The Meaning of Feminism and Its Four Stages

This essay aims to describe about the feminist movement from its struggle in the past centuries to till now. The meaning of feminism and stages of the movement and its achievement in every era has been discussed in this essay. Feminism movement has four different stages also termed as ‘wave’. Feminism simply means equality for men and women in every field and hence no discrimination in between the genders. Post feminism movement is discussed and it is compared with anti-feminism. This essay also focused on the present day problems of women and why feminism is still important to accomplish.    

Centuries ago, women had specific roles, to be perfect and sit back home defining beauty and always working inside the home. Women were always considered inferior to men and hence were not allowed or had any rights in the 19^th century (White). If we fast forward to the present day, feminism is still a movement with no end. Many believe that women have already attained the goals or rights but in few countries fight is still on for the female equality in the nation and those people who believe in this they are still unaware of the fact what feminism really mean and why it started in the first place.

The term feminism has described as political, cultural or economical movement that aimed establishment of equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism also involves political, sociological and philosophical issues concerned with gender discrimination (O’Neill). The history of feminism was a struggle in 1848 and it is continuing. This movement is the longest movement considered according to the feminists. The feminist movement in present day life is on the fourth wave.   

The women’s movement was first held in Seneca Falls, America, in 1848. This phase of movement was also termed as first wave feminism. This movement was started by Elizabeth Cady Stanton with Lucretia Mott and they started with the aim of anti-slavery convention but then they saw the difference between how a man and woman is treated and hence the feminist movement took place (Wellman). This convention was attended by approximately around three hundred people as it was not advertised at that time period and at that convention they made people sign ‘declaration of sentiment’. This convention included basic control of lives, abolishment of slavery and right to retain property for females. After the first convention later, another convention was organized in Rochester, New York which is also known as Rochester Women’s Rights Convention and then further following all this convention one by one other conventions were organized on regular basis from 1850 until the civil war started. These conventions lead to declaration of right to vote for women. At the end of 19^th century the women won few rights such as share of the property or custody of the child and full voting rights in few areas (Rosen).

First Wave Feminism: The Fight for Basic Rights

The second wave feminism movement began in the early 1960s. This movement included the rights of women in birth control, anti-sex discrimination laws and the Roe v. Wade act. In this phase of feminist movement the equal pay right for women was amended and then the civil rights which banned sex discrimination in employment. In 1965, birth control for married couples was legalized and later in 1972, the Supreme Court stated the law that unmarried people had the right of birth control as married couple have and the no-fault divorce was legalized (Solinger). In 1971, the Reed v. Reed was applied for the first time, this law stated the equal protection clause which stroke down a law which discriminated women. Later 1973, the Roe v. Wade happened which legalized abortion. Also, many other laws were enacted like in 1974, sex discrimination was legalized in house that is also known as Fair Housing Act and in 1978, the prohibition of sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy also known as Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The major disappointment of this phase was the Comprehensive Child Development Bill, 1972 was not amended and United State faced a major loss due to this because this bill was a multibillion dollar national day care system which focused on the middle class women and would give support as women to the economy. Another disappointment of the second wave feminist movement was the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment but some convention was a success in this era such as elimination of every kind of discrimination against women (Gilmore).

Third wave feminism began in early 1990s. This phase of the feminism saw gender wage gap, reproductive rights and sexual discrimination which continued with the second wave feminism era, and the white patriarchy (Snyder). As feminism was started in the white country and it was spreading fast enough worldwide, women got the knowledge of the white patriarchy system continuing from a decade and no women ever raised voice against this social system. Patriarchy is basically a system where males hold power and are dominating in the roles of political leadership, social privileges, moral authority and control over the inherited property (Hunnicutt). Hence, this era of feminism focused on the female supremacy and to lose the power of patriarchy in the white countries especially. This era also focused on feminist fighting against sexual harassment and found women power and control over their own voices and artistic expressions. This wave formed organization filled with young women with a mission to become more involved in socially and politically in their communities. Third wave feminists also had the right to question, reclaim, and redefine their own ideologies and transmit it through media about gender roles, womanhood, sexuality and beauty and basic woman rights. This era saw much new generation feminist such as Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Madonna and many more. This era used the medium of internet and other modern technology to spread feminism and due to this, the movement started spreading rapidly and reached to larger platform. This era was succeeding by women’s popularisation in different field and notions of gender in every field were examined.

