Introduction:
Human civilization is made by and for both the man and woman. They both live here in a coordinated social system. Both the species have their own right and needs to live with modest admiration. But the history of human society does not tell us the equivalent existence of both man and woman. Man always dominated on women and women had no way to complaint against it. But in time gradually a change come into women’s brains and they understood that they need to be conscious about their own right. So women move up their voice against women oppression. To do so they had no way but to take some practical actions. All these actions are known as women’s movement against oppression. And the scheme to achieve the goal is called feminism.
Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements, theories and philosophies that are concerned with the issue of gender difference, which advocate equality for women, and campaign for women's rights and interests.
Feminism is a social movement which has gradually improved the position of women. Feminists’ ideas have had a great deserved influence in sociology in recent years.
Feminism refers to the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes; that each individual is a valuable human being in his or her own right. The goal of feminist work is broader than simply a stronger emphasis on women; the goal is to revise our way of considering history, society, literature, etc. so that both male and female are seen equally conditioned by the gender constructions of their culture. Feminists may differ in the importance they assign to sex, which is a biologically based category, but the idea that gender norms can be changed is central to feminist theory.
Feminism is a movement that seeks to enhance the quality of women’s lives by impacting the norms and moves of a society based on male dominance and subsequent female subordination. The means of change in the work place, politically, and domestically. Women have come a long way since the 19th century. Women have been trying to prove to the male dominant world that they are equal. They can perform and complete any tasks equal, or in some cases better than man. Feminism has changed the definition of men in many ways.
Feminism is a revolution that includes women and men who wish the world to be equal without boundaries. These boundaries or blockades are better known as discrimination and biases against gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status and economic status. Everyone views the world with his or her own sense of gender and equality. Feminists view the world as being unequal. They wish to see the gender gap and the idea that men are superior to women decreased or even abolished.
Etymology:
The word "Feminism" appeared first in France in the 1880s, Great Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 1894 for "feminism", and 1895 for "feminist". Prior to that time "Woman's Rights" was probably the term used most commonly, hence Queen Victoria's description of this "mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights' ". It was the London Daily News that coined the term, and by importing it from France, automatically branded it as dangerous. "What our Paris Correspondent describes as a 'Feminist' group...in the ..Chamber of Deputies". Defining feminism can be challenging, but a broad understanding of it includes women and men acting, speaking and writing on women's issues and rights and identifying social injustice in the status quo. In the case of activists discussing or advancing women's issues prior to the existence of the "feminist" or "women's rights" movements it is not uncommon to find the term 'Protofeminist' used to describe them, this term has been criticized because it potentially detracts from the importance of their contributions. Marie Urbanski refers to this as erasing women from history in her account of Margaret Fuller's life. Others such as “Nancy Cott” stresses the need to see feminism retrospectively and inclusively as "an integral tradition of protest", Where periodicity schemes have been defined by a culture, in which some voices are silent, engaging those voices creates an awkward fit with other "communities of discourse".
Defining feminism:
Feminism is defined by different feminist. They define feminism according their own point of view. As they think differently so their definition too is different from others. But all the definition is almost same in the main point. Here I am going to put some definition of the most popular feminist in the world.
According to “COLLINS Dictionary of Sociology” Feminism is, ‘A sociological theory and practice which aims to free all women’s global oppression and subordination to men.’
Estelle B. Freedman said in his book ‘No Turning Back’, - “Feminism is a belief that women and men are inherently of equal worth. Because most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve equality between woman and man.”
According to ‘The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology’ Feminism is a “Doctrine, originated in the eighteenth century, suggested that women are systematical disadvantaged in modern society and advocates equal opportunity for men and women.”
Rosalind Delmar said in her book ‘What is feminism’ that, “Feminism is usually defined as an active desire to change women’s position in society.”
Christina Hoff Sommers said, in ‘Who Stole Feminism’ “a concern for women and a determination to see them fairly treated”
Kamla Basin and Nighat Said Khan said that feminism is, “An awareness of women’s oppression and exploitation in society, at work and within the family, and conscious action by women and men to change this situation.”
Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runvan said in their book ‘Global Gender Issues’ that, “Feminism is an orientation that views gender as a fundamental ordering principle in today’s world that values diverse ways of being and knowing, and that promotes the transformation of gender and related hierarchies.”
From above definitions it’s clear to us that feminism is a doctrine, a thought, a movement that tell us the oppressed position of women in the world, it is such a philosophy in where women’s worked are valued and their political, economic and social rights are preserved. Feminism is for women’s equality in world. It let the women to prove their power to work in the same rhythm of men in society.
Women’s position in History: A story of superiority to inferiority:
For man without women there is no heaven I the sky or on earth. Without women, there would be no sun, no moon, no agriculture, and no fire. – Arabic Proverb.
Women’s position was changed in various times in the history. Their position did not flow in the same current at all the time. Today oppressed, suffered, violated, ignored. Dominated and so on negative terms are often used to describe women’s position in society. But if we look back to our history, we will get an elegant and striking story of women. And then women played as significant role as played by men now. And we have to confess that then women did not run any steam roller on men and men live a fair and free life like now they do. Probably this kindness let the men to alter the ruling system and to take over the power from women and turn the free and lively women into their subject. Men put their own made system in such a way that it seems the women are by nature and from the beginning of the history were in this oppressed and subjugated position.
French philosopher “Rousseau” said “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” This comment is completely true for women in society.” By nature women born free, but continue their life as a subject of men in society.
How the free and lively women turn into men’s subject, how their relation to men positioned against nature, how women become inferior to men is some unanswered questions in society which have no clear and dependable evidence. In almost all the civilizations women gradually lost their power and men took the power. Men turned all in one in the society. Men did it by a special social system known as patriarchy. Before discussing about patriarchy first I will explain women’s position in different time in history.
1. Women in Prehistoric era:
We have no written evidence of life of the people of this era. But from their left we can imagine their behavior and social life. People would collect their food by hunting and gathering. They would divide it into them. Men hunt the animals and women gathered the fruits and vegetables. Labor division and sex difference were not available. People would do their duty according their own necessity and ability. They would practice a liberal system in society. K. Marx society defines this society as egalitarian society. Moreover then women were considered as more valuable than man. Children would know to others according their mothers identity. Women were the leader of the family and she had power to control her family. Historians define this society as matriarchic society.
Women’s rights were reserved in constitution of a old civilizations king called Hamburaby. We get in his constitution that:
ü Men and women had equal rights on children.
ü Women had full right on property and they could will their property to their heir.
ü Women would get dowry in marriage.
ü Women had right to divorce their cruel husband.
ü Women would get the property of her dead husband.
ü Marriage was such a legal contract where men would promise to repay the loan of his wife.
ü In case of the illness of first wife men had right to second marry but he was bounded to carry all the cost of his first wife.
ü Women worked as judge, clerk, and lawyer and in other professions.
Women had great contribution in invention in that society. We know agriculture is invented by women. Women produced different tools to use in their daily work. Paranormal power was imposed on Women. In some religion women were considered as goddess. And first utmost god was considered as women in prehistoric era. In tribe life then women were thought as so miraculous and so powerful who can create new life. This supernatural power on women raised their position in society and women were considered more superior than man.
But this power of women did not create any inequality in society. Rosalind Miles said
‘Men in hunter/gatherer societies do not appropriate or control their produce, nor prevent their movement. They exert little or no control over women’s bodies or those of their children, making no fetish of virginity or chastity, and making no demands of women’s sexual exclusivity. The common stock of the group’s knowledge is not reserved for men, nor is female creativity repressed or denied.’
But the natural rule of sexual equality did not continue in history. Gradually women lose their power and position in superior status and in middle age women became subject to men. Women altering the rule of nature dominant on men and inequality rose in society.
2. Women’s position in Middle Age:
‘A horse, whether good or bad, needs a spur; a woman, whether good or bad, needs a lord and master, and sometimes a stick.’
– Chiristine De pison.
‘Blessed, art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, that thou hast not made me women.’
– Daily prayer of Hebrew males.
These above quotations convey the worse condition of women in Middle age. Women had a respectable status in old age, but in the middle age their position reduced in to the worse point. In present time women’s position is much better than the women of middle age. Probably in Middle age women faced the worse status in history.
From 11th or 12th century to renaissance is considered as the Middle age in history of human society. Middle age is said the age of darkness, as then the development of civilization was stopped. In middle age Church has a great influence on society and social life. Then a person would select as father of a church as his boyhood. He would have to follow strict religious rule and celibacy to be a father of a church. He would not even have any relation to his mother. So this religious leader had no good image about women. They would consider women as the cause of curse or a partner of devil. About their imagination to women in that time a Christian religious leader Pall said,
“Let your women keep silence in the church; for it is not permitted unto them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience. And if they want to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home.”
In Middle age women’s oppression raised in the top with help of church and king or lord or in a word the state. Betting women was legal until any damage of her limb. Rape was forbidden but was not punishable. Moreover in case of pregnancy of women, its considered as the willing act of women and she would be neglected by society.
Women’s virginity was strictly preserved for men. Even in some case metal belt was used as a security of women’s virginity in aristocrat class. But Lord of a manor had right to sleep with the virgin daughter of serf to remove her hymen at the previous night of her marriage. In the law of Middle age women had no right on property. Great lawyer Sir William Blockstone put it:
‘Husband and wife are one; and that one is the husband.’
Women were the sign of evil; they are the cause of curse. Charging women as wicked men restricted their participation in politics, religion, economy, cultural activities and kept them imprisoned in home. Women had no right to express their opinion about any family affairs. We saw in prehistoric period society was matriarchal, but in Middle age society was totally opposite of matriarchy – the Patriarchy. Men kept women away from economic and other works, ad these men too claim women as idle as they do not do any work in life and considered women as parasitic as they had no income.
Women would measure only as a machine of producing child. Women were said idle but the evidence found does not support that they were idle in Middle age. In Middle age almost 90 percent women lived in rural area as a serf in manor. Women would work along with men in manor. Moreover they would work in family after the work in manor.
In addition to caring for the household’s daily needs for food and clothing, wives of artisans I particular often provided a necessary supplement to the family income through their own independent activities. They spun and wove cloth for local market or for textile traders; they produced beer and foodstuff to sell, or traded in other small commodities. Even pregnancy and motherhood limited these activities far less than might be expected. Wet nurses nursemaids, older sibling and functions and responsibilities. – Optiz.
Now we can conclude that in Middle age dominating on women was not rejected. Then men tried that best to keep women in a subordinated position. It’s true that not for biological or natural disadvantages, but only for reverse social condition women were had to lead a pathetic life. Men’s domination women was a system created by men, it has no connection to law, nature, birth or any other things. Women’s oppressed and dominated condition is probably the worse example of women exploitation in history.
