View source for Social:Feminism

{{Short description|Equity agendas}}
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{{Use Canadian English|date=April 2021}}


'''Feminism''' is a range of socio-political movements and [[Philosophy:Ideology|ideologies]] that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social [[Social:Gender equality|equality of the sexes]].{{efn|Laura Brunell and Elinor Burkett (''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2019): "'''Feminism''', the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes."<ref name="Brunell & Burkett">{{cite web |last1=Brunell |first1=Laura |last2=Burkett |first2=Elinor |title=Feminism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism |website=Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=21 May 2019}}</ref>}}<ref name="Lengermann & Niebrugge">{{cite book |last1=Lengermann |first1=Patricia |last2=Niebrugge |first2=Gillian |editor1-last=Ritzer |editor1-first=G. |editor2-last=Ryan |editor2-first=J.M. |title=The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology |date=2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-40-518353-6 |page=223 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dz4wU64f_JYC&q=feminism+%22principle+that+women+are+human+beings+equal+to+men%22 |chapter=Feminism}}</ref><ref name=Mendus>{{cite book |last1=Mendus |first1=Susan |editor1-last=Honderich |editor1-first=Ted |editor1-link=Ted Honderich |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |orig-date=1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=291–294 |chapter=Feminism |edition=2nd|isbn=978-0-19-926479-7 |title-link=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy }}</ref><ref name="Hawkesworth">{{Cite book |last=Hawkesworth | first=Mary E.|title=Globalization and Feminist Activism |year=2006|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=25–27 |isbn=978-0-7425-3783-5}}</ref><ref name="Beasley">{{Cite book |last=Beasley |first=Chris |author-link1=Chris Beasley (Australian gender studies researcher) |title=What is Feminism? |year=1999|publisher=Sage |location=New York |pages=3–11 |isbn=978-0-7619-6335-6}}</ref> Feminism holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gamble|first=Sarah|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JKAUXu9vpn0C|title=The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism |date=2001 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-24310-0 |pages=VII |chapter=Introduction|orig-date=1998}}</ref> Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Originating in late 18th-century Europe, [[Social:Feminist movement|feminist movement]]s have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, [[Social:Nomination rules|run for public office]], [[Finance:Right to work|work]], earn [[Social:Gender pay gap|equal pay]], own property, receive education, enter into [[Finance:Contract|contract]]s, have equal rights within [[Biology:Marriage|marriage]], and maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to contraception, legal [[Medicine:Abortion|abortion]]s, and [[Social:Social integration|social integration]]; and to protect women and girls from [[Medicine:Sexual assault|sexual assault]], [[Social:Sexual harassment|sexual harassment]], and [[Medicine:Domestic violence|domestic violence]].<ref name="Echols">{{Cite book |last=Echols |first=Alice |title=Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975 |year=1989 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |isbn=978-0-8166-1787-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/daringtobebadrad0000echo }}</ref> Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical activities for females have also been part of feminist movements.<ref name="Distillations">{{cite magazine|last1=Roberts |first1=Jacob |title=Women's work |magazine=Distillations |date=2017|volume=3|issue=1 |pages=6–11 |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/womens-work|access-date=22 March 2018}}</ref>

Many scholars consider feminist campaigns to be a main force behind major historical [[Social:Social change|societal changes]] for women's rights, particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, [[Social:Gender-neutral language|gender-neutral language]], reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property.<ref name="Messer-Davidow">{{Cite book |last=Messer-Davidow |first=Ellen |title=Disciplining Feminism: From Social Activism to Academic Discourse |year=2002 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham, NC |isbn=978-0-8223-2843-8}}</ref> Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women's rights, some argue for the inclusion of men's liberation within its aims, because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles.<ref name="hooks"/> [[Social:Feminist theory|Feminist theory]], which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experiences. Feminist theorists have developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues concerning gender.<ref name="Chodorow1989">{{Cite book|author=Chodorow, Nancy |title=Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory |year=1989 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Conn. |isbn=978-0-300-05116-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/feminismpsychoan00chod_0 }}</ref><ref name="gilligan1977">{{Cite journal |last=Gilligan |first=Carol |year=1977 |title=In a Different Voice: Women's Conceptions of Self and of Morality |journal=Harvard Educational Review |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=481–517 |url=http://hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-47,-issue-4/herarticle/women-s-conceptions-of-self-and-of-morality_917 |access-date=8 June 2008 |doi=10.17763/haer.47.4.g6167429416hg5l0 |s2cid=146763094 |archive-date=9 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109134048/https://www.hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-47,-issue-4/herarticle/women-s-conceptions-of-self-and-of-morality_917 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years, representing different viewpoints and political aims. Traditionally, since the 19th century, first-wave [[Social:Liberal feminism|liberal feminism]], which sought political and legal equality through reforms within a [[Social:Liberal democracy|liberal democratic]] framework, was contrasted with labour-based proletarian women's movements that over time developed into [[Social:Socialist feminism|socialist]] and Marxist feminism based on class struggle theory.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Artwińska|first1=Anna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YUDpDwAAQBAJ|title=Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond|last2=Mrozik|first2=Agnieszka|date=3 June 2020|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-000-09514-2}}</ref> Since the 1960s, both of these traditions are also contrasted with the radical feminism that arose from the [[Philosophy:Radical politics|radical]] wing of second-wave feminism and that calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate [[Biology:Patriarchy|patriarchy]]. Liberal, socialist, and radical feminism are sometimes referred to as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought.<ref name="Maynard" />

Since the late 20th century, many newer forms of feminism have emerged. Some forms, such as white feminism and gender-critical feminism, have been criticized as taking into account only white, middle class, college-educated, [[Social:Heterosexuality|heterosexual]], or [[Social:Cisgender|cisgender]] perspectives. These criticisms have led to the creation of ethnically specific or [[Philosophy:Multiculturalism|multicultural]] forms of feminism, such as black feminism and [[Philosophy:Intersectionality|intersectional]] feminism.<ref name=Weedon/> Some have argued that feminism often promotes misandry and the elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to both men and women.<ref name="Hoff_Sommers" />

== History ==
{{For timeline|Timeline of feminism}}

=== Terminology ===
[[Biography:Mary Wollstonecraft|Mary Wollstonecraft]] is seen by many as a founder of feminism due to her 1792 book titled ''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'' in which she argues that class and private property are the basis of discrimination against women, and that women as much as men needed equal rights.<ref>M Wollstoncraft, ''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'' (1792) [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_Woman/Chapter_IX ch VII], "From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind." {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ue0dAAAAQBAJ|isbn = 9781136753039|title = Mary Wollstonecraft, Pedagogy, and the Practice of Feminism|date = 18 July 2013|publisher = Routledge}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGSV8ihuJfcC|isbn = 9780061866005|title = Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft|date = 17 March 2009|publisher = Harper Collins}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/oct/05/original-suffragette-mary-wollstonecraft|title=The original suffragette: The extraordinary Mary Wollstonecraft|website=TheGuardian.com|date=5 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://institute-genderequality.org/news-publications/feminism/feminism-18th-century-and-beyond/|title = Feminism in the 18th century and beyond}}</ref> [[Biography:Charles Fourier|Charles Fourier]], a [[Philosophy:Utopian socialism|utopian socialist]] and French philosopher, is credited with having coined the word "féminisme" in 1837.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Goldstein|first=Leslie F.|year=1982|title=Early Feminist Themes in French Utopian Socialism: The St.-Simonians and Fourier|journal=[[Philosophy:Journal of the History of Ideas|Journal of the History of Ideas]]|volume=43|issue=1|pages=91–108|doi=10.2307/2709162|jstor=2709162}}</ref> The words "féminisme" ("feminism") and "féministe" ("feminist") first appeared in France and the Netherlands in 1872,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Grever|first=Maria|title=Strijd tegen de stilte. Johanna Naber (1859–1941) en de vrouwenstem in geschiedenis|publisher=Hilversum Verloren|year=1994|isbn=90-6550-395-1|pages=31|language=Dutch|chapter=Dutch feminist pioneer Mina Kruseman in a letter to Alexandre Dumas}}</ref> Great Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Offen|first=Karen|title=Sur l'origine des mots 'féminisme' et 'féministe'|journal=Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine |year=1987|volume=34|issue=3|pages=492–96|jstor=20529317|doi=10.3406/rhmc.1987.1421}}</ref><ref name="cott">{{cite book|last=Cott|first=Nancy F.|title=The Grounding of Modern Feminism|location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1987|page=[https://archive.org/details/groundingofmoder00cott/page/13 13]|isbn=978-0-300-04228-3|url=https://archive.org/details/groundingofmoder00cott/page/13}}</ref> The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' dates the first appearance in English in this meaning back to 1895.<ref name=oed>{{cite encyclopedia |dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary |title=feminism |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/69192 |edition=3rd |year=2012 |publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]] |url-access=subscription|quote=Advocacy of equality of the sexes and the establishment of the political, social, and economic rights of the female sex; the movement associated with this.}}</ref> Depending on the historical moment, culture and country, feminists around the world have had different causes and goals. Most western feminist historians contend that all movements working to obtain women's rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves.<ref name="spender">{{cite book |last=Spender |first=Dale |title=There's Always Been a Women's Movement this Century |url=https://archive.org/details/theresalwaysbeen00spenrich |url-access=registration |publisher=Pandora Press |location=London |year=1983 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/theresalwaysbeen00spenrich/page/n98 1]–200|isbn=9780863580024 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Lerner |first=Gerda |title=The Creation of Feminist Consciousness From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy |url=https://archive.org/details/creationoffemini00gerd |url-access=registration |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/creationoffemini00gerd/page/n12 1]–20}}</ref><ref name="walters">{{cite book|last=Walters |first=Margaret |title=Feminism: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=Oxford University |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-19-280510-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feminismveryshor00walt/page/1 1–176] |url=https://archive.org/details/feminismveryshor00walt/page/1 }}</ref><ref name="kinnaird">{{cite book |last1=Kinnaird |first1=Joan |first2=Mary |last2=Astell |chapter=Inspired by ideas (1668–1731) |editor1-last=Spender |editor1-first=Dale |title=There's Always Been a Women's Movement |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/theresalwaysbeen00spenrich |chapter-url-access=registration |publisher=Pandora Press |location=London |year=1983 |pages=29–|isbn=9780863580024 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-femhist/index.html |last=Witt |first=Charlotte |title=Feminist History of Philosophy |website=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |year=2006 |access-date=23 January 2012}}</ref><ref name="taylor">{{cite journal |first1=Ann Taylor |last1=Allen |year=1999 |title=Feminism, Social Science, and the Meanings of Modernity: The Debate on the Origin of the Family in Europe and the United States, 1860–1914 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=104 |issue=4 |pages=1085–113 |jstor=2649562 |pmid=19291893 |doi=10.1086/ahr/104.4.1085}}</ref> Other historians assert that the term should be limited to the modern feminist movement and its descendants. Those historians use the label "protofeminist" to describe earlier movements.<ref name="botting-houser">{{cite journal |first1=Eileen Hunt |last1=Botting |first2=Sarah L. |last2=Houser |year=2006 |title='Drawing the Line of Equality': Hannah Mather Crocker on Women's Rights |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=100 |issue=2 |pages=265–78 |jstor=27644349 |doi=10.1017/S0003055406062150|s2cid=144730126 }}</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">
File:Feminist Suffrage Parade in New York City, 1912.jpeg|Feminist suffrage parade, New York City, 1912
File:Articles_by_and_photo_of_Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman_in_1916.jpg|Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote about feminism for the ''Atlanta Constitution'', 10 December 1916.
File:Emmeline Pankhurst addresses crowd.jpg|After selling her home, Emmeline Pankhurst, pictured in New York City in 1913, travelled constantly, giving speeches throughout Britain and the United States.
File:Wilhelmina Drucker IMG0020.tif|In the Netherlands, Wilhelmina Drucker (1847–1925) fought successfully for the vote and equal rights for women, through organizations she founded.
File:Louise Weiss.jpg|Louise Weiss along with other Parisian suffragettes in 1935. The newspaper headline reads "The Frenchwoman Must Vote".
</gallery>

=== Waves ===
The history of the modern western feminist movement is divided into multiple "waves".<ref name="Humm">{{Cite book|last=Humm|first=Maggie|title=The Dictionary of Feminist Theory|publisher=Columbus: Ohio State University Press|year=1995|isbn=978-0133553895|pages=251}}</ref><ref name="Walker1992">{{cite magazine |last=Walker |first=Rebecca |title=Becoming the Third Wave |magazine=Ms. |date=January–February 1992 |pages=39–41}}</ref><ref name=Chamberlain2017>{{cite book|last=Chamberlain|first=Prudence|title=The Feminist Fourth Wave: Affective Temporality|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8AIkDwAAQBAJ|year=2017|publisher=Springer|location=Cham|isbn=978-3-319-53682-8}}</ref>

The first comprised women's suffrage movements of the 19th and early-20th centuries, promoting women's right to vote. The second wave, the women's liberation movement, began in the 1960s and campaigned for legal and social equality for women. In or around 1992, a third wave was identified, characterized by a focus on individuality and diversity.<ref name="Suffragettes to Grrls">{{cite book |last1=Krolokke |first1=Charlotte |first2=Anne Scott |last2=Sorensen |title=Gender Communication Theories and Analyses: From Silence to Performance |year=2005 |publisher=Sage |isbn=978-0-7619-2918-5 |page=24 |chapter=Three Waves of Feminism: From Suffragettes to Grrls}}</ref> Additionally, some have argued for the existence of a fourth wave,<ref>{{Cite web|title=feminism - The fourth wave of feminism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism/The-fourth-wave-of-feminism|access-date=29 November 2021|website=Britannica }}</ref> starting around 2012, which has used [[Social:Social media|social media]] to combat [[Social:Sexual harassment|sexual harassment]], [[Social:Violence against women|violence against women]] and [[Social:Rape culture|rape culture]]; it is best known for the Me Too movement.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Feminism: The Fourth Wave|url=https://www.britannica.com/explore/100women/issues/feminism-the-fourth-wave/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804075911/https://www.britannica.com/explore/100women/issues/feminism-the-fourth-wave/|archive-date=4 August 2019|access-date=21 May 2019|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref>

=== 19th and early 20th centuries ===
First-wave feminism was a period of activity during the 19th and early-20th centuries. In the UK and US, it focused on the promotion of equal contract, marriage, parenting, and property rights for women. New legislation included the Custody of Infants Act 1839 in the UK, which introduced the [[Social:Tender years doctrine|tender years doctrine]] for child custody and gave women the right of custody of their children for the first time.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wroath|first=John|title=Until They Are Seven, The Origins of Women's Legal Rights|year=1998|publisher=Waterside Press|isbn=1-872870-57-0|url=https://archive.org/details/untiltheyareseve00wroa}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Mitchell|first=L. G.|title=Lord Melbourne, 1779–1848|year=1997|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Perkins|first=Jane Gray|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_FJBpAAAAMAAJ|title=The Life of the Honourable Mrs. Norton|year=1909|publisher=John Murray}}</ref> Other legislation, such as the Married Women's Property Act 1870 in the UK and extended in the 1882 Act,<ref name=MWPA1882>{{cite web |url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/45-46/75/introduction |title=Married Women's Property Act 1882 |year=1882 |publisher=UK Government |website=legislation.gov.uk |access-date=17 April 2017}}</ref> became models for similar legislation in other British territories. Victoria passed legislation in 1884 and New South Wales in 1889; the remaining Australian colonies passed similar legislation between 1890 and 1897. With the turn of the 19th century, activism focused primarily on gaining political power, particularly the right of women's suffrage, though some feminists were active in campaigning for women's [[Biology:Sexual and reproductive health and rights|sexual]], reproductive, and economic rights too.<ref name=NoTurningBack464>{{cite book|author=Freedman, Estelle B. |title=No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women |year=2003 |publisher=Ballantine Books |isbn=978-0-345-45053-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/noturningbackhis00free/page/464 464] |url=https://archive.org/details/noturningbackhis00free/page/464 }}</ref>

Women's suffrage (the right to vote and stand for parliamentary office) began in Britain's [[Place:Australasia|Australasia]]n colonies at the end of the 19th century, with the self-governing colony of New Zealand granting women the right to vote in 1893; South Australia followed suit with the Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act 1894 in 1894. This was followed by Australia granting female suffrage in 1902.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.elections.org.nz/votes-women |title=Votes for Women Electoral Commission |publisher=Elections New Zealand |date=13 April 2005 |access-date=31 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130914135838/http://www.elections.org.nz/votes-women |archive-date=14 September 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/wright.htm|title=Women and the right to vote in Australia|publisher=Australian Electoral Commission |date=28 January 2011 |access-date=26 April 2013}}</ref>

In Britain, the suffragettes and suffragists campaigned for the women's vote, and in 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed granting the vote to women over the age of 30 who owned property. In 1928, this was extended to all women over 21.<ref name=Phillips>{{cite book |author=Phillips, Melanie |title=The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffragette Movement and the Ideas Behind it |year=2004 |publisher=Abacus |location=London |isbn=978-0-349-11660-0 |pages=1–370}}</ref> Emmeline Pankhurst was the most notable activist in England. ''{{wipe|Time (magazine)}}'' named her one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back."<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Emmeline Pankhurst&nbsp;– Time 100 People of the Century |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,991250,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080306060513/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,991250,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 March 2008 |magazine={{wipe|Time (magazine)}} |first=Marina |last=Warner |date=14 June 1999}}</ref> In the US, notable leaders of this movement included Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, who each campaigned for the abolition of slavery before championing women's right to vote. These women were influenced by the Quaker theology of spiritual equality, which asserts that men and women are equal under God.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ruether|first=Rosemary Radford|title=Women and Redemption: A Theological History|publisher=Fortress Press|location=Minneapolis|isbn=978-0-8006-9816-4|pages=112–18, 136–39|edition=2nd|year=2012}}</ref> In the US, first-wave feminism is considered to have ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1919), granting women the right to vote in all states. The term ''first wave'' was coined retroactively when the term ''second-wave feminism'' came into use.<ref name=NoTurningBack464/><ref name= DuBois>{{cite book |author=DuBois, Ellen Carol |title=Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage |year=1997 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Conn. |isbn=978-0-300-06562-6}}</ref><ref name=Flexner>{{cite book |last=Flexner |first=Eleanor |title=Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States |publisher=The Belknap Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-674-10653-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/century_fle_1996_00_7206/page/ xxviii–xxx] |url=https://archive.org/details/century_fle_1996_00_7206/page/ }}</ref><ref name= Wheeler>{{cite book|last=Wheeler |first=Marjorie W. |title=One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement |year=1995 |publisher=NewSage Press |location=Troutdale, OR |isbn=978-0-939165-26-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/onewomanonevoter00spru/page/127 127] |url=https://archive.org/details/onewomanonevoter00spru/page/127 }}</ref><ref name=Stevens>{{cite book|last1=Stevens |first1=Doris |last2=O'Hare |first2=Carol |title=Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote |year=1995 |publisher=NewSage Press |location=Troutdale, OR |isbn=978-0-939165-25-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/jailedforfreedom00stev/page/1 1–388] |url=https://archive.org/details/jailedforfreedom00stev/page/1 }}</ref>

During the late Qing period and reform movements such as the Hundred Days' Reform, Chinese feminists called for women's liberation from traditional roles and Neo-Confucian gender segregation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ko |first1=Dorothy |first2=JaHyun Kim |last2=Haboush |first3=Joan R. |last3=Piggott |title=Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan |publisher=University of California Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-520-23138-2}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ma |first1=Yuxin |title=Women Journalists and Feminism in China, 1898–1937 |publisher=Cambria Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-60497-660-1}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Farris |first1=Catherine S. |first2=Anru |last2=Lee |first3=Murray A. |last3=Rubinstein |title=Women in the New Taiwan: Gender Roles and Gender Consciousness in a Changing Society |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-7656-0814-7}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref> Later, the Chinese Communist Party created projects aimed at integrating women into the workforce, and claimed that the revolution had successfully achieved women's liberation.<ref name="Dooling">{{cite book |last=Dooling |first=Amy D. |title=Women's Literary Feminism in 20th-Century China |publisher=Macmillan |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-4039-6733-6}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref>

According to Nawar al-Hassan Golley, Arab feminism was closely connected with Arab nationalism. In 1899, Qasim Amin, considered the "father" of Arab feminism, wrote ''The Liberation of Women'', which argued for legal and social reforms for women.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stange |first1=Mary Zeiss |first2=Carol K. |last2=Oyster |first3=Jane E. |last3=Sloan |title=Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World |publisher=SAGE |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4129-7685-5 |pages=79–81}}</ref> He drew links between women's position in Egyptian society and nationalism, leading to the development of Cairo University and the National Movement.<ref name=Golley>{{cite book |last=Golley |first=Nawar Al-Hassan |title=Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=2003 |pages=30–50 |isbn=978-0-292-70545-6}}</ref> In 1923 Hoda Shaarawi founded the Egyptian Feminist Union, became its president and a symbol of the Arab women's rights movement.<ref name=Golley/>

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1905 triggered the Iranian women's movement, which aimed to achieve women's equality in education, marriage, careers, and legal rights.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ettehadieh |first=Mansoureh |year=2004 |chapter=The Origins and Development of the Women's Movement in Iran, 1906–41 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tLRgXf_e_CEC&pg=PA85 |pages=85–106 |title=Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic |editor1-first=Lois |editor1-last=Beck |editor2-first=Guity |editor2-last=Nashat |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-07189-8}}</ref> However, during the Iranian revolution of 1979, many of the rights that women had gained from the women's movement were systematically abolished, such as the Family Protection Law.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Chronology of Events Regarding Women in Iran since the Revolution of 1979 |title=Iran Since the Revolution |first=Elham |last=Gheytanchi |series=Social Research, Volume 67, No. 2 |year=2000 |editor1-first=Arien |editor1-last=Mack |chapter-url=http://www.iranchamber.com/society/articles/chronology_events_women_iran.php}}</ref>

=== Mid-20th century ===

By the mid-20th century, women still lacked significant rights.

