Conscious-raising is the process through which personal problems of women are transformed into a shared awareness defining them as social or political concerns. It facilitates women understand the relationships between individual aspects and public systemic conditioning, which makes the personal aspect to be political. It comprises a fundamental component of social change. The stages in conscious-raising involve an individual woman presenting a certain issue of concern to other women. The issues presented by women are then discussed in the group, after which they undertake political actions in regard to issues affecting them. Conscious-raising still exists today in different forms and also takes place in mixed gender. Some of the groupings take places informally while other take place formally. For example, some women empowerment groups are involved in intellectual empowerment and promotion of liberty.
The three phases of feminism are based on the timeline and changes in the role of equal rights movements. The first wave of feminism dates back in the 18th century, which brought the notion that women are also people. It emerged as a result of urban industrialism, liberalism and socialism politics fighting for the participation of women in politics. The second wave of feminism dates back mid 1960’s after the second world, due to the role played by women during the war. Women started campaigning for equality and in this phase experienced increased radicalism. The third phase began in the mid 1990’s based on post-colonialism and post-modern thinking. This stage focused on issues of diversity and development of different identities by women.
Women poetry is different from feminist poetry in that women poetry focuses more on the interests of women as well as their experiences on a personal level. However, feminist poetry presents the subjective and collective, which does not elide the difference between women. Feminist poetry can be associated with post-war American poetry, which is involved in movement poetry.
According to William, culture presented an anthropological sense, which is synonymous with all people everyday life. It provides a whole way of living for people. On the other hand, cultural formations present collective representations based on a common belief, moral values and ideas. Therefore, feminist poetry qualifies as a cultural formation since it presents a collective and subjective view of women rights. There are different types of cultural formation, which include ethnic minorities and religious groups.
There are different examples of institutions of feminist culture, which include cultural feminists, liberal feminists, radical feminist and ecofeminism. Each of the culture focuses on a different aspect of women rights based on their cultural ideologies. There are various cultural artifacts which include sexual identity, race, age, physical abilities, gender and ethnicity. Some of these cultural artifacts affect feminism. For example, sexual identity, gender and physical abilities are associated with masculinity and femininity. In most cases, the cultural artifacts affect different ideologies of diverse feminist institutions. For example, cultural feminism is affected by sexual identity and physical abilities, in which the masculine are, identified with more physical abilities as compared to women. However, the women rights movements have been fighting for erosion of these notions.
New York Radical Women was an association that existed in 1967-1969 during the early second-wave feminism. It was formed by Shulamith Firestone and Pam Allen and primarily involved in radical feminism opposing the patriarchal system. It aimed at changing the society predominated by men in governance. Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) is dated back in the 18th century but still plays an imperative role in empowering women. It was formed by women who met for revival in different countries and started to address issues affecting women such as housing education and support. It has played an imperative role in raising women role during the World War II, civil rights movement and struggle against apartheid in S. Africa. The organization has remained relevant to date providing support and empowering women and girls with the aim of changing their communities.