3. Women’s Position in Modern Industrialized age:
Modern age started with the emergence of Renaissance in medieval Europe. It’s measured from 15th century to present time. In modern age the darkness of middle age is removed by new thinking and invention. Secularism, cultural motivation, development of knowledge and education with up growing trade and commerce introduced a new type of social system – known as Modern Industrialized age. Modern age can be divided into two different sections – i) The period of Renaissance and ii) The period after Industrial revolution.
i) The Renaissance:
In the period of Renaissance women’s condition did not get any significance change, but after the demolition of feudalism women become free and independent labor. They being independent had to work for their own livelihood. But as most of them were too poor, so their condition was not better than of middle age. To help their family women participated in economic activities.
But as patriarchy was still dominating on the society, women were exploited by men in all the sphere of society. Renaissance made positive change in literature and cultural sector but did not take any step to change women’s venerable condition in society.
Education and cultural activities was free for only men and women had no entrance in this realm of society. Women had no right to study with men and they were only permitted to learn some household and decorative work. Martine Sonnet explained it in this way –
‘Daughter of all strata and s society were relegated to learning skills useful around the home: things that were useful in Christian households. There was rather little communication between the two cultures – the men’s and the women’s. Most girls learned at home by watching their mother go about her daily chores: cooking, childcare, washing, mending, sewing, and weaving. For a long time household was virtually the only school for women.’
Women have nothing to do in constituting laws or consenting to them, in interpreting of laws or in hearing them interpreted. Women had no right to fight along with men in battle field. Women had no right to participate in administrative work of state. As a citizen of state women could take shelter under law but could not participate in election.
ii) The period of industrial Revolution:
With emergence of steam engine industrial revolution took place in Europe. This brought a little advantage for women. As in industry work was done under a systematic rule, women got more independence. Women could get job in any industry according her skill.
Capitalism broke down the old forms of social relations both at work and between men and women in the family. The consequences were, however different for working class than for middle class. Middle class women found themselves cut off from production and economically dependent on a man; working class women were forced into the factory and became wage-laborers.
In the beginning of industrial period some cult was introduced to make women perfect for society, one them is ‘Cult of Domesticity’. According this cult, to be a true woman, she must be tender, submissive, self-sacrificing, deeply religious and untouched by sexual desire. She must be confined to the home, devoted to husband and children and eschew productive labor and the political arena, poor women compelled by poverty to work, could not be true woman, they and their families were considered ‘unnatural’. {p-98}
But with the development of factories as they needed more workers, they employed women in factories. Moreover women laborers got almost half of the wage of men. After that women had to work in their home too.
Above discussion reveals that women’s condition was in a superior position at the beginning of human civilization. But with the development of civilization, women lost their power and become inferior to men. They become exploited and dominated in society. This exploitation and oppression lead women to voice against domination. They become conscious about their right and wished to work along with men. As there was subjugation in society, an attempt was developed along this to achieve their right. This endeavor gave birth the movements of women right all over the world. But the root of this exploitation a special type of social system, which I have already told – “The Patriarchy.”
We now know that man is not the measure of that which is human but men and women are. Men are not the centre of the world but the men and women are. This insight will transform consciousness as decisively to the universe. – Women’s history is indispensable and essential to the emancipation of women. –
Gerda Lerner, (‘the creation of patriarchy’)
Patriarchy: A System of Exploitation:
Patriarchy is such a type of society where male control of the public and private worlds and everything done according his will. Patriarchy is the structuring of society on the basis of family units, where fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of, hence authority over, and their families. The concept of patriarchy is often used, by extension (in anthropology and feminism, for example), to refer to the expectation that men take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, acting as representatives via public office.
The word patriarchy comes from two Greek words —patēr (father) and archē (rule). In Greek, the genitive form of patēr is patr-os, which shows the root form patr, explaining why the word is spelled patr-iarchy. The basic meaning of the Greek word archē is actually "beginning" (hence arche-ology or men-arche) — the first words of Genesis in Greek are En archē ("In the beginning"). However, archē is also used metaphorically to refer to ruling, because rulers are perceived to "start" things.
Different scholars defines Patriarchy from their own point of view. Allan G. Johnson said in his ‘The Gender knot’ that – “A society is patriarchal to the degree that is male-dominated, male identified and male-centered. It is also involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women.”
Sylvia Walby said in her ‘Theorizing Patriarchy’ that – “A system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women.”
Elizabeth Cady station said in her ‘The Women’s Bible’ that – “Women was made after man, of man and, for man, an inferior being, subject to man.”
Mary Daly wrote, -- "Males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy."
Patriarchy create such a social environment where all manly behavior e.g. – assertiveness, aggressiveness, hardiness, rationality or ability to think analytically and abstractly, ability to control emotion, high ambition, independence are considered as positive for social development, beneficial and control. On the other hand all feminine traits e.g. – gently, modesty, humanity, sportiness, sympathy, compassionateness, tenderness, narturaness, sensitivity, intuitiveness, emotionality, dependence are considered as negative, faulty and against social development, control and stability. Developing a gender difference in society and putting men in higher position than women patriarchy established a false concept that, men should be the leader in society and women should stay under men’s subjugation, this system is good for society as its definitely defined by nature and the natural relationship between men and women.
Theoretical background of origin of Patriarchy:
There are two well known theory of origin of patriarchy. First one is introduced by great socio-economist Friedrich Engels, which is known as Economic theory and the second one is alternative theory and it is more popular in society.
i) Economic Theory: --------
Karl Marx and his friend Engels are popular for their theory of class struggle and division of labor. Engels put it as: “The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children….…. The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of Female sex by the male.
Engels explains in theory how women lost her power over economic and productive activity and how men become superior to women. In primitive society men would work in outside of the home and women would work in surrounding of their home. Gradually women lost their right on economic activities and men impacted in earning activity. And when women lost their economic power they become worthless to men. And in time men become the controller of society and their social system become the patriarchal society.
Engels again said private property is too responsible for the emergence of patriarchy. When men possessed more and valuable property than women then they become important to women too. Because women would seek some man who can ensure their food supply. And man who has a lot of private property can ensure food supply. With the help of this private property men become superior to women and they introduced patriarchy.
Engels said emergence of monogamous marriage system is responsible for patriarchy. He said in monogamous family men had right to marry more than one woman but women had to have only one husband. This system let men to exercise lavish power on women and they turned women in a subjugated position.
Engels showed the way to get rid of this problem. He said to demolish private property and to introduced love marriage system. If the couple has a good understanding among themselves then they will never dominant on other. In one word private ownership is the main culprit and it has to be banned.
ii) Alternative Theory:
There are some well known alternative theories of emergence of patriarchy. Some of them I wish to discuss here.
Ø Similarity between women and nature: Sherry Ortner is the main spoke man of this theory. She said that, women are by nature more close to nature. And men from very beginning of human society realized that nature can be defeated and it is positive for mankind. As women are like nature so men defeated women and subjugated them as it’s too positive for mankind. This subjugation introduced patriarchy.
Ø Incest taboo theory: Although this incest taboo theory is not well supported but Mary Jane Sherfy the speaker of this theory explain that, women’s sexual satisfaction is not limited and she can do it even with anyone. This can create jealousy among group members. So to stop fighting among group members their sexual intercourse tabooed by group people.
Ø Exchange of women: Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss said that incest being tabooed marriageable women reduced in group. So men to marry tried to bring women from other group. But other group will not give their own women to other without any interest. So women exchange system with other group developed. But Strauss said – “the total relationship of exchange which constitutes marriage is not established between a man and a woman but between two groups of men and the women figures only as the objects in the exchange, not as one of the partners. In acquiescing to the proposed union she precipitates or allows the exchange to take place; she cannot alter its nature.” This exchange gradually reduced women’s position in society and the patriarchy emerged.
Above theories are some well established theories of emergence of patriarchy. These theories proved that patriarchy is not any natural cause but it’s the impact of socio-economic and cultural factors.
Causes of origin of Patriarchy:
There are some opinions about the emergence of patriarchy in society. It’s not possible to explain all these opinion in this short time. So I will explain some important opinion in brief.
z Reproductive Difference: only a woman can tell who the real father of her child is. So men had no right on his child except women’s support. To ensure men’s right on children men developed patriarchy system. This system ensures men’s right on his children.
z Sexuality: In all society women are object to be use for men’s entertainment or to fulfill men’s sexual interest. Sexual objectification is the primary processes of construction with expression, perception with enforcement, myth with reality. A man fucks woman is like a sequence of subject verb object. Here men doer or subject and women are object. And this subject gradually imposed patriarchy to permanent their sexual desire in society.
z Productive system: in this opinion it’s said that with the change of productive system men got a lot of economic and political power and women took the charge of house. So men in time become the leader of family and imposed patriarchy in society.
In patriarchy men is the all in one and women’s right did not establish in this system. The problems a woman face in patriarchy are as follows:
Women did not have any right on their body. Women’s sexual life is controlled by men. Women are dependent on men to fulfill his all economic need. Because she does not has any source of income. Women had no right to do any business. Women had no right to take any formal education to develop her skill. Women did not participate in political and religious activities. Women or girl had no right on their father’s or husband’s property. Women could not take any decision in any affairs. Children’s future is determined by husbands of the family.In Patriarchy women do not have any rights over their own bodies, their own sexuality, marriage, reproduction or divorce, in which they may not receive education, or practice a trader or profession or move about freely in the world. But in time women become conscious about own rights in society and to retrieve their rights they started to gather under one umbrella. They wrote many essays in different papers to let the men know that they are aware about their own share. This attempt is known as FEMINISM. These feminist movements towards independent of women were not easy. No men even some women in society too did not support these movements. So feminists had to work hard to establish their demand. Although they even now did not succeed to establish their right in society.
History of feminism:
The History of Feminism is the history of Feminist movements. Feminist scholars have divided feminism's history into three 'waves'. Each is described as dealing with different aspects of the same feminist issues. The first wave refers to the Feminism movement of the 19th through early 20th centuries, which dealt mainly with the Suffrage movement. The second wave (1960s-1980s) dealt with the inequality of laws, as well as cultural inequalities. The Third wave of Feminism (1990s-current) is seen as both a continuation and a response to the perceived failures of the Second-wave. Limiting the history of Feminism to the history of the modern Feminist Movement has been criticized by some authors as ignoring women's opposition to patriarchy over the course of thousands of years. For example, Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, put forth ideals we now recognize as feminist, as an outgrowth of the enlightenment values espoused in the late 18th, early 19th centuries. Although some find the use of the term feminist prior to its coinage (sometime around 1880) “anachronistic", others prefer to see "feminism" as a self-conscious and systematic ideology beginning in the late eighteenth century.
