Feminism Essay: Examining the Core Principles of Feminism

This essay delves into the multifaceted concept of feminism, exploring its historical roots, core principles, and diverse movements advocating for gender equality. It begins by defining feminism and its origins in the fight for women's rights, tracing its evolution through various waves and ideologies. The discussion covers the historical context of women's oppression, the emergence of feminist ideologies, and key concepts such as intersectionality, which addresses the experiences of women from different cultural backgrounds. The essay also examines the four waves of feminism, highlighting their focus on suffrage, legal and cultural equality, and the ongoing issues of sexual harassment, body shaming, and workplace discrimination. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of continued social and political support, women's empowerment, and the need to address the diverse ideologies within feminism to establish gender equality. The reference list includes various scholarly articles and books on feminism and related topics.

Running head: FEMINISM
FEMINISM
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................5
Reference:..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction:
Feminism is the ideology that believes in social, cultural, and political gender
equality. Rooted primarily in the West, Feminism is embodied globally and is endorsed by
numerous organizations dedicated to action on behalf of the rights and interests of women.
Women were restricted to the domestic boundaries for a long time, as evident by Western
history, while public life was reserved for men (Ferguson, 2017). Women in medieval Europe
were prohibited with the right to possess their property, get an education, or take part in
public life. In France until the end of the 19th century, women were forced to cover
themselves in public, while situations are almost similar in most of the other countries. The
concept of Feminism bloomed when the women started demanding liberty and enforcement
of rights that will be equally applied in all the sexes (Schneir, 2014).
Discussion
For decades, feminist campaigns have advocated for women's rights, such as the get
employment in public sectors, work, gain fair wages, right to vote, or equal opportunities,
own land, obtain an education, have equal rights in marriage, and have maternity leave. The
concept also denies the concept of bodily stereotyping and protects women from domestic
violence, and brutal crimes like sexual abuse and rape (Abrams, 2015).
The concept of modern Feminism has chronologic categories, based on the different
feministic issues they dealt with. The first movement was to establish the most primitive right
of every human being in a democratic world, the right to vote. The movement was lead by
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Candy Stanton at the year 1848 in New York and called the
"Women's suffrage movement" (Van Wingerden and Van Wingerden, 2016). The second
movement that started in the 1960s somewhere advocated for women's cultural and legal
equality, including concerns concerning their legal inequality, domestic abuse, reproductive

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rights, divorce law and marital rape. The notion of sexual equality as an integral component
of women's liberation is propagated by sex-positive Feminism, or sexually liberal. Feminism
is the primary concern of the third movement of Feminism, which began in the 1990s
(Srivastava et al, 2017).
The fourth movement began in 2012, highlighting the issues like targeting, campus
sexual harassment, sexual harassment rape culture, body shaming, discrimination in the
workplace, sexist media imagery, assault on public transport, online misogyny, and other
forms of harassment related to social media use (Srivastava et al, 2017).
Feminism is an umbrella term associated with several ideologies, though the central
dogma of every concept is the empowerment and equal right of women.
Intersectionality eliminating assumptions of gender norms and spreading Feminism to
establish women of different cultures, whose rights have long been ignored (Collins and
Bilge, 2016).
Transfeminism is described as a Trans women's Liberation Movement. Vegetarian
ecofeminism theorizes that all forms of inequality, such as castism, colonialism, and
misogyny, are intertwined. They also believe that nature and women are the two dominant
power need to establish to eliminate every type of oppression (Yost and Smith, 2014).
The Postmodern Feminism is consists of liberal Feminism and Radical Feminism.
It seems to be an extended family of people with a common goal. However, the
specific optimization of Feminism is still a matter of research. Three-quarters of women are
fighting for the rights of women, while less than one-third are consider themselves as
feminists. The reason for this paradox may be related to the perception that there are several
conflicting definitions of what actually Feminism is or how it should be. This is particularly
occurs as movement's core values and views have experienced significant changes over the
duration of its beginning in the 20th century. Many separate forms of Feminism are

