Monday, October 5, 2015

The F word

The F word: FEMINISM IN JEOPARDY

BY: Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

"One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done."- Marie Curie

This author Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner argues the two waves that created the movement of Feminism. She states information that was passed down to her from her great grandmother, grandmother who took place during the first wave, and also her mother who was part of the second wave. Reading the document I was instantly connected to it, learning about individual women who put all their life into making sure women could vote, that they could be educated and work, not have to stay home all day making sure food ready on the table for the minute her husband came in the front door. Or to be educated on sex and making sure they are safe. These two waves were the start and the most important thing to ever happen to women and I don't believe that a lot of women present day know much about the background on how we today have so many rights but still yet are not completely equal to men, and how men still treat us like we are their pets. Rowe stated from her perspective something that I my self felt was correct as well. She wrote " many older feminists feel they've given young women a meaningful gift through their work to expand women's rights, yet many young women don't quite understand the import of the gift, or see that it is something they must take on as their own. A gift, and a responsibility." she also goes on to say "Yet for young women, especially, to ignore the achievements of the past is to underestimate the relative fragility of women's contemporary  status." Rowe is saying that women who have been feminist for sometime pass down knowledge and beliefs to what feminism is all about to younger women but some younger women don't quite understand how really important feminism is and what it stands for so they just take it as they hear it but don't hold it close to them as a valuable gift. She also goes on talking about what some of the women sacrificed to promote the rights of women she writes " Women suffered the cause- some were jailed, fined, and endured hunger strikes- and many participated in marches on Washington" "Alice Paul, founder of the National Women's Party protested the inauguration of President Woodrow wilson to protest his opposition on women's voting rights. In 1878 women got the right to vote, then in 1920 women voted for the first time. The National Association of Colored Women in the 1920's focused on equalizing women's suffrage, mainly on colored women. Another point that Rowe mention that extremely caught my attention was the second wave. Two main activist Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. "They increased gender equality in the workplace, access to reproductive health care and sexuality information, civil rights legislation that made discrimination on the basis of sex or race illegal." also " The second wave also worked to secure equal pay for equal work, constitutional rights for women in the form of equal rights, the election of more women to public office, legal abortions and the ban on discrimination in schools and lending other things." They tried everything in their power during the second wave to fight for fundamental rights. Though the second wave did not focus on the issues still at hand of the women of color and lower-in come women. An author of Against our will: Men women and Rape Susan Brownmiller stated " I don't think any movement has ever worked harder to include women of color than the women's movement in the 60's 70's and 80's, and we were often rebuffed because there was still the sentiment that black women should be working with black men on civil right issues- they were torn." (I LOVE THIS) 
Fear Of Feminism -> Looking back on the article fear of feminism both authors have different perspectives, one mentions why people are afraid to pursue feminism and be apart of the movement and the other author Rowe talks mainly about the three waves that had women devoting their lives to women and the rights. In the fear of feminism it talks more about the past history of how they went through so much hate and the article The F word does the same so they both connect in a certain way but then branch of to take the past and use it to how they see the present day.

http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/womens_history.html

REFLECTION: My self being a huge feminist and not really knowing many others who are as strong about feminism as me makes me super interested in reading all the articles and learning more about the past vs the present day. This article was my favorite because it really broke down on the 3 waves and put them in a much stronger perspective for me.



Questions: I wanted to know how others feel about the waves? do you agree with any of them? are you against any of them? do you wish more things happened? and how would you compare it to present day? 

2 comments:

  1. I agree, in many ways the younger generation is not as aware of all the work done to get us to the place we are at now. That is why I appreciate this class so much. It is disappointing to see that we have not made more progress in some ways, for instance pay scale differences for women. In the present, gender discrimination may be more covert than in the past making it more difficult to change and expose.

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  2. I also agree with Carlos about the waves. I think it's partly because some women may not know that they're getting paid less. There are probably alot of things they/we don't realize. We are too involved in being trying to be famous on social media and trying to emulate the people we see on TV.

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