Feminism
Feminism is the belief and aim that women should have the same rights and opportunities in society as men. The awareness among womens and in order to overcome the slavery and the way the women treated in the social sectors lead to development of feminist organization. The term feminism started in 1800s which it was meant as quality of women and later it meant as equality of men and women.
The feminist wanted to change the world. The feminist organization aimed at the legal protection of women and the protection from harassment that the woman encounters in her day to day life. They feel that it will be a protection to have an organization to project their issues. An example of the feminist works is as follows.
This article appeared on p18 of the HYPERLINK httpwww.guardian.co.uktheguardian2010may21g2 G2section of HYPERLINK httpwww.guardian.co.uktheguardian the Guardian by Sheila Rowbothamon HYPERLINK httpwww.guardian.co.uktheguardian2010may21 Friday 21 May 2010. It was published on HYPERLINK httpwww.guardian.co.uktheguardian guardian.co.ukat 08.00 BST on Friday 21 May 2010.
Feminists fighting to change the world
Early feminists werent just fighting for the vote they wanted to change the world. What can we learn from these audacious utopians
In 1902, Winifred Harper Cooley imagined a 21st century without sweatshops or slums. Cooley was a US feminist, once described as a radiant woman in flowing, graceful robes, and in this new world, she explained, no one would be tramping the streets without a home, or be unemployed. The worlds labor would be shared so that each person only worked five hours a day. Society would be fair, just and equal.
Cooley wasnt alone in her utopian visions. Radicalized by the movement for the vote, as well as by dramatic economic changes, many progressive women of her era the late 19th century to the early 1930s were asking serious, far-reaching questions about how their sex should behave and live. They began with womens experiences of sexual relations, mothering, domestic labor and paid work, and went on to demand social as well as political rights. It is thanks to their efforts that we have birth control, abortion, centers for mothers and babies, health visitors, child benefit and the minimum wage.
But they wanted so much more. A novel by US writer Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899), expressed their diffuse desire for personal and social change when the novels heroine sets about casting off her socially imposed role as a woman, her adultery scandalizes St Louis society. The books title was echoed in 1913 in The Awakening of Women, a supplement produced by the New Statesman, in which Beatrice Webb argued that any awakening had to be seen in broader terms than simply the struggle for the vote. Webb observed that a wider womens movement existed that was related to the international movement of labor and unrest among subject peoples. Women in this wider movement were challenging not just gender relations, but other forms of subordination too.
MERGEFORMATINET
US feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman addresses members of the General Federation of Womens Clubs, June 1916. Photograph BettmannCORBIS
Feminist issues
The following are some of the issues the feminist deals with
Property rights
Voting rights
Abortion rights
Reproductive rights
Domestic violence
Sexual harassments and rape
Work place rights including maternity leaves and equal pay.
Alienation to feminism
In early days some of the social practices of women were highly dependable on men. Men started to alienate women restricted only to the domestic needs of the family. The women were completely unaware of the society and several injustices were done by men. Hence several feminist movements continue to break certain long standing traditions. Several books were written by feminist in order to make women realize their social aspirations. All the authors of the feminist books were found alienated from the society. Dacia Maraini, Armanda Guiducci and Giuliana Ferri are some of the renowned writers of Italy. They are all united with the common relationship of womens restricted function in the society cited in Pallotta, Augustus, (p.359-362, 1984). The conventional tradition was undermined by these writers and progressive ideas began to prevail in the minds of all women in their domestic and societal roles.
Sexuality
The pornographic works about women are the first stage to proclaim sex as a market in Europe. Later Prostitution emerged as a right to men and injustice to women. The mens emotions are kindled by the pornography works and as a result it is ended in rape. Cameron and Frazer conclude that feminists can be critical of the discourses which inform sexual practice and imagine alternative discourses, without promoting problematic models of human behavior (Cameron Frazer 2000, 253). Prostitution is considered as one the oldest profession. Sexuality is a problem which emerged from the biological differences between men and women. To curb this problem the government should frame laws such that the dignity of women in the society is not spoiled.
Gender Bias
Gender bias starts when a couple decides to have a baby and it continues wherever we go in the course of our life. The Poem Written by Faith Wilding which is attached at the last page of the assignment describes the biological and the emotional change a women encounters right from her childhood until death. For example, when a girl plays cricket she is labeled as tom boy or when a boy cries he is labeled as sissy. At the work place, Gender bias is always a basic problem. Women are never paid equal to men for the same type of job. Even the promotions are gender biased. Though the government has imposed may laws still the problem of gender bias exist in aform that is hard to realize.