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recognized nowadays, the most recognized of which are Womanism and Liberal, Cultural,
Radical, and Liberal Feminism. There is a substantively optimistic combination of
perceptions and values for those who classify as feminists associated with other things that
split classes of self-identified women, and whom the feminist instruments do not catch.
However, the concept of feminism paradox can be explained by the importance of the effect
of the specific bodily image of the activist, which may differ from the women in general.
Feminists are to display both psychosocial and physiological features correlated to more
significant masculinization, which may tend to lead females toward enhanced competition,
sex-atypical attitudes, and a conviction in the interchangeability of sex roles. When female
feminists, the artist of the mainstream picture of Feminism, are simply masculinized
compared to women in common, that may clarify why the beliefs and desires of these two
classes vary (Srivastava et al, 2017).
The relation between political overview and Feminism also cannot be denied when
analyzing the foundational strength of Feminism in society. In post-communist regions like
Poland, gender inequality, racism, and gender discrimination is still a massive problem
despite the rhetoric of feminism activities. The support for the female political candidates
directly refers to the support of the gender-related endorsement that can be a concern of a
female politician, which must include gender equality or woman empowerment. Feminist
perceptions towards conservative female politicians like Sarah Palin, from Poland, is a
complicated problem that may rely not only on stands for gender equity in politics but also
play a pivotal role for candidates fighting for particular topics that are relevant for the
feminist movement. However, the success of fostering societal progress for increased parity
between the sexes primarily relies on the capacity of feminists to identify and respond to
gender inequality as it arises or takes place (Cichocka et al., 2013 ).

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Aboriginal feminists consider that their issues are associated with continuing feminist
movement within their culturally oppressed communities. The three factors that play the chief
factor in the Aboriginal feminist movement are- the black patriarchy, the white patriarchy,
and the "mainstream feminism." The black feminists have long been out of mainstream
Feminism, and their patriarchy mechanism in the black community been suppressed by white
patriarchy. The community has been in the low light of reference for a long time, making the
modern movement inclusive of all the additional factors to Feminism. There has also been a
history of conflict between the Aboriginal Feminism and mainstream Feminism as there has
always been a collaborative gap and supremacy of mainstream Feminism, resulting in a
distinct primary domain of Aboriginal Feminism (Postcolonialist.com, 2020).
The concept of Feminism has its foundation in the term "misogamy"- hatred against
women, thinking women are inferior to men (Srivastava et al, 2017). There are also familiar
religious reference like the story of Pandora in Greek mythology , Adam-eve in Bible and
many others which support the niche of misogamy and opening the door for Feminism. As
Newton's law states, all the actions has its equal and opposite reaction, and Feminism plays
the reaction of misogamy.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded from the essay that Feminism is a product of long incubated
suffering and denial towards women. The issues of different movements changed with time
and need of the society, though the central dogma of the Feminism remains constant. The
inclusion of all the races, cultures, and ideologies strengthening it day by day. However, there
is still a need for more social support, political support, women empowerment, firm law, and
policy to establish gender equality. The different ideology of different feminism groups needs
to be analyzed, evaluated, and taken for consideration to form a uniform platform for all the
feminists.

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Reference:
Abrams, J.R., 2015. The feminist case for acknowledging women's acts of violence. Yale JL
& Feminism, 27, p.287.
Cichocka, A., De Zavala, A.G., Kofta, M. and Rozum, J., 2013. Threats to feminist identity
and reactions to gender discrimination. Sex roles, 68(9-10), pp.605-619.
Collins, P.H. and Bilge, S., 2016. Intersectionality. John Wiley & Sons.
Ferguson, M.L., 2017. Neoliberal feminism as political ideology: revitalizing the study of
feminist political ideologies. Journal of political ideologies, 22(3), pp.221-235.
Madison, G., Aasa, U., Wallert, J. and Woodley, M.A., 2014. Feminist activist women are
masculinized in terms of digit-ratio and social dominance: a possible explanation for the
feminist paradox. Frontiers in psychology, 5, p.1011.
Postcolonialist.com, 2020. Discount Meds Of Truly Flawless Quality. -> Borpillshop.Com.
[online] Postcolonialist.com. Available at:
<http://postcolonialist.com/civil-discourse/intersectionality-indigenous-feminism-aboriginal-
womans-perspective/> [Accessed 26 March 2020].
Schneir, M., 2014. Feminism: The essential historical writings. Vintage.
Srivastava, K., Chaudhury, S., Bhat, P.S. and Sahu, S., 2017. Misogyny, feminism, and
sexual harassment. Industrial psychiatry journal, 26(2), p.111.
Van Wingerden, S. and Van Wingerden, S.A., 2016. The women's suffrage movement in
Britain, 1866-1928. Springer.
Yost, M.R. and Smith, T.E., 2014. Transfeminist psychology. Feminism &
Psychology, 24(2), pp.145-156.