Feminism in France and in the United States of America: A comparison

Résumé du document

This comparative study arouses already some stakes to this first word. How do we define feminism in a strict way that is stripped of any subjectivity? To define this controversial word appears not only useful but also a necessary starting point to this essay. According to Le Petit Robert, feminism can be defined as a "Doctrine which has the objective of the extension of rights, the role of women in society." Then, it is understood through the medical spectrum as an aspect of a male individual that presents some secondary characteristics of the female sex. While the second definition has nothing to do with the "feminism" studied as a social and identity movement, the first one is ideologically limited and hence, inadequate.

On the other hand, as feminism has got numerous definitions, it is also present in diverse theories. For instance, Simone de Beauvoir assumed, from the point of view of the existentialism, that there was not a nature of women, but that femininity was a social product:

Extraits

[...] In addition, the real feminists were a minority among the "half of humanity". However, the actions undertaken by this dwindled group are then advantageous with the individual person that benefits from the collective action. Also, as in any identity movement, the feminists learned how to use the public scene like a “platform of claims”. Thus, the feminist is at the same time movement of defence against the anonymity in which the society locked up women and as an offensive movement for the societal recognition that these same women required. [...]

[...] Authorities promptly shut down the clinic and arrested Sanger. She was released on bail, reopened the clinic, and was again arrested; jailed for 30 days, released, reopened the clinic, over and over again. Katherine Dexter Mc Cormick attended a lecture of Margaret Sanger in Boston. After the lecture they met each other, got acquainted and become close friends sharing the same ideas about the need for reliable contraception of women. Years later they founded the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). [...]

[...] At a first sight, the history of feminism is actually a factual history, that is to say there is no obvious historical link between feminist waves. But on second thoughts, the feminist legacy - that is to say what remains from women's struggles, what one could point out while thinking about feminist outcomes - is above all composed by advancement in women situation. We can quote Laurence Klejman: L'Histoire du féminisme, individuel ou collectif, est chaotique et discontinue, de longues plages de silence et d'oubli succédant à des moments d'intense activité. [...]

[...] For instance, the fight for getting the right to vote, in France as well as in the United- States, is a struggle that must be reminded during each new election. In addition, while I am writing this essay, I should remember all those young girls that claimed to have access to education. As Eleanor Flexner wrote it, “what must be clear is the continuity between today's upsurge and the earlier movement”[18]. Indeed, whatever the period taken into consideration, American women had to struggle, against public prejudice, against “their own fears of being unladylike, of becoming unsexed creatures if they tried to persevere as physicians or politicians”. [...]

[...] The feminist second wave was indeed born in the context of the student and worker unrest of May 1968. More particularly, the frustrations of the women participating in the protests against the status quo were the source of the feminist' movement. Women decided to organise separately from men, believing that a movement for women's rights could only succeed if women organised in women only groups. Despite this, the uprising of 1968 was at the origin of a new feminist wave. [...]