Feminism. Wildly understood as basically being equality between the two sexes. Equal pay for equal work, right to vote, right to exist as legal persons, right to opportunities traditionally reserved to men, breaking down of social norms seen as stifling to a women's progress, etc...
Sounds good right?
Every ambitious, self-respecting, and confident woman would have said that they were feminists thirty years ago. Now not so much. In fact there is a noticeable tendency in women to pull away from calling themselves feminists despite the fact most likely, they value the same ideology.
So what happened?
Basically feminism branched out to incorporate many other ideologies that were rarely in feminist discourse compounded with a neglect of others. Naomi Wolff (legendary author of the feminist Bible "The Beauty Myth") and argues that since those new ideas were taken up by feminists many women have since left in disagreement and others have left in feeling left out.
These new ideologies include the sudden allegience to a favoured political party (i.e. Liberals over Coservatives), take Gloria Steinem's political position as an example; "Republican women are feminist imposters," obviously this would and has alienated a lot of feminists who are coservative. Acceptance of homosexuals; in that homosexuality is not a feminist issue but an issue of its own right; a woman can be a feminist and a homophobe at the same time (basically leave your views on homosexuality at the door). However modern day feminists have made it mandatory to accept lesbians in most feminist organizations, however admireable this has left out a lot of support for the cause.
As for the eventual neglect of certain feminists, well it seems that during the eighties when the seeds of feminism were starting to bloom upper class, caucasion women were mainly reaping the benefits, stopping short of including issues that involved mosty women of colour, working class women and women who chose to remain housewives.
But the ultimate divider has been over abortion. It has almost split the feminist movement in half, leaving one substantial contingent of supporters. Pro-life feminists argue that a fetus' life has nothing to do with feminism and pro-choice feminist say that as long as the fetus is in a woman's body, it is solely her decision as to whether or not she'll terminate the pregnancy.
Well most of this is the American trajectory of feminism a lot, save for some, can be applied to Canadian gender politics. The government has been pretty respondent to feminist issues but at times seems to be dragging its feet particularly when it comes to representation in the parliament, albiet that's a party issue, the NDPs are doing a good job in that regard.
Want do you think in general about feminism?
How has feminism been experience in your country?
Has there been any divisions and do you agree or disagree with them or any of these?
Do you call youself a feminist?
Do you think it is dead?
PS: A man can call himself a feminist... I wish more did.