Feminism has altered pre-dominant perspectives in a wide range of areas within Western society, ranging from culture to law. Feminist activists have campaigned for women's legal rights (rights of contract, property rights, voting rights); for rights to bodily integrity and autonomy, for abortion rights, and for reproductive rights (including access to contraception and quality prenatal care); for protection from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape; for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; and against other forms of discrimination.
During much of its history, most feminist movements and theories had leaders who were predominantly middle-class white women, from Western Europe and North America. However, at least since Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech to American feminists, women of other races have proposed alternative feminisms. This trend accelerated in the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement in the United States and the collapse of European colonialism in Africa, the Caribbean, parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia. Since that time, women in former European colonies and the Third World have proposed "Post-colonial" and "Third World" feminisms. Some Postcolonial feminists, such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty, are critical of Western feminism for being ethnocentric. Black feminists, such as Angela Davis and Alice Walker, share this view.
Brief Historical Background of Feminism
When, where, how and who first protested against anarchy and exploitation of women by men and raised the question of equality is not definitely traced. According French philosopher, writer and researcher ‘Somone De Beauvoir’, possibly “Christine de Pizan,” a late medieval and French writer, was the earliest feminist in the western tradition. She is believed to be the first woman to make a living out of writing. She takes up her pen in defense of her sex in her time. Her book “The Book of the city of ladies” published in 1405 A.D. where she claimed that, “There is no slightest doubt that belong to the peoples of God and the human race as well as men, and are not another species or dissimilar race, for which they should be excluded from moral teachings.”
At her time women education was forbidden but nothing could stop her to learn and she being a widow with three children started to write love poem and gradually she took her pen to know others the inferior and subjugated position of women. Later she raised her voice against women’s character in literature in her book “Letter to the God of Love.”
After Christine hundred years were past but no one wrote against women’s exploitation. At last the certain lifted by famous English feminist ‘Mary Wolfstone Craft’ in 1772. She expressed her views in her book “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” at 1772. In her book she raised her voice against traditional views and beliefs about women in society and put strong logic to establish women’s right and education.
Mary born in farmers family and she saw how her father torture her mother. She wrote in her book that, “How grossly do they insult us who advice us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes ……. It’s time to effect revolution in female manners, time to restore women to their lost dignity and to make labor by reforming themselves to reform the world.” {Naree Ethihashe Upekkhita, p- 106}
After Marry Wolfstone Craft women’s right did not limited only in theory and writing but it took some practical procession and movements. In 1848 Queen’s College was established for women education. And in 1882 women got right on their own property independently.
But at this woman movements lost its stream as the pioneers of French and American revolutions did not pay any heed to women’s right in society. But women movements workers did not lose their hope and in 1840 they took vow in a convention named ‘Anti-slavery Convention’ to achieve their own rights by fighting against men.
19th July 1848 Elizabeth Cady Station and Lucretia arranged ‘Women Rights Convention” in Seneca Falls town to discuss about the social civil and religious conditions and rights of women. Almost two hundred feminist workers joined in this convention. There a declaration of Sentiments was made in this convention. In the preface of the declaration it’s said that, “The history of mankind is history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward women, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” In this declaration eighteen complains and prayers declared to get women’s right in society. Women’s voting right is one of the important declarations among these. John Stuart Mill and her Harriet Taylor Mill put strong logic against women’s political and economic right in their book “Subjection of women” which published at 1869.
In 1865 Stuart Mill being elected a member of British Parliament tried to establish women’s voting right. At last in 1918 women more than 30 years old got the right to vote in election. But as men had right to vote at the age of 21 so women again claim to vote at same age of men. At last 12 years later it was established that men and women both will vote in same age. At this stage women movements lost its current as many workers thought that its enough that women got right to vote in parliament and through this right they will be able to establish their other right to. But in this twenty first century we know that our movements against women’s right are not finished yet but it is in just its beginning point. So we have to continue our fight to achieve our supreme goal. But to understand the background of feminism we have to discuss elaborately and more consciously all the attempts taken by different feminists in all over the world. Now I will discuss elaborately the three wave feminism in history.
The history of feminism can be divided into three waves. The first wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements. It manifests through a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism.
First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. It focused primarily on gaining the right of women's suffrage. The term, "first-wave," was coined retrospectively after the term second-wave feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist movement that focused as much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as further political inequalities.[18] In Britain the Suffragettes campaigned for the women's vote, which was eventually granted − to some women in 1918 and to all in 1928 − as much because of the part played by British women during the First World War, as of the efforts of the Suffragettes. In the United States leaders of this movement include Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who each campaigned for the abolition of slavery prior to championing women's right to vote. Other important leaders include Lucy Stone, Olympia Brown, and Helen Pitts. American first-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups (such as Frances Willard and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union), others resembling the diversity and radicalism of much of second-wave feminism (such as Stanton, Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and the National Woman Suffrage Association, of which Stanton was president). In the United States first-wave feminism is considered to have ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1919), granting women the right to vote.
Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity beginning in the early 1960s & lasting through the late 1980s. Second Wave Feminism has existed continuously since then, and continues to coexist with what some people call Third Wave Feminism. The second wave feminism saw cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power. If first-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage, second-wave feminism was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as the end to discrimination.
The Third-wave of feminism began in the early 1990s. The movement arose as responses to perceived failures of the second-wave. It was also a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second-wave. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity, which (according to them) over-emphasized the experiences of upper middle class white women. A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central too much of the third wave's ideology. Third wave feminists often focus on "micropolitics," and challenged the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females. In 1991, Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas, an African-American man nominated to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment that had allegedly occurred a decade earlier while Hill worked as his assistant at the U.S. Department of Education. Thomas denied the accusations and after extensive debate, the Senate voted 52-48 in favor of Thomas. In response to this case, Rebecca Walker published an article in a 1992 issue of Ms. titled "Becoming the Third Wave" in which she stated, "I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the third wave." Hill and Thomas’ case brought attention to the ongoing presence of sexual harassment in the workplace and reinstated a sense of concern and awareness in many people who assumed that sexual harassment and other second wave issues had been resolved. The history of Third Wave feminism predates this and begins in the mid 1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, Bell Hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist thought for consideration of race related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but began to shift with the Freedom Ride 1992. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded with rhetoric that focused on rallying young feminists. For many, the rallying of the young is the emphasis that has stuck within third wave feminism.
Besides these three waves of feminism there are some other feminist movements and some activity of famous feminist which we need to discuss in our forgoing paper. Except this discussion our analysis about background of feminism will remain incomplete. Protofeminism is the pre feminist activities of the three feminist activities in feminist activities. Here I will explain chronologically the feminist movements and some important writings that were firmly related to feminism.
The Late Middle Ages
Women during the Renaissance era were not allowed to experience the rebirth of culture in the same way the majority of men did. Called Renaissance-men, men embraced humanism, and the self-cultivation of the individual through education. Humanists such as Vives and Agricola argued that aristocratic women at least required education; Roger Ascham educated Elizabeth I, and she not only read Latin and Greek but wrote occasional poems, such as On Monsieur’s Departure, that are still anthologized. However, women who were exceptionally accomplished were described as manly or called witches. Queen Elizabeth I was described as having talent without a woman’s weakness, industry with a man’s perseverance, and the body of a weak and feeble woman, but with the heart and stomach of a king. The only way she could be seen as a good ruler was for her to be described with manly qualities. Being a powerful and successful woman during the Renaissance, like Queen Elizabeth I meant in some ways being male, a perception that unfortunately gravely limited women’s potential as women. Women were given the sole role and social value of reproduction. This gender role defined a woman's main identity and purpose in life. The ancient philosopher Socrates was well-known as an exemplar to the Renaissance humanists as their role model for the pursuit of wisdom in many subjects. Surprisingly, Socrates has said that the only reason he puts up with his wife, Xanthippe, was because she bore him sons, in the same way one puts up with the noise of geese because they produce eggs and chicks. This analogy from the revered Socrates only propelled the claim that a woman's sole role was to reproduce. Marriage during the Renaissance was what defined a woman. She was who she married. When unmarried, a woman was the property of her father, and once married, she became the property of her husband. She had few rights, except for any privileges her husband or father gave her. Married women had to obey their husbands and were expected to be chaste, obedient, pleasant, gentle, submissive, and, unless sweet-spoken, silent. In the 1593 A.D. play, The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, Katherina and Bianca’s father treats his daughters like property; the man who gives the best offer gets to marry them. When Katherina is outspoken and wild, society shuns her; she is seen as a wayward woman – a shrew – who needs to be tamed into submission. When Petruchio tames her, she readily goes to him when he summons her, almost like a dog. Her submissiveness is applauded, and the crowds at the party accept her as a proper woman since she is now "conformable to other household Kates".
Education was an element celebrated by society. Men were pushed to go to college and become knowledgeable in many subjects, but women were discouraged from acquiring too much education and told to be obedient wives. A woman named Margherita, living during the Renaissance, learned to read and write at the age of about 30 so there would be no mediating factors between the letters of her and her husband. Although Margherita did defy gender roles, she wanted to become educated not in hopes of becoming a more enlightened person, but because she wanted to be a better wife by being able to communicate to her husband directly. When a woman did involve herself in learning, it was certainly not the norm. In a letter the humanist Leonardo Bruni sent to Lady Baptista Maletesta of Montefeltro in 1424, he wrote,
"While you live in these times when learning has so far decayed that is regarded as positively miraculous to meet a learned man, let alone a woman."
The emphasis of a woman shows how it was indeed very rare for a woman to participate in the Renaissance. In general, Bruni thought that women should have an education on par with men, but with one significant exception. In the letter he writes,
"For why should the subtleties of...a thousand...rhetorical conundra consume the powers of a woman, who never sees the forum? The contests of the forum, like those of warfare and battle, are the sphere of men. Hers is not the task of learning to speak for and against witnesses, for and against torture, for and against reputation.... She will, in a word, leave the rough-and-tumble of the forum entirely to men."
The famous Renaissance salons that held intelligent debate and lectures were obviously not welcoming to women. This blatant denial would lead to problems that educated women faced and contribution to the low probability that a woman would get educated in the first place.
Marie de Gournay (1565-1645), the last love of Michel de Montaigne who published posthumously his Essays, wrote two feminist books, The Equality of Men and Women (1622) and The Ladies' Grievance (1626). These two books help us to go one step more to our goal.
Seventeenth Century: Non conformism, Protectorate and Restoration
The 17th century saw the development of many nonconformist sects which allowed more say to women than the established religions, especially the Quakers. Noted feminist writers on religion and spirituality included Rachel Speght, Katherine Evans, Sarah Chevers and Margaret Fell.
