What is Feminism?
Women make up about half of the world’s people, it’s therefore only logical to try to gain knowledge about why and how the world work’s with regards to women. Since the feminist movement started people have inquired on, why feminism began and what is feminism. There are many different opinions on these two questions and all the various topics within feminism.
For as far back in history as we have access to people have known that women have not been treated equally to men. Of course as much as some people want to keep things the way they were there were some women who wanted to be treated equal to men. Feminism began because women were responding to the idea of “phallocentric knowledge”. Not all women though were supporters of the idea of feminism. Some oppositions thought that feminism would conclude with women being more like men. As hard as this idea was for some people to grasp, women only wanted equality between genders.
One fundamental area that women needed improvement on was in the work place. The idea was that women should be staying at home with their families and if they had to work they would only take “women’s jobs” such as a secretary, a housekeeper or a nurse. These jobs by feminists were seen, for good reason, as division of labor because of gender. When feminists finally achieved their goal for jobs to be gender blind, they realized this unfortunately wasn’t the only problem within the workplace that women encountered; low pay was another. Women finally received the right to have the same job title as a man but in most cases they weren’t being paid as much as the men; this left feminists frustrated and thankfully more driven than ever, because eventually equal pay between men and women became a law.
Even after all the way that feminists have come within our society some problems that still exists today and are a real step backwards for the feminist movement are: domination through violence, pornography, and prostitution. Violence against women is horrible and should never happen. Because violence leaves the victim with a feeling of powerlessness acts like these sometimes go unreported. Regrettably, onscreen violence and pornography often go hand in hand. This makes the viewers desensitized to the violence and therefore they are more likely to ignore or even participate in similar real life situations. Finally the crisis that is often links together violence and sex is prostitution. I haven’t heard of a woman yet that accepted this occupation without a dire need for money or that haven’t been forced into it. Many people also believe that prostitution and stripping are both a step backwards for feminism. I for one don’t agree with that statement, I think prostitution is a horrific degradation to women and should be stopped with whatever means necessary. With regards to stripping I think that if anything this is empowering to women. Women that are in a safe and comfortable environment, get paid well, and feel good enough about themselves to take off their clothes in front of people should be supported by feminists for having confidence and strength.
I find that another obstacle that women face that feminism hasn’t overcome yet is how women are judged by physical characteristics such as short hair and unshaven body parts. People tend to assume that these are stereotypical characteristics of feminists and lesbians. First, many women have very busy lives for various reasons, they may want to cut down primping time by going for a short hair cut so it’s quicker to manage. This doesn’t make the person any less of a women, I would think it would make her more womanly because she can handle everything life hands her and still manages to make extra time for herself. Secondly, people don’t seem to take consideration that perhaps some women are unshaven for cultural reasons. Women in general may have gotten the brunt of everything for a while but minority women get an even worse deal than white women. Women of different races and ethnicities seem to get more of a disadvantage within society than white women. This requires them to fight for equality because they are women and fight equality because they are minorities.
Though I probably wouldn’t classify this as a women’s issue I suppose it could be seen as one to a certain extent. Heterosexuality is seen by society as the normal sexual orientation. I expect that this issue is just as relevant to women, as women unshaven and with short hair being called lesbians are relevant to homosexuals because it’s stereotypical, it’s labeling and it’s wrong. I think that one vital part of feminism is that feminists don’t necessarily want power they want equality for everyone. Maybe it’s just their caring and empathetic feminine characteristics shining through or maybe it’s only because women know what discrimination feels like but I believe that equality for everyone is a fundamental part of feminism.
Feminism is a difficult concept to define. I am guessing that no two women would ever have the same definition for this term because everything within this concept is so diverse. There are many struggles within defining feminism, are women fighting for power or equality, are they only concerned with women’s rights or are they concerned with the rights of those that can’t fight for themselves such as children. Personally I don’t think there will ever be an agreed upon set definition of feminism only because so many people incorporate their own views on the subject.
Personally I find that this information I processed within the last three months has greatly influenced and changed my definition of feminism; I don’t think there is one. I think that feminism is whatever any woman thinks, feels, makes her feel empowered, or makes her feel equal. I believe that this is the vital point that people really miss sometimes. They try to squeeze the idea of feminism into a little box, but you can’t fit the ideas, beliefs and views of millions of women into a box, that’s why society really doesn’t comprehend it yet. Once people realize that feminism is whatever any woman wants it to be, they will realize that there is no way to fight it. All women are feminists; they just don’t know it yet.
Sign my Guestbook