FEMINISM

History of Feminism

The history of feminism reaches far back before the 18th century

The seeds of the feminist movement were planted during the latter portion of that century

Earliest works on the so called “ woman question”

This criticized the restrictive role of women, without necessarily claiming that women were
disadvantaged or that men were to blame.

Prior to 1850

 The first scientific society for women was founded in Middleburg, a city in the south of Dutch
Republic in 1785.
 Journal for women which focused on issues like science became popular this period as well.
 Feminist thought began during “ the enlightenment”.
 Demanding equal rights for women in every sense. (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Maquis de
Cordocet, Jeremy Bentham
 One of the early modern proponent of feminist themes was Mexican nun Juana Ines dela Cruz
(1651-1695- particularly in her essay entitled “Reply to Sor Philotea
 Mary Wollstonecraft believe that both sexes contributed the situation and took it for granted
that woman had considerable power over men.

Late 19th Century

 The movement is generally said to have begun in the 18th century as people increasing came to
believe that women were treated unfairly under the law.
 The feminist movement is rooted in the West and especially in the reform movement of the 19th
century.
 The organized movement is dated from the first women’s rights convention at Senecal Falls,
New York, in 1841

Britain
 Emeline Pankhurst- was one of the founders of suffragette movement and aimed to reveal the
institutional sexism in British society, forming the Women’s Social Political Union (WSPU).
 Often the repeated jailing for forms of activism that broke the law, particularly property
destruction, inspired member to go on hunger strikes.
 Forced-fed women by using nasogartic tubes, which cause many to become sick.
 This treatment and their injuries served to draw attention to the brutality of the legal system.
 To prevent these women from serious injury, the government introduced a bill called the
Prisoners (temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913.

Temporary Discharged for Ill Health (Act 1913)

  Known as the Cat and Mouse Act, which allowed women to to be released when their
illness or injury became dangerously acute.
 Officers were then not prevented from arresting and charging these women again once they
were well.

France

 In France, following the fall of conservative Louis-Philippe in 1848, feminist sentiment

exploded throughout Paris, including several newspaper and organizations; the largest of
which was the Voix des Femmes, or the Women’s Voice.
 However because of the emergence of a new, more conservative government in 1852,
Feminism in France would have to wait until the Third French Republic.
 Notable 19th- century feminists: Emma Goldman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dame Ethel Mary
Smyth, Mary Sanger.

Middle East

 The Feminist movement in the Arab world saw Egyptian jurist Qasim Amin, the author of 1899
pioneering bool Women’s Liberation (Tahrir al Mar’a), as the father of Arab Feminist Movement.
 In his work Amin criticized some of the practices prevalent in his society all the time, such as
polygamy, the veil, or women’s segregation, and condemned them as un-Islamic, and
contradicting the true spirit of Islam
 His work had an enormous influence on women’s political movement throughout the Islamic
and Arab world, as real and is read and cited today.
 Less known, however, are the women who preceded Amin in their feminist critique of their
societies.
 The women press in Egypt started voicing such concerns since its very first issues in 1892.
 Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese women and men had been reading European feminist magazines
even a decade earlier, and discussed their relevance to the Middle East in the general press.

20th Century

 Many countries began to grant women the vote in the early years of the 20th century,
especially in the final years of the First World War and the first year after the war.
 Desire to recognize the contribution of women during the war, there were also
influenced by the rhetoric used by both sides at the time to justify their war efforts.
For example, since Wilson Fourteen Points recognized self determination as a vital
component of society, the hypocrisy of denying half the population of modern nations the
vote become difficult for men to ignore.
1920s

 Important time for women

 In addition to gaining the vote also gained legal recognition in many countries.
 However, in many countries women lost the jobs they had gained during the war.
  In fact women who had held jobs prior to the war were sometimes compelled to give up
their jobs to returning soldiers, partly due to a conservative backlash, and partially
through societal pressure to reward the soldiers.
 Many women continued to work in blue collar jobs, on farms and traditionally female
occupations.
 Women did make strides in some field such as nursing.
 In both World Wars, manpower shortages brought women into traditionally male
occupations, ranging from munitions, manufacturing and mechanical work to a female
baseball league.
 By demonstrating that women could do men’s work, and highlighting society’s
dependence on their labor, this shift encouraged women to strive for equality.
 In World War II, the popular icon Rosie the Riveter become a symbol for a generation of
working women.
 The rise of socialism and communism advanced the rights of women to economic parity
with men in some countries.
 Women were often encouraged to take their place as equals in these societies, although
they rarely enjoyed the same level of political power as men, and still often faced very
different social expectations.
 The revolution occurring in Latin America saw changes in women’s status in countries
like Nicaragua, where Feminist Ideology During the Sandinista Revolution was largely
responsible for the significant improvements to the quality of life for women but still fell
short of achieving a true social ideological change.
 In some areas, regimes actively discouraged feminism and women’s liberations.
 In Nazi, Germany, a very hierarchical society was idealized where women maintained
position largely subordinate to men.
 Women’s activism was very difficult there, and in other societies that deliberately set
out to restrict women’s, and men’s gender roles, such as Italy, and much later
Afghanistan.
First Wave
Early Feminist and primary feminist movements are often called the first wave
Second Wave

