С.О.У.

‘’ ‘’ - Прилеп

PROJECT TASK FOR FINAL EXAMINATION IN THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE

TOPIC : FEMINISM

MADE BY : MENTOR :

Прилеп, 2021
CONTENT

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 INTRODUCTION

Feminism is a range of social movements, political movements, and ideologies

that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality
of the sexes.
Feminism incorporates the position that societies prioritize the male point of
view, and that women are treated unjustly within those societies. Efforts to change
that include fighting against gender stereotypes and establishing educational,
professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women that are equal
to those for men.
Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's
rights, including the right to: vote, hold public office, work, earn equal pay, own
property, receive education, enter contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and
maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to legal abortions and
social integration, and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and
domestic violence.Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical
activities for females have often been part of feminist movements.
Some scholars consider feminist campaigns to be a main force behind major
historical societal changes for women's rights, particularly in the West, where they are
near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, gender-neutral language,
reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and
the right to enter into contracts and own property.
Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women's
rights, some feminists argue for the inclusion of men's liberation within its aims,
because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles.

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 1. FEMINISM

Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand

the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived
experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to
issues concerning gender.
Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years
and represent different viewpoints and aims. Traditionally, since the 19th century,
first-wave liberal feminism that sought political and legal equality through reforms
within a liberal democratic framework was contrasted with labor-based proletarian
women's movements that over time developed into socialist and Marxist feminism
based on class struggle theory.
Since the 1960s both of these traditions are also contrasted with radical
feminism that arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and that calls for
a radical reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy; together liberal, socialist
and radical feminism are sometimes called the "Big Three" schools of feminist
thought.
Since the late 20th century many newer forms of feminisms have emerged.
Some forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white,
middle class, college-educated, heterosexual, or cisgender perspectives. These
criticisms have led to the creation of ethnically specific or multicultural forms of
feminism, such as black feminism and intersectional feminism.

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 2. History

2.1. Terminology

Charles Fourier, a utopian socialist and French philosopher, is credited with

having coined the word "féminisme" in 1837. The words "féminisme" ("feminism")
and "féministe" ("feminist") first appeared in France and the Netherlands in 1872,
Great Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists 1852 as the year of the first appearance
of "feminist"and 1895 for "feminism". Depending on the historical moment, culture
and country, feminists around the world have had different causes and goals. Most
western feminist historians contend that all movements working to obtain women's
rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not)
apply the term to themselves.
Other historians assert that the term should be limited to the modern feminist
movement and its descendants. Those historians use the label "protofeminist" to
describe earlier movements.

2.2. Waves

The history of the modern western feminist movement is divided into four
"waves".The first comprised women's suffrage movements of the 19th and early-20th
centuries, promoting women's right to vote. The second wave, the women's liberation
movement, began in the 1960s and campaigned for legal and social equality for
women. In or around 1992, a third wave was identified, characterized by a focus on
individuality and diversity.The fourth wave, from around 2012, used social media to
combat sexual harassment, violence against women and rape culture; it is best known
for the Me Too movement.

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 2.3. 19th and early-20th centuries

First-wave feminism was a period of activity during the 19th and early-20th
centuries. In the UK and US, it focused on the promotion of equal contract, marriage,
parenting, and property rights for women. New legislation included the Custody of
Infants Act 1839 in the UK, which introduced the tender years doctrine for child
custody and gave women the right of custody of their children for the first time.
Other legislation, such as the Married Women's Property Act 1870 in the UK
and extended in the 1882 Act,  became models for similar legislation in other British
territories. 
Victoria passed legislation in 1884 and New South Wales in 1889; the
remaining Australian colonies passed similar legislation between 1890 and 1897.
With the turn of the 19th century, activism focused primarily on gaining political
power, particularly the right of women's suffrage, though some feminists were active
in campaigning for women's sexual, reproductive, and economic rights too.
Women's suffrage (the right to vote and stand for parliamentary office) began
in Britain's Australasian colonies at the close of the 19th century, with the self-
governing colonies of New Zealand granting women the right to vote in 1893; South
Australia followed suit in 1895. This was followed by Australia granting female
suffrage in 1902.

