What is Feminism?

Feminism is…

• The belief that men and women are equal

• The belief that women are naturally entitled to all the rights, opportunities
and privileges that men have access to
• The belief that women should not be denied any rights, opportunities or
privileges simply because they are women
• An ideology and an activist stance that can be championed by both women
and men and persons of all genders.
Feminism is NOT…

• The belief that men and women are the same.

• The belief that men are bad
• The belief that men and women cannot work, live and share power together
under any circumstances
• The belief that heterosexuality is bad
• An exclusive man-hating club only available to women
Feminism’s goals:
• Secure legal personhood for women meaning that each individual woman is recognized as a
sovereign individual and a full citizen and not simply in relational roles to men i.e. mother, wife,
daughter.
• Secure voting rights, political participation and office holding for women
• Secure property rights including the right to have a bank account, an apartment without a man’s
name on the lease, a credit card, a car all in a woman’s name
• Secure education and access to all levels of university and professional training
• Pass laws that protect women from gender specific violence and crimes including domestic violence
in the home and violence in the military and sexual harassment at work and in other public spheres.
• Guarantee that women have control of their bodies, health and children
• Raise awareness of gender-specific challenges and prejudices
• Allow women to live, dress, work and conduct their own relationships and sexuality on their own
terms.
Feminism’s accomplishments

