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Saturday, October 18, 2003
Speak Out: A history of feminism
By Karen S. Araneta
Generally, feminism means the advocacy of women’s rights to full citizenship – that is, political, economic, and social equality with men.
Feminism encompasses some widely differing views, however, including those that advocate female separatism.
Modern feminism, which was born with the great democratic revolutions of the 18th century (American and French), differed from its precursors in applying the democratic implications of “the rights of man and the citizen” to women as a group.
Abigail Adams asked her husband, John, to “remember the ladies” in framing the Constitution; Mary Wollstonecraft, inspired by the French Revolution, wrote the premier feminist treatise: “A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792).”
Beginning with the Seneca Falls Convention (1848), US women schooled in reform struggles began a serious fight for women’s right to control their persons, property, and earnings and for the right to vote.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Rights and Sentiments established a blueprint.
US women would not gain the vote until 1920, but throughout the remainder of the 19th century many feminist goals were gradually realized, especially the rights of married women to control their own property.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries the women’s movement primarily reflected truth’s challenge: “Ain`t I a woman?”
The goals of black and working-class women remained inseparable from their racial and class oppression.
The goals of middle-class women centered on obtaining the opportunities available to the men of their own class, such as education or reforming society as a whole.
Thus some women sought to improve the position of women through temperance, social reform, and protective legislation for working women.
The women’s movement did not reemerge until the 1960s, when the example of the civil rights movement and the dissatisfactions of college-educated women converged.
Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” (1963) called national attention to women’s plight.
Women have won the right to guarantees for equal opportunity and pay in employment.
The decline in alimony and child support, combined with the rising divorce rate, made women’s rights to economic equality pressing.
As Friedan’s The Second Stage (1981) suggested, many feminists were also interested in building a new kind of family life.
Despite differences, most feminists seek equal economic rights; support reproductive rights, including the right to abortion, criticize traditional definitions of gender roles; and favor raising children of both genders for similar public achievements and domestic responsibilities.
Many wish to reform language so that it does not equate man with humanity.
Many also campaign vigorously against violence against women (wife battering, rape) and against the denigration of women in the media.
(October 18, 2003 issue)
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