The Feminist Activism

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Feminist theories have engaged with exploration of difference and subjectivity. There is more than one way to think about and respond to recognition, identity and difference. Each chapter examines a current feminist perspective and highlights the main feminist critiques of the perspective. The text starts by introducing us to Feminist activism and explaining how it is often divided into two periods; the late nineteenth century (first wave) and the 1960s and 1970s (the second wave). Both periods were very important parts of the feminist movement and have helped bring out changes to our society in how woman are viewed, their rights, and how gender issues are understood. The first wave mainly focused on women’s right to vote, own property and obtain an education in the public sphere. The second wave focused on how opportunities woman suffered in the public realm to the roles they in the private sphere. These included issues on women’s sexuality, reproduction, domestic labour and domestic violence. Both waves however highlighted the inability …show more content…
In the first chapter on equal rights it discusses how contemporary liberalism responds to arguments about difference. Their view is that “we may all be different, but the best guarantee of equality is to treat us as if we were all the same” and states that if we go beyond this it is problematic and leads the state into taking a role it cannot fulfill. There is just no definite way to indicate how our society can have such a fair view when we each have so many differences. John Rawls gave us an attempt to solve this issue. Rawls defines universal human nature by arguing that he does not give individuality or the individual subject a metaphysical state. In his works A Theory of Justice he has a thought experiment called the “original position.” In this situation a society would come up with a structure of

Buck Angel: Intersectionatio Activism

Overall, the feminist as well as political agenda of pornography function as a form of activism by providing a safe, positive, and constructive setting for individuals whose identities function to oppress them. In feminist pornography, there is an attempt to increase diversity within race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and body types. This enables individuals to express their identities without the constraints that society and the mainstream porn industry enact. Activism ensues when these films challenge…

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Analysis Of Betty Friedan´s The Feminine Mystique

career, the most extensive means by which I was academically exposed to feminism was during a 40-minute class period wherein my history instructor discussed Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), a classic publication that has been praised as a feminist landmark. Within this presentation, the struggles of the confined housewife were divulged, the work’s “revolutionary” qualities were commended, and its author was praised for her ability to identify the oppressions faced by women of the time period…

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Essay on Wave Feminism

the Feminist movement in Western Culture is divided into three basic waves: First Wave, Second Wave, and Third Wave. Feminist theory is an examination of gender inequality in an attempt to understand and overcome its presence. Activism is very important for change in the feminist culture, and their campaigns have affected Western policy greatly. Women’s suffrage, reproductive rights, gender neutrality, and access to contraceptives and abortion are but a few of the rights won through feminist activism…

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women studies Essay

the purpose of a woman and where would her fulfillment be found? 11. During the Civil War women’s rights efforts stopped. The lack of activism by the women’s coalition resulted in the New York Legislature repealing sections of law which gave mother’s equal guardianship of their children and widows certain property rights. Suffragist and first wave feminist did not want to stop their campaign for the right to vote because of World War I. 12. The Seneca Falls convention was the beginning of…

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Misrepresentation In Media

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) is a feminist organization that works to bring gender equality in the media, as well as equality in other aspects of their life. The AWID Forum incorporates a workshop, the Master Tools, which presents stereotypes of “maleness” and femaleness” that’s usually being…

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Intersectionality: An Intellectual Analysis

something worth standing for, expressing an opinion, bringing about a positive social change, all of these describe activism and the beauty that comes along with it. Activism has allowed many women and people throughout all of history to make a change; to show people how much better something could be if we all work together to transform it. The theory of intersectionality has resulted from activism. Without women taking a stand and explaining how different each individual woman is, the theory of intersectionality…

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The Sixties Summary

most turbulent decades in American life. Beginning with the crew-cut conformity of 1950s Cold War culture and ending with the transition into the uneasy '1970s, Anderson notes the rise of an idealistic generation of baby boomers, widespread social activism, and revolutionary counterculture. Anderson explores the rapidly shifting mood of the country with the optimism during the Kennedy years, the liberal advances of Johnson's "Great Society," and the growing conflict over Vietnam that nearly tore America…

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Essay On Second Wave Feminism

enter the workforce in the 1960s, the foundation for a new movement in feminism began to establish itself.2 By 1963, second wave feminists had their “bible” of sorts in The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, and they had their policy-pushing coalition by 1966 with the National Organization for Women.3 The stars began to align, and the time was just right for a feminist uprising. In 2002, historian Becky Thompson looked to challenge the typical timeline of second wave feminism in her paper Multiracial…

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'Rhetorical Analysis Of Simone's Song Mississippi Goddam'

the article by analyzing Simone’s song “Mississippi Goddam”, and how it cries out for immediate and radical changes in race relations. “Mississippi Goddam”, Simone’s first “civil rights song” (Feldstein 1349), exposes her distaste for non-violent activism, which would become even more obvious with some of her later songs, for example her 1964 song “Go Limp.” Feldstein continues the article by examining Simone’s upbringing and beginnings as a classical pianist. Simone “departed from the then-dominant…

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Assertions Of Self: The Nascent Women's Movement In Central Asia

and modernity, notions of the feminine and masculine, and shifting arguments for gender equality in China. Ranging from interviews with contemporary writers, to historical accounts of gendered writing in Taiwan and semi-colonial China, to close feminist readings of individual authors, these essays confront the degree to which textual stategies construct notions of gender. Among the specific themes discussed are: how femininity is produced in texts by allocating women to domestic space; the extent…

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