Monday, March 3, 2014
Women´s History and Rights
Feminist Movements in Europe. Still a current need?
The historical process of recognition of rights to women is associated with feminist groups, especially in United Kingdom and France.
A society characterized as patriarcal does not give rights to women, like society in the 19th century.
In the 19th century, freedom and independence were not a reality in women´s world.
In 19th century, in UK when a group of women decided to fight for basic rights, society was not in favour of women´s rights. In the end of the 19th century, the fight began as a struggle for voting rights, freedom to decide on marriage, freedom as a human (no more recognized as property of men), reproductive and sexual rights. Important for this fight, among others, were Voltairine de Cleyne and Margaret Sanger.
Thanks to this movement, in UK and Ireland, in 1918, women had the right to vote if they had more than 30 years old and property. In 1928, the right to vote was recognized to all women with more than 21 years old (no need for property rights).
The second phase of the movement started in 1960. This fight meant a revolution in terms of social and political equality. Combat sexist structures aimed to recognize women´s equality.
From this second phase of fight, became known the slogan "The Personal is Political" (Carol Hanisch).
In France, the women´s fights for rights intensified in 1970. The newspaper "L´idiot International", published an article with the title "Combat pour la Liberation des Femmes". This document is a historical landmark in feminist struggle for right, not only in France. Literary analysis of feminist oppression was common on periodical publications. "L´écriture feminine" was crucial in the recognition and development of women´s rights.
Today, in the 21th century women still have to deal with several problems related to rights, despite of the written law that regognized basic rights to women. But theory is diferente from real respect of the law. Problems related with inequality in salaries, discrimination at work, violence, few political participation, in developed countries are problematic for women. In developing countries, women have to deal, still with violation of basic rights (education, health, reproductive rights). Their everyday life is still discrimination and submission to men or family. Women are still the group most affected by poverty.
This makes me wonder if there is a strong need to revive the feminist movements in the world. In this context, what would be men´s participation?
In an equal society, work to make rights and freedoms a reality for everyone, must be a goal not only for women but also for men.
Author: Susana Monteiro
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I definitely agree that there must be a revival of feminism. I also think that feminism, as a very rich and complex social movement, has been demonized and often directly opposed. So, not only we should care about revive feminism (also through online activism) but also about facing the deep anti feminism and misunderstandings that are depriving this movement of a real authority in the political agenda.
ReplyDeleteI agree. In the United States, women still suffer an economic disadvantage to men in terms of equal pay and career opportunities , although that is changing. Also, in recent years there has been a sustained attack on women's rights, including limiting access to birth control (via not allowing coverage under health insurance and limiting the existence of businesses which can provide birth control) and limiting access to abortion services, even when the woman is pregnant due to rape or when her life is in danger. Feminism often has a bad connotation in the United States, with people thinking feminists are anti-male. And, there continues to be an "old boys club" which encourages white males to get more opportunities in athletics, education, and careers. Women representatives in congress remains dismally low in the United States. There is much work to be done.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree about feminism needing a revival and the problem of the backlash against feminism. Unfortunately, many people do think feminism means man-hating and therefore reject the movement without really knowing about its real meanings and different variations. When I say that for me, feminism is about realising equal rights for women, then people are more understanding and often agree with the idea. Indeed, many men I have spoken to start off by being very hostile towards feminists but then after a short conversation, they agree that they too are feminists and have previously misunderstood the meaning of feminism.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most pervasive problems in the UK is the perceived acceptability of sexist (and racist) jokes. When challenging people on this, sometimes even as simply as saying, very calmly, 'please don't make those sorts of jokes in front of me, I don't find them funny,' I am often dismissed as being 'over-sensitive,' 'taking things too seriously,' or being a typical angry, irrational woman. Not only do I find this infuriating but it compounds the gender stereotyping and makes it hard to tackle the issue because people deny that they are indeed sexist. Of course, some jokes are harmless and if you know the person well and know they are not sexist, then that is fine but often that is not the case and the joke really does stem from gender prejudice. I think we need to raise more awareness that these jokes can actually be problematic and in many circumstances, are not acceptable.
I completely agree with the proposal that feminism must be back, and I think that we women have to start or to continue positioning ourselves as feminists in all the spheres of our live. I have been witnessing backlashes recently in Spain and Palestine (the 2 most familiar context for me, one my origin country, the other the country where I'm working) against feminists and women's rights defenders. As you have mentioned, there are still many people who believe that feminism means man-hating or women's superiority over men, and due to that they stigmatized feminists and put them away of some social struggles. For me it was shocking, 3 years ago, when the 15th of May social Movement started in Spain, to see how "left" people and leftist activists started to shout at some feminist women who were lowering a banner in a public square in Madrid that said "the Revolution will be feminist or will not be". This group of leftist guys were yelling at them that they were trying to divide the movement with their personal requests. An I was wondering how there can be any social justice without equality, and equality is exactly what the feminism wants!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd related to this demonization, I really believe that we need men claiming "I'm feminist", who are in the same movement and the same struggle, because in the end women's rights is not just a matter of women. I'm really waiting for this to happen, and I think that progressively men are starting to join us in this struggle and social change.