In France, women obtained the right to vote only with the Provisional Government of the French Republic of 21 April 1944. The Consultative Assembly of Algiers of 1944 proposed on 24 March 1944 to grant eligibility to women but following an amendment by Fernard Grenier, they were given full citizenship, including the right to vote. Grenier's proposition was adopted 51 to 16. In May 1947, following the November 1946 elections, the sociologist Robert Verdier minimized the "gender gap", stating in ''Le Populaire'' that women had not voted in a consistent way, dividing themselves, as men, according to social classes. During the baby boom period, feminism waned in importance. Wars (both World War I and World War II) had seen the provisional emancipation of some women, but post-war periods signalled the return to conservative roles.<ref name=Bard>{{cite journal |first=Christine |last=Bard |url=http://www.histoire-politique.fr/index.php?numero=01&rub=dossier&item=7 |title=Les premières femmes au Gouvernement (France, 1936–1981) |trans-title=First Women in Government (France, 1936–1981) |journal=Histoire@Politique |issue=1 |date=May–June 2007 |volume=1 |page=2 |doi=10.3917/hp.001.0002 |language=fr}}</ref>

In Switzerland, women gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1971;<ref>{{cite news |last1=Zivkovic |first1=Olivera |title=Switzerland marks 50 years of women voting |url=https://www.dw.com/en/switzerland-marks-50-years-of-women-voting/a-56469446 |access-date=16 November 2022 |work=dw.com |date=7 February 2021 |language=en}}</ref> but in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden women obtained the right to vote on local issues only in 1991, when the canton was forced to do so by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.<ref>{{cite web|date=14 January 2003|title=United Nations press release of a meeting of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)|url=https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/WOM1373.doc.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120127151927/https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/WOM1373.doc.htm|archive-date=27 January 2012|access-date=2 September 2011|publisher=United Nations}}</ref> In Liechtenstein, women were given the right to vote by the women's suffrage referendum of 1984. Three prior referendums held in 1968, 1971 and 1973 had failed to secure women's right to vote.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bro |first1=Alexandra |title=Commemorating the Nineteenth Amendment: Women's Suffrage at Home and Abroad |url=https://www.cfr.org/blog/commemorating-nineteenth-amendment-womens-suffrage-home-and-abroad |publisher=[[Organization:Council on Foreign Relations|Council on Foreign Relations]] |access-date=16 November 2022 |language=en |date=27 August 2020}}</ref>
[[File:Photograph of American Women Replacing Men Fighting in Europe - NARA - 535769.tif|thumb|Photograph of American women replacing men fighting in Europe, 1945]]

Feminists continued to campaign for the reform of [[Social:Family law|family law]]s which gave husbands control over their wives. Although by the 20th century [[Social:Coverture|coverture]] had been abolished in the UK and US, in many continental European countries married women still had very few rights. For instance, in France, married women did not receive the right to work without their husband's permission until 1965.<ref name=Guillaumin>{{cite book |last=Guillaumin|first=Colette|year=1994 |title=Racism, Sexism, Power, and Ideology |pages=193–95}}</ref><ref name=Meltzer>{{cite book |last=Meltzer |first=Françoise |year=1995 |title=Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality |page=88}}</ref> Feminists have also worked to abolish the [[Social:Marital rape|"marital exemption" in rape laws]] which precluded the prosecution of husbands for the rape of their wives.<ref name=Allison>{{cite book |last=Allison |first=Julie A. |year=1995 |title=Rape: The Misunderstood Crime |page=89}}</ref> Earlier efforts by first-wave feminists such as [[Biography:Voltairine de Cleyre|Voltairine de Cleyre]], Victoria Woodhull and Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy to criminalize marital rape in the late 19th century had failed;<ref name=Bland>{{cite book |last=Bland |first=Lucy |year=2002 |title=Banishing the Beast: Feminism, Sex and Morality |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cl8nLdfgz1IC |access-date=25 August 2013 |pages=135–49|publisher=I. B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-86064-681-2 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | issn = 1040-0656 | volume = 7 | issue = 3 | pages = 54–68 [60] | last = Palczewski | first = Catherine Helen | title = Voltairine de Cleyre: Sexual Slavery and Sexual Pleasure in the Nineteenth Century | journal = NWSA Journal | date = 1 October 1995 | jstor = 4316402 }}</ref> this was only achieved a century later in most Western countries, but is still not achieved in many other parts of the world.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Crowell |first1=Nancy A. |last2=Burgess |first2=Ann W. |year=1997 |title=Understanding Violence Against Women |page=127}}</ref>

French philosopher [[Biography:Simone de Beauvoir|Simone de Beauvoir]] provided a Marxist solution and an existentialist view on many of the questions of feminism with the publication of ''Le Deuxième Sexe'' (''The Second Sex'') in 1949.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bergoffen |first=Debra |title=Simone de Beauvoir |date=16 August 2010 |orig-date=17 August 2004 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauvoir/ |access-date=4 December 2011}}</ref> The book expressed feminists' sense of injustice. Second-wave feminism is a feminist movement beginning in the early 1960s<ref name=Whelehan>{{cite book |last=Whelehan |first=Imelda |title=Modern Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to 'Post-Feminism' |url=https://archive.org/details/modernfeministth0000whel |url-access=registration |year=1995 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |location=Edinburgh |isbn=978-0-7486-0621-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/modernfeministth0000whel/page/25 25–43]}}</ref> and continuing to the present; as such, it coexists with third-wave feminism. Second-wave feminism is largely concerned with issues of equality beyond suffrage, such as ending gender discrimination.<ref name=NoTurningBack464/>	
{{multiple image
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| footer = ''The Feminine Mystique'' (1963) by Betty Friedan and ''The Female Eunuch'' (1970) by Germaine Greer are considered landmark texts in second-wave feminism.
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Second-wave feminists see women's cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encourage women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures. The feminist activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political", which became synonymous with the second wave.<ref name=Echols/><ref name=Hanisch>{{cite web |url=http://scholar.alexanderstreet.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2259 |title=Hanisch, New Intro to 'The Personal is Political' – Second Wave and Beyond |access-date=8 June 2008 |last=Hanisch |first=Carol |date=1 January 2006 |website=The Personal Is Political |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080515014413/http://scholar.alexanderstreet.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2259 |archive-date=15 May 2008}}</ref>

Second- and third-wave feminism in China has been characterized by a reexamination of women's roles during the communist revolution and other reform movements, and new discussions about whether women's equality has actually been fully achieved.<ref name="Dooling" />

In 1956, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt initiated "[[Social:State feminism|state feminism]]", which outlawed discrimination based on gender and granted women's suffrage, but also blocked political activism by feminist leaders.<ref>{{cite book |last=Badran |first=Margot |title=Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-691-02605-3}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref> During [[Biography:Anwar Sadat|Sadat]]'s presidency, his wife, Jehan Sadat, publicly advocated further women's rights, though Egyptian policy and society began to move away from women's equality with the new Islamist movement and growing conservatism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Bonnie G. |title=Global Feminisms Since 1945 |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-415-18491-5}}</ref> However, some activists proposed a new feminist movement, [[Religion:Islamic feminism|Islamic feminism]], which argues for women's equality within an Islamic framework.<ref>{{cite web|title=Islamic feminism means justice to women|url=http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/16-31Jan04-Print-Edition/1631200425.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821055118/https://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/16-31Jan04-Print-Edition/1631200425.htm|archive-date=21 August 2013|access-date=31 March 2013|website=The Mili Gazette}}</ref>

In Latin America, revolutions brought changes in women's status in countries such as Nicaragua, where feminist ideology during the Sandinista Revolution aided women's quality of life but fell short of achieving a social and ideological change.<ref name="parpart">{{Cite book |last1=Parpart |first1=Jane L. |last2=Connelly |first2=M. Patricia |last3=Connelly |first3=Patricia |last4=Barriteau |first4=V. Eudine |last5=Barriteau |first5=Eudine |title=Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development |location=Ottawa, Canada |publisher=International Development Research Centre |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-88936-910-8 |page=215}}</ref>

In 1963, Betty Friedan's book ''The Feminine Mystique'' helped voice the discontent that American women felt. The book is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States.<ref name="nytimes2006">{{cite news|last=Fox |first=Margalit |date=5 February 2006|title=Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85|newspaper={{wipe|The New York Times}}|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/us/betty-friedan-who-ignited-cause-in-feminine-mystique-dies-at-85.html|url-status=live|access-date=19 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211124045206/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/us/betty-friedan-who-ignited-cause-in-feminine-mystique-dies-at-85.html|archive-date=24 November 2021}}</ref> Within ten years, women made up over half the First World workforce.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hunt |first=Michael |year=2016 |title=The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-937102-0 |pages=220–223}}</ref> In 1970, Australian writer Germaine Greer published ''The Female Eunuch'', which became a worldwide bestseller, reportedly driving up divorce rates.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/26/germaine-greer-female-eunuch-feminists-influence|title=What Germaine Greer and The Female Eunuch mean to me|work={{wipe|The Guardian}}|date=January 26, 2014|accessdate=January 16, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437|title=Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer's fearless, feminist masterpiece|work=The Conversation|date=October 9, 2020|accessdate=January 16, 2023}}</ref> Greer posits that [[Social:Misogyny|men hate women]], that women do not know this and direct the hatred upon themselves, as well as arguing that women are devitalised and repressed in their role as housewives and mothers.

=== Late 20th and early 21st centuries ===

==== Third-wave feminism ====
[[File:Lozu mont oct8 bellhooooooooks.png|thumb|right|upright=0.8|Feminist, author and social activist bell hooks (1952–2021)]]
Third-wave feminism is traced to the emergence of the riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, in the early 1990s,<ref name="Piepmeier2009p45">{{cite book|last=Piepmeier|first=Alison|title=Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism|publisher=New York University Press|year=2009|isbn=9780814767733|location=New York|page=45}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Feliciano|first1=Steve|date=19 June 2013|title=The Riot Grrrl Movement|url=http://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/06/19/riot-grrrl-movement|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130918002826/https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/06/19/riot-grrrl-movement|archive-date=18 September 2013|publisher=New York Public Library|quote=The emergence of the Riot Grrrl movement began in the early 1990s, when a group of women in Olympia, Washington, held a meeting to discuss how to address sexism in the punk scene. The women decided they wanted to start a 'girl riot' against a society they felt offered no validation of women's experiences. And thus the Riot Grrrl movement was born.}}</ref> and to Anita Hill's televised testimony in 1991—to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee—that Clarence Thomas, nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States, had sexually harassed her. The term ''third wave'' is credited to Rebecca Walker, who responded to Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court with an article in ''Ms.'' magazine, "Becoming the Third Wave" (1992).<ref name="MsMagazineThirdWave">{{cite magazine | last1 = Walker| first1 = Rebecca|  title = Becoming the Third Wave| magazine = Ms. | pages = 39–41| issn = 0047-8318| oclc = 194419734| date = January 1992| url = http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/BecomingThirdWaveRebeccaWalker.pdf| access-date = 21 February 2018| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170115202333/http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/BecomingThirdWaveRebeccaWalker.pdf| archive-date = 15 January 2017| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Baumgardner_Richards">{{cite book|title=Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future |last1=Baumgardner |first1=Jennifer |last2=Richards |first2=Amy |year=2000 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |location=New York |isbn=978-0-374-52622-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/manifestayoungwo00baum/page/77 77] |url=https://archive.org/details/manifestayoungwo00baum/page/77 }}</ref> She wrote:

{{blockquote|So I write this as a plea to all women, especially women of my generation: Let Thomas' confirmation serve to remind you, as it did me, that the fight is far from over. Let this dismissal of a woman's experience move you to anger. Turn that outrage into political power. Do not vote for them unless they work for us. Do not have sex with them, do not break bread with them, do not nurture them if they don't prioritize our freedom to control our bodies and our lives. I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.<ref name="MsMagazineThirdWave"/>}}

Third-wave feminism also sought to challenge or avoid what it deemed the second wave's [[Philosophy:Essentialism|essentialist]] definitions of femininity, which, third-wave feminists argued, overemphasized the experiences of upper middle-class white women. Third-wave feminists often focused on "micro-politics" and challenged the second wave's paradigm as to what was, or was not, good for women, and tended to use a [[Philosophy:Post-structuralism|post-structuralist]] interpretation of gender and sexuality.<ref name=NoTurningBack464/><ref name="Henry">{{cite book |last=Henry |first=Astrid |url=https://archive.org/details/notmymotherssist0000henr/page/1/mode/2up |title=Not My Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-253-21713-4 |location=Bloomington |pages=1–288 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name=Gillis>{{cite book |last1=Gillis |first1=Stacy |last2=Howie |first2=Gillian |last3=Munford |first3=Rebecca |title=Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration |year=2007 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Basingstoke |isbn=978-0-230-52174-2 |pages=xxviii, 275–76}}</ref><ref name=Faludi>{{cite book |last=Faludi |first=Susan |title=Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women |year=1992 |publisher=Vintage |location=London |isbn=978-0-09-922271-2}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref> Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave, such as Gloria Anzaldúa, [[Biography:Bell hooks|bell hooks]], Chela Sandoval, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other non-white feminists, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related subjectivities.<ref name=Gillis/><ref name=Walker/><ref name=Heywood>{{cite book |last1=Leslie |first1=Heywood |last2=Drake |first2=Jennifer |title=Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism |year=1997 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |isbn=978-0-8166-3005-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/thirdwaveagendab0000unse }}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref> Third-wave feminism also contained internal debates between difference feminists, who believe that there are important psychological differences between the sexes, and those who believe that there are no inherent psychological differences between the sexes and contend that gender roles are due to [[Social:Social conditioning|social conditioning]].<ref name=Gilligan>{{cite book |last=Gilligan |first=Carol |author-link=Carol Gilligan |title=In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development |url=https://archive.org/details/indifferentvoic000gill |url-access=registration |year=1993 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-44544-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/indifferentvoic000gill/page/184 184]}}</ref>

==== Standpoint theory ====

Standpoint theory is a feminist theoretical point of view stating that a person's social position influences their knowledge. This perspective argues that research and theory treat women and the feminist movement as insignificant and refuses to see traditional science as unbiased.<ref>{{Cite web|title = standpoint theory {{!}} feminism|url = https://www.britannica.com/topic/standpoint-theory|website = Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date = 10 February 2016}}</ref> Since the 1980s, standpoint feminists have argued that the feminist movement should address global issues (such as rape, [[Social:Incest|incest]], and prostitution) and culturally specific issues (such as [[Medicine:Female genital mutilation|female genital mutilation]] in some parts of Africa and Arab societies, as well as glass ceiling practices that impede women's advancement in developed economies) in order to understand how gender inequality interacts with racism, homophobia, classism and colonization in a "[[Social:Matrix of domination|matrix of domination]]".<ref name="BFT"/><ref name=Harding2003>{{cite book |last=Harding |first=Sandra |title=The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-94501-1 |pages=1–16, 67–80}}</ref>

==== Fourth-wave feminism ====
[[File:Iruñeko bortxaketaren auzia 5.jpg|thumb|Protest against La Manada sexual abuse case sentence, Pamplona, 2018]]

Fourth-wave feminism is a proposed extension of third-wave feminism which corresponds to a resurgence in interest in feminism beginning around 2012 and associated with the use of social media.<ref name=4thWave-Guardian20131210/><ref>{{Cite web|title=Feminism: A fourth wave? {{!}} The Political Studies Association (PSA)|url=https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/feminism-fourth-wave|access-date=29 November 2021|website=Feminism: A fourth wave? {{!}} The Political Studies Association (PSA)}}</ref> According to feminist scholar Prudence Chamberlain, the focus of the fourth wave is justice for women and opposition to sexual harassment and violence against women. Its essence, she writes, is "incredulity that certain attitudes can still exist".{{sfn|Chamberlain|2017|p=115}}

Fourth-wave feminism is "defined by technology", according to Kira Cochrane, and is characterized particularly by the use of [[Company:Facebook|Facebook]], [[Company:Twitter|Twitter]], [[Software:Instagram|Instagram]], [[Company:YouTube|YouTube]], [[Company:Tumblr|Tumblr]], and blogs such as Feministing to challenge [[Social:Misogyny|misogyny]] and further [[Social:Gender equality|gender equality]].<ref name="4thWave-Guardian20131210">{{cite news|last=Cochrane|first=Kira|date=10 December 2013|title=The Fourth Wave of Feminism: Meet the Rebel Women|newspaper=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/fourth-wave-feminism-rebel-women|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131210221939/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/fourth-wave-feminism-rebel-women|archive-date=10 December 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Solomon|first=Deborah|date=13 November 2009|title=The Blogger and Author on the Life of Women Online|work=The New York Times Magazine|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15fob-q4-t.html|url-status=live|access-date=16 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501082226/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15fob-q4-t.html?_r=3|archive-date=1 May 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Zerbisias|first=Antonia|date=16 September 2015|title=Feminism's Fourth Wave is the Shitlist|url=https://nowtoronto.com/news/feminisms-fourth-wave-is-the-shitlist/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200817170127/https://nowtoronto.com/feminisms-fourth-wave-is-the-shitlist|archive-date=17 August 2020|access-date=21 April 2016|website=NOW Toronto}}</ref>

[[File:Women's March on Washington (32593123745).jpg|thumb|left|2017 Women's March, Washington, D.C.]]