Feminist suffrage parade, New York City, 1912

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 2.4. Mid-20th century

By the mid-20th century, women still lacked significant rights. In Switzerland,

women gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1971;but in the canton of
Appenzell Innerrhoden women obtained the right to vote on local issues only in 1991,
when the canton was forced to do so by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland. In
Liechtenstein, women were given the right to vote by the women's suffrage
referendum of 1984. Three prior referendums held in 1968, 1971 and 1973 had failed
to secure women's right to vote.
Feminists continued to campaign for the reform of family laws which gave
husbands control over their wives. Although by the 20th century coverture had been
abolished in the UK and US, in many continental European countries married women
still had very few rights. For instance, in France, married women did not receive the
right to work without their husband's permission until 1965.Feminists have also
worked to abolish the "marital exemption" in rape laws which precluded the
prosecution of husbands for the rape of their wives. Earlier efforts by first-wave
feminists such as Voltairine de Cleyre, Victoria Woodhull and Elizabeth Clarke
Wolstenholme Elmy to criminalize marital rape in the late 19th century had failed;
this was only achieved a century later in most Western countries, but is still not
achieved in many other parts of the world.
French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir provided a Marxist solution and an
existentialist view on many of the questions of feminism with the publication of Le
Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) in 1949. The book expressed feminists' sense of
injustice. Second-wave feminism is a feminist movement beginning in the early 1960s
and continuing to the present; as such, it coexists with third-wave feminism. Second-
wave feminism is largely concerned with issues of equality beyond suffrage, such as
ending gender discrimination.
Second-wave feminists see women's cultural and political inequalities as
inextricably linked and encourage women to understand aspects of their personal lives
as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures. The feminist activist
and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political", which became
synonymous with the second wave.

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 3. Theory

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical

fields. It encompasses work in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology,
sociology, economics, women's studies, literary criticism, art history,
psychoanalysis,and philosophy.
Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender
politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and
political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's
rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination,
stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and
patriarchy.
In the field of literary criticism, Elaine Showalter describes the development
of feminist theory as having three phases. The first she calls "feminist critique", in
which the feminist reader examines the ideologies behind literary phenomena. The
second Showalter calls "gynocriticism", in which the "woman is producer of textual
meaning". The last phase she calls "gender theory", in which the "ideological
inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system are explored".
This was paralleled in the 1970s by French feminists, who developed the
concept of écriture féminine (which translates as "female or feminine
writing").Helene Cixous argues that writing and philosophy are phallocentric and
along with other French feminists such as Luce Irigaray emphasize "writing from the
body" as a subversive exercise.
The work of Julia Kristeva, a feminist psychoanalyst and philosopher, and
Bracha Ettinger, artist and psychoanalyst, has influenced feminist theory in general
and feminist literary criticism in particular. However, as the scholar Elizabeth Wright
points out, "none of these French feminists align themselves with the feminist
movement as it appeared in the Anglophone world".More recent feminist theory, such
as that of Lisa Lucile Owens, has concentrated on characterizing feminism as a
universal emancipatory movement.

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 4. Movements and ideologies

Many overlapping feminist movements and ideologies have developed over

the years. Traditionally feminism is often divided into three main traditions usually
called liberal, radical and socialist/Marxist feminism, sometimes known as the "Big
Three" schools of feminist thought; since the late 20th century a variety of newer
forms of feminisms have also emerged.
Some branches of feminism track the political leanings of the larger society to
a greater or lesser degree, or focus on specific topics, such as the environment.

4.1. Liberal feminism

Liberal feminism, also known under other names such as reformist,

mainstream or historically as bourgeois feminism, arose from 19th century first-wave
feminism, and was historically linked to 19th century liberalism and progressivism,
while 19th century conservatives tended to oppose feminism as such.
Liberal feminism seeks equality of men and women through political and legal
reform within a liberal democratic framework, without radically altering the structure
of society; liberal feminism "works within the structure of mainstream society to
integrate women into that structure." During the 19th and early 20th centuries liberal
feminism focused especially on women's suffrage and access to education. Norwegian
supreme court justice and former president of the liberal Norwegian Association for
Women's Rights, Karin Maria Bruzelius, has described liberal feminism as "a
realistic, sober, practical feminism".

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a major figure in 19th century liberal feminism

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 4.2. Radical feminism

Radical feminism arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and
calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy. It considers the
male-controlled capitalist hierarchy as the defining feature of women's oppression and
the total uprooting and reconstruction of society as necessary. Separatist feminism
does not support heterosexual relationships. Lesbian feminism is thus closely related.
Other feminists criticize separatist feminism as sexist.

The merged Venus symbol with raised fist is a common symbol of radical feminism,
one of the movements within feminism

4.3. Materialist ideologies

Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham say that materialist forms of

feminism grew out of Western Marxist thought and have inspired a number of
different (but overlapping) movements, all of which are involved in a critique of
capitalism and are focused on ideology's relationship to women.
Marxist feminism argues that capitalism is the root cause of women's
oppression, and that discrimination against women in domestic life and employment
is an effect of capitalist ideologies. Socialist feminism distinguishes itself from
Marxist feminism by arguing that women's liberation can only be achieved by
working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression.
Anarcha-feminists believe that class struggle and anarchy against the state require
struggling against patriarchy, which comes from involuntary hierarchy.

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 5. Sexuality

Feminist views on sexuality vary, and have differed by historical period and
by cultural context. Feminist attitudes to female sexuality have taken a few different
directions. Matters such as the sex industry, sexual representation in the media, and
issues regarding consent to sex under conditions of male dominance have been
particularly controversial among feminists.
This debate has culminated in the late 1970s and the 1980s, in what came to be
known as the feminist sex wars, which pitted anti-pornography feminism against sex-
positive feminism, and parts of the feminist movement were deeply divided by these
debates. Feminists have taken a variety of positions on different aspects of the sexual
revolution from the 1960s and 70s. Over the course of the 1970s, a large number of
influential women accepted lesbian and bisexual women as part of feminism.