This increased participation of women was not without opposition, notably John Bunyan, leading to persecution, and emigration to the Netherlands and the Americas. Over this and preceding centuries women who expressed opinions on religion or preached were also in danger of being suspected of lunacy or witchcraft, and many like Anne Askew died "for their implicit or explicit challenge to the patriarchal order".
In France as in England, feminist ideas were attributes of heterodoxy, such as the Waldensians and Catharists, than orthodoxy. Religious egalitarianism, such as embraced by the Levellers, carried over into gender equality, and therefore had political implications. Leveller women mounted large scale public demonstrations and petitions, although dismissed by the authorities of the day.
This century also saw more women writers emerging, such as Anne Bradstreet, Bathsua Makin, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary Wroth, and Mary Astell, who depicted women's changing roles and made pleas for their education. However they encountered considerable hostility, as exemplified by the experiences of Cavendish, and Wroth whose work was not published till the 20th century. Astell is frequently described as the first feminist writer. However this depiction fails to recognise the intellectual debt she owed to Schurman, Makin and other women who preceded her. She was certainly one of the earliest feminist writers in English, whose analyses are as relevant today as in her own time, and moved beyond earlier writers by instituting educational institutions for women. Astell and Behn together laid the groundwork for feminist theory in the seventeenth century. No woman would speak out as strongly again, for another century. In historical accounts she is often overshadowed by her younger and more colourful friend and correspondent Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The liberalisation of social values and secularisation of the English Restoration provided new opportunities for women in the arts, an opportunity that women used to advance their cause. However female playwrights encountered similar hostility. These included Catherine Trotter, Mary Manley and Mary Pix. The most influential of all was Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to achieve the status of a professional writer. Critics of feminist writing included prominent men such as Alexander Pope. In continental Europe, important feminist writers included Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de Gournay and Anne Marie van Schurmann (Anna Maria van Schurman) who mounted attacks on misogyny and promoted the education of women. In the New World the Mexican nun, Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695), was advancing the education of women particularly in her essay entitled "Reply to Sor Philotea". By the end of the seventeenth century women's voices were becoming increasingly heard, becoming almost a clamour, at least by educated women. The literature of the last decades of the century being sometimes referred to as the "Battle of the Sexes", and was often surprisingly polemic, such as Hannah Woolley's "The Gentlewoman's Companion". However women received mixed messages, for they also heard a strident backlash, and even self-deprecation by women writers in response. They were also subjected to conflicting social pressures, one of which was less opportunities for work outside the home, and education which sometimes reinforced the social order as much as inspire independent thinking.
The Age of Enlightenment was characterised by secular intellectual reasoning, and a flowering of philosophical writing. The most important feminist writer of the time was Mary Wollstonecraft, often characterised as the first feminist philosopher. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the first works that can unambiguously be called feminist, although by modern standards her comparison of women to the nobility, the elite of society, coddled, fragile, and in danger of intellectual and moral sloth, may seem dated at first, as a feminist argument. Wollstonecraft saw that it was the education and upbringing of women that created their limited expectations based on a self-image dictated by male gaze. Despite her perceived inconsistencies (Brody refers to the "Two Wollestoncrafts" ) reflective of problems that had no easy answers, this book remains a foundation stone of feminist thought. Wollstonecraft believed that both sexes contributed to the inequalities and took it for granted that women had considerable power over men, but that both would require education to ensure the necessary changes in social attitudes. Her legacy remains the need for women to speak out and tell their stories. Her own achievements speak to her own determination given her humble origins and scant education. As Pope attacked Astell and Montagu, so Wollstonecraft attracted the mockery of Samuel Johnson who described her and her ilk as 'Amazons of the pen'. Given his relationship with Hester Thrale it would appear that his problem was not with intelligent educated women, but that they should encroach onto a male territory of writing. For many commentators, Wollstonecraft represents the first codification of "equality" feminism, or a refusal of the feminine, a child of the Enlightenment. Other important writers of the time included Catherine Macaulay. In other parts of Europe, Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht was writing in Sweden, and what is thought to be the first scientific society for women was founded in Middelburg, in the south of Holland in 1785. This was the Natuurkundig Genootschap der Dames (Women's Society for Natural Knowledge). Which met regularly to 1881, finally dissolving in 1887. However Deborah Crocker and Sethanne Howard point out that woman have been scientists for 4,000 years. Journals for women which focused on science became popular during this period as well.
¯ Early nineteenth century: “Womanliness” and social injustice
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, although individual women, and some men, were speaking out, it is doubtful how influential they were, other than to create awareness. There was little sign of change in the political or social order, nor any evidence of a recognizable women’s movement. By the end of the century the voices of concern were beginning to coalesce into something more tangible. This paralleled the emergence of a more rigid social model and code of conduct, that Marion Reid (and later John Stuart Mill) would refer to as a”Womanliness” that admitted to “self-extinction”. While the increasing emphasis on feminine virtue partly stirred the call for a woman’s movement, the tensions that this role duality caused for women plagued many early nineteenth century feminists with doubt and worry. In Britain, no statement, as eloquent as Wollstonecraft's ‘’Vindication’’ would appear till Reid published her ‘’A plea for women’’ in 1843 and which set an agenda for the rest of the century, including votes for women.
Caroline Norton was a woman who became active in advocating rights for women, the absence of which, upon entering into marriage, she had become painfully aware of. The publicity that she generated, including her appeal to Queen Victoria, helped establish one of the first women’s movements, Barbara Leigh Smith’s (Barbara Bodichon) Married Women’s Property Committee, which took up her cause. While many women, including Norton, were wary of organized movements, their actions and words often motivated and inspired such movements. Amongst these was Florence Nightingale whose conviction that women had all the potential of men but none of the opportunities drove her to a career that would make her a national figure as a scientist and administrator even if the popular image of her at the time emphasized her feminine virtues more. The paradox of the gulf between the achievements which we recognize now, and how she was portrayed underline the plight that women of talent and determination faced at the time. Women were not always supportive of each other’s efforts, and often distanced themselves from other feminists. Harriet Martineau and many others dismissed Wollstonecraft’s contributions as dangerous and deplored Norton’s candidness, but seized on the abolition of slavery campaign she had witnessed in the United States, as one that should logically be applied to women. Her ‘’Society in America’’ was pivotal in that for the first time it caught the imagination of women who urged her to take up their cause. Anna Wheeler had come under the influence of the Saint Simonian socialists while working in France, advocated suffrage and attracted the attention of Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader, as a dangerous radical on a par with Bentham. Later she was to be the inspiration for William Thomson. Earlier centuries had concentrated on women’s exclusion from education as the key to their being relegated to domestic roles and denied advancement. The education of women in the nineteenth century was no better, and Frances Power Cobbe was but one of many women who were calling for reform. But now many other issues were opening up as battlegrounds including marital and property rights, and domestic violence. Nevertheless women like Martineau and Cobbe in Britain, and Margaret Fuller in America, were achieving journalistic employment which placed them in a position to influence other women. If ‘feminism’ had not been invented, certainly women like Cobbe were referring to “Woman’s Rights”, not just in the abstract, but as an identifiable cause.
Part of the rationale of nineteenth century feminists was not only a reaction to the injustices they saw but the increasingly suffocating Victorian image of the proper role of women and their "sphere". This was the "Feminine Ideal" as typified in Victorian "Conduct Books", notably those of Sarah Stickney Ellis. "The Angel in the House" (1854-1862) was a long poem by Coventry Patmore, whose image of wedded love in the title soon came to be the symbol of the Victorian feminine ideal.
Barbara Leigh Smith and her friends started to meet regularly during the 1850s in Langham Place in London to discuss the need for women to present a united voice to achieve reform. This earned them the name of the Ladies of Langham Place. They included Besssie Raynes Parker and Anna Jameson. Issues they took up focused on education, employment and marital law. One of the causes they vigorously pursued became the Married Women’s Property Committee of 1855. They collected thousands of signatures for petitions for legislative reform, some of which were successful. Smith had also attended the first women’s convention in Seneca Falls in America in 1848. Smith and Parker wrote many articles, both separately and together, on education and employment opportunities, and like Norton in the same year, Smith summarized the legal framework for injustice in 1854 in her “A Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women”. Playing an important role in the “English Women's Journal”, she was able to reach large numbers of women, and the response of women to this journal led to their creation of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW). The Langham Ladies continued to provide inspiration, infrastructure and funding for much of the women’s movement for the remainder of the century. Their task was not made easier by the reluctance of even those women who had themselves been outspoken, to unconditionally embrace such a radical idea, and who in their own words reveal the conflict of competing emotions. These included Evans, Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who herself used the phrase "women’s rights" in Aurora Leigh, in addition to Caroline Norton. Harriet Taylor published her ‘’Enfranchisement’’ in 1851, and wrote about the inequities of family law. In 1853 she married John Stuart Mill, providing him with much of the subject material for ‘’The Subjection of Women”. Taylor’s relatively low profile after her marriage has been a subject of speculation, but Mill was perhaps in a better position to translate theory into action. Emily Davies was another woman who would encounter the Langham group, and with Elizabeth Garrett would help create branches of SPEW outside of London. While obtaining education remained largely a privilege rather than a right, the small group of women who were able to do so, were then able to campaign for women as a whole, realizing it was not just a portal to employment and financial self sufficiency but that the denial of education was tied to women’s expectations and their self image of their potential and worth.
The interrelated themes of barriers to education and employment continued to form the backbone of feminist thought in the nineteenth century, as described, for instance by Harriet Martineau in her 1859 article “Female Industry” in the Edinburgh Journal. The economy was changing but women’s lot was not. Martineau, however, remained a moderate, for practical reasons, and unlike Cobbe, did not support the emerging call for the vote. Slowly the efforts of women like Davies and the Langham group started to make inroads. Queen’s (1848) and Bedford Colleges (1849) in London were starting to offer some education to women from 1848, and by 1862 Davies was establishing a committee to persuade the universities to allow women to sit for the recently established (1858) Local Examinations, with partial success (1865). A year later she published “The Higher Education of Women.” She and Leigh Smith founded the first higher educational institution for women, with 5 students, which became Girton College, Cambridge in 1873, followed by Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford in 1879. Bedford had started awarding degrees the previous year. Despite these measurable advances, few could take advantage of them and life for women students was very difficult. As part of the continuing dialogue between British and American feminists, Elizabeth Blackwell, one of the first women in the US to graduate in medicine (1849) lectured in Britain with Langham support, and they also supported Elizabeth Garrett’s attempts to assail the walls of British medical education against virulent opposition, eventually taking her degree in France. Garrett’s very successful campaign to run for office on the London School Board in 1870 is another example of a how a small band of very determined women were starting to reach positions of influence at the level of local government and public bodies.
