Feminism can arguably be considered as one of the fastest growing ideologies in the past decades or even centuries. In an entry published by Richards & Baumgardner at Feminist.com (2016), they said that “in the most basic sense, feminism is exactly what the dictionary says it is: the movement for social political, and economic equality of men and women” and means that “women have the right to enough information to make informed choices about their lives” and their dependents’ lives just like men . What it essentially calls for is equality between the two genders. One important note to remember about Feminism, however, is the fact that it focuses on the idea that women have been and are still oppressed in society and by men in general. Hence, if there is going to be one part of the population who would benefit from it, that would be the women and the feminists.
Considering the operating definition associated with feminism in this wiki page, one can describe feminists as simply women who do not want to be treated indifferently and unequally by society and by men. There is, however, one lingering question about feminism: how can it potentially affect society and if anything, would its effects be positive or negative. Feminism is a fairly new ideology especially when compared to earlier-popularized ideologies like Communism and Marxism (albeit these two are not gender studies-related). Therefore, it would be safe to suggest that their real effects are yet to be fully realized. The objective of this paper is to discuss the different effects of feminism, focusing on social, political, and economic empowerments benefiting women, as well as the potential for gender-based misrepresentations that it may lead to.
First off, feminism does not have the same meaning with man-hating. Feminists are just women who want to be treated as equal to men, nothing more and nothing less. Most non-feminists and even some feminists think that the essence of feminism is the belief and implementation of the idea that women and better than men. The goal of feminism was never meant to downplay the roles (and the importance of such roles) of men in society for the benefit of women because doing so would only lead to a different type of gender inequality. It is important to note that the very reason why feminism became widespread is because of the long standing gender inequality that only favors men. Additionally, doing so would make the feminists no different from the patriarchs whose ideologies about gender equality they are waging a war against.
In order to quickly grasp what feminism is, one has to realize that it has three major components. Feminism as a movement, as a social change, and as a political change; it is a movement in that it calls for certain changes in the perception and politics of gender. It is a social change in that its proponents aim for a change, a massive one that only seemed to favor men often at the expense of women. And lastly, it is a political change in that it also aims to change the way how women of today are being traded in various aspects of their life such as at home, in the workplace, and basically everywhere where there has been a historical fine line of existence between men and women. To put things together, the main goal of feminists, from a fundamental perspective, is to correct society’s political and social perception on and treatment towards women in a way that would satisfy their equality-centered expectations.
Economic Empowerment
Back in the days when feminism was not so widespread, women were viewed as tools and properties. In fact, in certain patriarchal societies, women are still viewed as such. The picture of women being traded and passed on like properties to their future husbands is what feminists are fighting against. They wanted women to be treated as equals to men and for that to happen, such practices have to stop. Focusing entirely on economic empowerment, the rise of feminism gave rise to the ratification of laws that supported it (i.e. feminism) allowing women to become independent people. In a traditional patriarchal society, men are the ones who are supposed to work and provide for the needs of the family. The man in the family had to do to it no matter what. The woman or the wife, on the other hand, had to be left at home to do the household chores and take care of the kids. Needless to say, not a lot of women liked the idea of having a role that basically puts them just in one place while the men are enjoying the perks of having a job and being able to provide for the economic needs of the family. Although there were no laws prohibiting women to go to work, it was politically and socially unacceptable, sometimes even considered a taboo to see women working. Fast forward to today, the idea and the picture of women in the workplace is now being openly accepted, especially in most liberal developed and developing countries. This essentially allowed women to become independent persons. They were released from the bondage of having to depend on men in order to sustain their social and economic needs. This idea of economic independence and liberation of women as a result of being able to work on their own opened a lot of freedom-related opportunities for them. It makes sense to think that when someone (i.e. a man) has total power and control over someone else’s (i.e. woman) food, clothing, shelter, and other economic needs, they (i.e. men) can become abusive. It would certainly be hard, if not at all impossible, for a woman in that situation (economic dependence) to make decisions on her own. Basically, she would have to think about how it would affect her relationship with her man before deciding on anything. Moreover, a woman who is financially dependent on a man is going to be unable to support herself and her family if the man dies or abandons them. To summarize, this aspect of feminism makes a lot of sense in that it enabled women and entire families to be flexible financially and economically. It also liberated women from the bonds that economic dependence on men has placed them in, which is a good thing because it equals the playing field between the two genders.
Social and Political Empowerment
The tenets of feminism has enabled women to know and decide for themselves what is good for them or at least what they think is going to be good for them. Gone would be the days when men would dictate them on what to do with their lives. They now have the social and political empowerment (and opportunities) necessary for them to be independent just like men. Prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, women were not allowed to vote. This happened even though it was clearly stated in the previous amendments that all citizens have the constitutional right to vote and select their own leader. According to a dated document published in the National Archives (2016), “passed by the Congress June 04, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote; achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest” . This constitutional right was carried on to the succeeding amendments and still is in effect today. This historical milestone on women’s social and political empowerment also paved the way for other countries that have a democratic form of government to also allow their women to vote.
