The Impact Of The Feminist Movement

Impact of Feminist Movements

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Introduction

Social movements are crucial to comprehend and assessing their impact on any society is generally difficult. In societies that had been under the shadows of patriarchy for generations, feminist movements brought about revolutionary changes. The contemporary women's movement in the west has made significant progress in developing feminist theories related to the place of women in society and generating pragmatic studies of the past and present of our societal cultures. But a little is known and about the experiences of women in the non-West and to what degree the feminist notions conform to women's insights and political aspirations. In the United States, in the early 70s, feminist movements became a strong force that started reshaping the role and importance of women with the society and it also reformed the relationships between men and women in a pragmatic way.

Discussion

The three waves of feminist movements shook the western society to its core. It changed the way women were view in the era and even motivated individual units of society to look at women from a very different perspective. For a very long time, women were seen with judgment and bias in society. They oversimplified the issues faced by women, which prompted them to rise in their defense. It all began with the women’s suffrage movement that ultimately resulted in the amendment of the American Constitution and gave women the right to vote, alongside the men in the country. This movement began in the late 19th century and the women were allowed to finally vote in 1920. While this changed and improved things for the better, the women and their fight for the attainment for their rights was far from over .

In the 1960s, for the first-time women campaigned for the liberation movement was initiated. This movement paved for the attainment of their basic rights. After a long and hard struggle, the women were finally able to have the right to their bodily integrity, they had the right to hold public office, to hold a job, along with a semblance of equal pay in the workforce. They were also not only allowed to inherit a property in their name but to own property as well. They could enter into legal rights and even hold marital and prenatal rights.

These rights had a direct impact on the gender roles associated with women. When there were supposed play a nurturing role in the society and look after the young, these women left the confines of their home and seek employment, even if they were married. Earlier, it was impossible for women to be married and yet hold on to a job. Following the waves of feminism, women were not only able to do so, introduce the concept of division of labor within the household. It also removed the stigma associated with bearing a child out of wedlock and make the concept of sexual gratification commonplace in case of both men and women . At the end of it all, women were not only able to enjoy the same rights as men, but also seek employment in the same workplaces, study at the same institutions and even speak their mind without having their intellectual opinions and voices subjugated by society.

Conclusion

Feminist organizations face notable challenges with the agenda of fixing as many problems within a structural gender equality paradigm as possible. Feminism isn't just white or straight or Western. Labeling feminism as Western or non-Western creates ambiguities that whether it refers to a geographical, ideological, political, cultural, historical or racial hegemony? Does it reserve the colonialist divisions among the West and the rest? It was the resistance to the post-Enlightenment individualism led to the creation of the Western feminism that shaped the autonomous and rational beliefs of individuals.

Footnotes

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Changing the World. New York, N.Y.: New York, N.Y. : Films Media Group, 2014.

Outshoorn, Joyce. “Assessing the Impact of Women’s Movements.” Women’s Studies International Forum 35, no. 3 (May 1, 2012): 147–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2012.03.013.