Conclusions
Societies encourage sex outside the marriage life and it is only the women who suffer. If marriages are respected then the dignity of women is secured.
The poem
Waiting by Faith Wilding
Waiting . . .
Waiting . . .
Waiting . . .
Waiting for someone to come in
Waiting for someone to hold me
Waiting for someone to feed me
Waiting for someone to change my diaper
Waiting . . .
Waiting to scrawl, to walk,
Waiting to talk
Waiting to be cuddled
Waiting for someone to take me outside
Waiting for someone to play with me
Waiting for someone to take me outside
Waiting for someone to read to me, dress me, tie my shoes
Waiting for Mommy to brush my hair
Waiting for her to curl my hair
Waiting to wear my frilly dress
Waiting to be a pretty girl
Waiting to grow up
Waiting . . .
Waiting for my breasts to develop
Waiting to wear a bra
Waiting to menstruate
Waiting to read forbidden books
Waiting to stop being clumsy
Waiting to have a good figure
Waiting for my first date
Waiting to have a boyfriend
Waiting to go to a party, to be asked to dance, to dance close
Waiting to be beautiful
Waiting for the secret
Waiting for life to begin
Waiting
Waiting to be somebody
Waiting to wear makeup
Waiting to wear lipstick, to wear high heels and stockings
Waiting to get dressed up, to shave my legs
Waiting to be pretty
Waiting . . .
Waiting for him to notice me, to call me
Waiting for him to ask me out
Waiting for him to pay attention to me
Waiting for him to fall in love with me
Waiting for him to kiss me, touch me, touch my breasts
Waiting for him to pass my house
Waiting for him to tell me Im beautiful
Waiting for him to ask me to go steady
Waiting to neck, to make out,
Waiting to go all the way
Waiting to smoke, to drink, to stay out late
Waiting to be a woman
Waiting . . .
Waiting for my great love
Waiting for the perfect man
Waiting for Mr. Right
Waiting . . .
Waiting to get married
Waiting for my wedding day
Waiting for my wedding night
Waiting for sex
Waiting for him to make the first move
Waiting for him to excite me
Waiting for him to give me pleasure
Waiting for him to give me an orgasm
Waiting . . .
Waiting for him to come home, to fill my time
Waiting . . .
Waiting for my baby to come
Waiting for my belly to swell
Waiting for my breasts to fill with milk
Waiting to feel my baby move
Waiting for my legs to stop swelling
Waiting for the first contractions
Waiting for the contractions to end
Waiting for the head to emerge
Waiting for the first scream, the afterbirth
Waiting to hold my baby
Waiting for my baby to suck my milk
Waiting for my baby to stop crying
Waiting for my baby to sleep through the night
Waiting for my breasts to dry up
Waiting to get my figure back, for the stretch marks to go away
Waiting for some time to myself
Waiting to be beautiful again
Waiting for my child to go to school
Waiting for life to begin again
Waiting . . .
Waiting for my children to come home from school
Waiting for them to grow up, to leave home
Waiting to be myself
Waiting for excitement
Waiting for him to tell me something interesting, to ask me how I feel
Waiting for him to stop being crabby, reach for my hand, kiss me good morning
Waiting for fulfillment
Waiting for the children to marry
Waiting for something to happen
Waiting . . .
Waiting to lose weight
Waiting for the first gray hair
Waiting for menopause
Waiting to grow wise
Waiting . . .
Waiting for my body to break down, to get ugly
Waiting for my flesh to sag
Waiting for my breasts to shrivel up
Waiting for a visit from my children, for letters
Waiting for my friends to die
Waiting for my husband to die
Waiting . . .
Waiting to get sick
Waiting for things to get better
Waiting for winter to end
Waiting for the mirror to tell me that Im old
Waiting for a good bowel movement
Waiting for the pain to go away
Waiting for the struggle to end
Waiting for release
Waiting for morning
Waiting for the end of the day
Waiting for sleep
Waiting
A 15-minute monologue, scripted and performed by Faith Wilding in the Performance program at Womanhouse, Waiting condenses a womans entire life into a monotonous, repetitive cycle of waiting for life to begin while she is serving and maintaining the lives of others. The full text was published by Ms. Magazine in 1972, and in the Appendix of Through the Flower by Judy Chicago.
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