Women’s campaigns
Campaigns gave women the opportunity to test their new political skills, for disparate elements to come together, and for them to join forces with other social reform groups. One had been the campaign for the Married Women’s Property Act, eventually passed in 1882. Next was the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869, which brought together women’s groups and utilitarian liberals such as John Stuart Mill. Women in general were outraged by the inherent inequity and misogyny of the legislation and for the first time women in large numbers took up the rights of prostitutes. Prominent critics included, Blackwell, Nightingale, Martineau and Elizabeth Wolstenholme. Elizabeth Garrett did not support the campaign, though her sister Millicent did. Later she admitted the campaign had done good. However Josephine Butler, already experienced in prostitution issues, a charismatic leader and a seasoned campaigner, emerged as the natural leader of what became the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (1869). This demonstrated the potential power of an organised lobby group. The association successfully argued that the Acts not only demeaned prostitutes, but all women and men too, containing a blatant double sexual standard. Butler's activities resulted in the radicalisation of many moderate women. The Acts were repealed in 1886. On a smaller scale was Annie Besant's campaign for the rights of match girls and against the apalling conditions under which they worked demonstrated how to raise public concern over social issues.
The fight for Women's suffrage represents one of the most fundamental struggles of women, because explicitly denying them representation in the legislature gave a very clear message of second class citizenship. No campaign has embedded itself in popular imagination than that of women's suffrage over 250 years.[59] However it took a long time to work its way up the list of priorities to gradually become the dominant issue. The French Revolution accelerated this, with the assertions of Condorcet and de Gouges, and it was women that marched on Versailles. This reached it s climax with the founding of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women (1793) which included suffrage on its agenda, before being suppressed at the end of that year. However this ensured that the issue was on the European political agenda. German women were involved in the Vormärz, a prelude to the 1848 revolution. In Italy Clara Maffei, Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso and Ester Martini Currica were politically active in the events leading up to the events of 1848 there. In Britain suffrage emerged in the writings of Wheeler and Thompson in the 1820s, and Reid, Taylor and Anne Knight in the 1840s.
The suffragettes:
The Langham Place ladies again played a central role, and set up a suffrage committee in 1866 at a meeting at Elizabeth Garrett's home, renamed the London Society for Women's Suffrage in 1867. Soon similar committees had spread across the country, raising petitions, and worked closely with JS Mill. Denied outlets by establishment periodicals, women like Lydia Becker started the Women's Suffrage Journal in 1870. Other publications included Richard Pankhurst's Englishwoman's Review (1866). Tactical disputes were the biggest problem, and the membership of various groups varied over time. One issue was whether men like Mill should be involved. As it was Mill also withdrew as the movement became more aggressive with each disappointment. The political pressure ensured debate, but year after year was defeated in parliament. Despite this the women benefited from their increasing political experience, which translated into slow progress at the level of local government and public bodies. However the years of frustration took their toll and many women became increasingly radicalised. Some refused to pay taxes, and the Pankhurst family emerged as the dominant influence on the movement, having also founded the Women's Franchise League in 1889.
International suffrage:
The Isle of Man was the first free standing jurisdiction to grant women the vote (1881), followed by New Zealand in 1893, where Kate Sheppard had pioneered reform. Some Australian states had also granted women the vote. This included Victoria for a brief period (1863-5), South Australia (1894), and Western Australia (1899). Australian women received the vote at the Federal level in 1902, Finland in 1906, and Norway initially in 1907 (completed in 1913).
Women's history in the twentieth century can be depicted as a story punctuated by conflagrations in which they both participated to an unprecedented degree, and which both profoundly altered the demographics and power relationships of the landscape they found themselves in.
The Edwardian era saw a loosening of Victorian rigidity and complacency, women had more employment opportunities, and were more active, leading to a relaxing of clothing restrictions.
Women's rights were dominated by the increasing clamour for political reform and votes for women. The charismatic and controversial Pankhursts took the political initiative, forming the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. As Emmline Pankhurst put it, votes for women were seen now as no longer "a right, but as a desperate necessity". At the States level, Australia and the United States had already given the vote to some women, and American feminists such as Susan B Anthony (1902) visited Britain. While the WSPU is the best known suffrage group, it was only one of many, such as the Women's Freedom League and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett. WSPU was largely a family affair, although externally financed. Christabel Pankhurst became the dominant figure and gathered friends such as Annie Kenney, Flora Drummond, Teresa Billington and Ethel Smythe around her.
Veterans such as Elizabeth Garrett also joined. In 1906, the Daily Mail first labeled these women 'suffragettes' as a form of ridicule, but the term was quickly embraced to describe a more militant form of suffragist, which were becoming increasingly visible with their marches and distinctive Green, Purple and White emblems, while the Artists' Suffrage League created dramatic graphics. Even underwear in WPSU colours appeared in stores. They quickly learned new ways of exploiting the media and photography. The visual record they have left remains vivid, such as the 1914 photograph of Emmeline, shown here. As the movement became more active deep divisions appeared with older leaders of the movement parting company with the radicals. Sometimes the splits were ideological, and others tactical. Even Christabel's sister, Sylvia, was expelled.
Slowly but surely the protests became more vigorous, heckling, banging on doors, smashing shop windows, and eventually, by 1914, arson. In 1913, one of the group, Emily Davison, sacrificed herself on Derby Day, dying under the King's horse. These tactics produced mixed results of sympathy and alienation and many of them were imprisoned, creating an increasingly embarrassing situation for the Government. Matters progressively worsened, with hunger strikes, then risky force feeding, and eventually the notorious Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913, nicknamed the Cat and Mouse Act.
Which allowed women to be released when their illness or injury became dangerously acute, but officers were then not prevented from arresting and charging these women again once they recovered. Although it could be argued, as did Reginald McKenna, the Home Secretary, that this was relatively humane, since a number of these women appeared ready to die for their cause. If the aims were to reveal institutional sexism in British society, they certainly created publicity, but it may have been as much the methods as the cause. They did, though, draw attention to the brutality of the legal system at the time. One can only speculate where things might have led, had not the First World War intervened in August 1914.
Mid twentieth century: Between the wars
In the First World War women entered the labor market in unprecedented numbers, often in new sectors. They discovered that their work outside the home was now valued, but also left large numbers of women bereaved and with a net loss of household income. Meanwhile the large numbers of men killed and wounded created a major shift in demographic composition. War also split the feminist groups, with many opposed to the war, while other women became involved in the White Feather campaign. In the years between the wars, women continued to fight opposition to women's rights from the establishment, media caricatures and discrimination. Examples of this can be found in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, where she also describes the extent of the backlash and her frustration at the waste of so much talent. Important writers of the time also included Rebecca West, who had a relationship with H.G.Wells. Although the word "feminism" was now in use, the media and others had given it such a negative image, that women were afraid to embrace it. By 1938, Woolf was writing, in Three Guineas, "an old word...that has much harm in its day and is now obsolete". On another occasion she had to defend west, who had been attacked as a "feminist". Woolf also started to paint homosexuality in a positive light "women...had almost always been seen in relation to men", and to examine the constructs of gender more minutely. West has perhaps best been remembered for her comment "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute."
Women's demand for the vote could no longer be ignored, and the Representation of the People Act 1918 enacted in February of that year gave men almost universal suffrage, and the vote to women over 30 years of age till the Representation of the People Act 1928 provided equal suffrage for men and women. It also shifted the socioeconomic make up of the electorate towards the working class, favoring the Labor Party who was more sympathetic to women's issues. The first election was held in December, and gave Labor the most seats in the house to date. The electoral reforms also allowed women to run for parliament. Although Christabel Pankhurst narrowly failed to win a seat in 1918, in 1919 and 1920 both Lady Astor and Margaret Wintringham won seats for the Conservatives and Liberals respectively, by succeeding to their husband's seats. Labour swept to power in 1924, including Ellen Wilkinson. Constance Markiewicz (Sinn Féin) was the first woman to be elected, in Ireland in 1918, but as an Irish nationalist, refused to take her seat. Astor's proposal to form a women's party in 1929 was unsuccessful, which some historians feel was a missed opportunity, and there were still only 12 women in parliament by 1940. Women gained considerable electoral experience over the next few years as a series of minority governments ensured almost annual elections. Close affiliation with Labor also proved to be a problem for NUSEC, which had little support in the Conservative party. However their persistence with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was rewarded by the passage of the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928.
Other jurisdictions
Women received the vote in Denmark and Iceland in 1915 (full in 1919), the USSR in 1917, Austria, Germany and Canada in 1918, and many countries including the Netherlands in 1919, and South Africa in 1930. French women did not receive the vote till 1945. Lichtenstein was one of the last countries, in 1984.
As with many movements, women soon discovered that political change does not necessarily translate into an immediate or noticeable change in circumstances, and with economic recession they were the most vulnerable sector of the workforce. Many had been made redundant by the end of hostilities. Some women who had held jobs prior to the war were obliged to give them up to returning soldiers. With limited franchise, the NUWSS needed to change its role. The new organisation, the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC) still advocated equality in franchise but extended its scope to examine equality in the social and economic area. Legislative reform was sought for those laws that were discriminatory, including family law and prostitution. One area of division which is significant in the light of later developments was between equality and equity, which addressed accommodation to allow women to overcome barriers to fulfillment. In more recent years this has been referred to as the "equality vs. difference conundrum". Eleanor Rathbone, who became an MP in 1929, succeeded Millicent Garrett as president in 1919. She expressed the critical need for consideration of difference in gender relationships as "what women need to fulfill the potentialities of their own natures". A more formal split appeared with the 1924 Labour government's social reforms, with a splinter group of strict egalitarians forming the Open Door Council in May 1926. This eventually became an international movement, and continued till 1965. Other important social legislation of this period included the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 (which opened professions to women), and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1923. In 1932, NUSEC separated advocacy from education, and continued the former activities as the National Council for Equal Citizenship and education became the role of the Townswomen's Guild. The council continued until the end of the Second World War. Another group, formed in 1921 by Margaret Mackworth (Lady Rhondda), was the Six Point Group. This included Rebecca West. It was a political lobby group, whose six aims were political, occupational, moral, social, economic and legal equality. Thus it was ideologically allied with the Open Door Council, rather than National Council. It also lobbied at an international level, such as the League of Nations, and continued its work till 1983. In retrospect both ideological groups were influential in advancing women's rights in their own way. Despite women being admitted to the House of Commons from 1918, Mackworth, a Viscountess in her own right, spent a lifetime fighting to take her seat in the House of Lords against bitter opposition, a battle which only achieved its goal in the year of her death (1958). This revealed the weaknesses of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. Mackworth also founded Time and Tide which became the group's journal, and to which West, Virginia Woolf, Rose Macaulay and many others contributed. A number of other women's periodicals also appeared in the 1920s, including Woman and Home, and Good Housekeeping, but whose content reflect very different aspirations. In 1925 Rebecca West wrote in Time and Tide something that reflected not only the movement's need to redefine itself post suffrage, but a continual need for re-examination of goals. "When those of our army whose voices are inclined to coolly tell us that the day of sex-antagonism is over and henceforth we have only to advance hand in hand with the male, I do not believe it."
