The rise of feminism

Résumé du document

Organized efforts by women to achieve greater rights occurred in two major waves. The first wave began around the mid-19th century, when women in the United States and elsewhere campaigned to gain suffrage-that is, the right to vote. This wave lasted until the 1920s, when several countries granted women suffrage. The second wave gained momentum during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when the struggle by African Americans to achieve racial equality inspired women to renew their own struggle for equality. The awakening of consciousness that climaxed in a new wave of American feminism began at the close of World War II and not as is often mistaken believed in the 1960's. At the end of World War II, American women represented 36.1 percent of the national and according to the economists they controlled two-thirds of the country's wealth.

Extraits

[...] Political lesbianism (The Furies- The Radicalesbians): Lesbianism is reactionary while feminism is revolutionary. Feminism is revolutionary in that I confronts oppression and combats it. In contrast, lesbianism is reactionary because it represents a flight from confrontation with male oppression; the flight, since it amounts to a refusal to fight, is therefore equivalent to recognition and acceptance of male oppression. Feminist socialist radicalism ( Socialist Women's Party SWP): It is distinguished by double or triple allegiance: the double allegiance of white militants to the political Left and to feminism; the triple allegiance by minority women to the political left, to the struggle for ethnic liberation and to feminism. [...]

[...] II- Manifestations of the rise A-The ideological differences- Egalitarian Feminism and Radicalism- were not a sign of a lack of a coherent movement Egalitarian Feminism (National Woman's Party NWP- National Organization for Women NOW- National Women's Political Causus NWPC- Women's Equity Action League WEAL): It is resolutely reformist and it definitely wishes to adapt itself to the regime of a liberal democracy. The typical behaviour of the liberal feminist is to try to adapt herself to existing institutions. The reformism of the egalitarian feminist movement is characterized by a marked preference for optimism, consisting of an overestimate of the gains achieved and a great faith in evolution. Its motto is “True equality for all women in America, a fully equal partnership of the sexes in truly equal partnership with men”. [...]

[...] The true revolution in the view of the radical feminists is the one that will abolish the very notion of power. The revolution must liberate women from the tyranny of their reproductive function and gestation and child rearing must be shared throughout the whole of society between men and women. The personal utopia of Shulamith Firestone in the Dialectic of sex: She wants to putt an end to conflicts based on biological, sex and age differences and to economic cleavages based on employment and salary. She describes a future society based on the system of households. [...]

[...] Radical feminism (WITCH- The Redstockings- The Feminists- The New York Radical Feminists): Whereas the liberal or egalitarian feminist perception of society sees merely failures in a system that is fundamentally perfectible, the radical feminist views the system itself as the incarnation of sexism, with everything being organized around intersexual relations established on the basis of power. The radical feminists think that men are the enemy. This principle are the enemy” is aimed not at the genetic individual man but rather at men collectively as an oppressor class. [...]

[...] The campaign for state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment provided the opportunity for millions of women across the nation to become actively involved in the Women's Rights Movement in their own communities. Marches were staged in key states that brought out hundreds of thousands of supporters The heritage of the second wave: between the egalitarian current of collaboration within the system and the radical current of revolutionary separatism, NOW has become an autonomous panfeminist federation practicing a policy of coalition. References Michelle Perrot et Georges Duby, Histoire des femmes, Editions Académique Perrin. Claire Masnata-Rubattel, La révolte des américaines, Aubier Montaigne, 1972. [...]