The Feminist Movement: From Past Struggles to Present Day Challenges

This essay describes the feminist movement from its past struggles to present day challenges. It discusses the four waves of feminism, their achievements, and the present day problems faced by women. The essay also highlights the importance of feminism.

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THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT
ESSAY
STUDENT NAME:
11/30/2018

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INTRODUCTION:
This essay aims to describe about the feminist movement from its struggle in the past
centuries to till now. The meaning of feminism and stages of the movement and its
achievement in every era has been discussed in this essay. Feminism movement has four
different stages also termed as ‘wave’. Feminism simply means equality for men and women
in every field and hence no discrimination in between the genders. Post feminism movement
is discussed and it is compared with anti-feminism. This essay also focused on the present
day problems of women and why feminism is still important to accomplish.
MAIN BODY:
Centuries ago, women had specific roles, to be perfect and sit back home defining beauty and
always working inside the home. Women were always considered inferior to men and hence
were not allowed or had any rights in the 19th century (White). If we fast forward to the
present day, feminism is still a movement with no end. Many believe that women have
already attained the goals or rights but in few countries fight is still on for the female equality
in the nation and those people who believe in this they are still unaware of the fact what
feminism really mean and why it started in the first place.
The term feminism has described as political, cultural or economical movement that aimed
establishment of equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism also involves
political, sociological and philosophical issues concerned with gender discrimination
(O'Neill). The history of feminism was a struggle in 1848 and it is continuing. This
movement is the longest movement considered according to the feminists. The feminist
movement in present day life is on the fourth wave.
The women’s movement was first held in Seneca Falls, America, in 1848. This phase of
movement was also termed as first wave feminism. This movement was started by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton with Lucretia Mott and they started with the aim of anti-slavery convention but
then they saw the difference between how a man and woman is treated and hence the feminist
movement took place (Wellman). This convention was attended by approximately around
three hundred people as it was not advertised at that time period and at that convention they
made people sign ‘declaration of sentiment’. This convention included basic control of lives,
abolishment of slavery and right to retain property for females. After the first convention

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later, another convention was organized in Rochester, New York which is also known as
Rochester Women’s Rights Convention and then further following all this convention one by
one other conventions were organized on regular basis from 1850 until the civil war started.
These conventions lead to declaration of right to vote for women. At the end of 19th century
the women won few rights such as share of the property or custody of the child and full
voting rights in few areas (Rosen).
The second wave feminism movement began in the early 1960s. This movement included the
rights of women in birth control, anti-sex discrimination laws and the Roe v. Wade act. In
this phase of feminist movement the equal pay right for women was amended and then the
civil rights which banned sex discrimination in employment. In 1965, birth control for
married couples was legalized and later in 1972, the Supreme Court stated the law that
unmarried people had the right of birth control as married couple have and the no-fault
divorce was legalized (Solinger). In 1971, the Reed v. Reed was applied for the first time, this
law stated the equal protection clause which stroke down a law which discriminated women.
Later 1973, the Roe v. Wade happened which legalized abortion. Also, many other laws were
enacted like in 1974, sex discrimination was legalized in house that is also known as Fair
Housing Act and in 1978, the prohibition of sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy also
known as Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The major disappointment of this phase was the
Comprehensive Child Development Bill, 1972 was not amended and United State faced a
major loss due to this because this bill was a multibillion dollar national day care system
which focused on the middle class women and would give support as women to the economy.
Another disappointment of the second wave feminist movement was the failure of the Equal
Rights Amendment but some convention was a success in this era such as elimination of
every kind of discrimination against women (Gilmore).
Third wave feminism began in early 1990s. This phase of the feminism saw gender wage
gap, reproductive rights and sexual discrimination which continued with the second wave
feminism era, and the white patriarchy (Snyder). As feminism was started in the white
country and it was spreading fast enough worldwide, women got the knowledge of the white
patriarchy system continuing from a decade and no women ever raised voice against this
social system. Patriarchy is basically a system where males hold power and are dominating in
the roles of political leadership, social privileges, moral authority and control over the
inherited property (Hunnicutt). Hence, this era of feminism focused on the female supremacy
and to lose the power of patriarchy in the white countries especially. This era also focused on