Reproductive rights
As feminism sought to redefine itself, new issues rose to the surface, one of which was reproductive rights. Even mentioning these could be hazardous. Annie Besant had been tried in 1877 for publishing Charles Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy, a work on family planning, under the Obscene Publications Act 1857. Knowlton had previously been convicted in the United States. She and her colleague Charles Bradlaugh were convicted but acquitted on appeal, the subsequent publicity resulting in a decline in the birth rate. Not discouraged in the slightest, Besant followed this with The Law of Population. Similarly in America, Margaret Sanger was prosecuted for her Family Limitation under the Comstock Act 1873, in 1914, and fled to Britain where she met with Marie Stopes until it was safe for her to return. Sanger continued to risk prosecution, and her work was prosecuted in Britain. Stopes was never prosecuted but was regularly denounced for her work in promoting birth control. Even more controversial was the establishment of the Abortion Law Reform Association in 1936. The penalty for Abortion had been reduced from execution to life imprisonment by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, although some exceptions were allowed in the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929. Following the prosecution of Dr. Aleck Bourne in 1938, the 1939 Birkett Committee made recommendations for reform, that like many other women's issues, were set aside at the outbreak of the Second World War.
During the Second World War women were able to contribute much more than in the previous war, especially in skills and professional expertise, as a result of the educational and employment opportunities that had opened to them. However at the end of the war they again found that many of the apparent gains were short term. A well publicised example was women's baseball where they had proven they were at least as good as men, but were no longer wanted after the end of hostilities. In World War II, the popular icon Rosie the Riveter became a symbol for a generation of working women. The feminist interpretation of the role of women in the wars has emphasized the preoccupation of national leaders with mobilizing and regulating women. While earlier writers had depicted was as emancipating, more recent scholarship such as Francoise Thebaud and Nancy Cott, emphasises the conservative effect with reinforcement of traditional imagery, and a literature directed towards motherhood. These phenomena have been called the "nationalization of women". Despite gains over the first half of the twentieth century, the essential problems remained of discrimination, inequality and limited opportunities. In a number of countries the emergence of a new feminism after the war started to be referred to as second-wave feminism to reflect the hiatus the war had caused and the new directions. Later it became popular to refer to feminism prior to the war as first-wave feminism. However, as with much feminist nomenclature, this terminology is not uniform. for instance Lavine refers to what is described here as "Second wave", as "Third wave". He maintains that the first wave (in the United States) was the Women's Rights Movement from the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 to the onset of the American Civil War in 1861, and the second wave, or Woman Suffrage Movement, from the founding of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890 to 1924, that is, after the amendment to grant the vote was ratified. The third wave he calls the Women's Movement, and dates from 1964.
The rise of Women’s Liberation
While it is not uncommon for people to use the expression “Women’s Liberation” when looking back over the history of women, the term is relatively recent. “Liberation” has been associated with women’s aspirations since 1895, and appears in Simone de Beauvoir in 1953. The phrase “Women’s Liberation” was first used in 1964, and appeared in print in 1966. It was in use at the 1967 American Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) convention, which held a panel discussion on it. By 1968, although the term Women’s Liberation Front appeared in “Ramparts” it was starting to refer to the whole women’s movement. In Chicago, women disillusioned with the New Left were meeting separately in 1967, and publishing Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement by March 1968. When the Miss America Pageant was held in September, the media referred to the demonstrations as Women’s Liberation, and the Chicago Women's Liberation Union was formed in 1969. Similar groups with similar titles appeared in many parts of the United States. The fiction of bra-burning became associated with the movement, and soon the media were coining other unauthentic terms such as “libber”. A number of rival terms coexisted for a while but Women’s Liberation captured the popular imagination and has persisted, although today the older term Women’s Movement is used just as frequently. An understanding of the theory and activism arising in the late sixties requires placing it in the social, cultural and political context. This was a time when there was increasing entry of women into higher education, the establishment of academic women's studies courses and departments and feminist thinking in many other related fields such as politics, sociology, history and literature, and a time when their was increasing questioning of accepted standards and authority. Almost as soon as it was established, it was evident that the Women's Liberation movement consisted of "feminisms", consistent with the diverse origins from which groups had coalesced and intersected, and the complexity and contentiousness of the issues. One of the most vocal critics of the whole movement has been bell hooks, commenting on lack of voice by the most oppressed, and the glossing over of race and class, as some of the real inequalities and failing to address the issues that divided women.
Feminist writing
Feminist writing in the early 1970s ranges from Gloria Steinem (Ms. Magazine 1970), to Kate Millett's Sexual Politics.[88] Millett's uses her bleak survey of male writers and their attitudes and biases to demonstrate her thesis that sex is politics, and politics is power imbalance in relationships. Her pessimism is reflected in her description of "the desert we inhabit". From the same period come Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex, Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch, Sheila Rowbotham's Women's Liberation and the New Politics and Juliet Mitchell's Woman's Estate, the following year. Firestone based her concept of revolution on Marxism, referred to the "sex war", and interestingly, in view of the debates over patriarchy, traced male domination to "back beyond recorded history to the animal kingdom itself". Co-founder of Redstockings, Firestone, considered a radical, put "feminism" back in the vocabulary. Greer, Rowbotham and Mitchell represent an English perspective on the growing revolution, but as Mitchell argues, this should be seen as an international phenomenon, but taking on different manifestations relating to local culture. British women too, drew on left political backgrounds, and organised small local discussion groups. Much of this took Bartplace through the London Women's Liberation Workshop and its publications Shrew and the LWLW Newsletter. Although there were marches, the focus was on what Kathie Sarachild of Redstockings had called consciousness-raising. One of the functions of this was, as Mitchell describes it was that women would "find what they thought was an individual dilemma is social predicament". Women found that their own personal experiences were information that they could trust in formulating political analyses. Meanwhile in the United States women's frustrations crystallised around the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s. Against this background appeared Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will in 1975, introducing a more explicit agenda directed against male violence, specifically male sexual violence in this treatise on rape. Perhaps her most memorable phrase was "pornography is the theory and rape the practice", creating a nexus that would cause deep fault lines to develop, largely around the concepts of objectification and commodification. Brownmiller's major contributions are this book and in our Time (2000), a history of women's liberation. Less well known is Femininity (1984) a gentler (compared to the bitterness of her earlier work) deconstruction of a concept that has had an uneasy relationship with feminism. One of the first women to develop the implications of pornography further was Susan Griffin in Pornography and Silence (1981). Moving beyond Brownmiller and Griffin's position Catherine MacKinnon, and Andrea Dworkin with whom she collaborated took up a position that is generally regarded as the extreme radical end of the spectrum, and therefore not widely supported in the movement. However their influence in debates and activism on pornography and prostitution has been striking, in particular at the Supreme Court of Canada. Their position has been characterised as an extreme politicisation of sex, in which an individual woman's experience is generalised, so that women as a class are seen to be victims. A position that many feminists, civil libertarians and jurists find uncomfortable and alienating. MacKinnon, who is a lawyer, has a style considered to be frequently angry and acerbic. "To be about to be raped is to be gender female in the process of going about life as usual" She has described the perception of the inferiority of women as springing from misogyny, and is unconvinced that women ever express agency in their relationships with men. Sexual harassment, she says "doesn't mean that they all want to fuck us, they just want to hurt us, dominate us, and control us, and that is fucking us." To others, she is a female Martin Luther King, the only person to truly express the pain of being woman in an unequal society, and to portray that reality through the experiences of the battered and violated, which she claims to be the norm. A useful evolution of this approach has been to transform the research and perspective on rape from an individual experience to a social problem. Caution should also be used in sharply dichotomising feminism and assigning terms such as liberal or radical to feminist writings. For instance Denise Schaeffer argues that MacKinnon actually relies on a number of fundamental liberal tenets.
One difficult issue that second wave feminism had to deal with was the increasing visibility of lesbianism within and without of feminism. Lesbians felt sidelined by both gay liberation and women's liberation, where they were referred to as the "Lavender Menace", provoking The Woman-Identified Woman from the Radicalesbians in 1970. Jill Johnston's followed in 1973. Many lesbians felt that they should be central to the movement, representing a fundamental threat to male supremacy. In its extreme form this was expressed as the only appropriate choice for a woman. One of the more colourful lesbian feminist writers of this period was Rita Mae Brown. Eventually the lesbian movement was welcomed into the mainstream women's movement. The threat to male assumptions they represented turned out to be real in that their presence in the woman's movement became a target of the male backlash.
One of the main fields of interest to these women was in gaining the right to contraception and birth control, which were almost universally restricted until the 1960s. With the development of the first birth control pill feminists hoped to make it as available as possible. Many hoped that this would free women from the perceived burden of mothering children they did not want; they felt that control of reproduction was necessary for full economic independence from men. Access to abortion was also widely demanded, but this was much more difficult to secure because of the deep societal divisions that existed over the issue. To this day, abortion remains controversial in many parts of the world. Many feminists also fought to change perceptions of female sexual behaviour. Since it was often considered more acceptable for men to have multiple sexual partners, many feminists encouraged women into "sexual liberation" and having sex for pleasure with multiple partners. (See: Sexual revolution) These developments in sexual behavior have not gone without criticism by some feminists. They see the sexual revolution primarily as a tool used by men to gain easy access to sex without the obligations entailed by marriage and traditional social norms. They see the relaxation of social attitudes towards sex in general, and the increased availability of pornography without stigma, as leading towards greater sexual objectification of women by men.