5.1. Sex industry

Opinions on the sex industry are diverse. Feminists who are critical of the sex
industry generally see it as the exploitative result of patriarchal social structures which
reinforce sexual and cultural attitudes complicit in rape and sexual harassment.
Alternately, feminists who support at least part of the sex industry argue that it can be
a medium of feminist expression and a means for women to take control of their
sexuality. For the views of feminism on male prostitutes see the article on male
prostitution.
Feminist views of pornography range from condemnation of pornography as a
form of violence against women, to an embracing of some forms of pornography as a
medium of feminist expression. Similarly, feminists' views on prostitution vary,
ranging from critical to supportive.

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 5.2. Science

Sandra Harding says that the "moral and political insights of the women's
movement have inspired social scientists and biologists to raise critical questions
about the ways traditional researchers have explained gender, sex and relations within
and between the social and natural worlds." Some feminists, such as Ruth Hubbard
and Evelyn Fox Keller, criticize traditional scientific discourse as being historically
biased towards a male perspective.
A part of the feminist research agenda is the examination of the ways in
which power inequities are created or reinforced in scientific and academic
institutions. Physicist Lisa Randall, appointed to a task force at Harvard by then-
president Lawrence Summers after his controversial discussion of why women may
be underrepresented in science and engineering, said, "I just want to see a whole
bunch more women enter the field so these issues don't have to come up anymore."
Lynn Hankinson Nelson writes that feminist empiricists find fundamental
differences between the experiences of men and women. Thus, they seek to obtain
knowledge through the examination of the experiences of women and to "uncover the
consequences of omitting, misdescribing, or devaluing them" to account for a range of
human experience.
Another part of the feminist research agenda is the uncovering of ways in
which power inequities are created or reinforced in society and in scientific and
academic institutions. Furthermore, despite calls for greater attention to be paid to
structures of gender inequity in the academic literature, structural analyses of gender
bias rarely appear in highly cited psychological journals, especially in the commonly
studied areas of psychology and personality.

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 6. Literature

The feminist movement produced feminist fiction, feminist non-fiction, and

feminist poetry, which created new interest in women's writing. It also prompted a
general reevaluation of women's historical and academic contributions in response to
the belief that women's lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of
scholarly interest.
There has also been a close link between feminist literature and activism, with
feminist writing typically voicing key concerns or ideas of feminism in a particular
era.
Much of the early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the
rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. In Western feminist literary
scholarship, Studies like Dale Spender's Mothers of the Novel (1986) and Jane
Spencer's The Rise of the Woman Novelist (1986) were ground-breaking in their
insistence that women have always been writing.
Commensurate with this growth in scholarly interest, various presses began
the task of reissuing long-out-of-print texts. Virago Press began to publish its large list
of 19th and early-20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial
presses to join in the project of reclamation. In the 1980s Pandora Press, responsible
for publishing Spender's study, issued a companion line of 18th-century novels
written by women.
More recently, Broadview Press continues to issue 18th- and 19th-century
novels, many hitherto out of print, and the University of Kentucky has a series of
republications of early women's novels.

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 CONCLUSION

Feminism, the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.

Although largely originating in the West, feminism is manifested worldwide and is
represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s
rights and interests.
Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic
sphere, while public life was reserved for men. In medieval Europe, women were
denied the right to own property, to study, or to participate in public life.
At the end of the 19th century in France, they were still compelled to cover
their heads in public, and, in parts of Germany, a husband still had the right to sell his
wife. Even as late as the early 20th century, women could neither vote nor hold
elective office in Europe and in most of the United States (where several territories
and states granted women’s suffrage long before the federal government did so).
There is scant evidence of early organized protest against such circumscribed
status. In the 3rd century BCE, Roman women filled the Capitoline Hill and blocked
every entrance to the Forum when consul Marcus Porcius Cato resisted attempts to
repeal laws limiting women’s use of expensive goods. “If they are victorious now,
what will they not attempt?” Cato cried. “As soon as they begin to be your equals,
they will have become your superiors.”
Women were prevented from conducting business without a male
representative, be it father, brother, husband, legal agent, or even son. Married women
could not exercise control over their own children without the permission of their
husbands. Moreover, women had little or no access to education and were barred from
most professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue
today.

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 USED LITERATURE

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism
2. Brunell, Laura; Burkett, Elinor. "Feminism". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved
21 May 2019.
3. Lengermann, Patricia; Niebrugge, Gillian (2010). "Feminism". In Ritzer, G.; Ryan,
J.M. (eds.). The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology. John Wiley & Sons.
4. Beasley, Chris (1999). What is Feminism?. New York: Sage.

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