The time is around 1800. Women wanted the right to vote and the right to have possession of things that they thought to be theirs. Jump ahead 150 years. The 19th Amendment did precisely that, imposing a changed view on women’s rights and the women’s movement. Women since then have fought from sexual issues such as abortion to the family and home life. Feminism had been born. Theories and countless essays were created in the light of these subjects, thrusting feminism into the minds of women. Many views on feminism today, I believe, were born from a handful of decades ago. Faludi worked on this aspect in her work. Starting with the mass media in the 1960’s, the major publications either did not cover the women’s movement or manipulated it to their liking. When the next decade came, the overarching decision was to neutralize or market feminism. Next was the 1980’s, which fought against the feminist movement. Feminism was discredited. Feminism was dead.
Not quite. Feminism is still to this day discussed and evaluated, it has reached the mainstream. As I see it, there are perspectives on feminism as a feminist and from the ‘outside’ views on these theories. As from the first day of discussion, presented by Dr. Sutton, we have a broad list of the main groups of feminism, which should be defined and clear before assessing perspectives on either side (1). Liberal Feminism is the view that all people are born equal and should not be denied equality of opportunity. I would have to say that I, along with the vast majority of our population of this country share this same idea. Stepping back for a moment, we should note that these main views typically relate to our culture and standards of living. Other cultures would have different views on feminism and women’s lives in general. I will explain the perspectives attaining to our modern culture, and will attempt to not have an ethnocentric view. Marxist Feminism is the view that women have this inferior position and is linked to the larger economic system. Social Feminism holds the same view of the link of the larger economic system and also introduces the family structure. Ecofemism links the degradation and oppression of women to the degradation of Earth. Multicultural and Global Feminism is the view of the connection of gender, class, race, exploitation, and colonization. The last and I believe one of the most stereotyped and important view is Radical Feminism, is where men oppress women. These examples are of course very broad and cover a wide area of the feminist essays. I should say that ever person has a view on feminism, whether holding approval or disapproval, along with personal opinions. Before evaluating essays and perspectives, let’s raise some questions. Why have certain types of feminism received negativity? I supposed it is very easy to say that we are afraid of change. Even if that is true, it cannot explain why many view a feminist as a crazy she-revolutionary. If I ask my guy friends if they consider themselves as feminists, I know what they would say. After explaining the view of a Liberal Feminist, I believe they would say otherwise. If I believe that women should vote, I am a feminist, but I am for certain that I do not consider myself a radical feminist. I can now see how many stereotypes arose from the confusion of the goal of the feminist movement. For example, I was talking with a friend about feminism. Just by the way he was explaining his feelings on the matter, it was plain to see that the views shown to him were manipulated and falsified. Why, then, is feminism hard for some to grasp? In my experience, not all women I have known would label themselves as a feminist, but not one male has. I have been fighting with this for the past few weeks, and refuse to believe that men are ignorant of the matter and chose not to address it. After reading a work of Jean Grimshaw, it nailed it. One of the central themes of feminism has been the importance of women’s experience, and one of its central enterprises has been to show how a great deal of male theorizing about women has tended to dent, invalidate or be unable to account for this experience.(2) Bingo. I can understand and accept that I am not a woman and do not have an experience as a woman. Rather, I should place my shoes in that experience of a woman, thus relating to the situation even if had not affected me negatively. I use this before reading into any kind of gender issue, whether relating to men or women. Feminism is a great example of when men should walk a mile in a woman’s shoes and try to understand from that perspective. I believe this comes in perfect harmony when constructing a paper such as this. Before assessing (let alone comparing and contrasting) perspectives, you must be able to put bias views aside. This overwhelming bias and personal opinion, though, does have implications. When discussing family life and feminism, I am out of the loop. I lack experience in both family and being a woman (even thought you do not have to be a woman to be feminist.) When I say I lack experience in the family, I mean as a provider or guardian, where they views and ideas are usually associated with. For example, I never contemplated on feminism when I was outside playing at age seven. As, I stated earlier, there are countless perspectives on feminism, especially if every person has their personal view. How do these correlate with the family? Well what kind of family are we talking about? Again, personal experiences apply here, but I am relating these similarities to the ‘American Dream.’ A mother, father, son, daughter and dog should suffice. The first essay and perspective on feminism comes by Darlene Wilkinson. (3) By explaining a common view by sociologists, she claims that most woman base their thoughts on how they are socialized. Everywhere from family to the media to the church. Her perspective on a woman’s role in the family is based on Christian doctrine. Can we find the answer to a woman’s role, and men’s, in the Bible? I believe that it correlates with the setup of roles we have today in the family, but there are obvious problems. Just like stated in class, Christian text may influence the roles of women in the family. We discussed that no matter if you believe or not, there are biases and sometimes negative views on women. Is this is a causal relationship to the family today? My opinion is that there is a more than likely tie between the two. For example, a woman could not be as high as Eve or Mary, just as no man could be as great as Jesus. These are extreme examples, but were not looked into (tried to find error) and certainly not questioned. It is possible that the views of woman from the Bible shaped and molded the views of women that we have battled with. This is a great theoretical perspective as to include religion into the argument. This, though, may not be as credited when talking as fact. As I stated earlier, many of the views and perspectives are personal, especially the standpoints in regard to religious doctrine whether it be Christian or Muslim.