Issues that fourth-wave feminists focus on include street and workplace harassment, campus sexual assault and rape culture. Scandals involving the harassment, abuse, and murder of women and girls have galvanized the movement. These have included the 2012 Delhi gang rape, 2012 Jimmy Savile allegations, the Bill Cosby allegations, 2014 Isla Vista killings, 2016 trial of Jian Ghomeshi, 2017 Harvey Weinstein allegations and subsequent [[Social:Weinstein effect|Weinstein effect]], and the 2017 Westminster sexual scandals.<ref>For Cosby, Ghomeshi, #MeToo, and fourth wave, see Matheson, Kelsey (17 October 2017). [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/kelsey-matheson/you-said-metoo-now-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it_a_23246129/ "You Said #MeToo. Now What Are We Going To Do About It?"], ''The Huffington Post''.{{pb}}
For Savile and fourth wave, see {{harvnb|Chamberlain|2017|pp=114–115}}{{pb}}
For page three, Thorpe, Vanessa (27 July 2013). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/27/new-generation-of-feminists-set-agenda "What now for Britain's new-wave feminists – after page 3 and £10 notes?"], ''The Guardian''.{{pb}}
For Isla Vista killings, see {{cite news|url=http://time.com/3319081/whyistayed-hashtag-feminism-activism/ |title=Behold the Power of #Hashtag Feminism |last=Bennett |first=Jessica |date=10 September 2014 |magazine=Time}}</ref>

[[File:8M Paraná 2019 13.jpg|thumb|right|International Women's Strike, Paraná, Argentina, 2019]]

Examples of fourth-wave feminist campaigns include the Everyday Sexism Project, No More Page 3, Stop Bild Sexism, ''Mattress Performance'', ''10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman'', #YesAllWomen, Free the Nipple, One Billion Rising, the 2017 Women's March, the 2018 Women's March, and the #MeToo movement. In December 2017, {{wipe|Time (magazine)}} magazine chose several prominent female activists involved in the #MeToo movement, dubbed "the silence breakers", as Person of the Year.<ref name=Zacharek6Dec2017>Zacharek, Stephanie; Dockterman Eliana; and Sweetland Edwards, Haley (6 December 2017). [http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/ "The Silence Breakers"], ''Time''.</ref><ref>Redden, Molly, and agencies (6 December 2017). [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/06/metoo-movement-named-time-magazines-person-of-the-year "#MeToo movement named Time magazine's Person of the Year"], ''The Guardian''.</ref>

=== Decolonial feminism ===
Decolonial feminism reformulates the [[Philosophy:Coloniality of gender|coloniality of gender]] by critiquing the very formation of gender and its subsequent formations of [[Biology:Patriarchy|patriarchy]] and the [[Gender binary|gender binary]], not as universal constants across cultures, but as structures that have been instituted by and for the benefit of [[History:European colonialism|European colonialism]]. Marìa Lugones proposes that decolonial feminism speaks to how "the colonial imposition of gender cuts across questions of ecology, economics, government, relations with the spirit world, and knowledge, as well as across everyday practices that either habituate us to take care of the world or to destroy it." Decolonial feminists like [[Biography:Karla Jessen Williamson|Karla Jessen Williamson]] and Rauna Kuokkanen have examined colonialism as a force that has imposed gender hierarchies on Indigenous women that have disempowered and fractured Indigenous communities and ways of life.

==== Postfeminism ====
{{main|Social:Postfeminism}}
The term [[Social:Postfeminism|postfeminism]] is used to describe a range of viewpoints reacting to feminism since the 1980s. While not being "anti-feminist", postfeminists believe that women have achieved second wave goals while being critical of third- and fourth-wave feminist goals. The term was first used to describe a backlash against second-wave feminism, but it is now a label for a wide range of theories that take critical approaches to previous feminist discourses and includes challenges to the second wave's ideas.<ref name=Wright2000>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Elizabeth |title=Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters) |year=2000 |publisher=Totem Books |isbn=978-1-84046-182-4}}</ref> Other postfeminists say that feminism is no longer relevant to today's society.<ref name="Abbott">{{cite book |last1=Abbott |first1=Pamela |last2=Tyler |first2=Melissa |last3=Wallace |first3=Claire |title=An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-38245-3 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=PPp7dfrNTroC&q=no+longer+relevant xi] |edition=3rd}}</ref><ref name="Mateo–Gomez">{{cite book |last1=Mateo–Gomez |first1=Tatiana |editor1-last=Richter |editor1-first=William L. |title=Approaches to Political Thought |date=2009 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4616-3656-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mQn-AAAAQBAJ&q=feminism+no+longer+relevant 279] |chapter=Feminist Criticism}}</ref> Amelia Jones has written that the postfeminist texts which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s portrayed second-wave feminism as a monolithic entity.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Amelia |chapter=Postfeminism, Feminist Pleasures, and Embodied Theories of Art |title=New Feminist Criticism: Art, Identity, Action |editor1-first=Joana |editor1-last=Frueh |editor2-first=Cassandra L. |editor2-last=Langer |editor3-first=Arlene |editor3-last=Raven |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1994 |pages=16–41, 20}}</ref> Dorothy Chunn describes a "blaming narrative" under the postfeminist moniker, where feminists are undermined for continuing to make demands for gender equality in a "post-feminist" society, where "gender equality has (already) been achieved". According to Chunn, "many feminists have voiced disquiet about the ways in which rights and equality discourses are now used against them".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Chunn|first=Dorothy E.|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ASc568aunFoC&q=Take+It+Easy+Girls%22:+Feminism,+Equality,+and+Social+Change+in+the+Media&pg=PA31|title=Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law, and Social Change|date=1 November 2011|publisher=UBC Press|isbn=978-0-7748-4036-1|editor-last=Chunn|editor-first=Dorothy E.|location=|pages=31|chapter="Take It Easy Girls": Feminism, Equality, and Social Change in the Media (2007)|editor-last2=Boyd|editor-first2=Susan|editor-last3=Lessard|editor-first3=Hester}}</ref>

== Theory ==
{{main|Social:Feminist theory}}
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields. It encompasses work in a variety of disciplines, including [[Social:Feminist anthropology|anthropology]], sociology, economics, [[Philosophy:Women's studies|women's studies]], literary criticism,<ref name=Zajko>{{cite book |author=Zajko, Vanda |author2=Leonard, Miriam |title=Laughing With Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought |year=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-927438-3 |page=445}}</ref><ref name=Howe>{{cite book |last1=Howe |first1=Mica |last2=Aguiar |first2=Sarah Appleton |title=He Said, She Says: An RSVP To the Male Text |year=2001 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |location=Madison, NJ |isbn=978-0-8386-3915-3 |page=292}}</ref> [[Art history#Psychoanalytic art history|art history]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pollock|first=Griselda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKHpAAAAMAAJ|title=Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum: Time, Space and the Archive|date=2007|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-41374-9}}</ref> [[Social:Feminist theory#Psychoanalysis|psychoanalysis]],<ref name=matrixial_borderspace>{{cite book |author=Ettinger, Bracha |author2=Judith Butler |author3=Brian Massumi |author4=Griselda Pollock |title=The Matrixial Borderspace |year=2006 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |isbn=978-0-8166-3587-0 |page=245|author2-link=Judith Butler }}</ref> and philosophy.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Brabeck|first1=Mary|title=Feminist theory and psychological practice.|date=1997|url=http://content.apa.org/books/10245-001|work=Shaping the future of feminist psychology: Education, research, and practice.|pages=15–35|editor-last=Worell|editor-first=Judith|place=Washington|publisher=American Psychological Association|doi=10.1037/10245-001|isbn=978-1-55798-448-7|access-date=22 January 2021|last2=Brown|first2=Laura|editor2-last=Johnson|editor2-first=Norine G.}}</ref><ref name=Florence>{{cite book |author=Florence, Penny |author2=Foster, Nicola |title=Differential Aesthetics: Art Practices, Philosophy and Feminist Understandings |year=2001 |publisher=Ashgate |location=Aldershot, Hants, England |isbn=978-0-7546-1493-7 |page=360}}</ref> Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, [[Philosophy:Objectification|objectification]] (especially [[History:Sexual objectification|sexual objectification]]), [[Philosophy:Oppression|oppression]], and [[Biology:Patriarchy|patriarchy]].<ref name=Chodorow1989/><ref name=gilligan1977/>
In the field of [[Philosophy:Literary criticism|literary criticism]], Elaine Showalter describes the development of feminist theory as having three phases. The first she calls "feminist critique", in which the feminist reader examines the ideologies behind literary phenomena. The second Showalter calls "gynocriticism", in which the "woman is producer of textual meaning". The last phase she calls "gender theory", in which the "ideological inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system are explored".<ref name=showalter1979>{{cite book |last1=Showalter |first1=Elaine |editor1-first=M. |editor1-last=Jacobus |title=Women Writing about Women |year=1979 |publisher=Croom Helm |isbn=978-0-85664-745-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/womenwritingwrit0000unse/page/25 25–36] |chapter=Towards a Feminist Poetics |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/womenwritingwrit0000unse/page/25 }}</ref>

This was paralleled in the 1970s by French feminists, who developed the concept of ''[[Philosophy:Écriture féminine|écriture féminine]]'' (which translates as "female or feminine writing").<ref name=Wright2000/> [[Biography:Hélène Cixous|Hélène Cixous]] argues that writing and philosophy are ''phallocentric'' and along with other French feminists such as [[Biography:Luce Irigaray|Luce Irigaray]] emphasize "writing from the body" as a subversive exercise.<ref name=Wright2000/> The work of [[Biography:Julia Kristeva|Julia Kristeva]], a feminist psychoanalyst and philosopher, and Bracha Ettinger,<ref>Ettinger, Bracha, 'The Matrixial Borderspace'. (Essays from 1994–99), University of Minnesota Press 2006. {{ISBN|0-8166-3587-0}}.</ref> artist and psychoanalyst, has influenced feminist theory in general and feminist literary criticism in particular. However, as the scholar Elizabeth Wright points out, "none of these French feminists align themselves with the feminist movement as it appeared in the Anglophone world".<ref name=Wright2000/><ref name=Moi1986>{{cite book |last1=Kristeva |first1=Julia |last2=Moi |first2=Toril |title=The Kristeva Reader |year=1986 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-231-06325-8 |page=328}}</ref> More recent feminist theory, such as that of Lisa Lucile Owens,<ref>E.g., {{cite journal |title=Coerced Parenthood as Family Policy: Feminism, the Moral Agency of Women, and Men's 'Right to Choose' |first=Lisa Lucile |last=Owens |journal=Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review |volume=5 |page=1 |year=2003 |ssrn=2439294}}</ref> has concentrated on characterizing feminism as a universal emancipatory movement.

== Movements and ideologies ==
Many overlapping feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years. Feminism is often divided into three main traditions called liberal, radical and socialist/Marxist feminism, sometimes known as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought. Since the late 20th century, newer forms of feminisms have also emerged.<ref name="Maynard">{{cite journal |last1=Maynard |first1=Mary |title=Beyond the 'big three': the development of feminist theory into the 1990s |journal=Women's History Review |date=1995|volume=4|issue=3|pages=259–281|doi=10.1080/09612029500200089|doi-access=free}}</ref> Some branches of feminism track the political leanings of the larger society to a greater or lesser degree, or focus on specific topics, such as the environment.

=== Liberal feminism ===
{{Main|Social:Liberal feminism}}
[[File:Elizabeth Stanton.jpg|thumb|Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a major figure in 19th-century liberal feminism]]
[[Social:Liberal feminism|Liberal feminism]], also known under other names such as reformist, mainstream, or historically as bourgeois feminism,<ref name="Voet">{{cite book |last1=Voet |first1=Rian |title=Feminism and Citizenship |date=1998 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=1-4462-2804-5 |page=25|chapter=Categorizations of feminism}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Lindsey |first=Linda L. |date=2015 |title=Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective |publisher= Routledge |page=17 |isbn=978-1-317-34808-5}}</ref> arose from 19th-century first-wave feminism, and was historically linked to 19th-century [[Philosophy:Liberalism|liberalism]] and [[Philosophy:Progressivism|progressivism]], while 19th-century conservatives tended to oppose feminism as such. Liberal feminism seeks equality of men and women through political and legal reform within a [[Social:Liberal democracy|liberal democratic]] framework, without radically altering the structure of society; liberal feminism "works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure".<ref>{{cite web |last1=West |first1=Rebecca |title=Kinds of Feminism |url=https://www.uah.edu/woolf/feminism_kinds.htm |publisher=University of Alabama in Huntsville}}</ref> During the 19th and early 20th centuries liberal feminism focused especially on women's suffrage and access to education.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marilley |first1=Suzanne M. |title=Woman Suffrage and the Origins of Liberal Feminism in the United States, 1820–1920 |date=1996 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-674-95465-3}}</ref> Former Norwegian supreme court justice and former president of the liberal Norwegian Association for Women's Rights, Karin Maria Bruzelius, has described liberal feminism as "a realistic, sober, practical feminism".<ref>{{cite web |title=Hvem vi er |url=http://kvinnesak.no/om/ |publisher=Norwegian Association for Women's Rights|access-date=28 October 2020}}</ref>

Susan Wendell argues that "liberal feminism is an historical tradition that grew out of liberalism, as can be seen very clearly in the work of such feminists as Mary Wollstonecraft and [[Biography:John Stuart Mill|John Stuart Mill]], but feminists who took principles from that tradition have developed analyses and goals that go far beyond those of 18th and 19th century liberal feminists, and many feminists who have goals and strategies identified as liberal feminist&nbsp;... reject major components of liberalism" in a modern or party-political sense; she highlights "equality of opportunity" as a defining feature of liberal feminism.<ref name="Wendell-1987">{{Cite journal|last=Wendell|first=Susan|date=June 1987|title=A (Qualified) Defense of Liberal Feminism |journal=Hypatia |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=65–93 |doi=10.1111/j.1527-2001.1987.tb01066.x|s2cid=143213609 |issn=0887-5367}}</ref>

Liberal feminism is a very broad term that encompasses many, often diverging modern branches and a variety of feminist and general political perspectives; some historically liberal branches are equality feminism, social feminism, equity feminism, difference feminism, individualist/libertarian feminism and some forms of [[Social:State feminism|state feminism]], particularly the state feminism of the [[Place:Nordic countries|Nordic countries]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Griffiths |first=Morwenna |date=April 1995 |title=Making a Difference: feminism, post-modernism and the methodology of educational research |url=http://doi.wiley.com/10.1080/0141192950210207 |journal=British Educational Research Journal |language=en |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=219–235 |doi=10.1080/0141192950210207 |issn=0141-1926}}</ref> The broad field of liberal feminism is sometimes confused with the more recent and smaller branch known as libertarian feminism, which tends to diverge significantly from mainstream liberal feminism. For example, "libertarian feminism does not require social measures to reduce material inequality; in fact, it opposes such measures&nbsp;... in contrast, liberal feminism may support such requirements and egalitarian versions of feminism insist on them."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mahowald |first1=Mary Briody |title=Genes, Women, Equality |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=145|chapter=Different Versions of Feminism}}</ref>

Catherine Rottenberg notes that the raison d'être of classic liberal feminism was "to pose an immanent critique of liberalism, revealing the gendered exclusions within liberal democracy's proclamation of universal equality, particularly with respect to the law, institutional access, and the full incorporation of women into the public sphere." Rottenberg contrasts classic liberal feminism with modern neoliberal feminism which "seems perfectly in sync with the evolving neoliberal order."<ref name="rotten">{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1080/09502386.2013.857361|title = The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism|journal = Cultural Studies|volume = 28|issue = 3|pages = 418–437|year = 2014|last1 = Rottenberg|first1 = Catherine|s2cid = 144882102|url = http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/INFE/article/view/54954}}</ref> According to Zhang and Rios, "liberal feminism tends to be adopted by 'mainstream' (i.e., middle-class) women who do not disagree with the current social structure." They found that liberal feminism with its focus on equality is viewed as the dominant and "default" form of feminism.<ref name=ZhangRios>{{cite journal |last1=Zhang |first1=Y. |last2=Rios |first2=K. |title=Understanding Perceptions of Radical and Liberal Feminists: The Nuanced Roles of Warmth and Competence |journal=Sex Roles|date=2021 |volume=86 |issue=3–4 |pages=143–158 |doi=10.1007/s11199-021-01257-y|s2cid=243479502 }}</ref>

Some modern forms of feminism that historically grew out of the broader liberal tradition have more recently also been described as conservative in relative terms. This is particularly the case for libertarian feminism which conceives of people as self-owners and therefore as entitled to freedom from coercive interference.<ref name="Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy">{{cite book |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/#ClasCri |title=Liberal Feminism |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2018 }}</ref>

=== Radical feminism ===
[[File:Feminism symbol.svg|upright|thumb|right|The merged [[Venus symbol|Venus symbol]] with raised fist is a common symbol of radical feminism, one of the movements within feminism]]

Radical feminism arose from the [[Philosophy:Radical politics|radical]] wing of second-wave feminism and calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy. It considers the male-controlled capitalist hierarchy as the defining feature of women's oppression and the total uprooting and reconstruction of society as necessary.<ref name="Echols" /> [[Social:Separatist feminism|Separatist feminism]] does not support heterosexual relationships. [[Social:Lesbian feminism|Lesbian feminism]] is thus closely related. Other feminists criticize separatist feminism as sexist.<ref name="hooks">{{cite book|last=hooks |first=bell |year=2000 |title=Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics |location=Cambridge, Mass. |publisher=South End Press |isbn=978-0-89608-629-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/feminismisforeve00hook }}</ref>

=== Materialist ideologies ===
[[File:Emma Goldman seated.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Biography:Emma Goldman|Emma Goldman]] a union activist, labour organizer and feminist anarchist]]

Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham say that materialist forms of feminism grew out of Western Marxist thought and have inspired a number of different (but overlapping) movements, all of which are involved in a critique of capitalism and are focused on ideology's relationship to women.<ref>{{Cite book |last1= Hennessy |first1= Rosemary |first2=Chrys |last2=Ingraham |title=Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives |location= London |publisher=Routledge | pages=1–13 |isbn=978-0-415-91634-9 |year=1997}}</ref> Marxist feminism argues that capitalism is the root cause of women's oppression, and that discrimination against women in domestic life and employment is an effect of capitalist ideologies.<ref name="Bottomore">{{Cite book |author=Bottomore, T.B. |title=A Dictionary of Marxist Thought |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | page=215 |isbn=978-0-631-18082-1 |year=1991}}</ref> [[Social:Socialist feminism|Socialist feminism]] distinguishes itself from Marxist feminism by arguing that women's liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/Socialist-Feminism.html |title=What is Socialist Feminism? |author=Barbara Ehrenreich |publisher=feministezine.com |access-date=3 December 2011}}</ref> [[Social:Anarcha-feminism|Anarcha-feminists]] believe that class struggle and [[Social:Anarchism|anarchy]] against the [[Earth:State (polity)|state]]<ref name="farrow">{{Cite book |last=Dunbar-Ortiz |first=Roxanne |title=Quiet Rumours |publisher=AK Press |isbn=978-1-902593-40-1 |year=2002 |pages=11–13}}</ref> require struggling against patriarchy, which comes from involuntary hierarchy.

