Feminism

Feminism is the theory that women should have political, economic, and social rights equal to those of men; it is also the movement to win such rights for women. Because feminism is a word representing a movement, its meaning and application has changed over time. There continues to be discussion and debate over the usefulness and relevance of the term. In the 21st century, there are those who champion women's rights, yet share ambivalence about the use of the word feminist as being too narrowly focused on the West or the experience of Western women. Some have suggested adding to the definition to include a belief that women and men are inherently of equal worth. Because most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve equality between women and men with the understanding that gender always intersects with other hierarchies.

Historically, women and men have always been involved in feminism; that is, movements specifically for women's rights. Women, and specifically self-identified feminist women, have historically been involved in all forms of struggles, organizations, and movements for social justice. But the two types of struggles, seemingly interconnected have often been at odds. Not all social justice movements have supported feminist goals, and some feminists and feminist organizations have either been indifferent to, and in some cases hostile to, issues of social justice. In the modern world of private enterprise and representative governments, women have emerged as the backbone of social justice movements—movements that work for a common or collective good, such as equal distribution of wealth and resources, empowerment and justice for those marginalized, opposition to hierarchies of power and domination, and finally, nonviolence as a means to resolve personal, regional, or global conflict.

One of the oldest forms of social injustice has been men's power over women. Almost every society values and privileges boys and men over girls and women. Women have been historically subordinate to men, culturally demeaned, and reviled. Theories, poems, songs, and visual representations not just extol male virtue but condemn women as inherently weaker, dependent, wickedly sexual, or simply evil. The major religions buttress male authority by ordaining that men should rule over women. Yet women have historically critiqued and challenged their subordinate role as wife and mother, as well as the male claim to religious authority and power. One of the first recorded critiques of gender relationships and challenges to male authority came from The Book of the City of Ladies, written in 1405 by Christine de Pizan. Historians Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser believe that the feminist movement began with Pizan, who created an ideology that united the women who embraced it, from the 15th to the 18th centuries. In Western Europe and the United States, political ferment about the role and status of women continued into the 18th century. The ideas of the Enlightenment, the triumph of rationality over a religious worldview, the radical and democratic implications of Protestantism, and the English and American Revolutions contributed to the ongoing debate regarding women's value. The same intellectual forces that were challenging male [Page 555]authority were both contradictory and confusing, for arguments centered on issues of nature as well as reason. Enlightenment thinkers saw women as closer to nature and therefore less capable of reason. They also exoticized non-Western people, claiming that like women, they too were closer to nature and thus inferior to Western European men. The cultural premises of the Enlightenment have shaped the debates about race, equality, and difference into the 21st century.

...