The Feminist Movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement or women's liberation) refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues, such as women's suffrage, reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay in the workplace, maternity leave, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. The movement's priorities vary among nations and communities.
Women constitute a majority of the population and of the electorate in the United States, but they have never spoken with a unified voice for civil rights, nor have they received the same degree of protection as racial and ethnic minorities.
History of the Movement
The history of feminist movements has been divided into three "waves" by feminist scholars. The first wave refers to the feminist movement of the nineteenth through early twentieth centuries, which focused mainly on women's suffrage .
Feminist Suffrage Parade in New York City, May 6, 1912.
First-wave feminists marching for women's suffrage. The first wave of women's feminism focused on suffrage, while subsequent feminist efforts have expanded to focus on equal pay, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, and others.
The second wave, generally taking place from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, was concerned with cultural and political inequalities, which feminists perceived as being 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.
The third wave, starting in the 1990s, rose in response to the perceived failures of the second wave feminism. It seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity, which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized the experiences of upper-middle-class white women.
One of the most important organizations that formed out of the women's rights movement is the National Organization for Women (NOW). Established in 1966 and currently the largest feminist organization in the United States, NOW works to secure political, professional, and educational equality for women. In 1972, NOW and other women activist groups fought to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution, which affirmed that women and men have equal rights under the law. Although passage failed, the women's rights movement has made significant inroads in reproductive rights, sexual harassment law, pay discrimination, and equality of women's sports programs in schools.
In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defined sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances or sexual conduct, verbal or physical, that interferes with a person's performance or creates a hostile working environment. Such discrimination on the basis of sex is barred in the workplace by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and in colleges and universities that receive federal funds by Title IX. In a series of decisions, the Supreme Court has ruled that employers are responsible for maintaining a harassment-free workplace. Legislation such as this has helped to protect the rights of women in the workplace and at schools. The proposed ERA did have unintended consequences. For example, stay-at-home women did not agreed necessarily with women who worked steady schedules.
The Status of Women in the United States
As a whole, the feminist movement has brought changes to U.S. society, including women's suffrage, the right to initiate divorce proceedings and "no fault" divorce, the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to own property. It has also led to increased employment opportunities for women at more equitable wages, as well as broad access to university educations. The feminist movement also helped to transform family structures as a result of these increased rights, in that gender roles and the division of labor within households have gradually become more flexible.
Marxist Feminism
Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham say that materialist feminisms 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 focussed 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.
Despite this, many American women achieved many political firsts in the 2000s. In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win a presidential primary, winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary . In 2008, Alaska governor Sarah Palin became the first woman nominated for Vice President by the Republican Party. In 2009 and 2010, respectively, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were confirmed as Supreme Court Associate Justices, making them the third and fourth female justices.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
While women still fall behind men in many important measures, important exceptions exist. For example, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to become the presumptive nominee of a major political party.