Immediately after the war a new international dimension was added by the formation of the United Nations. In 1946 the UN established a Commission on the Status of Women. Originally as the Section on the Status of Women, Human Rights Division, Department of Social Affairs, and now part of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In 1948 the UN issued its Universal Declaration of Human Rights which protects "the equal rights of men and women", and addressed both the equality and equity issues. Since 1975 the UN has held a series of world conferences on women's issues, starting with the World Conference of the International Women's Year in Mexico City, heralding the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985). These have brought women together from all over the world and provided considerable opportunities for advancing women's rights, but also illustrated the deep divisions in attempting to apply principles universally, in successive conferences in Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985). However by 1985 some convergence was appearing. These divisions amongst feminisms included; First World vs. Third World, the relationship between gender oppression and oppression based on class, race and nationality, defining core common elements of feminism vs. specific political elements, defining feminism, homosexuality, female circumcision, birth and population control, the gulf between researchers and the grass roots, and the extent to which political issues were women's issues. Emerging from Nairobi was a realisation that feminism is not monolithic but "constitutes the political expression of the concerns and interests of women from different regions, classes, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds. There is and must be a diversity of feminisms, responsive to the different needs and concerns of women, and defined by them for themselves. This diversity builds on a common opposition to gender oppression and hierarchy which, however, is only the first step in articulating and acting upon a political agenda." The fourth conference was held in Beijing in 1995. At this conference a the Beijing Platform for Action was signed. This included a commitment to achieve "gender equality and the empowerment of women". The most important strategy to achieve this was considered to be "gender mainstreaming" which incorporates both equity and equality, that is that both women and men should "experience equal conditions for realizing their full human rights, and have the opportunity to contribute and benefit from national, political, economic, social and cultural development". Now, ten years later there is still debate as to how much difference this has made.
Local histories of feminism
The French Revolution focused people's attention everywhere on the cry for "égalité", and hence by extension, but in a more limited way, inequity in the treatment of women. In 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, elicited an immediate response from the writer Olympe de Gouges who amended it as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, arguing that if women were accountable to the law they must also be given equal responsibility under the law. She also addressed marriage as a social contract between equals and attacked women's reliance on beauty and charm, as a form of slavery.
Conservative post revolutionary France was not a favourable climate for feminist ideas, as expressed in the counter-revolutionary writings on women's role by Joseph de Maistre and Viscount Louis de Bonald. Further advancement would have to wait for the revolution of 24 February 1848, and the proclamation of the Second Republic which introduced manhood suffrage, and hopes that similar benefits would apply to women. In France, with the fall of the conservative Louis-Philippe in 1848, feminist hopes were raised, as in 1790. Several newspapers and organizations appeared. Eugénie Niboyet (1800-1883) founded La Voix des Femmes as the first feminist daily newspaper in France 'a socialist and political journal, the organ of the interests of all women'. Niboyet was a Protestant woman who had adopted Saint-Simonianism, and La Voix des Femmes attracted other women from that movement, including the seamstress Jeanne Deroin (1805-1894) and the primary schoolteacher Pauline Roland. Unsuccessful attempts were also made to recruit George Sand. The enthusiasm was short lived, feminism which was allied with socialism was seen as a threat as it had been under the previous revolution, Deroin and Roland were both arrested, tried and imprisoned in 1849. With the emergence of a new, more conservative government in 1852, feminism would have to wait until the Third French Republic.
The Groupe Français d'Etudes Féministes were French women intellectuals at the beginning of the twentieth century who translated part of Bachofen's cannon into French, and campaigned for family law reform. In 1905 they founded L'entente which published many articles on women's history , and became the focus for the intellectual avant garde advocating higher education for women and entry into the professions. Meanwhile socialist feminists, the Parti Socialiste Féminin, adopted a Marxist version of matriarchy. Aline Vallette depicted the overthrow of matriarchy with capitalism exploitation of labour. But like the Groupe Français saw the struggle as being for a new age of equality not a return to a prehistorical matriarchate. French feminism of the end of the Twentieth century is mainly associated with the psychoanalytical Feminist theory.
New Jersey appears to be the first jurisdiction to give the vote to women when it joined the other States to form the United States in 1776, but removed it in 1807. Feminism in America took a slightly different course than that in Britain, and was slightly more advanced. The antislavery campaign of the 1830s provided a perfect cause for women to take up, identify with and learn political skills. Attempts to exclude women only fuelled their convictions further, and were instrumental in moving women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott firmly into the feminist camp, leading to the 1848 Seneca Falls (New York) women’s convention, where a declaration of independence for women ("A Declaration of Sentiments") was drafted. Barbara Leigh Smith describes her meeting with Mott there in her American Diary, one of many links between the movements on each side of the Atlantic. The Declaration of Sentiments became the focus for the organised women's rights movement in America. Sarah and Angelina Grimké were examples of other women who moved rapidly from the emancipation of slaves to the emancipation of women, while Sojourner Truth, a freed slave, pointed to the injustice of freeing slaves and then only giving the vote to black males. The most influential writer of the time was the colourful journalist Margaret Fuller who’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century was published in 1845. Her dispatches from Europe for the New York Tribune also helped create universality in the women's rights movement. Had she lived, she was expected to become the leader of the women's rights movement. Her involvement with prostitutes was the beginning of a long and at times difficult relationship between the women's movement and prostitution. Other notable feminists of this period include Lucy Stone.
This period saw the contributions of Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage amongst others. Stanton and Gage saw the church as a major obstacle to women's rights. They therefore welcomed the emerging literature on matriarchy, and both Gage and Stanton produced works on this topic, Stanton's "The Matriarchate or Mother-Age", and Gage's "Woman, Church and State", neatly inverting Bachofen's thesis and adding a unique epistemological perspective, the critique of objectivity and the perception of the subjective.
Stanton made an astute observation regarding assumptions of female inferiority "The worst feature of these assumptions is that women themselves believe them". However this attempt to replace "androcentric" theological tradition with a "gynecentric" view made little headway in the women's movement which was dominated by religious elements, and she and Gage were largely ignored by subsequent generations. Stanton, Anthony and many others led a 50 year battle for women's suffrage. Their first victory was in 1869 when Wyoming Territory extended equal suffrage to women. That same year the legislature in the Utah Territory passed an act giving women in Utah the right to vote. These rights were later revoked by the US congress in the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887, but restored by Utah in 1895. Gradually individual States joined them.
The National Woman's Party (1913-1930) represented one of the main forces for women's suffrage during this period. Wilson's Fourteen Points recognised self determination as a vital component of society, the hypocrisy of denying half the population of modern nations the vote became difficult for men to ignore. Individual States continued to grant the vote one by one, and the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1919, and ratified in 1920.
The history of feminist theory
Nancy Cott draws a distinction between modern feminism and its antecedents, particularly the struggle for suffrage. In the United States she places the turning point in the decades before and after women obtained the vote in 1920 (1910-1930). She argues that the prior woman movement was primarily about woman as a universal entity, whereas over this 20 year period it transformed itself into one primarily concerned with social differentiation, attentive to individuality and diversity. New issues dealt more with woman's condition as a social construct, gender identity, and relationships within and between genders. Politically this represented a shift from an ideological alignment comfortable with the right, to one more radically associated with the left. In the immediate postwar period, Simone de Beauvoir stood in opposition to an image of "the woman in the home". De Beauvoir provided an existentialist dimension to feminism with the publication of Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) in 1949. While more philosopher and novelist than activist, she did sign one of the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes manifestos. The resurgence of feminist activism in the late 1960s was accompanied by an emerging literature of what might be considered female associated issues, such as concerns for the earth and spirituality, and environmental activism. This in turn created an atmosphere conducive to reigniting the study of and debate on matricentricity, as a rejection of determinism, such as Adrienne Rich and Marilyn French while for socialist feminists like Evelyn Reed, patriarchy held the properties of capitalism. Elaine Showalter describes the development of Feminist theory as having a number of phases. The first she calls "feminist critique" - where the feminist reader examines the ideologies behind literary phenomena. The second Showalter calls "Gynocritics" - where the "woman is producer of textual meaning" including "the psychodynamics of female creativity; linguistics and the problem of a female language; the trajectory of the individual or collective female literary career [and] literary history". The last phase she calls "gender theory" - where the "ideological inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system" are explored." This model has been criticized by Toril Moi who sees it as an essentialist and deterministic model for female subjectivity. She also criticized it for not taking account of the situation for women outside the west.
A Short Chronology of Feminist Activities:
History tells us some important events of women in world. Here I am going to mention some events and movements that helped women to get their right. I have took help of the prominent book “Naree Etihashe Upekkhita” written by our respected teacher Mrs. Mahmuda Islam and some prominent web sites of international feminists organizations.
