Introduction
The female sex has come a long way from the period that they used to stay at home tending to the needs of their husbands and families to presently leading different organizations and countries. The benefits that they enjoy are outcomes of inspirational females in history who defied the odds and said no to the discrimination of their gender. They believed that women had more to offer to the globe; hence, they carried out measures and activities that attempted to change the minds of society. Many developments have been realized decades later thanks to the feminist and suffrage movements. But the truth is that they are those who still hold on to the traditional values that limit women from pursuing their desires. This paper articulates an overview of events that have liberated the female gender and their current state today.
The word feminism is viewed as an economic, cultural, or political movement that strived to establish legal protection and equal rights for the women. The history of the activism is classified in three waves though they are plans to undertake the fourth initiative by the modern women. The first movement took place from the 19th century to the early 20th century. The second occurred in the 1960s to 70s while the third feminism wave followed immediately after. The suffrage has altered the predominant notions in different regions concerning law and culture. The female activists fought for the legal rights of women such as voting, owning property, procuring contracts, reproduction, employment, equal pay, harassment, etc. Throughout this context, fundamental events and individuals who championed for the female gender will be identified and discussed (Nicholson, 28).
Body
The female activists believe that a community that is gender-equal is one where the term gender does not exist, and everyone can express their true selves. Gloria Steinman is amongst the feminist whose inspirational quotes are seen as the driving force of the movement. For instance, she once said in the early stages of the suffrage movement that women believed that if they just aired their plights that society would listen. The statement was an expression of the disappointment the activism had encountered having to deal with people who relentlessly held on to their primitive ideologies of women. She also said that feminism could never be solved as long as the masculinity of property and wealth existed. Some of her quotes have been misunderstood by critics who translate them to portray different radical meanings (Ramazanoglu, 26).
According to Nicholson (40), several events have also spear-marked the era of feminism that aimed at developing a new face for the women. For example, the Miss America Pageant carried out in 1968 was not just your usual beauty contest. It was more of protest that attempted to bring an end to the competition based on complaints such as the objectification of females, racism, hypocrisy, and the unattainable beauty standards. The pageant’s winner was required to go and entertain American soldiers in Vietnam. The competition also created a blatant image for many young girls who all wanted to become Miss America so that they could be called pretty. Throughout history, women are depicted as the objects that only satisfy the lust of men and conform to their demands. They were required to be beautiful and innocent to fulfill the wishes of the male sex.
The complaints directed towards the Miss America Pageant saw it change into the match that involved 150 women who chanted slogans that women were being downgraded to the level of animals. They went ahead to crown a sheep as the winner of the competition. The movement received attention from the media who developed myths such as the burning of bras that fueled more females to take part in the liberation of women. Since them females begun to spring up from different regions to portray their oppression relying on movements such as the New and Old Left Group, Anti-Vietnam War, and Civil Rights. They developed a classic explanatory slogan called the Personal is Political to encourage women to take up leadership roles while solving the immediate personal issues that they faced (Ramazanoglu, 42).
In 1972, Robin Morgan produced an electrifying poem called Monster that inspired females to stand together in various regions to fight for their equality. She is also known for famous quotes such as “We want power, not a pedestal” in a bid to create awareness so that society and men could change their perspectives about women and give them the avenue to take part in leadership and making powerful decisions. Robin pointed out that the White men are the reason for most problems in society such as slavery, discrimination, and the oppression of women due to their greed and thirst for authority. The White males believed that they were a superior group domineering others with their values and ideas. She idolized the term man-hating as a political and honorable act where the oppressed had the right to hate those who controlled them (Nicholson, 57).
Feminists believed that it was time to blow the whistle on the activities that undermined minority groups in the community such as mass incarceration, police murder and brutality, racial profiling, discrimination, stop-and-frisk, amongst others. The example of the whistle-blowing incident in Wall Street where the women blew their whistles on men was an act of highlighting the vice in the society. It was due to the heroic attempts of the events and the activists that females slowly begun to receive an ear for their problems and started to receive equal rights as the men. However, the opportunities came at a price since they had to struggle twice as the males to obtain their power and positions. Some women who led in their respective areas include Dr. Ruth Weistheimer, Oprah Winfrey, and Erica Jong (Ramazanoglu, 53).
Conclusion
The activists took up avenues in the media to express their plights in the movies, books, and TV Shows such as That Girl, the Ladies Home Journal, and the Battle of the Sexes. They conducted many rallies like the one in New York that marked 50 years of the suffrage movement and the right to vote. The fight for equality has not been easy since it has interfered with their roles as caregivers and earned them labels and stereotypes. Examples of the labels include that all the women in the feminist movements are lesbians or do not get married because they value their careers more than family (Nicholson, 81).
The stereotypes coupled with the hard-headed values that traditional people refuse to let go that the place of a female is in the kitchen or rearing kids inhibit women from maximizing their potentials in life. They often find it difficult to balance their work and domestic life due to the lack of support from the men; hence, they end up giving up on one of the duties. The conditions the females face can be termed as a double tragedy whereby if she decides to focus on her career she is viewed as an arrogant person and if she opts to become a wife or mother, she is treated poorly by her spouse (Nicholson, 129). Fortunately, many women in leadership positions have proven the notion wrong by managing to control their domestic and work life acting as exceptional examples for the young generation of females.
Works Cited
Nicholson, Linda. Feminism/postmodernism. Routledge, 2013.
Ramazanoglu, Caroline. Feminism and the Contradictions of Oppression. Routledge, 2012.
