What is feminism?
Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to such opportunities for men.
Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to own property, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to have maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to promote bodily autonomy and integrity, and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.
Feminism is an interdisciplinary approach to issues of equality and equity based on gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex, and sexuality as understood through social theories and political activism. Historically, feminism has evolved from the critical examination of inequality between the sexes to a more nuanced focus on the social and performative constructions of gender and sexuality.
What is The Feminist Theory?
The Feminist Theory is the belief that men and women should be equal. Society is dysfunctional because women and men are not treated equally. The Feminist Theory tries to understand why men and women are not treated equally. Even though women have come a long way in gaining equality with men, there are still many ways in society that women are not being treated the same as men.
Feminist theory now aims to interrogate inequalities and inequities along the intersectional lines of ability, class, gender, race, sex, and sexuality, and feminists seek to effect change in areas where these intersectionalities create power inequity. Intellectual and academic discussion of these inequities allows our students to go into the world aware of injustices and to work toward changing unhealthy dynamics in any scenario.
Feminist political activists campaign in areas such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, fairness, social justice, and workplace issues such as family medical leave, equal pay, and sexual harassment and discrimination.
Anytime stereotyping, objectification, infringements of human rights, or intersectional oppression occurs, it's a feminist issue.
Basic Feminist Ideas
Both females and males who identify themselves as feminists disagree on many things. That being said, most feminists agree on five basic principles:
Working to increase equality: Feminist thought links ideas to action, insisting we should push for change toward gender equality and not just talk about it.
Expanding human choice: Feminists believe that both men and women should have the freedom to develop their human interests and talents, even if those interests and talents conflict with the status quo. For example, if a woman wants to be a mechanic, she should have the right and opportunity to do so.
Eliminating gender stratification: Feminists oppose laws and cultural norms that limit income, educational and job opportunities for women.
Ending sexual violence & promoting sexual freedom: Feminists feel that women should have control over their sexuality and reproduction.
Types of Feminism
There are three basic forms of feminism: liberal, social and radical feminism. Liberal feminism is rooted in classic liberal thought and believes that individuals should be free to develop their own talents and pursue their own interests.
This approach sees gender inequalities as rooted in the attitudes of our social and cultural institutions. Liberal feminists do not see women's equality as requiring a reorganization of society, but they do seek to expand the rights and opportunities of women.
Liberal feminism is simply women and men being treated as equals. Some of the main issues of liberal feminism include reproductive and abortions rights, sexual harassment, voting rights, education, affordable childcare and affordable health care. Women should have the same legal rights, job opportunities and education as men. Women working 41 to 44 hours per week earn 84.6% of what men working similar hours earn. Women working more than 60 hours per week earn only 78.3% of what men in the same time category earn.
Child care is an example of something that Liberal Feminists argue is learned and not innate. This is shown when a man is forced to take care of a child on his own. He is capable of doing so yet, if there is a woman around, it is assumed that she is better at child care so she usually has the most responsibility for the child.
The media still supports the idea that boys should be masculine and girls should be feminine. Being assertive (a masculine trait) is more highly valued than being emotional (a feminine trait). Liberal feminists try to promote a nonsexist socialization to children.
Marxist Feminism came from the ideas of Karl Marx, which were used to understand the capitalist sources of the oppression of women. Focus on the concerns of working women. They try to make people understand that housework and child care is still "real work". Taking care of children and a house is just as much work as being an engineer, of doctor. Even when women get paid jobs, they still get lower wages than men. Marxist feminism states that capitalism, which increases economic inequality, and unhealthy social relations between men and women, is the root of women's oppression.
Radical feminism opposes patriarchy, not men. Patriarchy is defined as a social system in which the father is the head of the family and men have authority over women and children. Radical feminists believe that patriarchy is used to oppress women. They oppose existing political and social organization in general because most of them started from patriarchy. They support cultural change that undermines patriarchy. “Radical" meaning "going to the root" is used to describe this type of feminism because they believe that patriarchy is the root of the problem.
Source: en.wikipedia, eku.edu, feministtheory.weebly, dissentpost.wordpress