The women’s rights movement has enjoyed a long and storied history, with women throughout global society fighting to combat the systemic oppression of the patriarchy. While women’s rights has been an issue for centuries, the movement itself came to prominence in the mid-1800s, when the Enlightenment challenged the inequalities that existed between men and women. The suffrage movement in the United States was one of the first, most highly organized women’s rights movements in the early 20th century, women fighting to receive the right to vote. Since then, more modern movements, such as the first, second and third waves of feminism have come forth, as well as the “women’s liberation” movement of the 1960s, to ensure that women had property rights, more equitable working conditions and job variety, and gain more prominent positions in political and economic institutions throughout the world. More fundamental than simple rights and privileges, however, is the women’s rights movement’s desire to eliminate the social conditions that facilitate such systemic inequality between men and women – many writers, including Gloria Steinem and Amy Cunningham, have addressed and explored these issues in their works.
Learning the essential history of the women’s rights movement is very important, and Jennifer Joline Anderson’s Women’s Rights Movement is a comprehensive look at the movement’s history, goals, and changing priorities. Anderson’s decades-long, century-spanning view of women’s rights treats it not just as a single movement, but a series of movements that have shifted and changed as the years and victories progressed. Starting with Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s women’s rights convention and moving all the way to the women of today in post-wave feminism, Anderson sees all of these different movements as accompanying stages in the same basic push for rights. In every single chapter, Anderson attempts to understand the specific grievances each new generation of women had, from suffrage to medical and property rights, and even equality in the workplace.
With each new victory, a new problem came along that needed to be solved, and so a new group of women had to take it on in an innovative and radical new way. No judgments are made on the movements themselves; Anderson’s objectivity is a highlight of the book, simply documenting an on-the-ground perspective of the fight for women’s rights throughout its entire history. Anderson’s book is unambiguously positive toward the movement – “Thanks to the women’s movement, American women today enjoy freedoms women only dreamed of in 1848” (Anderson 88). However, the reasoning behind this enthusiasm is evident from the documenting of the hard work heroes of the movement went through for these victories.
While having a rote understanding of the history of the women’s rights movement is important, it is also necessary to understand the nature of intersectionalism – that is, the confluence of rights issues that often run perpendicular to each other. In Amenga-Etego’s “Categorization of Women and Human Rights Issues,” the linking of differing definitions of what it means to be a ‘woman’ depending on the culture and norms is explored. Starting with a questioning of the definition of ‘woman’ as it is thought to be in contemporary Africa, the author notes that certain specific cultural attitudes toward women make the priorities of women’s and human rights groups different depending on where they are. In Africa, for example, the different categorizations of women depending on whether or not they are married, what age they are, etc. create a whole new set of problems that cannot be solved or addressed with American-style feminism. Things like race, class, economics and more all play into the specific injustices and struggles women of other regions must go through; this is where intersectionalism comes in. Amenga-Etego’s perspective is that, until we learn to really understand the unique issues present in each group of women around the world, we cannot place a very specific definition on ‘women’s rights’ as a blanket term. Some women, after all, have more rights than others, thus making their goals different.
In Amy Cunningham’s essay “Why Women Smile,” the author approaches women’s rights from an everyday perspective. Her thesis is that, essentially, women are trapped and restricted by the incredible pressure and intimidation placed on them by men to be demure, nice, ‘feminine,’ and servile. This is often illustrated through her perpetual compulsion to smile – women are encouraged to smile and be happy, but instead of making her more approachable it also makes people take her less seriously. In essence, the cultural expectation of women to be ‘nice’ also robs them of the same kind of power as men. Men, meanwhile, are allowed to not smile or be friendly and still be respected as people – it is seen as a show of masculinity, enforcing traditional gender norms of men being aggressive and women being demure. It is a double standard that still holds women back in a less overt way than pay gaps and the like: “Despite all the work we American women have done to get and maintain full legal control of our bodies, not to mention our destinies, we still don’t seem to be fully in charge of a couple of small muscle groups in our faces” (Cunningham 190). A smile is almost required of a women in order to be listened to; a woman who does not smile is seen as a ‘bitch,’ or ‘frigid’, or someone who is too intimidating to relate to. Therefore, women are culturally trained to smile in order to get the positive treatment that they deserve.
The cultural pressure to smile is one of the most covert methods of oppression levied against women, according to Cunningham. The expectation of women to be always smiling is stifling, showing an authority over her body that is not necessarily warranted. This is meant to ensure that the woman knows her place and is placated: “Evidently, a woman’s happy, willing deference is something the world wants visibly demonstrated” (Cunningham 191). When a woman is smiling, she is non-threatening, and the last thing men want women to be is a threat – to their power, to their manhood, and to their privilege. Cunningham’s approach to women’s rights focuses on this very subtle social pressure which is much more important than people normally realize.
