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 holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.
Christina Marie Hoff Sommers is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary feminism. Her work includes the books Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War Against Boys (2000). She also hosts a video blog called The Factual Feminist.
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades before ushering in a third wave of feminism beginning in the early 1990s. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Rebecca Walker is an American writer, feminist, and activist. Walker has been regarded as one of the prominent voices of Third Wave Feminism, and the coiner of the term "third wave", since publishing a 1992 article on feminism in Ms. magazine called "Becoming the Third Wave", in which she proclaimed: "I am the Third Wave."
The Independent Women's Forum (IWF) is an American conservative, non-profit organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women. IWF was founded by activist Rosalie Silberman to promote a "conservative alternative to feminist tenets" following the controversial Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1992. IWF's sister organization is the Independent Women's Voice (IWV), a 501(c)(4) organization.
Black feminism, also known as Afro-feminism chiefly outside the United States, is a branch of feminism that focuses on the African-American woman's experiences and recognizes the intersectionality of racism and sexism. Black feminism also acknowledges the additional marginalization faced by black women due to their social identity.
Barbara Smith is an American lesbian feminist and socialist who has played a significant role in Black feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s, she has been active as a scholar, activist, critic, lecturer, author, and publisher of Black feminist thought. She has also taught at numerous colleges and universities for 25 years. Smith's essays, reviews, articles, short stories and literary criticism have appeared in a range of publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Ms., Gay Community News, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Conditions and The Nation. She has a twin sister, Beverly Smith, who is also a lesbian feminist activist and writer.
Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on feminist topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several British feminist presses that helped address inequitable gender dynamics in publishing. Unlike alternative, anti-capitalist publishing projects and zines coming out of feminist collectives and socialist circles, Virago branded itself as a commercial alternative to the male-dominated publishing industry and sought to compete with mainstream international presses.
Shahrzad Mojab is an academic activist and professor, teaching at the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education and Women and Gender Studies Institute, at the University of Toronto. Shahrzad has been living in Canada since 1986 with her lifelong partner, colleague and comrade, Amir Hassanpour, and their son, Salah.
Feminism in China refers to the collection of historical movements and ideologies aimed at redefining the role and status of women in China. Feminism in China began in the 20th century in tandem with the Chinese Revolution. Feminism in modern China is closely linked with socialism and class issues. Some commentators believe that this close association is damaging to Chinese feminism and argue that the interests of the party are placed before those of women.
A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
Feminism has affected culture in many ways, and has famously been theorized in relation to culture by Angela McRobbie, Laura Mulvey and others. Timothy Laurie and Jessica Kean have argued that "one of [feminism's] most important innovations has been to seriously examine the ways women receive popular culture, given that so much pop culture is made by and for men." This is reflected in a variety of forms, including literature, music, film and other screen cultures.
Feminism in Mexico is the philosophy and activity aimed at creating, defining, and protecting political, economic, cultural, and social equality in women's rights and opportunities for Mexican women. Rooted in liberal thought, the term feminism came into use in late nineteenth-century Mexico and in common parlance among elites in the early twentieth century. The history of feminism in Mexico can be divided chronologically into a number of periods with issues. For the conquest and colonial eras, some figures have been re-evaluated in the modern era and can be considered part of the history of feminism in Mexico. At the time of independence in the early nineteenth century, there were demands that women be defined as citizens. The late nineteenth century saw the explicit development of feminism as an ideology. Liberalism advocated secular education for both girls and boys as part of a modernizing project, and women entered the workforce as teachers. Those women were at the forefront of feminism, forming groups that critiqued existing treatment of women in the realms of legal status, access to education, and economic and political power. More scholarly attention is focused on the Revolutionary period (1915–1925), although women's citizenship and legal equality were not explicitly issues for which the revolution was fought. The Second Wave and the post-1990 period have also received considerable scholarly attention. Feminism has advocated for the equality of men and women, but middle-class women took the lead in the formation of feminist groups, the founding of journals to disseminate feminist thought, and other forms of activism. Working-class women in the modern era could advocate within their unions or political parties. The participants in the Mexico 68 clashes who went on to form that generation's feminist movement were predominantly students and educators. The advisers who established themselves within the unions after the 1985 earthquakes were educated women who understood the legal and political aspects of organized labor. What they realized was that to form a sustained movement and attract working-class women to what was a largely middle-class movement, they needed to utilize workers' expertise and knowledge of their jobs to meld a practical, working system. In the 1990s, women's rights in indigenous communities became an issue, particularly in the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. Reproductive rights remain an ongoing issue, particularly since 1991, when the Catholic Church in Mexico was no longer constitutionally restricted from being involved in politics.
The feminist movement in Malaysia is a multicultural coalition of women's organisations committed to the end of gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence against women. Having first emerged as women's shelters in the mid 1980s, feminist women's organisations in Malaysia later developed alliances with other social justice movements. Today, the feminist movement in Malaysia is one of the most active actors in the country's civil society.
Native American feminism or Native feminism is, at its root, understanding how gender plays an important role in indigenous communities both historically and in modern-day. As well, Native American feminism deconstructs the racial and broader stereotypes of indigenous peoples, gender, sexuality, while also focusing on decolonization and breaking down the patriarchy and pro-capitalist ideology. As a branch of the broader Indigenous feminism, it similarly prioritizes decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and the empowerment of indigenous women and girls in the context of Native American and First Nations cultural values and priorities, rather than white, mainstream ones. A central and urgent issue for Native feminists is the Missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.
Rose Marie Muraro was a Brazilian sociologist, writer, intellectual and feminist. Born nearly blind, she was the author of over 40 books and also served as publisher and director of Vozes.
Fourth-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began around 2012 and is characterized by a focus on the empowerment of women, the use of internet tools, and intersectionality. The fourth wave seeks greater gender equality by focusing on gendered norms and the marginalization of women in society.
Feminism in Bangladesh seeks equal rights of women in Bangladesh through social and political change. Article 28 of Bangladesh constitution states that "Women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the State and of public life".