| Time of Events | Events |
| 3000 BC. | First Brothel was found in ancient Sumer civilization |
| 2700 BC | Merit Pitah was the first female doctor |
| 23000 BC | Euheduanna the first women poet. |
| 1469 BC | Hatshepsut The first female Pharaoh. |
| 550 BC | The first female lawyer was found. |
| 400 BC | First actress in theater. |
| 70 AC | A few female painters were found in Greece. |
| 1130 AC | Prostitution was introduced as a public occupation in French. |
| 1236 AC | Sultana Rajiya the first ruler in Delhi. |
| 1320 AC | French women got 64% salary of men. |
| 1405 AC | ‘Christine de Pisan’ publishes The Book of the City of Ladies |
| 1611 AC | Two women criminals found in UK. |
| 1648 AC | Margaret Brent requests the right to vote from the Maryland State Assembly – beginning of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement |
| 1677 AC | Aphra Behu first female novelist in UK. |
| 1792 AC | Mary Wollsonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Women |
| 1835 AC | Oberlin College in Ohio becomes the first college to admit students without regard to race or sex |
| 1836 AC | Women labors strike in uk. |
| 1837 AC | French Socialist Charles Fourier coins the term feminisme |
| FIRST WAVE OF FEMINISM | |
| 1848 | The first women’s rights convention is organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, New York |
| 1856 AC | Widow women got right to remarry in India. |
| 1858 AC | Girl’s school established in Russia. |
| 1860 | Married women are granted the same rights to property and child custody as their husbands in New York |
| 1865 AC | The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery |
| 1872 AC | Susan B. Anthony is arrested after voting illegally |
| 1875 AC | Women were allowed to entry in British Royal College of Surgeons. |
| 1876 AC | Home Economy is selected as a science. |
| 1893 AC | New Zealand becomes the first country to grant women the right to vote |
| 1896 AC | Women got right to enroll in Oxford University. |
| 1908 AC | 500000 women moved for their right to vote in UK. |
| 1913 AC | ‘Alice Paul fouds’ the National Woman’s Party |
| 1915 AC | Nurse, Margaret Sanger illegally begins educating women on birth control methods |
| 1916 AC | Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to Congress. Margaret Sanger opens the first family-planning and birth control clinic |
| 1920 AC | Women got Degree from Oxford University. |
| 1919 AC | Founding of the League of Women Voters |
| 1920 AC | The Nineteenth Amendment grants women the right to vote |
| 1923 AC | Equal Rights Amendment proposing equal rights to all Americans regardless of sex is first introduced to Congress. |
| 1926 AC | Mae West is arrested for performing the Broadway play, Sex, which she wrote, produced, directed and starred |
| 1933 AC | Frances Perkins becomes the first woman to head a President’s cabinet when she become the secretary of labor |
| 1983 AC | Sally Ride becomes the first American woman astronaut to go into space. |
| SECOND WAVE OF FEMINISM. | |
| 1962 AC | Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique |
| 1984 AC | Madonna’s Like A Virgin album released |
| 1985 AC | Formation of the Guerrilla Girls |
| 1989 AC | US Supreme Court upholds a Missouri law that imposed restrictions on the use of state funds, facilities and employees in performing, assisting with, or counseling on abortions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision |
| 1991 AC | Anita Hill testifies during Senate Confirmation Hearings of Clarence Thomas that Thomas sexually harassed her while she was employed as his assistant. |
| THIRD WAVE OF FEMINISM | |
| 1992 AC | March on Washington for Reproductive Rights Riot Grrl Convention in Washington D.C. Mike Tyson convicted of the rape of Miss Black Rhode Island, Desiree Washington |
| 1993 AC | Female pilots allowed to fly in combat. Katie Roiphe’s The Morning After: sex, Fear and Feminism on Campus is published. Bust zine founded |
| 1994 AC | The Violence Against Women Act passes |
| 1994 AC | Congress adopts the Gender Equity in Eduation Act to train teachers, promote math and science learning by girls, counsel pregnant teens, and prevent sexual harassment. |
| 1995 AC | Ellin Collins become First women pilot for shuttle plane. |
| 1997 AC | Madeleine K. Albright, First woman Secretary of State and highest ranking woman in the U.S. government. |
| 2000 AC | Hillary Rodham Clinton, Only First Lady ever elected to the United States Senate. |
| 2002 AC | Halle Berry First African-American woman to win a Best Actress Oscar. |
| 2005 AC | Condoleezza Rice First African-American woman to be appointed Secretary of State |
| 2007 AC | Nancy Pelosi First woman to become Speaker of the House.Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party permanently installed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist. |
History of Feminism in Bangladesh:
Feminist activity in Bangladesh too has long and respective history. Rokeya Shakawat Hossain, most commonly known as Begum Rokeya, (1880 – December 9, 1932) was an important forward-thinker for her time. As an activist and a writer, she has been an inspiring figure who has contributed much to the struggle to liberate women from the bondage of patriarchy. Possibly Begum Rokeya is the first feminist in Bangladesh. She has born in an aristocrat family in Bangladesh. She did not have any chance of education. But she learns to read and write both in Bangla and in English language from her elder brother. Her husbands too help her to continue her education. After the death of her husband she completely joins to change the fate of the girl of Bangladesh. She wrote a few books about women’s oppressed position in then Bangladesh. Writing mostly in Bangla as a way to raise popular consciousness, she used humor, irony and satire to focus attention on the injustices faced by Bengali Muslim women. She criticized oppressive social customs forced upon women in the name of religion, asserting that the glory of God could be best displayed by women fulfilling their potential as human beings. She also started movement to take the girls in the light of education. She first started a female school with only 14 students. Her husband Mr. shakhaoyat Hossain was very kind to her activities. He did not stop her moreover he helped Rokeya to collect students for her school. But after eleven years of their marriage her husband died. She started a school for girls in his memory, called Shakawat Memorial School for Girls.Although she did not success in her work but she made a great change to views of men to women in society. Begum Roquia used humor, irony and satire to focus attention on the injustices faced by Bengali-speaking Muslim women. She criticized oppressive social customs forced upon women that were based upon the corrupted version of Islam, asserting that women fulfilling their potential as human beings could best display the glory of Allah.
Later the name come to mind is Taslima Nashrin. She come to light for her writing in present time. She wrote many books about the exploitation of women in Bangladesh. Although she and her some books are banned in Bangladesh and the WesBtengal of India but her attempt to tell the negative attitudes of men to women is largely praised by feminists.
Many educated persons including University teachers and general people are also conscious to change women’s fate. Irene Zubaida Khan, born December 24, 1956 in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), is the Secretary General of Amnesty International, a human rights organization. She is the seventh Secretary General. Besides this Dr. Mahmuda Islam, the former teacher of Department of sociology of Dhaka University is also well known for her participation in women movements. She had participated in many international women’s seminar including Beijing seminar in China.
Besides these there are some non government organizations like “Women for women” which works for women’s right in Bangladesh. It is of the most important women's groups in Bangladesh. Women for Women: A Research and Study Group, located in Dhaka. It is a pioneer nongovernment, non-profit, voluntary women's organization, engaged in research and public education programs on gender issues with a view to enhancing the status of women. It was established in 1973 by a group of committed woman professionals, representing a variety of academic disciplines. The Group strongly felt the need for developing a sound information base for identifying the issues relating to the disadvantaged status of women in Bangladesh and for creating public awareness with a view to ameliorating the existing situation. Since then, Women For Women has been engaged in research, information, dissemination, advocacy awareness and motivational programs.
The objectives of Women for Women are:
1. To create awareness among people of Bangladesh, particularly policy planners and public functionaries, about the need for enhancing women's status and molding public opinion for action against the oppression and exploitation of women.
2. To organize, undertake and promote research and study in all areas of women's life in general, and to focus on the specific problems impeding their integration in development efforts in particular, keeping in view the national priorities.
3. To be a forum for effective advocacy for gender equity through dissemination of policy-oriented research findings concerning women through publications, research, seminars and exchange forums.
4. To inform and educate a wider audience about critical issues, current concerns and to promote interaction through publications and national conventions.
5. To establish and develop linkages and networking with similar groups at home and abroad.
6. To create and develop gender-sensitivity among planners, public functionaries, development agency personnel and program implementors thorugh relevant gender training programs.
7. To extend cooperation and consultancy services to the government as well as to other national and international agencies involved in the area of women and development.
The activities of Women for Women include seminars, workshops, conferences, national conventions, library development, and publications.
Women’s are always neglected all over the world and Bangladesh is not except one. This country has a very old and well known history. It was a part of Indian sub-continent and from that time gender discrimination has been going on till now. The complete scenario has changed a little bit through the decades but not very remarkable. In this 21st century if we think about a woman’s position, we will see every day she is dealing with a lot of social problems and obstacles. Being women in Bangladesh is not so easy to survive. Women’s are always tortured by man in all class of the society. The main fact of this issue is most of the people in our country are illiterate and they think that a boy can bear them in their last age. So, they always want boy rather than girl. From the birth time a girl child is starting to face problems. Then in educational level, boys always get the priority, many parents are not interested to send their girls to school. Every year many young woman’s are became the victim of acid and rape. In also many educated family women’s are physically and mentally tortured by man. Dowry is a common factor of wife beating in Bangladesh. Early marriage is a big issue to concern in our country. Many young girls have been getting married in early age and facing problem of early as well as risky pregnancy. Not only are these, in job sector woman facing a lot of problems like- sexual harassment, low salary than a men and other facilities. Indeed, our social system has created this situation. After completing graduation many woman’s cannot any job because of their husband and in laws family. The most common thing is gender discrimination is happening in upper class simultaneously in lower class but the way is different. To prevent this problem many organizations are working and they are doing campaign, seminar and other programs. Now a day’s media are becoming more conscious about this issue. Television channels are showing different programs and newspapers are publishing extra page based on women issue on a regular basis. Except all of this woman have great success in Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank is made successful by women and another very successful part is our garment sectors in their maximum worker are women. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the woman’s contribution in our life and we all have to respect them.
Women’s consciousness in Bangladesh:
Feminist activities in Bangladesh are not any new phenomenon. Although we have no idea that when the voice rose against women’s oppression in Bangladesh. But we can remember the active participation and writing of a few feminist to make free the women’s from the darkness of ignorance and illiteracy.
Feminism and feminist activities had changed women’s condition in society and made them conscious to their right in society. Many feminist organizations including government and non government organizations (NGO) have largely organized women’s in Bangladesh. There are many progressive NGOs doing consciousness-raising work among poorer women and village women.
Trade unions have only recently started organizing women. Previously women have worked mainly in the unorganized sectors, but more and more women trade union activists have been working with these women.
Women in the garment industry, where there are no trade unions, have recently been organising strikes and demonstrations.
There are also various middle class organizations, such as the research organisations into issues such as dowry and violence against women. Professional women's organisations such as lawyers and teachers are quite strong and progressive. There are also many women students' associations in the schools and universities.
All of these different groups work together around various issues. There is a very strong support network. For instance, if a dowry issue arises, the lawyers' organizations provide legal representation, the research groups provide material, and the mass organizations do propaganda work and organize demonstrations.
This uniting of broad layers of women around particular issues usually cuts across class lines. It means middle and upper class women are being made aware of the rights of lower class women.
Trade unions have only recently started organizing women. Previously women have worked mainly in the unorganized sectors, but more and more women trade union activists have been working with these women.
Women in the garment industry, where there are no trade unions, have recently been organising strikes and demonstrations.
There are also various middle class organizations, such as the research organisations into issues such as dowry and violence against women. Professional women's organisations such as lawyers and teachers are quite strong and progressive. There are also many women students' associations in the schools and universities.
All of these different groups work together around various issues. There is a very strong support network. For instance, if a dowry issue arises, the lawyers' organizations provide legal representation, the research groups provide material, and the mass organizations do propaganda work and organize demonstrations.
This uniting of broad layers of women around particular issues usually cuts across class lines. It means middle and upper class women are being made aware of the rights of lower class women.
Although we are trying our best to protect our women form exploitation and to give them a safe and sound society, but it’s really very hard to achieve our goal as we live in a developing country with enormous socio-economic and political problems. Moreover our social system often does not support women to come out from their present condition.
Conclusion:
Feminism is a rebelling attempt to change women’s condition in society. but no attempts will be successful unless the men and women realizes and participates women’s condition in society. Although we have some good achievement but it’s not enough to get equal right of women to men. Furthermore women first have to conscious about their education. An educated woman is more conscious than uneducated women. And a child of educated women has more possibility to grow as conscious citizen. The different that exists between male-female relationships is based on material relationship, which is profoundly changed in present time. But an enormous movement of women, whether organized or not, would be required before any such changes would occur. Moreover, a system of ideas, a deepened feminist critique of sexual oppression in present society, along with a clear definition of broad future goals-would be essential. About the goal of feminism great feminist Rosemarie Putnam Tong said –
“Feminist thought is a kaleidoscopic; the reader’s preliminary impression may be one of chaos and confusion, of dissension and disagreement, of fragmentation and splintering. But a closer inspection will always reveal new visions, new structures, new relationships for personal and political life, all of which will be different tomorrow than today. What I most treasure about feminist thought, then, is that although it has a beginning, it has no end; and because it has no predetermined end, feminist thought permits each woman to think her own thoughts. Not the truth but the truths will set women free.”
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