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feminist fighting against sexual harassment and found women power and control over their
own voices and artistic expressions. This wave formed organization filled with young women
with a mission to become more involved in socially and politically in their communities.
Third wave feminists also had the right to question, reclaim, and redefine their own
ideologies and transmit it through media about gender roles, womanhood, sexuality and
beauty and basic woman rights. This era saw much new generation feminist such as Beyonce,
Lady Gaga, Madonna and many more. This era used the medium of internet and other
modern technology to spread feminism and due to this, the movement started spreading
rapidly and reached to larger platform. This era was succeeding by women’s popularisation in
different field and notions of gender in every field were examined.
The fourth wave feminism movement began around 2012 and was totally dependent on social
media. According to feminists of this era, this wave focused on justice for women facing
sexual harassment and fought against women facing any kind of violence (Edna Erez). This
era of feminism is all about technology and its use for the equal rights of women. The
technology includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and articles or blogs. One of the
examples of fourth wave feminism includes 10 hours of walking in New York City and
Mattress Performance in United States. This era also does not include any major reason to
find any more equal right as women have almost achieved the same rights as men have in a
nation. Rather than having equality, feminism of this generation has become all about
emasculation of men, fluidity of gender, uninhibited abortion and the resistance (Munro).
Feminism in today life has changed its definition of equality.
The struggle of women for achieving equal rights as man ever had is still not achieved.
Women in some backward countries are still fighting for their right to even speak freely. It is
a century of struggle for achievement of full voting rights for all women regardless of race,
age, or marital statue. Women have been fighting for rights in every field and obtaining the
same position as men since ages. Feminism is ‘the longest revolution’ till date according to
Juliet Mitchell (a feminist).
Most feminist movements and theories had leaders who were white women from middle-
class families from Western Europe and North America. Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech to
American feminists, this gave other races women to propose alternative feminisms. This
trend started spreading in 1960s with the Civil Rights movement in United States and the
European colonialism in Africa, parts of Latin America, and South Asia started to collapse

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(Sturgeon). After this the women in European colonies proposed ‘post-colonial’ and ‘third
world’ feminisms. Some examples of post-colonial feminists are Chandra Talpade Mohanty
and black feminist such as Angela Davis.
In the Victorian era, the common women of the nation focused on marring rich or high status
man to settle in their life (Branca) but with the rise of feminist movement in the nation,
women started to know about the rights and started to oppose and stand on their own feet. At
the time of world war going on the women had to work for their family and still were treated
as inferior in terms of everything. Women already started to rebel against the inequality they
were facing and hence the movement in many places started with a rebellious nature against
the men and new feminists joined the movement till the end of the Second World War
(Summerfield).
Post feminism term was used to describe the viewpoints reacting towards feminism since
1980s. Post feminists believe that women have achieved the goals of second wave feminism
and these feminist become critical of third and fourth wave feminist movement (Davis). Post-
feminists are the ones who says that feminism is no longer required in today’s life as for them
feminism movement has achieved the goals and now does not require anything more
(Brabon). Dorothy Chunn (feminist) says that feminists are undermined as they continue the
demand of ‘gender equality’ but according to the post feminists society we have ‘achieved
the goal of equality’.
Anti-feminist is different from post-feminist as anti-feminism is described as opposition to
some or all forms feminism while on the other hand, post-feminism means the feminist who
feels that they have achieved the goal and all the equality has been provided by the
government and the women has got all the rights as men have in every field (Anderson). Post
feminists still are feminist but they do not think in the third and fourth wave of feminism has
something left except to promote feminism through social media.
Feminism is still an important movement in some of the backward or developing countries
such as India, and Pakistan. Some of the major reasons are the right to live, mutilation of
female genital, marriage in young age without the permission or knowledge of woman/man,
avoiding the birth of baby girl by killing them in early stage of women’s pregnancy, sexual
harassment or rapes and forced prostitution is still common. This world is still a man’s world
as women are still treated inferiorly and mostly defined by their looks. Women in some
countries are still not educated and they do not even have the right to educate themselves or

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work and get paid. Some men are against women working as they do not feel women should
get paid more than men or equal to them (Kennedy). They think women as a poised statue to
look beautiful inside the house and maintain their status in the society. Women also do not
get maternity leaves or if a women get pregnant she stops working to take of the family while
on the other hand, a man never sacrifices his salary for taking care of the family (Marianne A.
Ferber). The fourth wave feminism has still goals to accomplish in many countries and the
movement is still not ended.
CONCLUSION:
From this essay we conclude that feminism movement is one of the never ending and the
longest movement ever happened in the history. This essay focused on the history of feminist
movement and the needs to gender equality in the world. Some great feminist leaders came in
the world and this movement still continues in some other countries. Feminist movement
started with the right to vote and now it fights for the other equality as well. Feminism does
not means to be superior than men it means giving the same equal rights as men always got
without asking and women are still fighting for it. There is difference between post- feminism
and anti-feminism that is post feminists believes that the world has already achieved the
equality as a woman and anti-feminists are those who oppose the goals of feminism.
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