• Creating public awareness that women have different experiencees

than men do
• Passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920
• Ratification fight for the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment)- SO close!
• Gaining access to colleges, universities and higher education. Today 53% of all PhDs are
held y women
• Pushing against the glass ceiling to get women into executive positions in all the
professions and in government
• Achieving representation in the arts at a growing pace
• Securing control of personal finances without a male signatory
• Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris!
Debates within Feminism
• The value of pornography and concern over sexual exploitation
• The place of marriage within a feminist society
• Establishing priorities that benefit all women of all backgrounds and
identities
• Resolving the conflict between political principles and personal religious
beliefs
• Understanding the experiences of transwomen
• Larger racial tensions and conflicts that divide American women
• Women’s relationships with Nature, especially concerning the prevalence of
vegetarianism and rejection of factory farming
Feminism’s failures
• A HUGE backlash that has been strongly organized since the 1970s that views
feminists as “man-haters” and “bra-burners” and “feminazis”.
• The low representation of conservative women within the movement
• The restriction of powerful women- such as Hilary Clinton- from achieving their goals
• The re-emergence of traditional gender roles among Millennials such as women
taking their husband's last names, leaving their jobs to have children and assuming
the bulk of domestic responsibilities at home
• Unresolved racial tensions and resentments
• The gutting of feminism’s impact for cutsy t-shirts and corporate profits
• Too many unrealized legislative initiatives to count
Not One Size Fits All
Feminism is NOT one size fits all.
Many women struggle with trying to balance their feminist beliefs with other
pressing facets of their identity such as class, race, ethnicity, religion,
profession, relationship status, sexual identity, etc..
Intersectionality refers to the various identities encompassed in each
individual that has historically pushed them to the margins and affected their
access to rights and privileges.
History of the Term
Historians divide the history of the Western world into large periods. The Modern Era
began in 1789 with the onset of the French Revolution and the promulgation of the US
Constitution and ended in 1945 with global disillusionment and a new mistrust of society
because of Hitler.
The Modern Era is the one in which we see the term Feminism emerging and a growing
number of thinkers and writers grappling with the “Woman Question” and with defining
the ideals and goals of feminism.
Traditionally, Charles Fourier, who was a Utopian socialist philosopher in France, is
credited with coining the term in 1832. He is considered to be the first person to use the
word publicly. In French “feminism” literally translates as the “ideology of women”.
Fourier was part of a cultural revolution that began to reimagine society along a more
egalitarian model that offered rights, privileges and the possibility of success to all
people. He believed that society would function better if everyone in it was invested in
and participated equally in their communities. That included women.
Feminism Before Fourier
Even if the word did not exist, many thinkers were advancing new ideas about how to reform society by
expanding women’s rights. Some of the most famous thinkers in Europe were:
• Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) an Italian/French writer who argued that women were NOT vicious by
nature as the medieval Catholic church preached and whose book The Book of the City of Ladies
celebrated the great women of her age.
• Olympe de Gauges (1748-1793) A French political activist and revolutionary who argued that men and
women were equal and that women were just as qualified as men to lead society. Her major work was
Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791). She was also an abolitionist who
wrote many essays against slavery. She was killed by guillotine during the French Revolution.
• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) Before writing Frankenstein, she wrote A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman (1792) in which she argued that women and men were intellectual equals and that if women
were allowed to go to school then they could participate as equal partners in society, government and
the arts.
All of these women were highly respected and prolific writers, but their ideas were ahead of their time.
Feminism in the US in the 19th c.
Meanwhile, in the US, feminism was also becoming an important topic of debate and of
activism. In the 19th century, American women had almost no rights and were not viewed as
sovereign individuals in society. Rather they were perceived only relationally and assumed
to be represented by either their father or husband. This is called coverture, which is French
for “to cover”. The American government assumed that the father or husband’s vote
automatically represented the interests and opinion of the daughter or wife.
The earliest feminists in the 19th c. were also abolitionists as they recognized that living in a
society based on hierarchies of oppression affected everyone negatively. Ending race
slavery directly benefited society and made it more humane and compassionate. Ending
women’s disenfranchisement and denial of personhood would do the same. For feminists,
these two movements were closely linked.
19th c. American feminists, also called the First Wave Feminists, fought for very fundamental
rights: recognition of personhood, suffrage (voting rights), the end of coverture in all public
policy and the right to property and children.
Feminism in the Postmodern Era
In the West, the Postmodern Era began in 1945. We are probably still in the Postmodern Era, but there is
some disagreement about that. Postmodernism rejects the notion of teleology, that there is a reason for
everything that happens, and also rejects positivism, the idea that humanity is moving forward and
constantly improving. In the wake of Hitler, many people, especially feminist activists, lost their faith in
the rationality of governments and institutions and recognized that they could not assume that public
policy and laws would naturally evolve to include women. Rather, women had to fight for access to
college, bank accounts, professional advancement etc. and had to create local grassroots networks of
mutual support.
In the 1960s, American feminism entered a Second Wave. Currently, we are probably in a Fourth Wave.
Postmodern feminist waves use different tactics than the 19th c. suffragists who had faith in government
reform and legal procedures. Since 1945, feminists have formed dozens of organizations- NOW, NARAL,
Feminist Majority, WEDO, etc. – to tackle larger national and international problems through grassroots
activism and local networking. These various priorities and tactics have created disparities throughout
the US as some states acknowledge more rights for women than others. The various ideals and centers
have also caused conflict within feminism as the myriad of agendas that have emerged sometimes
conflict with each other. Nevertheless, feminism since 1945 has continually expanded becoming
increasingly inclusive and receptive to the needs of a diverse body of women.
Where is Feminism Today?
According to Pew Research, only 61% of American women identify as feminists. Almost 40% of
American men do, too. Americans who are college educated and/or Democrats are more likely to
consider themselves to be feminists. Feminism is almost evenly represented in the middle and working
classes.
The word most commonly associated with feminism is “empowering”, a vague term that means many
different things to many different people. At heart, feminism does seek to empower women literally by
expanding women’s rights and psychologically by increasing individual women’s sense of safety and
self-worth.
The criticism most commonly leveled at feminism is that it’s divisive by denying tradition by taking
women out of the home. The common rebuttal is that the economic reality is that close to 60% of
American women work outside of the home through official employment for a variety of reasons and
often out of financial necessity.
Many young women are uncomfortable using the term for fear that men will find them threatening or
unattractive. At nearly 200 years old, the word feminism does carry a great deal of baggage and
history and slander, but its accomplishments are the reasons that young women are able to study at
WCSU today.