How Feminism started around the world?

How Feminism started around the world? 

                                                                Credits: The Atlantic demanding equality for all

The history of feminism comprises the narrative (chronological and thematic) of the movements and ideologies which have aimed at equal rights for women.
In short feminism means “equality” but feminists around the world have differed in causes, goals and intentions depending on time, culture and country most western feminist historians assert that all movements that work to obtain women’s rights should be considered feminist movements even when they did not apply the term to themselves.
Some thinkers have sought to locate the roots of feminism in ancient Greece with Sappho (d.c 570 BCE) or the mediaeval world with Hildegard of Bingen (d.1179) or Christine de pisan (d.1434) certainly Olympes de Gouge (d.1791), Mary Wollstonecraft (d.1797) and Jane Austen (d.1817) are foremothers of the modern women’s movement. All of these people advocated for the dignity, intelligence and basic human potential of the female sex. However it was not until the late nineteenth century that the efforts for women’s equal rights coalesced into a clearly identifiable and self conscious movement, or rather a series of movements.

•  FIRST WAVE FEMINISM

The first wave of feminism took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emerging out of an environment of urban industrialist and liberal, socialist politics. The main goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women in general with SUFFRAGE.
The wave formally began at the “Seneca Falls Convention in 1848” when three hundred men and women rallied to the cause of equality for women. Elizabeth Candy Stanton (d.1902) drafted the Seneca Falls declaration outlining the new movements ideology and political strategies.
In the starting stages of the movement some activists like the African-American Sojourner Truth (d.1883) who demanded “Ain’t I a woman?” Victorian America saw women acting in very “un-ladylike” ways (public speaking, demonstrating stints in jail) which challenged the “cult of domesticity”. At that time politics and business were completely dominated by powerful men who didn’t consider women capable enough to be end up as a threat. Many abolitionists were also feminists and thus the anti-slavery movement fueled the first wave and vice-versa.

Credits: publicism.info Sojourner Truth 

SUFFFRAGE the right of women to vote in elections which aren’t allowed to women at that time became the goal of the movement with the formation of the American Equal Rights Association in 1866. When this organization collapsed, the National Women suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed in early 1869. The American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA) formed later that year.
SUFFRAGE describes not only the legal right to vote but also the practical question whether a question will be put to a vote. The utility of suffrage is reduced when important questions are decided unilaterally without extensive, conscientious, full disclosure and public review. From the ancient times had been a basis for right of suffrage for example :-
In ancient Athens often cited as the birth of democracy (which already meant freedom of choice, or right to choose your government) only adult male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote. Marie Guyart a French nun who worked with the First Nations people of Canada during the seventeenth century wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices of Iroquois women “These female chief stains are women of standing amongst the savages and they who even delegated the first ambassadors to discuss peace”.

The arrival of democracy generally began with male citizens obtaining the right to vote in advance of female citizens, except in the kingdom of Hawaii where universal manhood and women suffrage was introduced in 1840 however a constitutional amendment in 1852 rescinded female voting and put property qualifications of male voting. Voting was worldwide introduced into international law by the United Nations Human Rights Commission whose elected chair was ELEANOR ROOSEVELT.

Credits: exhibitions.ushmm.org ELEANOR ROOSEVELT.

In 1948 The United Nations adopted the universal declaration of Human Rights Article 21 stated :-
-Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
-The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures”.

• SECOND WAVE FEMINISM

Second wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the United States in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. This movement spread across the western world with the aim to increase equality for women by gaining more than just suffrage.
Second wave feminism also drew attention to the issues of domestic violence and marital rape, engendered rape-crisis centers and women’s shelters and brought about changes in custody laws and divorce law. Feminists owned book stores, credit unions and restraunts became the important meeting spaces and economic engines of the movement. The term “second-wave feminism” itself was brought into common parlance by journalist Martha Lear in a New York Times Magazine Article in March 1968 titled “The Second Feminist Wave”. “What do these women want? “she wrote “proponents call it the second feminist wave, the first having ebbed after the glorious victory of suffrage and disappeared finally into the great sandbar of “Togetherness”.

In the beginning of second wave there were two main branches that the movement formed in-
1.The liberal feminists led by figures such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem advocated for federal legislation to be passed that would promote and enhance the personal and professional lives of women.

2.On the other hand radical feminists such as Casey Hayden and Mary King adopted the skills and lessons that they had learned from their with civil rights organizations such as the student for a Democratic Society (left-wing activism) and student non violent coordinating Committee (purpose of organization were civil rights movement, participatory, democracy, pacifism, Black power, Anti racism) and created a platform to speak on the violent and sexist issues women faced while working with the larger Civil Rights Movement.

• THIRD WAVE FEMINISM

The third wave of feminism emerged in the mid 1990s. The third wave was made possible by the greater economic and professional power and status achieved by women of the of second wave. Some early adherents of  the new approach were literally daughters of the second wave. Third wave Direct Action Corporation (organized in 1992) became in 1997 the third wave foundation with a purpose of supporting “groups and individuals working towards gender, racial, economic and social injustice" both were formed by (among others) Rebecca Walker, the daughter of the novelist and second waver Alice Walker. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Feminism and the Future (2000) were both born in 1970 and raised by second wavers who had belonged to organized feminist groups, questioned the sexual division of labour in their households and raised their daughters to be self aware ,empowered, articulate, high achieving women. Rather than becoming part of the societal norms third wavers began both sabotaging and rebuilding the norms itself . Third wavers inherited a foothold of institutional power created by wavers including women’s studies programs at universities, long standing feminist organizations and several academic journals. Third-wave feminists actively subverted, co-opted and played on seemingly sexist and symbols. This wave also redefined women and girls as assertive, powerful and in control of their own sexuality. This revolution gave rise to icons of powerful women that included the singers Madonna, Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige among others and the women depicted in television series such as Buffy The Vampire slayer(1997-2003), Sex And The City(1998-2004) and Girlfriends (2000-2008).

The third wave of feminism emerged in the mid 1990s. The third wave was made possible by the greater economic and professional power and status achieved by women of the second wave. Some early adherents of the new approach were literally daughters of the second wave. Third wave Direct Action Corporation (organized in 1992) became in 1997 the third wave foundation with a purpose of supporting "groups and individuals working towards gender, racial, economic and social injustice both were formed by (among others) Rebecca Walker, the daughter of the novelist and second waver Alice Walker. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Feminism and the Future (2000) were both born in 1970 and raised by second wavers who had belonged to organized feminist groups, questioned the sexual division of labour in their households and raised their daughters to be self aware ,empowered, articulate, high achieving women. Rather than becoming part of the societal norms third wavers began both sabotaging and rebuilding the norms itself .Third wavers inherited a foothold of institutional power created by wavers including women's studies programs at universities, long standing feminist organizations and several academic journals. 

Third-wave feminists actively subverted, co-opted and played on seemingly sexist and symbols. This wave also redefined women and girls as assertive, powerful and in control of their own sexuality. This revolution gave rise to icons of powerful women that included the singers Madonna, Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige among others and the women depicted in television series such as Buffy The Vampire slayer(1997-2003), Sex And The City(1998-2004) and Girlfriends (2000-2008)

 

In conclusion I wanted to say that it doesn’t take days, months or years it too bicentennial and more than that to get to the place where we are today. We are acknowledged enough to ask for equality. The question of where woman belongs to hides in our own choices. Have a nice day all.