Feminism

The article begins by talking about a few of the specific movements of feminism.  “First wave” feminism was the political movement of the 19^th century where women fought for the right to vote.  “Second wave” feminism of the late 60’s/early 70’s sought to achieve greater equality for women in education, the workplace, and the home. The feminist movement we are in now is considered “third wave”.  This movement places a greater emphasis on intersectionality.   Some scholars object to this “wave” model because it ignores resistance of male dominance that occurred outside outside of these designated movements or timeframes.

The next section of the article seeks to define what feminism is.  The author says that feminism rests on 2 sets of beliefs: the normative claim and the descriptive claim.  The normative claim states that men and women are entitled to equal rights and respect.  The descriptive claim says that women are currently disadvantaged compared to men in terms of rights and respect. There are many disagreements within feminism about the ways that women are disadvantaged in comparison to men, and also the reasons for why these disadvantages occur.  One thing I liked about this section of the article was when it said “Feminists are not simply those who are committed in principle to justice for women; feminists take themselves to have reasons to bring about social change on women's behalf.”  One of the frustrations I have right now with the world is that it has become trendy to identify as feminist, even when one doesn’t actually reall know what feminism is or what it is trying to achieve.  Whenever a celebrity (such as Taylor Swift) identifies themselves publicly as a feminist, they receive a lot of praise even though they haven’t actually done anything to change things on women’s behalf. It’s great that these people are identifying themselves as feminists,  and it’s definitely better than trying to distance themselves from the word “feminist” because they fear it will make them seem like they hate men, but the next step after identifying themselves as feminist should be to use their fame to try to bring about social change.  If they claim to be a feminist but then don’t actually use their voice to speak out against the disadvantages women face, they are not actually a feminist. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that celebrities like Taylor Swift are publicly proclaiming themselves feminist, I just wish we would wait to praise them for being feminist until they’ve actually taken specific actions to try to achieve equality for women.

The next section of the article talks about how feminism interacts with the diversity of women.  One of the critiques of feminist movements has been that they have mainly focused exclusively on the issues that affect white, heterosexual, upper or middle class women.   This ignores all the ways that other women who do not fit this archetype are oppressed.  Although the goal of feminism is to end sexism, this cannot be achieved without attempting to end the other forms of oppression that women face, such as racism, classism, ableism, homophobia etc. Basically, feminism that is not inclusive of the experiences of all women is not an effective form of feminism.  Sexism is the oppression of women because of their gender, and it can take the form of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and systematic violence The main focus of feminism is to combat sexism, but it cannot do that without addressing the other ways in which women are oppressed. “The commonality among the cases is to be found in the role of gender in the explanation of the injustice rather than the specific form the injustice takes.”

One of my favorite parts of the article was where it talked about how “it is a crucial feature of contemporary accounts, however, that one cannot assume that members of the privileged group have intentionally designed or maintained the system for their benefit.  The oppressive structure maybe the result of an historical process whose originators are long gone, or it may be the unintended result of complex cooperative strategies gone wrong.”  I thought this quote was so relevant to a lot of arguments I’ve had with people who are anti feminism, and I think I might print it out so that I can read it to them next time we’re in an argument.  One of the most frequent misunderstandings I’ve come across is people thinking that feminists hate men and blame them for the disadvantages women face. In my experience, I have never come across a feminist who feels this way.  Their anger is not at men, but at the patriarchal system we all live in.