=== Other modern feminisms ===
==== Ecofeminism ====
Ecofeminists see men's control of land as responsible for the oppression of women and destruction of the [[Earth:Ecology|natural environment]]. Ecofeminism has been criticized for focusing too much on a mystical connection between women and nature.<ref name="Biehl">{{Cite book |last=Biehl |first=Janet |title=Rethinking Eco-Feminist Politics |year=1991 |publisher=South End Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-89608-392-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/rethinkingecofem0000bieh }}</ref>

==== Black and postcolonial ideologies ====

Sara Ahmed argues that Black and postcolonial feminisms pose a challenge "to some of the organizing premises of Western feminist thought".<ref name="Ahmed">{{Cite book |author=Ahmed, Sarta |title= Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism |year=2000 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-22066-8 |page=111}}</ref> During much of its history, feminist movements and theoretical developments were led predominantly by middle-class white women from Western Europe and North America.<ref name="Walker">{{Cite book|author=Walker, Alice |title=In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose |year=1983 |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |location=San Diego |isbn=978-0-15-144525-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/insearchofourmot00walk/page/397 397] |title-link=In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose }}</ref><ref name="BFT">{{cite book |last=Hill Collins |first=P. |title=Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment |url=https://archive.org/details/blackfeministtho0000coll |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackfeministtho0000coll/page/n308 1]–335}}</ref><ref name="Narayan"/> However, women of other races have proposed alternative feminisms.<ref name="BFT" /> This trend accelerated in the 1960s with the civil rights movement in the United States and the end of Western European colonialism in Africa, the Caribbean, parts of Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Since that time, women in [[Social:Third World|developing nations]] and [[Philosophy:Postcolonialism|former colonies]] and who are of colour or various ethnicities or living in poverty have proposed additional feminisms.<ref name="Narayan" /> Womanism<ref name="Ogunyemi">{{cite journal |doi=10.1086/494200 |title=Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English |year=1985 |last1=Ogunyemi |first1=Chikwenye Okonjo |journal=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=63–80 |jstor=3174287|s2cid=143836306 }}</ref><ref name="Kolawole">{{Cite book |author=Kolawole, Mary Ebun Modupe |title=Womanism and African Consciousness |year=1997 |publisher=Africa World Press |location=Trenton, N.J. |isbn=978-0-86543-540-7 |page=216}}</ref> emerged after early feminist movements were largely white and middle-class.<ref name="Walker" /> Postcolonial feminists argue that colonial oppression and Western feminism marginalized postcolonial women but did not turn them passive or voiceless.<ref name=Weedon>{{cite journal |last=Weedon |first=Chris |title=Key Issues in Postcolonial Feminism: A Western Perspective |year=2002 |url=http://www.genderforum.org/issues/genderealisations/key-issues-in-postcolonial-feminism-a-western-perspective/ |journal=Gender Forum |issue=1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203002056/http://www.genderforum.org/issues/genderealisations/key-issues-in-postcolonial-feminism-a-western-perspective/ |archive-date=3 December 2013 }}</ref> Third-world feminism and indigenous feminism are closely related to postcolonial feminism.<ref name="Narayan">{{Cite book |last=Narayan |first=Uma |title=Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third-World Feminism |year=1997 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-0-415-91418-5 |pages=20–28, 113, 161–87}}</ref> These ideas also correspond with ideas in African feminism, motherism,<ref name="Acholonu">{{Cite book |last=Obianuju Acholonu |first=Catherine |title=Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism |year=1995 |publisher=Afa Publ. |isbn=978-978-31997-1-2 |page=144}}</ref> Stiwanism,<ref name="Ogundipe-Leslie">{{Cite book |last=Ogundipe-Leslie |first=Molara |title=Re-creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical Transformations |year=1994 |publisher=Africa World Press |isbn=978-0-86543-412-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/recreatingoursel00ogun/page/262 262] |url=https://archive.org/details/recreatingoursel00ogun/page/262 }}</ref> negofeminism,<ref name="Nnaemeka">{{cite journal |last=Nnaemeka |first=Obioma |title=Feminism, Rebellious Women, and Cultural Boundaries: Rereading Flora Nwapa and Her Compatriots |journal=Research in African Literatures |year=1995 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=80–113 |jstor=3820273}}</ref> femalism, [[Social:Transnational feminism|transnational feminism]], and Africana womanism.<ref name="Hudson-Weems">{{Cite book |last=Hudson-Weems |first=Clenora |title=Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves |year=1994 |publisher=Bedford Publishers |location=Troy, Mich. |isbn=978-0-911557-11-4 |page=158}}</ref>

==== Social constructionist ideologies ====
{{main|Social:Social construction of gender}}
In the late 20th century various feminists began to argue that gender roles are socially constructed,<ref name="Butler">{{cite book| last = Butler | first = Judith |  title = Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | orig-year = 1990 | year = 1999 | isbn = 978-0-415-92499-3 | url = https://archive.org/details/gendertroublefem00butl }}</ref><ref name=West&Zimmerman>{{cite journal | last1 = West | first1 = Candace | last2 = Zimmerman | first2 = Don H. | title = Doing gender | journal = Gender & Society | volume = 1 | issue = 2 | pages = 125–151 | doi = 10.1177/0891243287001002002 | jstor = 189945 | date = June 1987 | s2cid = 220519301 }} [https://campus.fsu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/academic/social_sciences/sociology/Reading%20Lists/Social%20Psych%20Prelim%20Readings/IV.%20Structures%20and%20Inequalities/1987%20West%20Zimmerman%20-%20Doing%20Gender.pdf Pdf.]</ref> and that it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and histories.<ref name=Benhabib>{{citation |last=Benhabib |first=Seyla |title=From identity politics to social feminism: a plea for the Nineties |journal=Philosophy of Education |volume=1 |issue=2 |page=14 |year=1995 |url=https://ojs.education.illinois.edu/index.php/pes/issue/archive |access-date=20 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180705233024/https://ojs.education.illinois.edu/index.php/pes/issue/archive |archive-date=5 July 2018 |url-status=dead }}

: ''Reproduced in'':
: ''Citing'':
:* {{cite book| last = Yeatman | first = Anna | chapter = The epistemological politics of postmodern feminist theorizing | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3W3QES9zwdsC&pg=PA15 | title = Postmodern Revisionings of the Political | pages = [https://archive.org/details/postmodernrevisi0000yeat/page/15 15–22] | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 1994 | isbn = 978-0-415-90198-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/postmodernrevisi0000yeat/page/15 }}</ref>

==== Transgender people ====
{{Main|Social:Feminist views on transgender topics}}

Third-wave feminists tend to view the struggle for trans rights as an integral part of intersectional feminism.<ref name="grady_vox">{{cite news |last=Grady |first=Constance |url=https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth |title=The waves of feminism, and why people keep fighting over them, explained |work=Vox |date=20 June 2018 |access-date=26 April 2019 |archive-date=5 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190405172242/https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth |url-status=live }}</ref> Fourth-wave feminists also tend to be trans-inclusive.<ref name="grady_vox"/> The American National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O'Neill said the struggle against transphobia is a feminist issue<ref name=now>{{cite web |title=Why Transphobia Is a Feminist Issue |date=8 September 2014 |url=https://now.org/blog/why-transphobia-is-a-feminist-issue/ |publisher=National Organization for Women |access-date=24 November 2021}}</ref> and NOW has affirmed that "trans women are women, trans girls are girls."<ref name=now2>{{cite web |title=NOW Celebrates International Transgender Day of Visibility |date=31 March 2021 |url=https://now.org/media-center/press-release/now-celebrates-transgender-day-of-visibility/ |publisher=National Organization for Women|access-date=24 November 2021}}</ref> Several studies have found that people who identify as feminists tend to be more accepting of trans people than those who do not.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Platt |first1=Lisa F. |last2=Szoka |first2=Spring L. |title=Endorsement of Feminist Beliefs, Openness, and Mindful Acceptance as Predictors of Decreased Transphobia |journal=Journal of Homosexuality |date=28 January 2021 |volume=68 |issue=2 |pages=185–202 |doi=10.1080/00918369.2019.1651109 |pmid=31411935 |s2cid=199663381 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Conlin |first1=Sarah E. |last2=Douglass |first2=Richard P. |last3=Moscardini |first3=Emma H. |title=Predicting transphobia among cisgender women and men: The roles of feminist identification and gender conformity |journal=Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health |date=2 January 2021 |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=5–19 |doi=10.1080/19359705.2020.1780535 |s2cid=225798026 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brassel |first1=Sheila T. |last2=Anderson |first2=Veanne N. |title=Who Thinks Outside the Gender Box? Feminism, Gender Self-Esteem, and Attitudes toward Trans People |journal=Sex Roles |date=April 2020 |volume=82 |issue=7–8 |pages=447–462 |doi=10.1007/s11199-019-01066-4 |s2cid=198663918 }}</ref>

An ideology variously known as [[Social:TERF|trans-exclusionary radical feminism]] (or its acronym, TERF)<ref name="MacDonald 2015">{{cite journal |last1=MacDonald |first1=Terry |title=Are you now or have you ever been a TERF? |journal=New Statesman America |date=16 February 2015 |access-date=13 April 2019 |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-terf |archive-date=14 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414015914/https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-terf |url-status=live }}</ref> or gender-critical feminism is critical of concepts of [[Philosophy:Gender identity|gender identity]] and transgender rights, holding that biological sex characteristics are an immutable determination of gender or supersede the importance of gender identity,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zanghellini |first1=Aleardo |title=Philosophical Problems With the Gender-Critical Feminist Argument Against Trans Inclusion |journal=SAGE Open |date=April 2020 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=215824402092702 |doi=10.1177/2158244020927029 |s2cid=219733494 |url=https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/90937/4/2158244020927029.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103214816/http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/90937/4/2158244020927029.pdf |archive-date=2020-11-03 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=5 June 2021|title=A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities|work=Economist|url=https://www.economist.com/international/2021/06/05/a-backlash-against-gender-ideology-is-starting-in-universities|access-date=6 June 2021}}</ref><ref name="Gordon-2021">{{Cite web|title=Woman accused of transphobia wins landmark employment case|url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19362788.maya-forstater-wins-landmark-employment-case-gender-critical-beliefs/|access-date=10 June 2021|website=HeraldScotland|date=10 June 2021 }}</ref><ref name="Faulkner-2021">{{cite news|last=Faulkner|first=Doug|date=10 June 2021|title=Maya Forstater: Woman wins tribunal appeal over transgender tweets|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579|access-date=10 June 2021|quote=Ms Forstater&nbsp;... claimed she was discriminated against because of her beliefs, which include 'that sex is immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity'.&nbsp;... But the Honourable Mr Justice Choudhury said her 'gender-critical beliefs' did fall under the Equalities Act as they 'did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons'.}}</ref><ref name="Observer-2021">{{cite news|last=Observer editorial|date=27 June 2021|title=The Observer view on the right to free expression|work=Observer|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/the-observer-view-on-the-right-to-free-expression|access-date=27 June 2021|quote='Gender-critical' beliefs refer to the view that someone's sex – whether they are male or female – is biological and immutable and cannot be conflated with someone's gender identity, whether they identify as a man or a woman. The belief that the patriarchal oppression of women is grounded partly in their biological sex, not just the social expression of gender, and that women therefore have the right to certain single-sex spaces and to organise on the basis of biological sex if they so wish, represents a long-standing strand of feminist thinking. Other feminists disagree, believing that gender identity supersedes biological sex altogether.}}</ref> that trans women are not women, and that trans men are not men.<ref name="Flaherty 2018">{{cite web |last1=Flaherty |first1=Colleen |title='TERF' War |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/29/philosophers-object-journals-publication-terf-reference-some-feminists-it-really |access-date=12 April 2019 |website=Inside Higher Ed |date=29 August 2018 |archive-date=7 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190407014511/http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/29/philosophers-object-journals-publication-terf-reference-some-feminists-it-really |url-status=live }}</ref> These views have been described as transphobic by many other feminists.<ref name="Miller 2018">{{cite web |url=https://theoutline.com/post/6536/british-feminists-media-transphobic |title=Why Is British Media So Transphobic? |last1=Miller |first1=Edie |date=5 November 2018 |publisher=The Outline |access-date=3 May 2019 |quote=The truth is, while the British conservative right would almost certainly be more than happy to whip up a frenzy of transphobia, they simply haven't needed to, because some sections of the left over here are doing their hate-peddling for them. The most vocal source of this hatred has emerged, sadly, from within circles of radical feminists. British feminism has an increasingly notorious TERF problem. |archive-date=19 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191019192628/https://theoutline.com/post/6536/british-feminists-media-transphobic |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="dalbey_terfwars">{{cite news |last1=Dalbey |first1=Alex |title=TERF wars: Why trans-exclusionary radical feminists have no place in feminism |url=https://www.dailydot.com/irl/terf-meaning/ |access-date=27 January 2019 |work=Daily Dot |date=12 August 2018 |archive-date=28 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190128082722/https://www.dailydot.com/irl/terf-meaning/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=usatoday_2017-03-16>{{cite news |last=Dastagir |first=Alia |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/16/feminism-glossary-lexicon-language/99120600/ |title=A feminist glossary because we didn't all major in gender studies |work=[[Software:USA Today|USA Today]] |date=16 March 2017 |access-date=24 April 2019 |quote=TERF: The acronym for 'trans exclusionary radical feminists,' referring to feminists who are transphobic. |archive-date=20 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720073940/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/16/feminism-glossary-lexicon-language/99120600/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Lewis 2019">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/terf-trans-women-britain.html|title=Opinion {{!}} How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans|last=Lewis|first=Sophie|date=7 February 2019|work=The New York Times|access-date=5 May 2019|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=15 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191115191351/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/terf-trans-women-britain.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="lgbtqnation_2017-10-23">{{Cite web|last=Taylor|first=Jeff|date=23 October 2017|title=The Christian right's new strategy: Divide and conquer the LGBT community|url=https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/10/christian-rights-new-strategy-divide-conquer-lgbt-community/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190922155851/https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/10/christian-rights-new-strategy-divide-conquer-lgbt-community/|archive-date=22 September 2019|access-date=9 May 2019|website=www.lgbtqnation.com}}</ref><ref name=indy_2019-06-24>{{Cite web|url=https://www.indy100.com/article/joanna-cherry-snp-twitter-trans-rights-campaigners-pride-lgbt-edinburgh-8972341|title=SNP MP criticised for calling trans campaigners at Edinburgh Pride 'misogynistic'|date=24 June 2019|website=indy100|access-date=26 June 2019|archive-date=14 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114045153/https://www.indy100.com/article/joanna-cherry-snp-twitter-trans-rights-campaigners-pride-lgbt-edinburgh-8972341|url-status=live}}</ref>
<!-- Feminist views on transgender people differ. Some feminists do not view trans women as women,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/13/womens-issues-are-different-from-trans-womens-issues-feminist-author-says-sparking-criticism|title=Women's issues are different from trans women's issues, feminist author says, sparking criticism|last=Schmidt|first=Samantha|date=13 March 2017|work=The Washington Post}}</ref> believing that they have [[Social:Male privilege|male privilege]] due to their [[Biology:Sex assignment|sex assignment]] at birth.<ref name="newyorker">{{cite magazine|last1=Goldberg|first1=Michelle|title=What Is a Woman?|magazine=The New Yorker|date=4 August 2014|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2|access-date=20 November 2015}}</ref> Additionally, some feminists reject the concept of transgender identity due to views that all behavioural differences between genders are a result of [[Social:Socialization|socialization]].{{citation needed|date=October 2021}} In contrast, other feminists and transfeminists believe that the liberation of trans women is a necessary part of feminist goals.<ref name="koyama-manifesto">{{cite web|last1=Koyama |first1=Emi |title=The Transfeminist Manifesto |url=http://eminism.org/readings/pdf-rdg/tfmanifesto.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040401071911/http://www.eminism.org/readings/pdf-rdg/tfmanifesto.pdf |archive-date=2004-04-01 |url-status=live |website=eminism.org |access-date=10 June 2014}}</ref> Third-wave feminists are overall more supportive of trans rights.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hines |first1=Sally |title=TransForming Gender: Transgender Practices of Identity, Intimacy and Care |date=2007 |publisher=Policy Press |location=Bristol |isbn=978-1-86134-916-3 |pages=85–101}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Snyder|first=R. Claire|date=2008|title=What Is Third-Wave Feminism? A New Directions Essay|jstor=10.1086/588436|journal=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=175–196 |doi=10.1086/588436 |s2cid=144068546 |issn=0097-9740}}</ref> A key concept in transfeminism is of [[Social:Transmisogyny|transmisogyny]],<ref>Jeffreys, Sheila (2014) ''Gender Hurts'', Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0-415-53939-5}}, page 8.</ref> which is the irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender women or feminine gender-nonconforming people.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/lgbt-julia-serano-transfeminist-trans-misogyny.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/lgbt-julia-serano-transfeminist-trans-misogyny.html |archive-date=2 January 2022 |url-access=limited |url-status=live |title=Julia Serano, Transfeminist Thinker, Talks Trans-Misogyny |newspaper=The New York Times |date=22 June 2017 |author=Jeanne Carstensen}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.juliaserano.com/av/TransmisogynyPrimer-Serano.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120417061844/http://www.juliaserano.com/av/TransmisogynyPrimer-Serano.pdf |archive-date=2012-04-17 |url-status=live |author=Julia Serano |title=Trans-misogyny primer |access-date=29 June 2018}}</ref> -->

==== Cultural movements ====

Riot grrrls took an anti-corporate stance of self-sufficiency and [[Philosophy:Individualism|self-reliance]].<ref name=Rowe-Finbeiner>{{cite book|author=Rowe-Finkbeiner, Kristin |title=The F-Word: Feminism In Jeopardy – Women, Politics and the Future |year=2004 |publisher=Seal Press |isbn=978-1-58005-114-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/fwordfeminisminj00rowe }}</ref> Riot grrrl's emphasis on universal female identity and separatism often appears more closely allied with second-wave feminism than with the third wave.<ref name=Rosenberg_Garofalo>{{cite journal |author=Rosenberg, Jessica |author2=Gitana Garofalo |s2cid=144109102 |title=Riot Grrrl: Revolutions from within – Feminisms and Youth Cultures |journal=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=809–841 |date=Spring 1998 |doi=10.1086/495289 |jstor=3175311 }}</ref> The movement encouraged and made "adolescent girls' standpoints central", allowing them to express themselves fully.<ref name=Code>{{cite book |author=Code, Lorraine |title=Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories |year=2004 |publisher=Routledge |place=London |isbn=978-0-415-30885-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000unse/page/560 560] |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000unse/page/560 }}</ref> [[Social:Lipstick feminism|Lipstick feminism]] is a cultural feminist movement that attempts to respond to the backlash of second-wave radical feminism of the 1960s and 1970s by reclaiming symbols of "feminine" identity such as make-up, suggestive clothing and having a sexual allure as valid and empowering personal choices.<ref>{{cite book|last=Scanlon |first=Jennifer |title=Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-19-534205-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/badgirlsgoeveryw00scan/page/94 94–111] |url=https://archive.org/details/badgirlsgoeveryw00scan/page/94 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Joanne |last1=Hollows |first2=Rachel |last2=Moseley |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0RuRknkzxe4C&pg=PA84 |title=Feminism in Popular Culture |publisher=Berg Publishers |page=84 |isbn=978-1-84520-223-1}}</ref>

== Demographics ==

According to 2014 [[Company:Ipsos|Ipsos]] poll covering 15 developed countries, 53 percent of respondents identified as feminists, and 87 percent agreed that "women should be treated equally to men in all areas based on their competency, not their gender". However, only 55 percent of women agreed that they have "full equality with men and the freedom to reach their full dreams and aspirations".<ref name="ipsos">{{cite web|url=http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=6511|title=Can Men Be Feminists Too? Half (48%) of Men in 15 Country Survey Seem to Think So|last=Clark|first=Julia|year=2014|access-date=26 August 2016}}</ref> Taken together, these studies reflect the importance differentiating between claiming a "feminist identity" and holding "feminist attitudes or beliefs".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Harnois|first1=Catherine E.|date=October 2012|title=Sociological Research on Feminism and the Women's Movement: Ideology, Identity, and Practice|journal=Sociology Compass|volume=6|issue=10|pages=823–832|doi=10.1111/j.1751-9020.2012.00484.x}}</ref>