Second Wave Feminism: The Struggle for Workplace Equality and Social Justice

The fourth wave feminism movement began around 2012 and was totally dependent on social media. According to feminists of this era, this wave focused on justice for women facing sexual harassment and fought against women facing any kind of violence (Edna Erez). This era of feminism is all about technology and its use for the equal rights of women. The technology includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and articles or blogs. One of the examples of fourth wave feminism includes 10 hours of walking in New York City and Mattress Performance in United States. This era also does not include any major reason to find any more equal right as women have almost achieved the same rights as men have in a nation. Rather than having equality, feminism of this generation has become all about emasculation of men, fluidity of gender, uninhibited abortion and the resistance (Munro). Feminism in today life has changed its definition of equality.

The struggle of women for achieving equal rights as man ever had is still not achieved. Women in some backward countries are still fighting for their right to even speak freely. It is a century of struggle for achievement of full voting rights for all women regardless of race, age, or marital statue. Women have been fighting for rights in every field and obtaining the same position as men since ages. Feminism is ‘the longest revolution’ till date according to Juliet Mitchell (a feminist).  

Most feminist movements and theories had leaders who were white women from middle-class families from Western Europe and North America. Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech to American feminists, this gave other races women to propose alternative feminisms. This trend started spreading in 1960s with the Civil Rights movement in United States and the European colonialism in Africa, parts of Latin America, and South Asia started to collapse (Sturgeon). After this the women in European colonies proposed ‘post-colonial’ and ‘third world’ feminisms. Some examples of post-colonial feminists are Chandra Talpade Mohanty and black feminist such as Angela Davis.

In the Victorian era, the common women of the nation focused on marring rich or high status man to settle in their life (Branca) but with the rise of feminist movement in the nation, women started to know about the rights and started to oppose and stand on their own feet. At the time of world war going on the women had to work for their family and still were treated as inferior in terms of everything. Women already started to rebel against the inequality they were facing and hence the movement in many places started with a rebellious nature against the men and new feminists joined the movement till the end of the Second World War (Summerfield).      

Third Wave Feminism: Intersectionality and Diversity

Post feminism term was used to describe the viewpoints reacting towards feminism since 1980s. Post feminists believe that women have achieved the goals of second wave feminism and these feminist become critical of third and fourth wave feminist movement (Davis). Post-feminists are the ones who says that feminism is no longer required in today’s life as for them feminism movement has achieved the goals and now does not require anything more (Brabon). Dorothy Chunn (feminist) says that feminists are undermined as they continue the demand of ‘gender equality’ but according to the post feminists society we have ‘achieved the goal of equality’.

Anti-feminist is different from post-feminist as anti-feminism is described as opposition to some or all forms feminism while on the other hand, post-feminism means the feminist who feels that they have achieved the goal and all the equality has been provided by the government and the women has got all the rights as men have in every field (Anderson). Post feminists still are feminist but they do not think in the third and fourth wave of feminism has something left except to promote feminism through social media.

Feminism is still an important movement in some of the backward or developing countries such as India, and Pakistan. Some of the major reasons are the right to live, mutilation of female genital, marriage in young age without the permission or knowledge of woman/man, avoiding the birth of baby girl by killing them in early stage of women’s pregnancy, sexual harassment or rapes and forced prostitution is still common. This world is still a man’s world as women are still treated inferiorly and mostly defined by their looks. Women in some countries are still not educated and they do not even have the right to educate themselves or work and get paid. Some men are against women working as they do not feel women should get paid more than men or equal to them (Kennedy). They think women as a poised statue to look beautiful inside the house and maintain their status in the society. Women also do not get maternity leaves or if a women get pregnant she stops working to take of the family while on the other hand, a man never sacrifices his salary for taking care of the family (Marianne A. Ferber). The fourth wave feminism has still goals to accomplish in many countries and the movement is still not ended.

Fourth Wave Feminism: Social Media and Contemporary Issues

Conclusion

From this essay we conclude that feminism movement is one of the never ending and the longest movement ever happened in the history. This essay focused on the history of feminist movement and the needs to gender equality in the world. Some great feminist leaders came in the world and this movement still continues in some other countries. Feminist movement started with the right to vote and now it fights for the other equality as well. Feminism does not means to be superior than men it means giving the same equal rights as men always got without asking and women are still fighting for it. There is difference between post- feminism and anti-feminism that is post feminists believes that the world has already achieved the equality as a woman and anti-feminists are those who oppose the goals of feminism.  

References

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