The Feminist Philosophies : An Overview Of The Issues By Karen J. Warren

The most prevalent and popular stereotype of the post World war II era in America is one filled with women abandoning their wartimes jobs and retreating into the home to fulfill their womanly duties. In Joanne Meyerowitz’s Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, she shows how far women departed from this one dimensional image. While Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is reflexive and focused on the mainstream, Meyerowitz’s analysis is a broader and more inclusive exploration of media, as she draws upon multiple sources. Although Friedan effectively unveiled the thought process and reasoning behind society's belief that the message of media was to make women think that their place was to be the happy housewife, Meyerowitz expanded her media archives and found a differing message in analyzing both female responses to media and exploring their stories.

The major and consistent feminist goals throughout time have always been centered around reproductive rights. From the introduction of birth control to the acceptance of surrogacy, feminists have fought for every milestone. In today’s society, reproductive and medical technologies are growing at an incredible rate, allowing individuals to be liberated from gender conventions and oppression. Though having these technological advances are comforting, some feminists argue whether having these newfound reproductive and medical options are what is best for womankind, or if it simply adheres to the patriarchy.

Understanding feminist issues conceptually helps to understand environmental issues. The conceptual framework of the identical dominations of women and nature is oppressive and patriarchal, which justifies the oppression. The three main components of oppressive conceptual framework are vertical thinking, or thinking in terms of rank, value dualisms, or exclusive oppositional ideas, and the logic of domination, which is the logic structured to lead to the justification of subordination. The logic of domination component, when coupled with the the other two components, creates the problem of subordination justification and

Early feminism was typically focused only on white women, likely because racism was still extremely prominent at the time feminism began emerging. It was not until Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” in 1989 that feminism started to look at oppressed group’s needs (Nash, 2008, 2). Intersectionality is a way of thinking that acknowledges that when a person has identities that belong to more than one oppressed group, it impacts their quality of life more negatively. In this paper, I will argue that intersectionality is important in the discussion of feminist theories and activism because it ensures that feminism is for all women, not just a select group of them. Intersectionality has changed the way the feminist movement handles the overlapping of different identities, which has helped feminist theorists understand the experiences of women of colour much more clearly. While intersectionality has a very important role in the conversation and practice of feminism, there are certainly critiques of the concept that should be brought up. These critiques, however, can offer a way to improve the study of intersectionality.

Feminism is a sociological theory that analyzes the roles that women and men play in society. Feminism can be defined as the belief of unequal rights between men and women. Women are not always treated equally and this sparks many concerns in our society. There are 2 different theories that will be focused on in this paper, gender-inequality theory and gender oppression. The differences between these two still lead up to the way women are treated in a community or the way men have acted towards them throughout history. Gender-inequality focuses mainly on how social situations are unequal between men and women, thus that men are treated at a higher level than women in several different situations. There are many different reasons why men and women are treated differently. Traditionally, the women are expected to be the stay at home moms, who clean and cook for the family. While the men on the other hand work on a daily basis and bring income into the household. Thus saying that women are inferior to the man by not being able to make their own job decision. Men are looked to as smarter, masculine, better decision makers than women. For example, there has never been a female president of the United States. That is proof that women are unequal to men and to this day it is still a concern in our society. Women do not receive the same work opportunities as men, and are recognized by only needed to have children, stay at home, and simply clean and cook for the

The 4 waves of feminism caused for divergent impacts on society which have and are currently helping to reshape and improve the lives of all women and girls worldwide. The first-wave of feminism commenced in the late 19th century and predominately aimed to open up opportunities for women, with focus on suffrage and importantly granted women the right to vote. Later in the early 1960s, the second-wave of feminism was largely concerned with moving more women out of the workplace and into the workforce. It aimed for an increased economic benefit to women and consequently the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was formed. The third-wave of feminism began in the mid-1990s and focussed on issues such as sexuality, challenging female heterosexuality and celebrating

Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. Feminist political activism campaigns on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, discrimination and sexual violence. Themes explored in feminism include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification, sexual objectification, oppression and

In the wider conversation of modern day feminism, many people tout loud acts of rebellion such as burning bras or refusing to shave as protests against the patriarchy. Marches and loud voices are often given the spotlight in showcasing ways women fight back against the oppression they are subjected to on a daily basis. The wider narrative often forgets about the subversive acts that women do everyday to challenge the patriarchal hierarchy of power: mothers raising sons who will be the men to stand up to misogynists each day, teenage girls who shop on all areas of department stores in order to mix and match what may be seen as traditionally male or female clothing, housewives who also run side businesses from their homes to provide them with additional money just for their needs. These subversive acts are women who don’t ask for permission when they see an opportunity for healing or liberation, deciding to take the chance because they have already lost so

From the very beginning females are victimized by males physically, psychologically, sexually, and economically. Their desires, wishes are suppressed under domination of patriarchy. That is why notion of sisterhood can be tool to resist against suppression, supporting this view, Linda A. Pollock quotes Fox-Genovese view:

From Evelyn Fox Keller with her book, A feeling for the Organism to Judith Butler with Gender Trouble and Sarah Harding with her revolutionary work on standpoint theory, the role of gender in science and society in general, has been poked and prodded over the years without any fruitful agreements across disciplines. For the most part, the theories proposed have contributed heavily to feminist epistemology. With oppression and marginalization at the center point of the issues concerning gender and science, in this paper, I will try to shift the conversation slightly to address trust and its epistemic role in science. By understanding the definitions provided by feminist scholars such as Harding and Haslanger, the relation between trust, gender

In the process of evaluating Feminist Practice: Who I am or What I do? By Kate Seymore of the School of Social Services & Liberal Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia conducted a study with 10 participants who were involved in domestic violence work. The small sample size is symbolic to the fact that all of these social workers had worked with domestic violence in the past and consisted of both male and female participants. The findings of this study are hard to decipher due to the fact that feminist theory is based off of a way of looking at the world and recognizing that oppression of women exist. This is hard to quantitate as many individuals are bias to the word “feminism” and therefore struggle with truthfully acknowledging

I do not believe that the feminist theories offer greater explanatory power regarding differences in rates of males and female criminality relative to traditional criminological theories. According to Kruttschnitt (2013), the basic premise of feminism is the belief that women should be treated equally to men. The fundamental idea of feminism stated that just because the human bodies are premeditated to achieve certain procreative roles, biological elements need not decree academic and social purposes, abilities, and rights. Gender has been the central topic in the field of criminology and studies in the criminal justice. It was believed decades ago that crime was predominately committed by male while the subject of female criminality has been

Minority women have lower income and fewer assets than white women. Minority women have a greater risk of poverty when their spouse dies. Women's unpaid labor at home can reduce full-time employment because of lack of qualifications. Minority women have severe employment effects, African American women receive lower wages if employed and Hispanic women have limited or no paid work experience.

According to Webster’s dictionary, feminism is defined as the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. In today’s modern world, no matter which end of the political spectrum a person is on, the term can invoke strong feelings - some of which have created a sense of shame or harm associated with the concept. These associations of wrongdoing and radicalism with the theory of feminism and its subsequent movement have existed long before the era of social media activism and selfies; they existed during the time of bellbottoms and Beetlemania as well. Betty Friedan, hailed by many as the founder of second wave feminism, faced many of the same criticisms that activists face now. Her novel, The Feminine Mystique, was

Feminism is a fight against oppression, but white supremacy exists within feminist movements, which is an obvious contradiction of the theory. “The feminist movement has centered on the experiences of White women and dismissed the experiences of Women of Color” (Feenstra, 2017, p. 67). In an article titled, From White Feminism to Intersectional Advocacy: The Development of a White Antiracist Identity, Abby Elizabeth Feenstra, a feminist illuminates her journey to becoming conscious of her white privilege.