According to a 2015 poll, 18 percent of Americans use the label of "feminist" to describe themselves, while 85 percent are feminists in practice as they reported they believe in "equality for women". The poll found that 52 percent did not identify as feminist, 26 percent were unsure, and 4 percent provided no response.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Allum |first=Cynthia |date=9 April 2015 |title=82 percent of Americans don't consider themselves feminists, poll shows |work=The New York Times |url=http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/09/82-percent-of-americans-dont-consider-themselves-feminists-poll-shows/ |access-date=26 August 2016 |archive-date=28 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828183424/http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/09/82-percent-of-americans-dont-consider-themselves-feminists-poll-shows/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Sociological research shows that, in the US, increased educational attainment is associated with greater support for feminist issues. In addition, politically liberal people are more likely to support feminist ideals compared to those who are conservative.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harnois |first1=Catherine E. |title=Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality, and Women's Political Consciousness of Gender |journal=[[Social:Social Psychology Quarterly|Social Psychology Quarterly]] |date=23 November 2015 |volume=78 |issue=4 |pages=365–386 |doi=10.1177/0190272515607844|s2cid=147132634 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harnois |first1=Catherine E. |title=Intersectional Masculinities and Gendered Political Consciousness: How Do Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality Shape Men's Awareness of Gender Inequality and Support for Gender Activism? |journal=Sex Roles |date=15 November 2016 |volume=77 |issue=3–4 |pages=141–154 |doi=10.1007/s11199-016-0702-2|s2cid=151406838 }}</ref>

According to a 2016 Survation poll for the Fawcett Society, 7 percent of Britons use the label of "feminist" to describe themselves, while 83 percent say they support equality of opportunity for women – this included higher support from men (86%) than women (81%).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.survation.com/uk-attitudes-to-gender-in-2016-survation-for-fawcett-society/|title=Attitudes to Gender in 2016 Britain – 8,000 Sample Study for Fawcett Society|date=18 January 2016|website=Survation|access-date=28 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/only-7-per-cent-of-britons-consider-themselves-feminists/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/only-7-per-cent-of-britons-consider-themselves-feminists/ |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Only 7 per cent of Britons consider themselves feminists|last=Sanghani|first=Radhika|date=15 January 2016|work=The Telegraph|access-date=28 June 2019|issn=0307-1235}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

== Sexuality ==
Feminist views on sexuality vary, and have differed by historical period and by cultural context. Feminist attitudes to female sexuality have taken a few different directions. Matters such as the sex industry, sexual representation in the media, and issues regarding consent to sex under conditions of male dominance have been particularly controversial among feminists. This debate has culminated in the late 1970s and the 1980s, in what came to be known as the feminist sex wars, which pitted anti-pornography feminism against sex-positive feminism, and parts of the feminist movement were deeply divided by these debates.<ref name=Duggan /><ref name=Hansen>{{cite book |last1=Hansen |first1=Karen Tranberg |last2=Philipson |first2=Ilene J. |title=Women, Class, and the Feminist Imagination: A Socialist-Feminist Reader |year=1990 |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia |isbn=978-0-87722-630-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/womenclassfemini0000unse }}</ref><ref name=Gerhard>{{cite book |author=Gerhard, Jane F. |title=Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought, 1920 to 1982 |year=2001 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-231-11204-8}}</ref><ref name=Leidholdt>{{cite book |last1=Leidholdt |first1=Dorchen |last2=Raymond |first2=Janice G. |title=The Sexual Liberals and the Attack On Feminism |year=1990 |publisher=Pergamon Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-08-037457-4}}</ref><ref name=Vance>{{cite book |author=Vance, Carole S. |title=Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality |year=1989 |publisher=Thorsons Publishers|isbn=978-0-04-440593-1}}</ref> Feminists have taken a variety of positions on different aspects of the [[Social:Sexual revolution|sexual revolution]] from the 1960s and 70s. Over the course of the 1970s, a large number of influential women accepted lesbian and bisexual women as part of feminism.<ref>{{cite web|last=McBride|first=Andrew|title=The Sex Wars, 1970s to 1980s |date=2008 |website=OutHistory|url=http://www.outhistory.org/exhibits/show/lesbians-20th-century/sex-wars}}</ref>

=== Sex industry ===
Opinions on the sex industry are diverse. Feminists who are critical of the sex industry generally see it as the exploitative result of patriarchal social structures which reinforce sexual and cultural attitudes complicit in rape and sexual harassment. Alternately, feminists who support at least part of the sex industry argue that it can be a medium of feminist expression and reflect a woman's right to control and define her own sexuality. For the views of feminism on male prostitutes see the article on male prostitution.

Individualist feminists support the existence of a sex industry on the grounds that adult women have the right to consent to sexual acts as they choose and should have access to [[Finance:Labor rights|labor rights]], to earn money how they choose.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.libertarianism.org/topics/sex-work |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=Libertarianism.org |title=Sex Work }}</ref> In this view, banning the sex industry effectively strips women of their right to work and earn money on their own terms, treating them as children who cannot make decisions for themselves. In this view, women who consider the sex industry degrading do not have to partake in it. Women who do choose to work in the sex industry however should not be banned from doing so, given that they are doing so willingly. Libertarian Feminist Zine, [https://feministsforliberty.com/reclaim-volume-1-issue-1/ Reclaim], has argued that sex work has helped more women (including students, freelancers, and women in poverty) achieve financial independence than all government grants combined. 

Feminist views of pornography range from condemnation of pornography as a form of violence against women, to an embracing of some forms of pornography as a medium of feminist expression and a legitimate career.<ref name="Duggan">{{cite book|author1=Duggan, Lisa |author2=Hunter, Nan D. |title=Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture |year=1995 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-0-415-91036-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sexwarssexualdis0000dugg/page/1 1–14] |url=https://archive.org/details/sexwarssexualdis0000dugg/page/1 }}</ref><ref name="Hansen" /><ref name="Gerhard" /><ref name="Leidholdt" /><ref name="Vance" /> Similarly, feminists' views on prostitution vary, ranging from critical to supportive.<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Neill |first=Maggie |year=2001 |title=Prostitution and Feminism |publisher=Polity Press |location=Cambridge |pages=14–16}}</ref>  

=== Affirming female sexual autonomy ===
For feminists, a woman's right to control her own sexuality is a key issue and one that is heavily contested between different branches of feminism. Radical feminists such as Catharine MacKinnon argue that women have very little control over their own bodies, with female sexuality being largely controlled and defined by men in patriarchal societies. Radical feminists argue that sexual violence committed by men is often rooted in ideologies of male sexual entitlement and that these systems grant women very few legitimate options to refuse sexual advances.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Rohana Ariffin|author2=Women's Crisis Centre (Pinang, Malaysia)|title=Shame, Secrecy, and Silence: Study On Rape in Penang|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HfsDAQAAIAAJ|access-date=1 October 2011|year=1997|publisher=Women's Crisis Centre|isbn=978-983-99348-0-9}}</ref><ref>Bennett L, Manderson L, Astbury J. [http://academic.udayton.edu/health/01status/rape01.htm Mapping a global pandemic: review of current literature on rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment of women] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102214813/http://academic.udayton.edu/health/01status/rape01.htm |date=2 November 2012 }}. University of Melbourne, 2000.</ref> Some radical feminists have argued that women should not engage in heterosexual sex, and choose [[Social:Political lesbianism|lesbianism]] as a lifestyle and political choice, a view that has fallen out of favor, as sexuality is seen as largely biologically influenced rather than a choice one can make for political reasons.  

Some radical feminists argue that all cultures are, in one way or another, dominated by ideologies that deny women's right to sexual expression, because men under a patriarchy define sex on their own terms. This entitlement can take different forms, depending on the culture. In some conservative and religious cultures marriage is regarded as an institution which requires a wife to be sexually available at all times, virtually without limit; thus, forcing or coercing sex on a wife is not considered a crime or even an abusive behaviour.<ref>{{cite journal|vauthors=Jewkes R, Abrahams N |title= The epidemiology of rape and sexual coercion in South Africa: an overview|pmid=12365533|year=2002|volume=55|issue=7|pages=1231–44|journal=Social Science & Medicine|doi=10.1016/s0277-9536(01)00242-8}}</ref><ref>Sen P. Ending the presumption of consent: nonconsensual sex in marriage. London, Centre for Health and Gender Equity, 1999</ref>

In 1968, radical feminist Anne Koedt argued in her essay ''The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm'' that women's biology and the clitoral orgasm had not been properly analyzed and popularized, because men "have orgasms essentially by friction with the vagina" and not the clitoral area.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wahlquist|first=Calla|date=31 October 2020|title=The sole function of the clitoris is female orgasm. Is that why it's ignored by medical science?|url=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/01/the-sole-function-of-the-clitoris-is-female-orgasm-is-that-why-its-ignored-by-medical-science|access-date=20 December 2020|website=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=6 January 2013|title=The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Anne Koedt|url=http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/vaginalmyth.html|access-date=20 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130106211856/http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/vaginalmyth.html|archive-date=6 January 2013}}</ref>

Other branches of feminism such as individualist feminism consider themselves sex-positive, and see women's expression of their own sexuality as a right. In this view, what is or is not "degrading" is subjective, and each person has a right to decide for themselves what sexual acts they find degrading and if they want to participate in them or not. Individualist feminist, Wendy McElroy wrote in her book, [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/621306.XXX XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography], "let's examine [...] the idea that pornography is degrading to women. Degrading is a subjective term. Personally, I find detergent commercials in which women become orgasmic over soapsuds to be tremendously degrading to women. I find movies in which prostitutes are treated like ignorant drug addicts to be slander against women. Every woman has the right—the need!—to define degradation for herself." 

According to this view, part of sexual autonomy is the right to define one's boundaries, desires and limits around their sexuality rather than accept a narrative in which all women are victims of men during a sex act. 

== Science ==
{{Further|Philosophy:Feminist epistemology}}

[[Biography:Sandra Harding|Sandra Harding]] says that the "moral and political insights of the women's movement have inspired social scientists and biologists to raise critical questions about the ways traditional researchers have explained gender, sex and relations within and between the social and natural worlds."<ref name=Harding_method>{{cite book|author=Harding, Sandra|editor=Nancy Tuana|year=1989|title=Feminism & Science|chapter=Is There a Feminist Method|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gQQkAvU4S1oC&pg=PA17|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-20525-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/feminismscience0000unse/page/17 17]|url=https://archive.org/details/feminismscience0000unse/page/17}}</ref> Some feminists, such as Ruth Hubbard and [[Biography:Evelyn Fox Keller|Evelyn Fox Keller]], criticize traditional [[Philosophy:Rhetoric of science|scientific discourse]] as being historically biased towards a male perspective.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hubbard, Ruth|year=1990|title=The Politics of Women's Biology|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-1490-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/politicsofwomens00hubb/page/16 16]|url=https://archive.org/details/politicsofwomens00hubb/page/16}}</ref> A part of the feminist research agenda is the examination of the ways in which power inequities are created or reinforced in scientific and academic institutions.<ref name="QCommRsrch">{{cite book | last1 = Lindlof | first1 = Thomas R. | last2 = Taylor | first2 = Bryan C. | title = Qualitative Communication Research Methods | url = https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind | url-access = registration | publisher = Sage Publications | location = Thousand Oaks, Calif | year = 2002 | isbn = 978-0-7619-2493-7 |page = [https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind/page/357 357]}}</ref> Physicist [[Biography:Lisa Randall|Lisa Randall]], appointed to a task force at Harvard by then-president Lawrence Summers after his controversial discussion of why women may be underrepresented in science and engineering, said, "I just want to see a whole bunch more women enter the field so these issues don't have to come up anymore."<ref>{{cite news|author=Holloway, Marguerite|title=The Beauty of Branes|url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-beauty-of-branes|date=26 September 2005|work=Scientific American|publisher=Nature America|access-date=12 December 2011|page=2}}</ref>

Lynn Hankinson Nelson writes that feminist empiricists find fundamental differences between the experiences of men and women. Thus, they seek to obtain knowledge through the examination of the experiences of women and to "uncover the consequences of omitting, misdescribing, or devaluing them" to account for a range of human experience.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hankinson Nelson, Lynn|year=1990|title=Who Knows: from Quine To a Feminist Empiricism|publisher=Temple University Press|isbn=978-0-87722-647-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/whoknowsfromquin0000nels/page/30 30]|url=https://archive.org/details/whoknowsfromquin0000nels/page/30}}</ref> Another part of the feminist research agenda is the uncovering of ways in which power inequities are created or reinforced in society and in scientific and academic institutions.<ref name="QCommRsrch"/> Furthermore, despite calls for greater attention to be paid to structures of gender inequity in the academic literature, structural analyses of gender bias rarely appear in highly cited psychological journals, especially in the commonly studied areas of psychology and personality.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cortina |first1=L. M. |last2=Curtin |first2=N. |last3=Stewart |first3=A. J. |year=2012 |title=Where Is Social Structure in Personality Research? A Feminist Analysis of Publication Trends |journal=Psychology of Women Quarterly |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=259–73 |doi=10.1177/0361684312448056|s2cid=13065637 }}</ref>

One criticism of feminist epistemology is that it allows social and political values to influence its findings.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hankinson Nelson, Lynn |year=1997|title=Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science |publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-7923-4611-1|page=61}}</ref> [[Biography:Susan Haack|Susan Haack]] also points out that feminist epistemology reinforces traditional stereotypes about women's thinking (as intuitive and emotional, etc.); [[Biography:Meera Nanda|Meera Nanda]] further cautions that this may in fact trap women within "traditional gender roles and help justify patriarchy".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/ |title=Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science |author=Anderson, Elizabeth |access-date=6 December 2011|year=2011 |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=Spring 2011 |editor=Edward N. Zalta }}</ref>

=== Biology and gender ===
{{further|Social:Gender essentialism|Biology:Sexual differentiation}}
Modern feminism challenges the essentialist view of [[Biology:Gender|gender]] as biologically intrinsic.<ref>{{cite book |last=Code |first=Lorraine |title=Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-415-13274-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000unse/page/89 89] |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000unse/page/89 }}</ref><ref>Bern, Sandra L., ''The lenses of gender: transforming the debate on sexual inequality'', Yale University Press, 1993, {{ISBN|0-300-05676-1}}, p. 6.</ref> For example, Anne Fausto-Sterling's book, ''Myths of Gender'', explores the assumptions embodied in scientific research that support a biologically essentialist view of gender.<ref name="Fausto-Sterling">{{Cite book |last=Fausto-Sterling |first=Anne |title=Myths of Gender: Biological Theories About Women and Men |year=1992 |publisher=BasicBooks |location=New York, New York |isbn=978-0-465-04792-5}}</ref> In ''Delusions of Gender'', Cordelia Fine disputes scientific evidence that suggests that there is an innate biological difference between men's and women's minds, asserting instead that cultural and societal beliefs are the reason for differences between individuals that are commonly perceived as sex differences.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fine |first=Cordelia |title=Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2010}}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref>

=== Feminist psychology ===
Feminism in psychology emerged as a critique of the dominant male outlook on psychological research where only male perspectives were studied with all male subjects. As women earned doctorates in psychology, females and their issues were introduced as legitimate topics of study. Feminist psychology emphasizes social context, lived experience, and qualitative analysis.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Worell|first1=Judith|title=Feminism in Psychology: Revolution or Evolution?|journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science|date=September 2000|volume=571|pages=183–96|url=http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~pchsiung/summer/SCMEDIA/Worell.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714173114/http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~pchsiung/summer/SCMEDIA/Worell.pdf |archive-date=2014-07-14 |url-status=live|access-date=12 July 2014|doi=10.1177/0002716200571001013|jstor=1049142}}</ref> Projects such as Psychology's Feminist Voices have emerged to catalogue the influence of feminist psychologists on the discipline.<ref>{{cite web|title=Psychology's Feminist Voices|url=http://www.feministvoices.com|website=Psychology's Feminist Voices|access-date=12 July 2014}}</ref>

== Culture ==

=== Design ===

There is a long history of feminist activity in [[Design|design]] disciplines like [[Social:Industrial design|industrial design]], graphic design and fashion design. This work has explored topics like beauty, DIY, feminine approaches to design and community-based projects.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Prochner|first1=Isabel| title=Feminist Contributions to Industrial Design and Design for Sustainability Theories and Practices |date=2019 |url=https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/handle/1866/21680}}</ref> Some iconic writing includes Cheryl Buckley's essays on design and patriarchy<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Buckley|first1=Cheryl| title=Made in patriarchy: Toward a feminist analysis of women and design |journal=[[Engineering:Design Issues|Design Issues]] |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages= 3–14|date=1986|doi=10.2307/1511480|jstor=1511480|s2cid=145562599 }}</ref> and Joan Rothschild's ''Design and Feminism: Re-Visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things''.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Rothschild|first1=Judith| title=Design and Feminism: Re-Visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things |date=1999}}</ref> More recently, Isabel Prochner's research explored how feminist perspectives can support positive change in industrial design, helping to identify systemic social problems and inequities in design and guiding socially sustainable and grassroots design solutions.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Prochner|first1=Isabel|last2=Marchand|first2=Anne|title=DRS2018: Catalyst |chapter=Learning from Feminist Critiques of and Recommendations for Industrial Design |journal=Proceedings of Design as a Catalyst for Change – DRS International Conference 2018|date=2018|volume=2|doi=10.21606/drs.2018.355|isbn=9781912294275|s2cid=150913753|chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.355}}</ref>

=== Businesses ===
Feminist activists have established a range of feminist businesses, including feminist bookstores, credit unions, presses, mail-order catalogs and restaurants. These businesses flourished as part of the second and third waves of feminism in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.{{sfnp|Echols|1989|pp=269–278}}<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability|last=Hogan|first=Kristen|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2016|location=Durham, North Carolina}}</ref>

=== Visual arts ===
Corresponding with general developments within feminism, and often including such self-organizing tactics as the consciousness-raising group, the movement began in the 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s.<ref name=Gopnik/> Jeremy Strick, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, described the feminist art movement as "the most influential international movement of any during the postwar period", and Peggy Phelan says that it "brought about the most far-reaching transformations in both artmaking and art writing over the past four decades".<ref name=Gopnik>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042000400.html |title=What Is Feminist Art? |author=Blake Gopnik |date=22 April 2007 |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=3 December 2011}}</ref> Feminist artist Judy Chicago, who created ''The Dinner Party'', a set of vulva-themed ceramic plates in the 1970s, said in 2009 to ''ARTnews'', "There is still an institutional lag and an insistence on a male [[Social:Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] narrative. We are trying to change the future: to get girls and boys to realize that women's art is not an exception—it's a normal part of art history."<ref>{{cite news|author=Hoban, Phoebe|url=http://www.artnews.com/2009/12/01/the-feminist-evolution/|title=The Feminist Evolution|date=December 2009|work=ARTnews|access-date=4 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118010550/http://www.artnews.com/2009/12/01/the-feminist-evolution/|archive-date=18 January 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> A feminist approach to the visual arts has most recently developed through [[Philosophy:Cyberfeminism|cyberfeminism]] and the [[Philosophy:Posthuman|posthuman]] turn, giving voice to the ways "contemporary female artists are dealing with gender, social media and the notion of embodiment".<ref name="Ferrando 2016">{{cite journal| last=Ferrando | first=Francesca |title = A feminist genealogy of posthuman aesthetics in the visual arts|year = 2016 | journal=Palgrave Communications|volume=2| pages=16011 |number=16011|doi=10.1057/palcomms.2016.11|doi-access=free}}</ref>

=== Literature ===
[[File:Butler signing.jpg|thumb|Octavia Butler, award-winning feminist science fiction author]]

The feminist movement produced feminist fiction, feminist non-fiction, and feminist poetry, which created new interest in women's writing. It also prompted a general reevaluation of women's historical and academic contributions in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest.<ref name=Blain>{{cite book |author=Blain, Virginia |author2=Clements, Patricia |author3=Grundy, Isobel |title=The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present |year=1990 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=978-0-300-04854-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/ vii–x] |url=https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/ }}</ref> There has also been a close link between feminist literature and activism, with feminist writing typically voicing key concerns or ideas of feminism in a particular era.

Much of the early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. In Western feminist literary scholarship, Studies like Dale Spender's ''Mothers of the Novel'' (1986) and Jane Spencer's ''The Rise of the Woman Novelist'' (1986) were ground-breaking in their insistence that women have always been writing.