 1960
 Concerned with gaining full social and economic equality, having already gained almost
full legal equality in many western nations.
Main field of interest:
Gaining the right to contraception and birth control.
With the development of the birth control pill feminist hoped to make it
as available as possible
 This would be free to women from the perceived burden of mothering
children they did not want.
They felt that control of reproduction was necessary for full economic
independence from men.
Access to abortion was also widely demanded, but this was much more
difficult to secure because of the deep societal divisions that existed over
the issue.
 Many feminists also fought to change perceptions of female sexual behavior.
 Considered more acceptable for men to have multiple sexual partners
 Many feminist encouraged women into “sexual liberation” and having sex for
pleasure with multiple partners.
 These development in sexual behavior have not gone without criticism by some
feminists.
 They see the sexual revolution primarily as a tool used by men to gain easy
access to sex without the obligation entailed by marriage and traditional social
norms.
 They see the relaxation of social attitudes towards sex in general, and the
increased availability of pornography without stigma, as leading towards greater
social objectification of women by men.
Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin gained notoriety in the 1980’s by
attempting to classify pornography as a violation of women’s civil rights.
'
Third Wave (late 1980’s)

 The movement arose as a response both to perceived failures of second- wave

feminism and to the popular backlash against the progress of that same second
wave feminism and to the popular backlash against the progress of the same
second wave.
 Seeks to challenge or avoid the second wave’s “essentialist” definitions of
femininity which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized
the experiences of upper middle class white women
 Often also called “Post-Feminist” it can possibly be considered to be the
advancement of a female discourse in a world where the quality of women is
something that can be assumed-rather than fought for.
Recent Activities
 In many areas of the world women are still less than men for equivalent work.
Hold much less political and economic power.
 Subject of intense social pressure to conform to relatively traditional gender
expectations
 Feminists continue to fight these conditions.
  The most high profile work is done in the field of pay-equity, reproductive rights,
and encouraging women to become engaged in politics, both as candidate and
as voters.
 In some areas feminists also fight for legislation guaranteeing equitable divorce
laws and protection against rape and sexual harassment.
 Radical feminism was a significant development in second wave feminism,
viewing women’s oppression as a fundamental element in human society and
seeks to challenge that standard by broadly inverting perceived gender roles
along with promoting lesbian and gay rights.

Definition of Feminism

Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements and moral philosophies
largely motivated by or concerned with the experiences of women.

In simple terms- Feminism is the belief in social, political and economic equality of the sexes
and the movement organized around this belief.

Meaning of Feminist
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.

Feminist differ over the following

 Source of inequality
 How to attain equality
 Extend to which gender and (identities) should be questioned and critiqued.

 At first the WSPU’s “militancy” consisted of buttonholing politicians and holding rallies.
Still, following these tactics led to members of Pankhurst’s group being arrested and
imprisoned (Pankhurst herself was first sent behind bars in 1908). The Daily Mail soon
dubbed Pankhurst’s group “suffragettes,” as opposed to the “suffragists,” who also
wanted women to be able to vote in the United Kingdom, but who followed less
confrontational channels.

 Rise of the Suffragettes

 Over the next few years, Pankhurst would encourage WSPU members to rein in their
demonstrations when it seemed possible that a bill on women’s suffrage might move
 forward. But when the group was disappointed—as in 1910 and 1911, when Conciliation
Bills that included women’s suffrage failed to advance—protests would escalate. By
1913, militant actions by WSPU members included window-breaking, vandalizing public
art and arson.

 "We were called militant, and we were quite willing to accept the name. We were
determined to press this question of the enfranchisement of women to the point where
we were no longer to be ignored by the politicians."

 Throughout these protests, suffragettes were arrested, but in 1909 the women had
begun to engage in hunger strikes while in prison. Though this resulted in violent force-
feedings, the hunger strikes also led to early release for many suffragettes. When
Pankhurst was given a nine-month sentence in 1912 for throwing a rock at the prime
minister’s residence, she too embarked on a hunger strike. Spared from being forcibly
fed, she was soon freed.

 Seeking to circumvent the hunger strikes, in 1913 the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge
for Ill Health Act was enacted. The law said that prisoners who were released for health
reasons could be rearrested and taken back to prison once they’d recovered. It became
known as the "Cat and Mouse Act," with suffragette “mice” being pursued by the
authorities.

 "We shall fight against the condition of affairs so long as life is in us.”
 In 1913, after an incendiary device went off in an unoccupied house being built for the
chancellor of the exchequer, David Lloyd George, Pankhurst received a sentence of
three years of penal servitude for inciting the crime. She was released after a hunger
strike, but the Cat and Mouse Act led to a series of rearrests and releases—during one
furlough, Pankhurst proceeded to the United States for a fundraising and lecture tour—
that continued into 1914. But everything changed with the arrival of World War I. early
years of the 20th century