles.
Many who support masculism argue that because of both traditional gender roles and sexism infused into society by feminists, males are and have been oppressed. Marriage Rights advocates oppose feminist aspirations to replace the traditional family, as illustrated by statments made by a variety of feminist leaders such as Shelia Cronan's view that marriage constitutes slavery for women, and the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution and that freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage. Dr. Mary Jo Bane, associate director of Wellesley College's Center for Research on Woman suggested that to raise children with equality, they should be taken from families and communally raised. Men and Family rights groups oppose feminists such as Robin Morgan, the openly
lesbian editor of Ms. Magazine, who advocated 'man-hating' as an honorable and viable political act and concludes the inequities between men and women can not be resolved until marriage is destroyed. Family and Men's Rights groups are also critical of
Feminist encouragment of
Lesbian agendas which undermine the traditional role of men in the family, such as Sheila Cronan's National NOW Times January 1988 interview statements declaring every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist. Many critics of feminism are alarmed by the prevalence of lesbians such as Patricia Ireland, the head of NOW, in feminist leadership roles. Men's Rights advocates view much of contemporary feminist issues extremist and unreasonable now that all the reasonable demands such as equal rights has been achieved. Issues such as the Violence Against Women Act are viewed as discriminatory and funding radical feminist or feminazi villification, profiling and demogoguery of men. Father's Rights advocates are critical of feminist efforts to block shared parenting after divorce and especially advocating or instructing women to fabricate false domestic violence or abuse accusations to win greater child custody and
child support.
Ann Widdecombe, a British Conservative politician and former leadership candidate, claimed that feminism slowly evolved into its antithesis. She argues that 1970s rhetoric emphasized equal rights and self-sufficiency, whereas 1990s rhetoric demanded special assistance for women and implied that women could not look after themselves. She identifies with the former variant, and describes the latter as "absolute tosh".
Academic research about feminist issues
Some natural and social scientists have used science in order to question theories of innate social or cognitive differences between men and women; some examples follow:
- Anne Fausto-Sterling's book Myths of Gender explores the assumptions embodied in scientific research that purports to support a biologically essentialist view of gender.
- Carol Tavris, in The Mismeasure of Woman, uses psychology and sociology to voice the failure to identify innate differences between males and females and to pin down how these differences dictate, and account for, perceived differences between men and women. She argues there is a reliance on ever-changing hypothesizes to justify inequality. She further argues a tendency to punish women for not conducting themselves on traditional male terms, which provides a counter-argument for Warren Farrell's wage-gap ideas.
- Evelyn Fox Keller has argued that the rhetoric of science reflects a masculine perspective, and questions the idea of scientific objectivity. Many anthropologists noted that a non-masculine perspective is relatively new in studies of human evolution and culture. Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy notes the prevalence of masculine-coined stereotypes and theories, such as the non-sexual female, despite "the accumulation of abundant openly available evidence contradicting it" .
- Other researchers who have exposed flaws in social and scientific theories cited by some anti-feminist authors include Barbara Ehrenreich, Kristin Luker, and Stephanie Coontz.
Famous feminists
See list of feminists.References
13. Sweeney, Brian 2000, 'OPTIMISTS: Kate Sheppard - Suffragist'. Accessed May 23rd, 2006, from http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/sheppard.html.
See also
}}" align="" valign="" |
| width="" align="" valign="" |
- Gender-neutral language
- History of feminism
- Islamic feminism
- Lesbian feminism
- List of feminism topics
- List of notable feminists
- Radical feminism
- Role of women in Judaism
- Women's cinema
- Women's Environment & Development Organization
- Women's music
- Sex/gender distinction
|}
Books
- Antrobus, Peggy. "The global women's movement - Origins, issues and strategies", London, Zed Books 2004
- Berk, Sarah Fenstermaker, ed. "Women and Household Labor", Sage 1980.
- Butler, Judith . "Feminism in Any Other Name", differences 6:2-3: 44-45.
- Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening". 1899.
- Code, Lorraine, ed., "Encyclopedia of feminist theories", Routledge 2000
- Patricia Hill Collins, "Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment", Second Edition, Routledge 2000
- Echols, Alice. "Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975", University of Minnesota Press 1990
- Faludi, Susan. "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women". 1992
- Friedan, Betty. "The Feminine Mystique" 1963
- French, Marilyn. "Beyond Power"; "War Against Women"; "From Eve to Dawn", a 3-volume history of women
- J.F. del Giorgio. The Oldest Europeans:Who are we? Where do we come from? What made European women different?.A.J.Place 2006
- Gossett, Hattie. "presenting sister noblues" 1989
- Gossett, Hattie. "this bridge called my back: writings by radical women of color", 1981
- Hochschild, Arlie Russell. "The Second Shift" 1990
- Hochschild, Arlie Russell. "The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work" 1997
- hooks, bell. . "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center". ISBN 0-89608-614-3
- Jacobson, Joyce P. "The Economics of Gender" 1998.
- Kaminer, Wendy. "A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight from Equality", Addison Wesley 1990
- Lerner, Gerda. "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy", Oxford University Press 1994
- Luker, Kristin. "Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of the Teenage Pregnancy Crisis".
- Schneir, Miriam. "Feminism : The Essential Historical Writings", New York: Vintage 1994
- Sommers, Christina Hoff. "Who Stole Feminism? - How women have betrayed women"
- Tavris, Carol. "The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Opposite Sex, or the Inferior Sex". Simon and Schuster, 1992. ISBN 0-671-66274-0
- Wertheim, Margaret. "Pythagoras' Trousers - God, Physics, and the Gender Wars", W.W. Norton & Co.
External links
}}" align="" valign="" |
Feminist organizations
- - National Organization for Women in the United States.
- - The Lilith Gallery of Toronto.
Supportive of feminism
Critical of feminism, or specific types of feminism
- , by Jennifer Pozner criticizes so-called "dissedent" feminists such as Christina Hoff-Sommers
Feminism and religion
- from the Jewish Women's Archive