Meanwhile, Gloria Steinem’s approach in “The Good News Is: These Are Not the Best Years of Your Life” deals with the social pressures women face in college. Steinem explores the fundamentally male-dominated culture of college, and how the potential for activism and progressivism is often stifled in the name of following along with what cultural norms of college life tell you to do. The focus on career-building and education in a college leads to women facing guilt over the socially-instituted concepts of a work/life balance, and the default configuration of woman as mother. The insane pressure to study hard, play hard, sleep around and network for a job after college is hard for both sexes, but especially so for women – if you don’t do all of these things at once, “we feel inadequate, as if each of us were individually at fault for a problem that is actually culture-wide” (Steinem 216). This leads to a decided lack of female activism on campus, as radicalism starts to form in later years once you have it all figured out.
One of Steinem’s most important points made is illustrating the problems surrounding the cultural ideas about college as a time to rebel and be free. When women don’t do that, they feel guilty; the reality, however, is that women do not feel free to actually have that level of youthful fun, as the “power and security” that men enjoy is what allows them to make mistakes when young, and only later take themselves seriously (Steinem 216). Women who want to be taken seriously must do so all the time, and so are not allowed that luxury, creating a college culture that is oppressive and contradictory from a gender standpoint.
Steinem rejects the notion of getting your radical years out of the way in college, like a phase you enter and exit in order to settle on patriarchal notions of a fulfilling life. Steinem says that women “should know that they, too, may grow more radical with age” (218). Political activity is said to be comforting to young women, as it allows them to be politically active without an actual effect on how they live their lives – however, it does not really lead to significant change, and if anything is somewhat of a vanity project. Steinem believes the real activism comes after campus.
Yet more recent perspectives on women’s rights deal with the relative lack of progress that we have accomplished in the decades since the subject has achieved national prominence and discussion. Lisa Baldez’s op-ed piece “US Drops the Ball on Women’s Rights,” the author notes that the United States is falling depressingly behind on women’s rights legislation, including the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a UN act that the US refuses to sign. For 25 years, this important piece of legislation (which makes it a crime to discriminate against or assault women in any way) has yet to be ratified by the US. Excuses given by opposing parties involve protecting American sovereignty; in essence, they do not want global legislation to have to apply to the United States and its policies. Furthermore, Baldez points out the foolishness of the pervading thought that America is one of the leaders in women’s rights – their recent cowardice, which Baldez attributes to Republican fears of seeming too ‘feminist’ and ‘radical,’ has led to decidedly little progress on the realm of women’s rights in recent years.
While it is easy to see that other countries have worse violations against women on a systemic basis, Baldez thinks that our lack of resolve in paving the way for global women’s rights activism makes us weaker as a result. Her proposal is simple: “I would like to see my country once again assert global leadership on women's rights” (Baldez, 2013). Baldez’s perspective is a global one; instead of dealing strictly with systemic problems in America’s treatment of women, she chooses to discuss the ways in which American sexism (or lack of progressiveness) affects women around the globe.
When looking at all of these perspectives on feminins, all of these authors have very salient points, and come across a few measures of similarity. One recurring theme is the need to react to people’s reactions to feminism – the word has taken on many different meanings since the inception of the women’s rights movement, as some associate it with a dangerous, militant brand of feminism that wishes to simply replace men with women as the dominant force in politics and society. This leads to a certain reticence to engage in feminism, as Steinem notes when she talks about how college-age women don’t think they have the time for feminism, or Baldez’s note that Republicans are afraid of CEDAW because they link it with radical feminism (when it is actually just a reasonable measure meant to discourage violence against women). This is likely the biggest barrier in women’s rights – potential allies being afraid to act or take the movement seriously because of the more pernicious stereotypes around feminism as a whole. The term itself has been vilified to the point where even people working for women’s rights do not want to be seen as a ‘feminist.’ However, as long as we keep intersectionalism and cultural pluralism in mind, encourage legislators to act on global legislation, tell women it is okay for them not to smile and that feminism can come later in life, we will make great steps toward continuing the movement’s momentum.
Works Cited
Amenga-Etego, Rose M. "Categorization of Women and Human Rights Issues." Cross Currents
(2013): 63, (2), 138-47.Anderson, Jennifer Joline. Women's Rights Movement. Minnesota: ABDO, 2014.Baldez, Lisa. "U.S. drops the ball on women's rights." CNN (2013).
Cunningham, Amy. "Why Women Smile." Lear's Magazine 1993: 189-194.Steinem, Gloria. "The Good News: These Are Not the Best Years of Your Life." Feminist
Magazine 1971: 214-8.