Commensurate with this growth in scholarly interest, various presses began the task of reissuing long-out-of-print texts. Virago Press began to publish its large list of 19th- and early-20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial presses to join in the project of reclamation. In the 1980s Pandora Press, responsible for publishing Spender's study, issued a companion line of 18th-century novels written by women.<ref>{{cite news |first=Sandra M. |last=Gilbert |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE4DD1E3AF937A35756C0A960948260 |title=Paperbacks: From Our Mothers' Libraries: women who created the novel |work=The New York Times |date=4 May 1986}}</ref> More recently, Broadview Press continues to issue 18th- and 19th-century novels, many hitherto out of print, and the [[Organization:University of Kentucky|University of Kentucky]] has a series of republications of early women's novels.

Particular works of literature have come to be known as key feminist texts. ''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'' (1792) by [[Biography:Mary Wollstonecraft|Mary Wollstonecraft]], is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. ''A Room of One's Own'' (1929) by [[Biography:Virginia Woolf|Virginia Woolf]], is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.

The widespread interest in women's writing is related to a general reassessment and expansion of the literary canon. Interest in post-colonial literatures, gay and lesbian literature, writing by people of colour, working people's writing, and the cultural productions of other historically marginalized groups has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature", and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary", such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel writing, and many others are now the subjects of scholarly interest.<ref name="Blain" /><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Buck |editor1-first=Claire |title=The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature |publisher=Prentice Hall |year=1992 |page=vix}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Salzman |first=Paul |chapter=Introduction |title=Early Modern Women's Writing |publisher=Oxford UP |year=2000 |pages=ix–x}}</ref> Most genres and subgenres have undergone a similar analysis, so literary studies have entered new territories such as the "female gothic"<ref>Term coined by Ellen Moers in ''Literary Women: The Great Writers'' (New York: Doubleday, 1976). See also Juliann E. Fleenor, ed., ''The Female Gothic'' (Montreal: Eden Press, 1983) and Gary Kelly, ed., ''Varieties of Female Gothic'' 6 Vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2002).</ref> or women's science fiction.

According to Elyce Rae Helford, "Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice."<ref>{{cite book|author=Helford, Elyce Rae |editor-first=Gary |editor-last=Westfahl |title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy |chapter=Feminist Science Fiction |year=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-300-04854-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/289 289–291] |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/289 }}</ref> Feminist science fiction is sometimes taught at the university level to explore the role of social constructs in understanding gender.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1207/s15328023top1703_17 |title=Using Science Fiction to Teach the Psychology of Sex and Gender |year=1990 |last1=Lips |first1=Hilary M. |journal=Teaching of Psychology |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=197–98|s2cid=145519594 }}</ref> Notable texts of this kind are Ursula K. Le Guin's ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' (1969), Joanna Russ' ''The Female Man'' (1970), Octavia Butler's ''Kindred'' (1979) and Margaret Atwood's ''Handmaid's Tale'' (1985).

Feminist nonfiction has played an important role in voicing concerns about women's lived experiences. For example, Maya Angelou's ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' was extremely influential, as it represented the specific racism and sexism experienced by black women growing up in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://feminisminindia.com/2018/08/10/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings-review-maya-angelou/|title=I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings: Angelou's Quest to Truth and Power|last=Shah|first=Mahvish|date=2018|website=Feminism in India}}</ref>

In addition, many feminist movements have embraced poetry as a vehicle through which to communicate feminist ideas to public audiences through anthologies, poetry collections, and public readings.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/144696/a-change-of-world|title=A Change of World|last=Poetry Foundation|date=29 November 2018|website=Poetry Foundation}}</ref>

Moreover, historical pieces of writing by women have been used by feminists to speak about what women's lives were like in the past while demonstrating the power that they held and the impact they had in their communities.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Case|first=Sue-Ellen|date=December 1983|title=Re-Viewing Hrotsvit|journal=Theatre Journal|volume=35|issue=4|pages=533–542|doi=10.2307/3207334|jstor=3207334}}</ref> An important figure in the history of women's literature is Hrotsvitha ({{Circa|935}}–973), a [[Religion:Canoness|canoness]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://scihi.org/hrotsvitha-gandersheim/|title=Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim – The Most Remarkable Women of her Time|last=Sack|first=Harald|date=6 February 2019|website=SciHi Blog|access-date=6 December 2019}}</ref> who was an early female poet in the German lands. As a historian, Hrotsvitha is one of the few writers to address women's lives from a woman's perspective during the [[History:Women in the Middle Ages|Middle Ages]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Frankforter|first=A. Daniel|date=February 1979|title=Hroswitha of Gandersheim and the Destiny of Women|journal=The Historian|volume=41|issue=2|pages=295–314|doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1979.tb00548.x|issn=0018-2370}}</ref>

=== Music ===
[[File:Billie Holiday, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., ca. Feb. 1947 (William P. Gottlieb 04251).jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|American jazz singer and songwriter Billie Holiday in New York City in 1947]]
Women's music (or womyn's music or wimmin's music) is the music by women, for women, and about women.<ref name="NoSmPvtPty">{{cite book |last1=Lont |first1=Cynthia |chapter=Women's Music: No Longer a Small Private Party |editor1-first=Reebee |editor1-last=Garofalo |title=Rockin' the Boat: Mass Music & Mass Movements |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/rockinboatmassmu00garof |chapter-url-access=registration |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=South End Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-89608-427-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/rockinboatmassmu00garof/page/242 242]}}</ref> The genre emerged as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist movement<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1525/jams.2001.54.3.692 |title=Girls with guitars and other strange stories |year=2001 |last1=Peraino |first1=Judith A. |journal=Journal of the American Musicological Society |volume=54 |issue=3 |pages=692–709 |url=http://business.highbeam.com/437059/article-1G1-86048837/girls-guitars-and-other-strange-stories|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121108161237/http://business.highbeam.com/437059/article-1G1-86048837/girls-guitars-and-other-strange-stories|url-status=dead|archive-date=8 November 2012}}</ref> as well as the labour, civil rights, and peace movements.<ref name="RadHarmonies">{{cite AV media|title=Radical Harmonies|last=Mosbacher|first=Dee|publisher=Woman Vision|year=2002|location=San Francisco, CA|oclc=53071762}}</ref> The movement was started by lesbians such as Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, and Margie Adam, African-American women activists such as Bernice Johnson Reagon and her group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and peace activist Holly Near.<ref name="RadHarmonies" /> Women's music also refers to the wider industry of women's music that goes beyond the performing artists to include studio musicians, producers, sound engineers, [[Technician|technician]]s, cover artists, distributors, [[Finance:Promoter (entertainment)|promoters]], and festival organizers who are also women.<ref name="NoSmPvtPty" />
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist hardcore punk movement described in the cultural movements section of this article.

Feminism became a principal concern of musicologists in the 1980s<ref name="mus">Beard, David; Gload, Kenneth. 2005. ''Musicology: The Key Concepts''. London and New York: Routledge.</ref> as part of the New Musicology. Prior to this, in the 1970s, musicologists were beginning to discover women composers and performers, and had begun to review concepts of canon, genius, genre and periodization from a feminist perspective. In other words, the question of how women musicians fit into traditional music history was now being asked.<ref name=mus/> Through the 1980s and 1990s, this trend continued as musicologists like Susan McClary, Marcia Citron and Ruth Solie began to consider the cultural reasons for the marginalizing of women from the received body of work. Concepts such as music as gendered discourse; professionalism; reception of women's music; examination of the sites of music production; relative wealth and education of women; popular music studies in relation to women's identity; patriarchal ideas in music analysis; and notions of gender and difference are among the themes examined during this time.<ref name=mus/>

While the [[Finance:Music industry|music industry]] has long been open to having women in performance or entertainment roles, women are much less likely to have positions of authority, such as being the [[Social:Conducting|leader of an orchestra]].<ref name="theguardian.com">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/28/why-male-domination-of-classical-music-might-end |title=Why the male domination of classical music might be coming to an end|first=Jessica |last=Duchen |work={{wipe|The Guardian}} |date=28 February 2015}}</ref> In popular music, while there are many women singers recording songs, there are very few women behind the audio console acting as music producers, the individuals who direct and manage the recording process.<ref>{{cite web |first=Rosina |last=Ncube |title=Sounding Off: Why So Few Women in Audio? |website=Sound on Sound |date=September 2013 |url=http://www.soundonsound.com/people/sounding-why-so-few-women-audio}}</ref>

=== Cinema ===
[[File:Faten_Hamama_1962.jpg|thumb|272x272px|Faten Hamama (1931–2015), Egyptian film legend, inspired women all over the Middle East and Africa.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Women's Activism NYC |url=https://www.womensactivism.nyc/stories/9713 |access-date=2023-12-15 |website=www.womensactivism.nyc}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-05-27 |title=Remembering Films by Faten Hamama Championing Women's Rights {{!}} Egyptian Streets |url=https://egyptianstreets.com/2019/05/27/remembering-4-films-by-faten-hamama-championing-womens-rights/ |access-date=2023-12-15 |language=en-US}}</ref>]]
Feminist cinema, advocating or illustrating feminist perspectives, arose largely with the development of feminist film theory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Women who were radicalized during the 1960s by political debate and sexual liberation; but the failure of radicalism to produce substantive change for women galvanized them to form consciousness-raising groups and set about analysing, from different perspectives, dominant cinema's construction of women.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hayward|first=Susan|title=Cinema Studies – The Key Concepts|publisher=[[Company:Routledge|Routledge]]|year=2006|edition=3rd|pages=134–5}}</ref> Differences were particularly marked between feminists on either side of the Atlantic. 1972 saw the first feminist film festivals in the U.S. and U.K. as well as the first feminist film journal, ''Women & Film''. Trailblazers from this period included Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey, who also organized the Women's Event at the Edinburgh Film Festival.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Erens|first=Patricia Brett|title=Issues in Feminist Film Criticism|publisher=Wiley & Sons|year=1991|isbn=9780253206107|pages=270}}</ref> Other theorists making a powerful impact on feminist film include Teresa de Lauretis, Anneke Smelik and Kaja Silverman. Approaches in philosophy and psychoanalysis fuelled feminist film criticism, feminist independent film and feminist distribution.

It has been argued that there are two distinct approaches to independent, theoretically inspired feminist filmmaking. 'Deconstruction' concerns itself with analysing and breaking down codes of mainstream cinema, aiming to create a different relationship between the spectator and dominant cinema. The second approach, a feminist counterculture, embodies feminine writing to investigate a specifically feminine cinematic language.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Kuhn |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Radstone |editor2-first=S. |title=Women's Companion to International Film |url=https://archive.org/details/womenscompaniont00kuhn |url-access=registration |publisher=Virago |year=1990 |page=[https://archive.org/details/womenscompaniont00kuhn/page/153 153]|isbn=9781853810817 }}</ref> [[Biography:Bracha L. Ettinger|Bracha L. Ettinger]] invented a field of notions and concepts that serve the research of cinema from feminine perspective: The Matrixial Gaze.<ref>Bracha L. Ettinger, Régard et éspace-de-bord matrixiels. Brussels: La Lettre Volée, 1999</ref><ref>Bracha L. Ettinger, Matrixial Subjectivity, Aesthetics, Ethics. Vol 1: 1990–2000. Selected papers edited with Introduction by Griselda Pollock. Pelgrave Macmillan 2020</ref> Ettinger's language include original concepts to discover feminine perspectives.<ref>Bracha L. Ettinger. A. And My Heart Wound-Space. Leeds: Wild Pansy Press, 2015.</ref> Many writers in the fields of film theory and contemporary art<ref>[Gutierrez-Albilla, Julian. Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Cinema of Pedro Almodovar. Edinburch University Press, 2017.</ref><ref>Gardiner, Kyoko. "Ettingerian reading of feminine-matrixial encounters in Duras/Rennais' Hiroshima Mon Amour". In: Ayelet Zohar, ed. PostGender. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.</ref><ref>de Zegher, Catherine M., ed. Inside the Visible. Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art/Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1996</ref><ref>Pollock, Griselda. Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum. Taylor and Francis, 2010.</ref><ref>Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher. Women Artists at the Millennium. October Books/MIT Press, 2006 2006.</ref><ref>Vandenbroeck, Paul. The Glimpse of the Concealed. Royal Museum of Fine Art, Antwerp, 2017.</ref> are using the Ettingerian matrixial sphere (matricial sphere).<ref>Butler, Judith. "Bracha's Eurydice". In: Drawing Papers, no 24: 31–35, 2001.</ref>

During the 1930s–1950s heyday of the big Hollywood studios, the status of women in the industry was abysmal.<ref>Giannetti L, ''Understanding Movies'', 7th ed. Prentice-Hall 1996;416.</ref> Since then female directors such as Sally Potter, Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis and Jane Campion have made art movies, and directors like Kathryn Bigelow and Patty Jenkins have had mainstream success. This progress stagnated in the 1990s, and men outnumber women five to one in behind the camera roles.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/the-brutal-math-of-gender-inequality-in-hollywood/550232/ |title=The Brutal Math of Gender Inequality in Hollywood |work=The Atlantic |date=11 January 2018|author=Derek Thompson}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://namesorts.com/2014/04/16/assessing-the-gender-gap-in-the-film-industry|title=Assessing the Gender Gap in the Film Industry|publisher=NamSor Blog|date=16 April 2014}}</ref>

== Politics ==

[[File:Rose Cohen IMG 0437 1024.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|British-born suffragist Rose Cohen was executed in Stalin's Great Terror in 1937, two months after the execution of her Soviet husband.]]

Feminism had complex interactions with the major political movements of the 20th century.

=== Socialism ===
Since the late 19th century, some feminists have allied with socialism, whereas others have criticized socialist ideology for being insufficiently concerned about women's rights. [[Biography:August Bebel|August Bebel]], an early activist of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), published his work ''Die Frau und der Sozialismus'', juxtaposing the struggle for equal rights between sexes with social equality in general. In 1907 there was an International Conference of Socialist Women in [[Place:Stuttgart|Stuttgart]] where suffrage was described as a tool of class struggle. [[Biography:Clara Zetkin|Clara Zetkin]] of the SPD called for women's suffrage to build a "socialist order, the only one that allows for a radical solution to the women's question".<ref>{{cite book |author=Badia, Gilbert |title=Zetkin. Femminista senza frontiere |year=1994 |publisher=University of Michigan. |isbn=978-88-85378-53-7 |page=320}}</ref><ref name="hww5"/>

In Britain, the women's movement was allied with the Labour party. In the U.S., Betty Friedan emerged from a radical background to take leadership. Radical Women is the oldest socialist feminist organization in the U.S. and is still active.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure |year=2001 |publisher=Red Letter Press |location=Seattle, WA |isbn=978-0-932323-11-8}}</ref> During the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Ibárruri (''La Pasionaria'') led the Communist Party of Spain. Although she supported equal rights for women, she opposed women fighting on the front and clashed with the anarcha-feminist Mujeres Libres.<ref name="Ib">{{Cite book |author=Ibárruri, Dolores |title=Speeches & Articles, 1936–1938 |year=1938 |publisher=University of Michigan |page=263}}</ref>

Feminists in Ireland in the early 20th century included the revolutionary Irish Republican, suffragette and [[Social:Socialism|socialist]] Constance Markievicz who in 1918 was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons. However, in line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy, she would not take her seat in the House of Commons.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irishresistancebooks.com/internment/intern6.htm|title=Internment – Women Internees 1916–1973|author=John McGuffin|year=1973
| access-date=22 March 2009}}</ref> She was re-elected to the Second Dáil in the elections of 1921.<ref name=elecs_irl>{{cite web|url=http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?id=994|title=Countess Constance de Markievicz|website=ElectionsIreland.org|access-date=22 March 2009}}</ref> She was also a commander of the Irish Citizens Army, which was led by the socialist and self-described feminist Irish leader [[Biography:James Connolly|James Connolly]], during the 1916 Easter Rising.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Bunbury|first1=Turtle|title=Dorothea Findlater – One Hundred Years On|url=http://www.turtlebunbury.com/interviews/interviews_misc/interviews_misc_dorotheafindlater.html|access-date=5 January 2016|quote=Perhaps the most awkward arrest Wheeler made was Countess Markievicz, his wife's first cousin.}}</ref>

=== Fascism ===
[[File:Feministas en lucha anti Pinochet (de Kena Lorenzini).jpg|thumb|Chilean feminists protest against the [[Social:Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)|regime of Augusto Pinochet]].]]
Fascism has been prescribed dubious stances on feminism by its practitioners and by women's groups. Amongst other demands concerning social reform presented in the Fascist manifesto in 1919 was expanding the suffrage to all Italian citizens of age 18 and above, including women (accomplished only in 1946, after the defeat of fascism) and eligibility for all to stand for office from age 25. This demand was particularly championed by special Fascist women's auxiliary groups such as the ''fasci femminilli'' and only partly realized in 1925, under pressure from dictator Benito Mussolini's more conservative coalition partners.<ref name="hagg">{{cite book |last=Hägg |first=Göran |year=2008 |title=Mussolini: En studie i makt |trans-title=A study in power |language=sv |publisher=Norstedt |location=Stockholm |isbn=978-91-1-301949-9}}</ref><ref name="passmore">{{cite book |last=Passmore |first=Kevin |year=2003 |title=Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, 1919–45 |publisher=Rutgers Univ. Press |location=Piscataway, N.J. |isbn=978-0-8135-3308-7}}</ref>

Cyprian Blamires states that although feminists were among those who opposed the rise of Adolf Hitler, feminism has a complicated relationship with the Nazi movement as well. While Nazis glorified traditional notions of patriarchal society and its role for women, they claimed to recognize women's equality in employment.<ref name=Blamires>{{cite book |title=World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia |last=Blamires |first=Cyprian |volume=1 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-940-9 |pages=232–33|year=2006 }}</ref> However, Hitler and Mussolini declared themselves as opposed to feminism,<ref name=Blamires/> and after the rise of [[Social:Nazism|Nazism]] in Germany in 1933, there was a rapid dissolution of the political rights and economic opportunities that feminists had fought for during the pre-war period and to some extent during the 1920s.<ref name=hww5/> Georges Duby et al. write that in practice fascist society was hierarchical and emphasized male virility, with women maintaining a largely subordinate position.<ref name=hww5>{{cite book|last1=Duby |first1=Georges |last2=Perrot |first2=Michelle |last3=Schmitt Pantel |first3=Pauline |title=A History of Women in the West |year=1994 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-40369-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofwomenin00gold/page/600 600] |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofwomenin00gold/page/600 }}</ref> Blamires also writes that [[Social:Neo-fascism|neofascism]] has since the 1960s been hostile towards feminism and advocates that women accept "their traditional roles".<ref name=Blamires/>

=== Civil rights movement and anti-racism ===

The civil rights movement has influenced and informed the feminist movement and vice versa. Many American feminists adapted the language and theories of black equality activism and drew parallels between women's rights and the rights of non-white people.<ref name="Levy">{{cite book|last=Levy |first=Peter |year=1998 |title=The Civil Rights Movement |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=978-0-313-29854-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/civilrightsmovem00levy }}</ref> Despite the connections between the women's and civil rights movements, some tensions arose during the late 1960s and the 1970s as non-white women argued that feminism was predominantly white, straight, and middle class, and did not understand and was not concerned with issues of race and sexuality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Code |first=Lorraine |title=Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories |chapter=Civil rights |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-415-13274-9 |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000unse |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000unse }}</ref> Similarly, some women argued that the civil rights movement had sexist and homophobic elements and did not adequately address minority women's concerns.<ref name="Levy" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=hooks|first=bell|date=3 October 2014|title=Feminist Theory|doi=10.4324/9781315743172|isbn=978-1-315-74317-2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Manditch-Prottas|first=Zachary|date=2019|title=Meeting at the Watchtower: Eldridge Cleaver, James Baldwin's No Name in the Street, and Racializing Homophobic Vernacular|journal=African American Review|volume=52|issue=2|pages=179–195|doi=10.1353/afa.2019.0027|s2cid=197851021|issn=1945-6182}}</ref> These criticisms created new feminist social theories about identity politics and the intersections of racism, classism, and sexism; they also generated new feminisms such as black feminism and Chicana feminism in addition to making large contributions to lesbian feminism and other integrations of [[Philosophy:Queer of color critique|queer of colour]] identity.<ref>{{cite book|last=Roth |first=Benita |title=Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-521-52972-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/separateroadstof00roth }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Winddance Twine |first1=France |first2=Kathleen M. |last2=Blee |title=Feminism and Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice |publisher=NYU Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8147-9855-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/feminismantiraci0000unse }}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|title="The Combahee River Collective Statement" (1977)|work=Available Means|pages=292–300|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|isbn=978-0-8229-7975-3|doi=10.2307/j.ctt5hjqnj.50|year=2001}}</ref>

