Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that most societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this prioritization and injustice include fighting against gender stereotypes and establishing educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women that are equal to those for men.
Harold Dwight Lasswell was an American political scientist and communications theorist. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics and was a PhD student at the University of Chicago. He was a professor of law at Yale University. He studied at the Universities of London, Geneva, Paris, and Berlin in the 1920s. He served as president of the American Political Science Association (APSA), of the American Society of International Law and of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS).
Individualist feminism or ifeminism is a conservative libertarian feminist tradition that emphasizes individualism, personal autonomy, choice, consent, freedom from state-sanctioned discrimination against women, and equality under the law. It also opposes what they consider political or gender feminism.
Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy. As the oldest of the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought, liberal feminism has its roots in 19th century first-wave feminism that focused particularly on women's suffrage and access to education, and that was associated with 19th century liberalism and progressivism. Liberal feminism "works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure." Liberal feminism places great emphasis on the public world, especially laws, political institutions, education and working life, and considers the denial of equal legal and political rights as the main obstacle to equality. As such liberal feminists have worked to bring women into the political mainstream. Liberal feminism is inclusive and socially progressive, while broadly supporting existing institutions of power in liberal democratic societies, and is associated with centrism and reformism. Liberal feminism "tends to be adopted by 'mainstream' women who do not disagree with the current social structure;" Zhang and Rios found that liberal feminism with its focus on equality is viewed as the dominant and "default" form of feminism. Liberal feminism actively supports men's involvement in feminism and both women and men have always been active participants in the movement; progressive men had an important role alongside women in the struggle for equal political rights since the movement was launched in the 19th century.
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, its sister organization, are two parts of a national, non-profit gun control advocacy organization that is opposed to gun violence. Since 1974, it has supported reduction in American gun violence via education and legislation.
Joan Wallach Scott is an American historian of France with contributions in gender history. She is a professor emerita in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Scott is known for her work in feminist history and gender theory, engaging post-structural theory on these topics. Geographically, her work focuses primarily on France, and thematically she deals with how power works, the relation between language and experience, and the role and practice of historians. Her work grapples with theory's application to historical and current events, focusing on how terms are defined and how positions and identities are articulated.
The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, previously known as the Legal Community Against Violence and as the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (LCPGV), is a national public interest law center which provides legal assistance to elected officials, government attorneys, and activists in the United States to promote gun control. The Giffords Law Center publishes information about gun laws and gun control. The organization has been active in promoting gun control ordinances in California and elsewhere, as well as conducting litigation to defend gun control laws against challenges.
The feminist movement has effected change in Western society, including women's suffrage; greater access to education; more equitable pay with men; the right to initiate divorce proceedings; the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy ; and the right to own property. Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker argues that feminism has reduced domestic violence against men as their likelihood of being killed by a female intimate partner has decreased six-fold. However, fourth-wave feminism has coincided with significant increases in male violence and femicides against women, a lot of it regarded as a backlash.
State feminism is feminism created or approved by the government of a state or nation. It usually specifies a particular program. The term was coined by Helga Hernes with particular reference to the situation in Norway, which had a tradition of government-supported liberal feminism dating back to the 1880s, and is often used when discussing the government-supported gender equality policies of the Nordic countries, that are linked to the Nordic model. The term has also been used in the context of developing countries where the government may prescribe its form of feminism and at the same time prohibit non-governmental organizations from advocating for any other feminist program. In this sense it is possible to distinguish between a liberal state feminism found in Western democracies such as the Nordic countries, and a somewhat more authoritarian state feminism that is often also linked to secularism, found e.g. in certain Middle Eastern countries.
The feminist movement refers to a series of Social movements and Political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such issues are women's liberation, reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. The movement's priorities have expanded since its beginning in the 1800s, and vary among nations and communities. Priorities range from opposition to female genital mutilation in one country, to opposition to the glass ceiling in another.
Eugenic feminism was a component of the women's suffrage movement which overlapped with eugenics. Originally coined by the eugenicist Caleb Saleeby, the term has since been applied to summarize views held by some prominent feminists of the United States. Some early suffragettes in Canada, particularly a group known as The Famous Five, also pushed for eugenic policies, chiefly in Alberta and British Columbia.
Carceral feminism is a critical term for types of feminism that advocate for enhancing and increasing prison sentences that deal with feminist and gender issues. It is the belief that harsher and longer prison sentences will help work towards solving these issues. The phrase "carceral feminism" was coined by feminist sociologist Elizabeth Bernstein in her 2007 article, "The Sexual Politics of the 'New Abolitionism'". Examining the contemporary anti-trafficking movement in the United States, Bernstein introduced the term to describe a type of feminist activism which casts all forms of sexual labor as sex-trafficking. She sees this as a retrograde step, suggesting it erodes the rights of women in the sex industry, and takes the focus off other important feminist issues, and expands the neoliberal agenda.
The Victoria Schuck Award is an annual prize granted by the American Political Science Association to the author of the best book published in the previous year on the topic of women and politics. The award is named in honor of the political scientist Victoria Schuck. Although a number of area-specific sections of the American Political Science Association have dedicated book awards, the Schuck Award is one of only a few awards given directly by the Association rather than by a subsection of it.
Kay Lehman Schlozman is an American political scientist, currently the J. Joseph Moakley Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Schlozman has made fundamental advancements to the study of participation in American politics, and was a pioneer in the field of gender and politics. Her contributions include the theory of civic voluntarism, several landmark studies on the relationship between access to resources and different types of political participation, and related investigations into the nature of civic culture. Schlozman has one of the highest citation counts of any political scientist, including being among the top 50 most cited active political scientists and top 10 most cited women in the discipline. She worked closely with Sidney Verba for nearly 50 years, first as his student and then as his collaborator.
Leslie McCall is an American sociologist and political scientist. She is a Presidential Professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and the Associate Director of the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality there. She studies wealth and social inequality in American society, as well as opinions about inequality, from an intersectional perspective.
Jane Junn is an American political scientist. She is the University of Southern California Associates Chair in Social Sciences, and a professor of political science and gender studies. She studies public opinion, political behavior, and survey methodology, including work on the relationship between education and public participation, Asian American political participation, and gender and politics.
Susan Franceschet is a Canadian political scientist. She is a professor of political science at The University of Calgary. She studies the representation of women both in legislatures and government cabinets, gender quotas for the minimum representation of women in government, and the interaction of gender and public policy. She has written about women's participation in the politics of Chile.
The anti-gender movement is an international movement which opposes what it refers to as gender ideology, gender theory, or genderism. These concepts do not have a coherent definition and cover a variety of issues; gender ideology has been described as an "empty signifier" or catch-all term "for all that conservative Catholics despise". The idea of gender ideology has been described by scholars as a moral panic or conspiracy theory, as it alleges that there is a secret cabal out to undermine society. A report by the European Parliament linked the rise of the anti-gender movement in Europe to disinformation campaigns sponsored in large part by Russia.
Barbara C. Burrell is an American political scientist. She is a professor emerita in the Department of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. Burrell specializes in women and politics, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. She was one of the first researchers to use public opinion data to systematically study why the number of women elected to the United States Congress remained small through the beginning of the 21st century, and to examine the experiences of women who ran for public office in the United States.
Judith A. Baer is an American political scientist. She is a professor of political science at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on public law and feminist jurisprudence.