How do the other types or forms of feminism stack up against family life? If I had to explain some feminist views, I would pick the top two I think about when discussing this issue, Liberal and Radical Feminism. Within these examples, I have many opinions but can back them up with fact on as to there similarities and contrasts. Liberal Feminism is in my opinion the easiest to grasp and agree with. As stated above, Liberal Feminism is the view that all people are born and should not be denied of opportunity. This is obviously a goal and should be strived for. In the home, though situations are not always equal and even. As we talked about in class, there is an unequal distribution of work. Not only with raising children, but also that of housework. Not only in the house, but pushing into the workplace and main stream aspects such as fashion is covered by this view of feminism. Who does not think all should be equal? Radical Feminism on the other hand, makes a different point. Instead of society and other such things suppressing women, men are the sole group responsible. I do not agree at all with Radical Feminists and I believe this is who the average person thinks of when hearing the word feminist. Radical Feminists wish to end the patriarchy in which they believe to be controlled by, in other words, men. The point here is that the family and family life will be destroyed with this action. To be completely pushed from men means that a traditional family of today would be impossible. It is not a matter of right or wrong, but it is my opinion that Radical Feminists are looking at the wrong area to blame. For example, how can you blame someone for acting in a way if they were socialized to do so? I see Liberal Feminism as a bringing together and making the sexes equal, while Radical Feminism pushed the sexes farther apart. Many critics of radical feminism state that the true aim of radical feminists is often not only to abolish the (claimed) existing patriarchy, but to undermine men by replacing the supposed patriarchy with a different structure embodying similarly oppressive attitudes with only the genders reversed.(4) Out of these examples, we see how aspects such as religion and anti-patriarchy affect the views and also the life in the home. As common sense would show me, any idea that is positive (Liberal Feminism) will work with the current situations at hand to bring both sexes together, whether it be in the family, workplace, or main stream cultural views. I could be bias in this essay, but I am going to claim that Radical Feminism is negative as compared to Liberal Feminism. The examples in class such as creating babies in laboratories so there is no need for men pushes the solution away farther than ever, and making it complicated past solution. I am not experienced in feminism and all the aspects, and do not see any merit in this view, even though there is more than likely. Again, from what I have seen and heard about this view could give me stereotypes. Liberal Feminism, on the other hand, holds no negativity to me and I am behind it and its views. As in every type of essay, there are different concepts and assumptions, which are made personally about what is on hand. As I can say truthfully, before this class I did not know the actual goal of feminism and heard more negative views than positive. It feels strange to label myself as a feminist, mainly for the fact that I was socialized to not be a feminist, I believe. Views that resent feminism go against the true goal of it, equality between men and women and the pursuit of this balance.
PRINT SOURCES
(1) Lindsey, L. L. Feminism and its Branches. In Gender Roles.
(2)Grimshaw, Jean. “Experience and Reality.” Philosophy and Feminist Thinking.
(3)Wilkinson, Darlene. “A Wife’s Role.” Issues In Feminism.