Because women, from a mathematical perspective, constitute a significant part of any country’s voting population, policy-makers would have to make sure that women-related issues are well taken care of, otherwise, they would run the risk of not being elected (or reelected). It turned out that women also had issues that they want to get resolved just like men. Such issues only got exposed when they finally given the social and political privilege to raise such issues. Their need to be protected from abuse, for example, began to become more exposed. Technically, women are still physically inferior to men and this is why they are more likely to become victims of abuse, theft, rape, and even murder, often committed by men . In the past, women were powerless. They did not have the guts and in some cases, even the right to press charges against the perpetrators. The provision of social and political rights to women dramatically changed that paradigm. Women can now file charges freely just like men whenever they feel threatened, violated, and abused. Additionally, they can now rest assured that their issues and concerns would not be ignored. Laws against sexual discrimination have long been implemented in western countries. In the United States, for example, there is federal government-mandated organization “responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information” . This organization would be the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Similar organizations exist in other countries albeit under a different name.
Gender-based Misrepresentations
Feminism is not a foolproof way to address the numerous gender inequality problems affecting women in society. Feminism’s rise has been associated with gender-based misrepresentations, majority of which would be against men because the world, focusing on feminism, is basically trying to correct the extreme patricentric society that people got so much used to. Humans, based on history, have the tendency to overcorrect things. Applying that to the current scenario, it would not be farfetched to expect men to be on the discriminated side. Evidences that show this is really happening exist. This, for example, can be evidenced by the fact that men are disproportionately represented at the top. Male is the gender that is often associated with top organizational management positions like CEOs, politicians, and military leaders. In the same manner, they are also disproportionately represented at the bottom. Men tend to be more associated with criminals, immigrant workers, and conscripts . Based on the existence of these evidences, it would be safe to suggest that women are not the only ones oppressed by the current system because men are too. This exposes one of the weakest points (i.e. a con) of feminism and that is the fact that men tend to be placed in a more equal playing field at the expense of men being unnecessarily disadvantaged. This is a classic example of overcorrecting a social and or political problem. Feminism, then, turns out to be going for instead of against the very ideology that it is trying to eradicate—gender inequality and discrimination. Instead of focusing too much on women, trying to recognize the needs, concerns, and issues would be a more foolproof and not overly corrective way of addressing the problem on gender inequality. Evidences suggest that women face issues that are unique to their gender and so do men. A more sensible solution then would be to look at each of the genders’ respective issues uniquely. That way, overcorrection of patriarchy would be more possible.
One interesting work to read that exposes this truth would be Roy Baumeister’s essay entitled is there anything good about men? In it, he focused on the question how society and culture has exploited and still continues to exploit men. He inquired “whom does society use for bad or dangerous jobs? . He later on concluded that men, just like women, tend to have the opportunity to be at the top or bottom. Some lucky men and women are at society’s top; some unfortunate ones are at the bottom. The culture and society that people live in use both men and women. However, it is important to note that the way how they get used may differ greatly. Society and culture should not be about who is better between the two; men against women or vice versa. Instead, it should be about educating the public that men and women were never meant to be the same; they were created differently and so it makes sense for them to have different roles in society. There are certain scenarios where men tend to be in a more exploited or generally disadvantaged position than women; the same goes for women. The real key here is to treat each of these two gender’s issues and concerns uniquely.
This proposition does not mean that there is nothing to be fixed in society’s heavily patriarchal ways. There are, in fact, a lot of things to be fixed and gender inequality is just one of them. What the author of this paper is trying to prevent, however, is the overcorrection of the problem which would almost certainly come at the expense of men.
Conclusions
Society has already changed in a lot of ways, thanks to feminism. Women now enjoy a lot of rights and privileges that they were only capable of dreaming of in the past, again thanks to feminism. However, one has to look into the end goal of feminism. Hopefully, its end goal is not to make women better than men because when that happens, society would just be back from square one, only that instead of a scenario where men are at the top, they would be replaced by women because of the materialization of the risk of overcorrection that the author of this paper has pointed out as the main weakness (i.e. con) of feminism.
References
Baumeister, R. (2007). Is there anything good about men? Denis Dutton.
Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2016). What is Feminism. Feminist.com, http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/whatisfem.htm.
Kumar, N. (2013). The Problem with Feminism's Focus on Women. Nation of BeanCounters.
National Archives. (2016). 19th Amendment to the U.S. . National Archives, http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/document.html?doc=13.
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2016). US EEOC. http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/index.cfm.
World Health Organization. (2013). Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence.