=== Neoliberalism ===

[[Social:Neoliberalism|Neoliberalism]] has been criticized by feminist theory for having a negative effect on the female workforce population across the globe, especially in the global south. Masculinist assumptions and objectives continue to dominate economic and geopolitical thinking.<ref name="Peterson">{{cite book |last=Peterson |first=V. Spike |year=2014 |chapter=International/Global Political Economy |editor-last=Shepherd | editor-first=Laura J. |title=Gender Matters in Global Politics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2AKBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT291 |edition=2 |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-75259-1 }}</ref>{{rp|177}} Women's experiences in non-industrialized countries reveal often deleterious effects of modernization policies and undercut orthodox claims that development benefits everyone.<ref name="Peterson"/>{{rp|175}}

Proponents of neoliberalism have theorized that by increasing women's participation in the workforce, there will be heightened economic progress, but feminist critics have stated that this participation alone does not further equality in gender relations.<ref name="elias">{{cite book |last1=Elias |first1=Juanita |last2=Ferguson |first2=Lucy |year=2014 |chapter=Production, Employment, and Consumption |editor-last=Shepherd | editor-first=Laura J. |title=Gender Matters in Global Politics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2AKBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT291 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-75259-1 }}</ref>{{rp|186–98}} Neoliberalism has failed to address significant problems such as the devaluation of feminized labour, the structural privileging of men and masculinity, and the politicization of women's subordination in the family and the workplace.<ref name="Peterson"/>{{rp|176}} The "feminization of employment" refers to a conceptual characterization of deteriorated and devalorized labour conditions that are less desirable, meaningful, safe and secure.<ref name="Peterson"/>{{rp|179}} Employers in the global south have perceptions about feminine labour and seek workers who are perceived to be undemanding, docile and willing to accept low wages.<ref name="Peterson"/>{{rp|180}} Social constructs about feminized labour have played a big part in this, for instance, employers often perpetuate ideas about women as 'secondary income earners to justify their lower rates of pay and not deserving of training or promotion.<ref name="elias"/>{{rp|189}}

== Societal impact ==
The feminist movement has effected change in Western society, including women's suffrage; greater access to education; more equal payment to men; the right to initiate divorce proceedings; the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy (including access to contraceptives and abortion); and the right to own property.<ref name="Messer-Davidow"/>

=== Civil rights ===

[[File:CEDAW Participation.svg|thumb|upright=2|Participation in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. {{legend|#00aa00|Signed and ratified}}{{legend|#008000|Acceded or succeeded}}{{legend|#008080|Unrecognized state, abiding by treaty}}{{legend|#eeee00|Only signed}}{{legend|#ff1111|Non-signatory}}]]
From the 1960s on, the campaign for women's rights<ref name="quarterly">{{Cite book |author=Lockwood, Bert B. |title=Women's Rights: A Human Rights Quarterly Reader |year=2006 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-8374-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/womensrightshuma0000unse }}</ref> was met with mixed results<ref>{{cite web |last=Freeman |first=Jo |url=http://www.jofreeman.com/feminism/suffrage.htm |title=From Suffrage to Women's Liberation: Feminism in Twentieth Century America}}</ref> in the U.S. and the U.K. Other countries of the EEC agreed to ensure that discriminatory laws would be phased out across the European Community.

Some feminist campaigning also helped reform attitudes to [[Medicine:Child sexual abuse|child sexual abuse]]. The view that young girls cause men to have sexual intercourse with them was replaced by that of men's responsibility for their own conduct, the men being adults.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rush |first=Florence |year=1988 |title=The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children |publisher=Prentice-Hall |location=Englewood Cliffs |isbn=978-0-07-054223-5}}</ref>

In the U.S., the National Organization for Women (NOW) began in 1966 to seek women's equality, including through the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA),<ref>{{cite news|url=http://now.org/about/history/statement-of-purpose/|title=The National Organization for Women's 1966 Statement of Purpose|newspaper=National Organization for Women – |date=9 February 2014 }}</ref> which did not pass, although some states enacted their own. Reproductive rights in the U.S. centred on the court decision in ''Roe'' v. ''Wade'' enunciating a woman's right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term. Western women gained more reliable birth control, allowing family planning and careers. The movement started in the 1910s in the U.S. under Margaret Sanger and elsewhere under Marie Stopes. In the final three decades of the 20th century, Western women knew a new freedom through birth control, which enabled women to plan their adult lives, often making way for both career and family.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1676.html|title=Margaret Sanger}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=Self-published source.|date=November 2021}}

The division of labour within households was affected by the increased entry of women into workplaces in the 20th century. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild found that, in two-career couples, men and women, on average, spend about equal amounts of time working, but women still spend more time on housework,<ref name="Hochschild1">{{Cite book |author=Hochschild, Arlie Russell |author2=Machung, Anne |title=The Second Shift |year=2003 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-14-200292-6 }}</ref><ref name="Hochschild2">{{Cite book|author=Hochschild, Arlie Russell |title=The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work |year=2001 |publisher=Henry Holt & Co. |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8050-6643-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/timebind00arli_0 }}</ref> although Cathy Young responded by arguing that women may prevent equal participation by men in housework and parenting.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.salon.com/2000/06/12/gatekeeping/|title=The Mama Lion at the Gate |access-date=17 December 2015 |work=Salon.com |author=Young, Cathy |date=12 June 2000 }}</ref> Judith K. Brown writes, "Women are most likely to make a substantial contribution when subsistence activities have the following characteristics: the participant is not obliged to be far from home; the tasks are relatively monotonous and do not require rapt concentration and the work is not dangerous, can be performed in spite of interruptions, and is easily resumed once interrupted."<ref>{{cite journal | first = Judith K. | last = Brown | title = A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex | date = October 1970 | volume = 72 | issue = 5 | pages = 1073–78 | journal = [[History:American Anthropologist|American Anthropologist]] | doi=10.1525/aa.1970.72.5.02a00070| doi-access =  }}</ref>

In international law, the ''Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women'' (CEDAW) is an international convention adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and described as an international bill of rights for women. It came into force in those nations ratifying it.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CEDAW.aspx|title=Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women New York, 18 December 1979 |publisher=Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights|access-date=31 March 2013}}</ref>

=== Jurisprudence ===

Feminist jurisprudence is a branch of [[Social:Jurisprudence|jurisprudence]] that examines the relationship between women and law. It addresses questions about the history of legal and social biases against women and about the enhancement of their legal rights.<ref name="blacks">{{cite book |year=2014 |editor-last=Garner |editor-first=Bryan |title=Black's Law Dictionary |edition=10th |location=St. Paul, Minn. |publisher=Thomson Reuters |page=985 |isbn=978-0-314-61300-4 |quote=Feminist jurisprudence examines&nbsp;... the history of legal and social biases against women, the elimination of those biases in modern law, and the enhancement of women's legal rights and recognition [status] in society.}}</ref>

Feminist jurisprudence signifies a reaction to the [[Philosophy:Philosophy of law|philosophical approach]] of modern [[Philosophy:Law#Legal theory|legal scholars]], who typically see the law as a process for interpreting and perpetuating a society's universal, gender-neutral ideals. Feminist legal scholars claim that this fails to acknowledge women's values or legal interests or the harms that they may anticipate or experience.<ref name="minda">{{cite book |last=Minda |first=Gary |year=1995 |title=Postmodern Legal Movements: Law and Jurisprudence at Century's End |publisher=NYU Press |location=N.Y.C. |isbn=978-0-8147-5510-5 |pages=129–30 |quote=Feminist legal scholars, despite their differences, appear united in claiming that 'masculine' jurisprudence&nbsp;... fails to acknowledge, let alone respond to, the interests, values, fears, and harms experienced by women.}}</ref>

=== Language ===
Proponents of gender-neutral language argue that the use of gender-specific language often implies male superiority or reflects an unequal state of society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Casey |last2=Swift |first2=Kate |author-link2=Kate Swift |year=1988 |title=The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing |url=https://archive.org/details/handbookofnonsex00millrich |url-access=registration |publisher=Harper & Row |location=N.Y.C. |isbn=978-0-06-181602-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/handbookofnonsex00millrich/page/45 45], 64, 66}}</ref> According to ''The Handbook of English Linguistics'', generic masculine pronouns and gender-specific job titles are instances "where English linguistic convention has historically treated men as prototypical of the human species."<ref name="handbook linguistics">{{cite book |year=2006 |editor1-last=Aarts |editor1-first=Bas |editor2-last=McMahon |editor2-first=April |title=The Handbook of English Linguistics |location=Malden, Mass. |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-1-4051-1382-3}}</ref>

Merriam-Webster chose "feminism" as its 2017 Word of the Year, noting that "Word of the Year is a quantitative measure of interest in a particular word."<ref>{{cite web|title=Word of the Year 2017|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woty2017-top-looked-up-words-feminism|website=Merriam-Webster}}</ref>

=== Theology ===
[[File:US Navy 080123-N-3385W-028 Cmdr. Adrienne Simmons, medical provider for Provincial Reconstruction Team Khost and only woman on the team, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for a women's mosque and park in downtown Khost City.jpg|thumb|Cmdr. Adrienne Simmons speaking at the 2008 ceremony for the only women's mosque in [[Place:Khost|Khost City]], a symbol of progress for growing women's rights in the Pashtun belt]]
Feminist theology is a movement that reconsiders the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts.<ref name=Bundesen>{{cite book |author=Bundesen, Lynne |title=The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture |publisher=Jossey-Bass |isbn=978-0-7879-8495-3|date=30 March 2007 }}</ref>

Christian feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand Christianity in light of the [[Social:Christian egalitarianism|equality]] of women and men, and that this interpretation is necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. While there is no standard set of beliefs among Christian feminists, most agree that God does not discriminate on the basis of sex, and are involved in issues such as the ordination of women, male dominance and the balance of parenting in Christian marriage, claims of moral deficiency and inferiority of women compared to men, and the overall treatment of women in the church.<ref name=Haddad>{{cite journal |author=Haddad, Mimi |title=Egalitarian Pioneers: Betty Friedan or Catherine Booth? |journal=Priscilla Papers |volume=20 |issue=4 |date=2006 |url=http://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/pp204_10ep.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713193304/http://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/pp204_10ep.pdf |archive-date=13 July 2015 }}</ref><ref name=andeson>{{cite book |author=Anderson, Pamela Sue |author2=Clack, Beverley |title=Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings |year=2004 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-25749-7}}</ref>

[[Religion:Islamic feminism|Islamic feminists]] advocate women's rights, gender equality, and [[Social:Social justice|social justice]] grounded within an Islamic framework. Advocates seek to highlight the deeply rooted teachings of equality in the Quran and encourage a questioning of the patriarchal interpretation of Islamic teaching through the Quran, ''[[Religion:Hadith|hadith]]'' (sayings of [[Biography:Muhammad|Muhammad]]), and ''[[Religion:Sharia#Women|sharia]]'' (law) towards the creation of a more equal and just society.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/international/Islamic-Feminism-01.html|title=Islamic Feminism: What's in a Name?|author=Badran, Margot |access-date=17 December 2015 |date=17–23 January 2002}}</ref> Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also used [[Religion:Islam and secularism|secular]] and Western feminist discourses and recognize the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.feminismeislamic.org/eng/index.htm|publisher=feminismeislamic.org |author=Catalonian Islamic Board |title=II International Congress on Islamic Feminism|access-date=9 July 2008 |date=24–27 October 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070114144940/http://www.feminismeislamic.org/eng/index.htm|archive-date=14 January 2007}}</ref>

Buddhist feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and [[Social:Social status|social status]] of women within Buddhism. It is an aspect of [[Religion:Feminist theology|feminist theology]] which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Buddhist perspective. The Buddhist feminist Rita Gross describes Buddhist feminism as "the radical practice of the co-humanity of women and men".<ref>{{cite book |title= Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism|last= Gross|first= Rita M.|year= 1992|publisher= State University of New York Press|location= Albany, New York|isbn= 978-0-7914-1403-3|page= [https://archive.org/details/buddhismafterpat00gros/page/127 127]|access-date=7 October 2012 |url=https://archive.org/details/buddhismafterpat00gros |url-access= registration}}</ref>

Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women. The main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the exclusion from the all-male prayer group or ''minyan'', the exemption from positive time-bound ''mitzvot'', and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce.<ref name=Plaskow1997>{{cite book |author=Plaskow, Judith |editor=Frank, Daniel H. |others=Leaman, Oliver |title=History of Jewish Philosophy |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-32469-4 |chapter=Jewish Feminist Thought}}</ref> Many Jewish women have become leaders of feminist movements throughout their history.<ref>{{cite web|work=The Forward|title= Why are there so many Jewish feminists? |author= Marjorie Ingall |url= http://forward.com/articles/2305/why-are-there-so-many-jewish-feminists/ |date= 18 November 2005 |access-date= 31 May 2015}}</ref>

[[Philosophy:Dianic Wicca|Dianic Wicca]] is a feminist-centred [[Philosophy:Thealogy|thealogy]].<ref>Wisdom's Feast: Sophia in Study and Celebration, p. 9, Susan Cole, Marian Ronan, Hal Taussig. 1996</ref>

Secular or [[Philosophy:Atheist feminism|atheist feminists]] have engaged in feminist criticism of religion, arguing that many religions have oppressive rules towards women and misogynistic themes and elements in religious texts.<ref>Gaylor, Annie Laurie, ''Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So'', Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. (1 July 1981) {{ISBN|1-877733-02-4}}</ref><ref>Ali, Ayaan Hirsi ''The Caged Virgin: A Muslim Woman's Cry for Reason'', Free Press 2004, {{ISBN|978-0-7432-8833-0}}</ref><ref>Miles, Rosalind, ''Who cooked the Last Supper?'', Random House Digital, Inc., 2001, {{ISBN|0-609-80695-5}}</ref>

=== Patriarchy ===
{{main|Biology:Patriarchy}}
[[File:"Female Muslims- The tsar, beys and khans took your rights away" – Azeri, Baku, 1921 (Mardjani).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|"Female Muslims- The tsar, beys and khans took your rights away" – Soviet poster issued in [[Place:Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]], 1921]]
Patriarchy is a social system in which society is organized around male authority figures. In this system, fathers have authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege and is dependent on female subordination.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Encyclopedia of sex and gender |year=2007 |publisher=Macmillan Reference |location=Detroit, Mich.}}</ref> Most forms of feminism characterize patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. Carole Pateman argues that the patriarchal distinction "between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pateman|first=Carole|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cJM6AwAAQBAJ|title=The Sexual Contract|date=25 March 2014|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-7456-8035-4|location=|pages=207}}</ref> In [[Social:Feminist theory|feminist theory]] the concept of patriarchy often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.<ref>{{cite book|author=Tickner, Ann J.|chapter=Patriarchy|title=Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries PZ|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2001|isbn=978-0-415-24352-0|pages=1197–98|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lSmU3aXWIAYC&pg=PA1197}}</ref> Some radical feminists have proposed that because patriarchy is too deeply rooted in society, separatism is the only viable solution.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hoagland|first=Sarah Lucia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljaGAAAAIAAJ|title=Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value|date=1988|publisher=Institute of Lesbian Studies|isbn=978-0-934903-03-5}}</ref> Other feminists have criticized these views as being anti-men.<ref>Friedan, Betty. The Second Stage: With a New Introduction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981 1986 1991 1998, 1st Harvard Univ. Press pbk. ed. ({{ISBN|0-674-79655-1}}) 1998.</ref><ref>Bullough, Vern L. Human sexuality: an encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 1994, {{ISBN|0-8240-7972-8}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Echols|1989|loc=p.&nbsp;78 & n.&nbsp;124 ("124. Interview with Cindy Cisler".) and see p.&nbsp;119}}</ref>

=== Men and masculinity ===
Feminist theory has explored the social construction of masculinity and its implications for the goal of gender equality. The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.<ref name="Faludi" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Tong |first=Rosemarie Putnam |title=Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction |location=Boulder, Colo. |publisher=Westview Press |edition=2nd |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-8133-3295-6 |page=70}}</ref> Patriarchal cultures are criticized for "limiting forms of masculinity" available to men and thus narrowing their life choices.<ref name="Gardiner">{{cite book |last1=Gardiner |first1=Judith Kegan |title=Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-231-12278-8 |pages =96, 153}}</ref> Some feminists are engaged with men's issues activism, such as bringing attention to male rape and spousal battery and addressing negative social expectations for men.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Uviller | first1 = Rena K. | year = 1978 | title = Fathers' Rights and Feminism: The Maternal Presumption Revisited | journal = Harvard Women's Law Journal | page = 107 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Shanley |first=Mary |date=January 1995 |title=Unwed fathers' rights, adoption, and sex equality: Gender-neutrality and the perpetuation of patriarchy |jstor=1123127 |journal=Columbia Law Review |volume=95 |issue=1 |pages=60–103 |doi=10.2307/1123127}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Levit |first=Nancy |title=Feminism for Men: Legal Ideology and the Construction of Maleness |journal=UCLA Law Review |volume=43 |number=4 |year=1996 |ssrn=1297365}}</ref>

Male participation in feminism is generally encouraged by feminists and is seen as an important strategy for achieving full societal commitment to gender equality.<ref name="hooks" /><ref>Digby, Tom (1998). Men Doing Feminism. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-415-91625-7}}.</ref><ref>Phillips, Layli, ''The Womanist reader'', CRC Press, 2006, {{ISBN|0-415-95411-8}}</ref> Many male feminists and [[Social:Pro-feminism|pro-feminists]] are active in both women's rights activism, feminist theory, and masculinity studies. However, some argue that while male engagement with feminism is necessary, it is problematic because of the ingrained social influences of patriarchy in gender relations.<ref>Jardine, Alice, Paul Smith, ''Men in feminism '', {{ISBN|0-415-90251-7}}</ref> The consensus today in feminist and masculinity theories is that men and women should cooperate to achieve the larger goals of feminism.<ref name="Gardiner" /> It has been proposed that, in large part, this can be achieved through considerations of women's [[Organization:Agency (sociology)|agency]].<ref name=coerced_parenthood />

== Reactions ==

Different groups of people have responded to feminism, and both men and women have been among its supporters and critics. Among American university students, for both men and women, support for feminist ideas is more common than self-identification as a feminist.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00159.x |title=Disavowing Social Identities: What It Means when Women Say, 'I'm Not a Feminist, but&nbsp;...' |year=2004 |last1=Zucker |first1=Alyssa N. |journal=Psychology of Women Quarterly |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=423–35|s2cid=144528255 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1023/A:1007044802798 |year=2000 |last1=Burn |first1=Shawn Meghan |last2=Aboud |first2=Roger |last3=Moyles |first3=Carey |title=The Relationship Between Gender Social Identity and Support for Feminism |journal=Sex Roles |volume=42 |issue=11/12 |pages=1081–89|s2cid=17743495 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1007/BF00289954 |title=New wave or second stage? Attitudes of college women toward feminism |year=1987 |last1=Renzetti |first1=Claire M. |journal=Sex Roles |volume=16 |issue=5–6 |pages=265–77|s2cid=144101128 }}</ref> The US media tends to portray feminism negatively and feminists "are less often associated with day-to-day work/leisure activities of regular women".<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02540.x |title=The Framing of Feminists and Feminism in News and Public Affairs Programs in U.S. Electronic Media |year=2002 |last1=Lind |first1=Rebecca Ann |last2=Salo |first2=Colleen |journal=Journal of Communication |volume=52 |pages=211–28}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00348.x |title=Effects of Stereotypes About Feminists on Feminist Self-Identification |year=2007 |last1=Roy |first1=Robin E. |last2=Weibust |first2=Kristin S. |last3=Miller |first3=Carol T. |journal=Psychology of Women Quarterly |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=146–56|s2cid=145716135 }}</ref> However, as recent research has demonstrated, as people are exposed to self-identified feminists and to discussions relating to various forms of feminism, their own self-identification with feminism increases.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Moradi | first1 = B. | last2 = Martin | first2 = A. | last3 = Brewster | first3 = M. E. | year = 2012 | title = Disarming the threat to feminist identification: An application of personal construct theory to measurement and intervention | journal = Psychology of Women Quarterly | volume = 36 | issue = 2| pages = 197–209 | doi = 10.1177/0361684312440959 | s2cid = 145166218 }}</ref>

