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Spencer Carden10872296March 7, 2009

Feminism

A widespread definition of feminism is the “advocacy of social equality for the sexes inopposition to patriarchy and sexism.” Basic feminist ideas include the importance of change, theexpansion of human choice (not only women), elimination of gender stratification, sexualautonomy, and an end to sexual violence. Many shows that I have seen on television and many people I have talked to associate feminism with women who think they are better and morecapable than men, which is not the case. In High school I took a women studies course in whichI learned that not just women are feminist, but men can be too. Feminism is sometimes looked at by men as being negative, however it is simply the belief that both men and women are equal inthis world. As the lesson on Gender and Stereotypes states, “equality can be better understood if we frame it in terms of equal worth which moves us away from the values associated with thehierarchy of gender stratification and allows us to assess people as individuals” After taking thatclass and reading that lesson, I have become enlightened on what feminism actually means andhave concluded that I am myself a feminist who is an advocate of social equality for the sexes.The History of Feminism is divided into movements called “waves”. There were threemain waves, each with different objectives. The first wave refers mostly to women’s suffragemovements of the twentieth century’s, mainly concerning women’s right to vote. The secondwave was aimed more towards the women’s liberation movement starting in the 1960’s in whichwomen fought for legal and social equality. The third and final wave mostly concerns thefailures of the second-wave. The first wave began in the United States in 1919 with the

nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. What the amendment did was grantwomen the right to vote, which was a huge step for women. Some main activists of the firstmovement were Voltairine de Cleyre and Margaret Sanger whooriginally focused on promotingequal contract and property rights for women along with opposing ownership of married womenand their children, towards the end of the nineteenth century the focus shifted towards gaining political power. There were many key actoviststhroughout the many waves of fighting for equality. Without women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, OlympiaBrown, and Helen Pitts women may have never gained the status that they have now.As I havenot heard of or read many writing concerning feminism, I would have to say that the Bible is oneof the seminal works within feminism. Even though not everything in the Old Testament aboutwomen is positive, there are a number of strong women in the New Testament for instance Ruthand Esther. This book is important for women because the book itself is so widespread andmany different races and religions read it. Women’s contribution in scholarly areas of feminismwere underrepresented until the discovery of Dale Spender’s

Mothers of the novel

and JaneSpencer’s

The Rise of the Woman Novelist

, both were ground-breaking, and proved that womenhave always been writing important literature.Feminism has such a negative image mostly due to the extreme feminists. Many peoplefeel that the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks a higher status for womenthan men. The image that comes to mind for many people when they think of the word feministis a radical lesbian women who dresses trashy and hates men. It all started with the church andits being predominantly male, and the thought of women being equal and taking over. Thisleaves many people with a negative image of feminists. There are many objections that arevoiced against feminism. In this article by Paul Gottfried he describes his antifeminist position,“the change of women’s role, from being primarily mothers to self-defined professionals, has

been a social disaster that continues to take its toll on the family. Rather than being theculminating point of Western Christian gentility, the movement of women into commerce and politics may be seen as exactly the opposite, the descent by increasingly disconnected individualsinto social chaos.” Other arguments include an increase in family breakdown; crime, teenage pregnancy, and drug abuse are higher in fatherless homes.Feminism is simply a movement intending to enlighten people with a goal of improvingthe quality of life for women and their society. However, many people possess images of feminism that fit into the previously mentioned destructive patterns. The confusion aboutfeminism is a result of many factors. Women have been oppressed for as long as history. Thisoppression is a very similar tragedy to the oppression that occurs daily towards all kinds of minority groups, but women are not a minority group. There are actually more women on Earththan there are men. Women are not defined by skin color, by spoken language, or by class. Sincewomen are not a minority group, their unequal treatment has gone unnoticed by many. Once talk of feminism is uttered people easily may interpret it as just another reason to complain, due totheir blindness to the inequality. It is difficult to publicize an issue and expect change when thatissue does not appear to exist. Another factor that interferes with the appropriate publicity for acontroversial cause is the press. In the mid-twentieth century, when mass communication boomed with the invention of the television, the media designed the public’s image of feminism.The way that people learned about this movement was through the filter of journalism.Unfortunately the media’s motives are not solely based on clear, unbiased reports of news. Theinfluences of ratings, public interest, and the government’s economical goals caused the portrayalof feminism on television to focus on scenes that were not the feminist norm. Images of mean,angry and violent women flashed before television viewers and they attracted attention. Thegeneral public witnessed feminism as a negative force while watching the evening news.