=== Pro-feminism ===
{{main|Social:Pro-feminism}}
Pro-feminism is the support of feminism without implying that the supporter is a member of the feminist movement. The term is most often used in reference to men who are actively supportive of feminism. The activities of pro-feminist men's groups include anti-violence work with boys and young men in schools, offering sexual harassment workshops in workplaces, running community education campaigns, and counselling male perpetrators of violence. Pro-feminist men also may be involved in men's health, activism against pornography including anti-pornography legislation, [[Philosophy:Men's studies|men's studies]], and the development of gender equity curricula in schools. This work is sometimes in collaboration with feminists and women's services, such as domestic violence and rape crisis centres.<ref name=Lingard>{{Cite book |last1=Lingard |first1=Bob |last2=Douglas |first2=Peter |title=Men Engaging Feminisms: Pro-Feminism, Backlashes and Schooling |year=1999 |publisher=Open University Press |location=Buckingham, England |isbn=978-0-335-19818-4 |page=192}}</ref><ref name="Kimmel-Tide">{{Cite book|last1=Kimmel |first1=Michael S. |last2=Mosmiller |first2=Thomas E. |title=Against the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States, 1776–1990: A Documentary History |year=1992 |publisher=Beacon Press |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-8070-6767-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/againsttide00rces }}{{page needed|date=October 2012}}</ref>

=== Anti-feminism and criticism of feminism ===
{{Anchor|Critique of Feminism and Anti-feminism|Criticism of feminism and anti-feminism}} <!-- Former name -->
{{main|Social:Antifeminism}}
Anti-feminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms.<ref>{{citation | last1 = Simpson | first1 = John A. | last2 = Weiner | first2 = Edmund S.C. |  author-link2 = Edmund Weiner | contribution = Anti-feminist | editor-last1 = Simpson | editor-first1 = John A. | editor-last2 = Weiner | editor-first2 = Edmund S. C. |  editor-link2 = Edmund Weiner | title = The Oxford English Dictionary | publisher = Clarendon Press Oxford University Press | location = Oxford New York | year = 1989 | edition = 2nd | isbn = 978-0-19-861186-8 | postscript = .}}</ref>

In the 19th century, anti-feminism was mainly focused on opposition to women's suffrage. Later, opponents of women's entry into institutions of higher learning argued that education was too great a physical burden on women. Other anti-feminists opposed women's entry into the labour force, or their right to join unions, to sit on juries, or to obtain birth control and control of their sexuality.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jWj5OBvTh1IC&pg=PA35 |chapter=Antifeminism |first=Michael |last=Kimmel | editor-last1 = Kimmel | editor-first1 = Michael | editor-last2 = Aronson | editor-first2 = Amy |  editor-link2 = Amy Aronson | title = Men and Masculinities a Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia | pages = 35–37 | publisher = ABC-CLIO | location = Santa Barbara, California | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-1-57607-774-0 }}</ref>

Some people have opposed feminism on the grounds that they believe it is contrary to traditional values or religious beliefs. Some anti-feminists argue, for example, that social acceptance of divorce and non-married women is wrong and harmful, and that men and women are fundamentally different and thus their different traditional roles in society should be maintained.<ref>{{citation | last = Lukas | first = Carrie |  contribution = Marriage: happier ever after | editor-last = Lukas | editor-first = Carrie |  title = The politically incorrect guide to women, sex, and feminism | page = [https://archive.org/details/politicallyincor0000luka/page/75 75] | publisher = Regency Publishing | location = Washington, DC Lanham, Maryland | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-1-59698-003-7 | quote = Feminists' assault on marriage also has played a role in devaluing marriage. Radical feminists view marriage as a cruel trap for women, perpetuating patriarchy, and keeping women subservient to men. They lament the roles that women and men tend to assume in traditional marriages, believing that women get the worse deal from the marriage contract. | url = https://archive.org/details/politicallyincor0000luka/page/75 }}</ref><ref>{{citation | last = Kassian | first = Mary | contribution = Introduction: the tsunami of feminism | editor-last = Kassian | editor-first = Mary | title = The feminist <del>mystique</del> mistake: the radical impact of feminism on church and culture | page = 10 | publisher = Crossway Books | location = Wheaton, Illinois | year = 2005 | edition = 2nd | isbn = 978-1-58134-570-4 | quote = The feminist assault on traditional gender roles and families began in earnest in the 1960s and increasingly turned radical in the 1970s. }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Schlafly | first = Phyllis | author-link = Phyllis Schlafly | contribution = Understanding the difference | editor-last = Schlafly | editor-first = Phyllis | editor-link = Phyllis Schlafly | title = The Power of the Positive Woman | url = https://archive.org/details/powerofpositivew00schl | url-access = registration | page = [https://archive.org/details/powerofpositivew00schl/page/12 12] | publisher = Arlington House | location = New Rochelle, New York | year = 1977 | isbn = 978-0-87000-373-8 | quote = The second dogma of the women's liberationists is that, of all the injustices perpetuated upon women through the centuries, the most oppressive is the cruel fact that women have babies and men do not. Within the confines of the women's liberationist ideology, therefore, the abolition of this overriding inequality of women becomes the primary goal. This goal must be achieved at any at all costs – to the woman herself, to the baby, to the family, and to society. Women must be made equal to men in their ability ''not'' to become pregnant and ''not'' to be expected to care for babies they may bring into the world. }}</ref>{{failed verification |date=June 2023|reason=Can't find any occurance of "anti-feminist", all I see is about radical feminists.}} Other anti-feminists oppose women's entry into the workforce, political office, and the voting process, as well as the lessening of male authority in families.<ref>{{cite news |last=Gottfried |first=Paul | author-link = Paul Gottfried |title=The trouble with feminism |url=https://www.lewrockwell.com/2001/04/paul-gottfried/the-trouble-with-feminism/ | work = LewRockwell.com |publisher= Lew Rockwell |date= 21 April 2001 |access-date=30 September 2006}}</ref><ref>{{citation | last = al-Qaradawi | first = Yusuf | author-link = Yusuf al-Qaradawi | contribution = Women and family in Islamist discourses: 'When Islam prohibits something, it closes all the avenues of approach to it'| editor-last = Calvert | editor-first = John | editor-link = John Calvert (scholar) | title = Islamism: a documentary and reference guide | page = 62 | publisher = Greenwood Press | location = Westport, Conn | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-313-33856-4 | quote = Islamists are aggrieved at the support of ostensibly Muslim governments for the 'alleged' legal emancipation of women, including granting women the right to vote and hold public office, in addition to limited rights to initiate divorce. Although many Muslim women take pride in the fact that they now perform jobs and enter professions once reserved for men, for most Islamists female employment and legal emancipation are dangerous trends that lead to the dissolution of traditional gender roles associated with the extended family. }}</ref>

Writers such as [[Biography:Camille Paglia|Camille Paglia]], Christina Hoff Sommers, [[Biography:Jean Bethke Elshtain|Jean Bethke Elshtain]], Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Lisa Lucile Owens<ref>{{cite web|title=Department of Sociology: Lisa Lucile Owens|url=http://sociology.columbia.edu/node/347|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151021233216/http://sociology.columbia.edu/node/347|archive-date=21 October 2015|access-date=13 October 2015|publisher=[[Organization:Columbia University|Columbia University in the City of New York]]}}</ref> and Daphne Patai oppose some forms of feminism, though they identify as feminists. They argue, for example, that feminism often promotes misandry and the elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to both men and women.<ref name="Hoff_Sommers">{{Cite book |last=Sommers |first=Christina Hoff |title=Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women |year=1995 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-0-684-80156-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/whostolefeminism00chri/page/320 320] |title-link=Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women }}</ref> Daphne Patai and [[Biography:Noretta Koertge|Noretta Koertge]] argue that the term "anti-feminist" is used to silence academic debate about feminism.<ref name=Patai_Koertge>{{citation | last = Patai | first = Daphne | author-link = Daphne Patai | contribution = Policing the academy: {{'}}''Anti-feminist intellectual harassment''{{'}} | editor-last1 = Patai | editor-first1 = Daphne | editor-last2 = Koertge | editor-first2 = Noretta |  title = Professing feminism: education and indoctrination in women's studies | pages = 278–79 | publisher = Lexington Books | location = Lanham, Maryland | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-0-7391-0455-2 | quote = the book [''Antifeminism in the Academy'' by Clark, Vévé et al.] attempts to extend an already dubious concept – hostile environment harassment – to encompass a whole new range of thought and behavior. Delineating the many types of alleged anti-feminist practices perpetrated in colleges, universities, and publishing houses around the country, contributors to this book propose in all seriousness that measures be taken against a new and pervasive kind of offense: 'antifeminst intellectual harassment.'}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last = Danowitz Sagaria | first = Mary Ann | title = Review: Reviewed Work: ''Antifeminism in the Academy'' by Vévé Clark, Shirley Nelson Garner, Margaret Higonnet, Ketu H. Katrak | journal = The Journal of Higher Education | volume = 70 | issue = 1 | pages = 110–12 | doi = 10.2307/2649121 | jstor = 2649121 | date = January 1999 }}</ref> Lisa Lucile Owens argues that certain rights extended exclusively to women are patriarchal because they relieve women from exercising a crucial aspect of their moral agency.<ref name=coerced_parenthood>{{Cite journal | last = Owens | first = Lisa Lucile | title = Coerced parenthood as family policy: feminism, the moral agency of women, and men's 'Right to Choose' | journal = Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review | volume = 5 | issue = 1 | date = May 2014 | ssrn = 2439294 }}</ref>

=== Secular humanism ===

[[Philosophy:Secular humanism|Secular humanism]] is an ethical framework that attempts to dispense with any unreasoned dogma, pseudoscience, and superstition. Critics of feminism sometimes ask "Why feminism and not humanism?". Some humanists argue, however, that the goals of feminists and humanists largely overlap, and the distinction is only in motivation. For example, a humanist may consider abortion in terms of a utilitarian ethical framework, rather than considering the motivation of any particular woman in getting an abortion. In this respect, it is possible to be a humanist without being a feminist, but this does not preclude the existence of feminist humanism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Doran |first1=Tatiana |last2=West |first2=Robin |title=Feminism or Humanism? |journal=Yale Law Journal |date=June 1998 |volume=107 |issue=8 |pages=2661 |doi=10.2307/797353 |jstor=797353 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Cordelia Tucker|last= O'Sullivan |title=Why Humanism and feminism go hand in hand |url=http://humanistlife.org.uk/2015/03/07/why-humanism-and-feminism-go-hand-in-hand/ |website=HumanistLife |access-date=9 January 2019 |date=7 March 2015}}</ref> Humanism played a significant role in protofeminism during the Renaissance period in such that humanists made educated women popular figures despite the challenge of the patriarchal organization of society.<ref name="Ross-2009">{{Cite book|title=The Birth of Feminism: Woman As Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England|last=Ross, Sarah Gwyneth, 1975–|date=2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-03454-9|oclc=517501929}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Div col}}
* Black feminism
* Decolonial feminism
* [[Social:Feminism and racism|Feminism and racism]]
* ''Feminist Studies''
* Feminist peace research
* Index of feminism articles
* Indigenous feminism
* Lesbian erasure
* List of feminist parties
* List of queens regnant
* [[Social:Masculism|Masculism]]
* [[Social:Matriarchy|Matriarchy]]
* [[Social:Matrilineality|Matrilineality]]
* [[Social:Men's rights movement|Men's rights movement]]
* Multiracial feminist theory
* [[Philosophy:Straw feminism|Straw feminism]]
* White feminism
{{Div col end}}

== Explanatory notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
{{Library resources box |by=no |onlinebooks=no |others=yes |lcheading=Feminism}}

* {{cite book | last = Assiter | first = Alison |  title = Pornography, Feminism, and the Individual | publisher = Pluto Press | location = London Winchester, Mass | year = 1989 | isbn = 978-0-7453-0319-2 }}
* {{cite book |last=DuBois |first=Ellen Carol | title=Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage |year=1997 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Conn. |isbn=978-0-300-06562-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Flexner |first=Eleanor |title=Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States |publisher=The Belknap Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-674-10653-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/century_fle_1996_00_7206 }}
* {{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/TheFeminineMystique|title=The Feminine Mystique|last=Friedan|first=Betty| publisher=Norton|year=1997|isbn=978-0-393-04049-4|location=New York}}
* {{cite book |last=Goodman |first=Robin Truth |title=Feminist Theory in Pursuit of the Public: Women and the 'Re-Privatization' of Labor |location=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2010}}
* {{Cite journal | last = Hemmings | first = Clare | title = Is Gender Studies Singular? Stories of Queer/Feminist Difference and Displacement | journal = differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies | volume = 27 | issue = 2 | pages = 79–102 | date = September 2016 | doi = 10.1215/10407391-3621721 | url = http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/65633/ }}
* {{cite book | last = Hewlett | first=Sylvia Ann |  year=1986 | title=A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women's Liberation in America | edition=First | location=New York |publisher=W. Morrow and Co. | isbn=0-688-04855-2}}
* {{cite book| last1 = Holt | first1 = Douglas| last2 = Cameron | first2 = Douglas| year = 2010| title = Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build Breakthrough Brands| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0-19-958740-7}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Kaufman |editor1-first=Gloria |editor2-last=Blakely |editor2-first=Mary Kay |title=Pulling Our Own Strings: Feminist Humor and Satire |date=1994 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |isbn=9780253202512}}
* {{cite book | last = Lyndon | first = Neil |  title = No More Sex Wars: The Failures of Feminism | publisher = Mandarin | location = London | year = 1993 | isbn = 0-7493-1565-2 }}
* {{cite journal |doi=10.1080/09699089800200034 |title=The archigenderic territories: Mansfield park and a handful of dust |year=1998 |last1=Mathur |first1=Piyush |journal=Women's Writing |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=71–81}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=McElroy |first=Wendy |editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher= [[Company:SAGE Publishing|SAGE]]; [[Organization:Cato Institute|Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi= 10.4135/9781412965811.n106|isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages= 173–76 |chapter=Feminism and Women's Rights }}
* Mitchell, Brian (1998). ''Women in the Military: Flirting with Disaster''. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing. xvii, 390 p. {{ISBN|0-89526-376-9}}.
* {{cite book | last = Orleck | first = Annelise | title = Rethinking American Women's Activism | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2015 | isbn = 978-0-203-06991-2 }}
* {{Cite journal | last = Pollock | first = Griselda |  title = Is feminism a trauma, a bad memory, or a virtual future? | journal = differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies | volume = 27 | issue = 2 | pages = 27–61 | date = September 2016 | doi = 10.1215/10407391-3621697 }}
* {{Cite journal | last = Pulkkinen | first = Tuija | title = Feelings of Injustice: The Institutionalization of Gender Studies and the Pluralization of Feminism | journal = Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies | volume = 27 | issue = 2 | pages = 103–124 | date = September 2016 | doi = 10.1215/10407391-3621733 | hdl = 10138/174278 | hdl-access = free }}
* {{cite book | last = Richards | first = Janet Radcliffe |  title = The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry | publisher = Routledge | location = London | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-0-415-63706-0 }}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Schroder | first1 = Iris | last2 = Schuler | first2 = Anja | title = 'In Labor Alone is Happiness': Women's Work, Social Work, and Feminist Reform Endeavors in Wilhelmine Germany – A Transatlantic Perspective | journal = Journal of Women's History | volume = 16 | issue = 1 | pages = 127–147 | doi = 10.1353/jowh.2004.0036 | date =Spring 2004 | s2cid = 144519514 }}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Schroder |first1=Iris |last2=Schuler |first2=Anja | title = Is feminism a trauma, a bad memory, or a virtual future? | journal = Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies | volume = 27 | issue = 2 | pages = 27–61 | doi = 10.1215/10407391-3621697 | date = September 2016 }}
* {{cite book | first=Linda |last=Scott |  title=The Double X Economy: The Epic Potential of Empowering Women | publisher=Faber and Faber | year=2020 |isbn=978-0-571-35360-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Stansell |first=Christine |title=The Feminist Promise: 1792 to the Present |year=2010 |publisher=Modern Library |isbn= 978-0-679-64314-2 }}
* {{cite book | last=Steichen | first=Donna |  year=1991 | title=Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism | location=San Francisco, Calif. | publisher=Ignatius Press | isbn=0-89870-348-4}}
* {{cite book|last1=Stevens |first1=Doris |editor-last=O'Hare |editor-first=Carol |title=Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote |year=1995 |publisher=NewSage Press |location=Troutdale, OR |isbn=978-0-939165-25-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/jailedforfreedom00stev }}
* {{cite book|last=Wheeler |first=Marjorie W. |title=One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement |year=1995 |publisher=NewSage Press |location=Troutdale, OR |isbn=978-0-939165-26-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/onewomanonevoter00spru }}
* {{Cite journal | last = Laurence| title = ''Issue'': Feminism, women's movements and women in movement | journal = Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements | volume = 3 | issue = 2 | date =November 2011 |issn=2009-2431 | url = http://www.interfacejournal.net/2011/12/interface-volume-3-issue-2-feminism-womens-movements-and-women-in-movement/ }} Posted 13 December 2011. [http://www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Interface-3-2-Full-PDF.pdf Pdf.]
* [http://www.feminist.com/resources/links/ Feminist.com]
* [http://www.feministvoices.com/ Psychology's Feminist Voices]
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/ "Topics in Feminism"], at the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''

== External links ==

=== Articles ===
* {{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Feminism |short=x}}
* {{Cite Americana|wstitle=Feminism |short=x}}

=== Active research ===

* [http://personality-testing.info/tests/FPS.php Feminist Perspectives Scale] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828032933/http://personality-testing.info/tests/FPS.php |date=28 August 2016 }}: An academic survey to determine acceptance or rejection of feminist ideas from:
** {{cite journal | last1 = Henley | first1 = Nancy M. | last2 = Meng | first2 = Karen | last3 = O'Brien | first3 = Delores | last4 = McCarthy | first4 = William J. | last5 = Sockloskie | first5 = Robert J. | title = Developing a scale to measure the diversity of feminist attitudes | journal = Psychology of Women Quarterly | volume = 22 | issue = 3 | pages = 317–348 | doi = 10.1111/j.1471-6402.1998.tb00158.x | date = September 1998 | s2cid = 145172685 }}

=== Multimedia and documents ===
* [http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=78523 ''Early Video on the Emancipation of Women''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125151820/http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=78523 |date=25 November 2011 }}, documentary filmed {{circa|1930}}, which includes footage from the 1890s
* [https://repository.duke.edu/dc/wlmpc Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement], Special Collections Library, Duke University
* [https://heritagecalling.com/2018/03/08/a-history-of-feminism-through-5-finds/ History of feminism] at ''Heritage Calling'', Historic England

{{Political ideologies}}

[[Category:Social theories]]

{{Sourceattribution|Feminism}}