Feminism

History

Origins of the liberation movements of the women

Historically in the pre-modern companies, the woman was generally excluded from many spheres which are accessible today for him (policy, economic, military, etc .) In the ancient Greek city, the woman did not have the right to vote; although free, it was not in right to mix with the economic affairs of the city because the right to vote required to pay the tax.

The woman was often confined with a domestic duty where work like means of subsistence and protection of the hearth fell on the responsibility for the men (more or less true vis-a-vis agriculture). The women, traditionally responsible for the governorship of the hearth, its maintenance and the reception of guests, remained however with load of their husband after having been with that their parents.

In several companies, the woman in mentalities of the time produced only a Descendance (even a Dot). By doing this historically, the women were very often private inter alia Right to vote, right of management of its incomes and of its accounts), allows neither the sexuality apart from the union of the couple, neither the Avortement, nor even the Contraception by nonnatural methods. It has however, right from the start, proscribes the Polygamie and the Répudiation which were normal practices in the ancient world.

See also: the Catholic church and women today

the Islam does not admit the confusion of the roles masculine and female, nor the sexuality apart from the union of the couple. This religion of the delivers offers the possibility of Divorce (under certain conditions). The Moslem man has the duty to protect his wife but also the right to correct it if she does not answer waitings of Coran. The woman is perceived as soiled in period of menstruation and is in general prohibited of prayer. Islam allows the Avortement in certain precise situations, when for example the conservation of the Fœtus endangers the life of the mother. The Polygamie is allowed by Coran, as regards man only.

the Judaïsme assigns precise traditional roles with the men and the women, in particular at the orthodoxe Jewish : the women generally do not have access to the rabbinate and are perceived like impure for their menstrual period . The sexual relationships except marriage are prohibited and the couples must subject to the rules Niddah ( laws of the family purity ). The Divorce and the Répudiation are allowed but discouraged. The Avortement is authorized in the following cases: the fetus endangers the life of the mother, the fetus would be badly formed, if the mother is unable mentally the prohibited Contraception. The Polygamy, traditionally allowed, is now prohibited since the 11th century.

See also: the woman in the Judaism, Nidda

the Protestantisme preaches universal priesthood and thus that of the women. Nevertheless freedom or the interdicts concerning the women issued by the religion very strongly varies according to the Protestant currents, of most liberal until most orthodoxe.

In the Buddhism, the women played a very important part and the Buddha Sakyamuni their gave full ordination. However, with the wire of time, the number of nuns developed less than that of the monks in the Buddhist countries. Thus, with the Tibet, they were only 27.000 before the Chinese invasion of 1959 whereas there were approximately 592.000 monks. Around an international association women, Carola Roloff is implied in a development of the women in Buddhism.,

On the other hand the laic women played a great part in Tibet by the fact that Padmasambhava - the founder of Buddhism tantric in Tibet - and its team founded the red community, therefore monastic made up monks and nuns, and the formed community white laic so much men and women. The women and the men of this communities white could marry, and to become spangled. Among the many women with which honor Buddhism Tibetan, let us quote Yeshe Tsogyal, Jomo Manmo, Nigouma, Matchik Labrön and Ashi Khandro. There were also family lines of Masters with disciple, even of mother with girl. The Masters women especially existed within the school nyingma, and less in the schools sakya and géloug.

Underlining a feminist aspect in Buddhism, the 14 {{E}} Dalaï Lama declared:

There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism which is connected to the deity Tārā. According to its worship of the Bodhicitta, the motivation of the Bodhisattva, it observed the situation of the beings endeavouring to reach the full awakening and it noticed that few people reached the state of Buddha as a woman. Also, Tārā was made a promise (she said herself to itself): I developed the bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lives along the way, I swear to reappear as a woman, and in my last life, when I reach the state of Buddha, there too, I will be a woman.

The French revolution and women's right

The term “feminism”, a long time allotted wrongly to Fourier, actually goes back only to 1874. But it is during the French revolution that is born the movement from social claim and policy which it indicates, of many women then taking share with the actions and the revolutionary debates, and of the men and the women claiming the equality between the sexes of the political and social statute. In spite of the female contributions to the drafting of the registers of grievances and the part which the women of the Parisian people play - in particular at the time of the demonstrations of October 1789 to ask bread and weapons -, the women do not see themselves allotting specific right in the Déclaration of the human rights and the citizen ; and if the new mode recognizes a civil personality to them, they will not have the right to vote at that time.

They less do not continue any to invest public space, organized in mixed or female clubs and companies of mutual aid and benevolence, and take part with passion - in the instar of the men in all the political struggles of the time. Among the notorious female personalities of the beginnings of the Revolution, it is necessary to retain Olympe de Gouges which publishes in 1791 the Déclaration of the women's rights and of the citizen and Théroigne de Méricourt who invited the people to take the weapons and taking part in the storming of the Bastille, that for which it will be rewarded by the gift for a sword by the National Assembly. It is by women like Claire Lacombe, Louison Chabry or Renee Audou whom was organized walk on Versailles which ends up bringing back Louis XVI in the capital.

Both close relations of the Of Gironde, they knew a fine tragedy: Théroigne de Méricourt becoming insane after being whipped naked by partisanes their adversaries and Olympe de Gouges, guillotinée. One can notice that if the women were private right to vote, that did not preserve them punishments reserved to the men and many knew the Prison or the scaffold following their public actions or political.

As from 1792, the entry in war of France leads some to fight at the borders while into 1793 develops in Paris a female militancy, carried by women of the Parisian people close to the Sans-culottes. The two hundred women of the Club of the revolutionary republican citizens created on May 10th, 1793 by Claire Lacombe and Pauline Leon, the “knitting machines”, occupy the public platforms of Constituent and apostrophize the deputies, intending to represent the sovereign people. Their vehement calls with the Terror and the equality, their participation in the fall of the Of Gironde and the other demonstrations spectacular of “mad” were going to be worth to them an image of Furie S bloodthirsty men which would nourish the repulsions of the male capacity a long time. Claire Lacombe proposes to arm the women.

However, more than excesses of a violence largely shared at the time, they are initially the reserves of the men to the capacity who exclude these women from the political arena. The majority of the Député S share the designs exposed in the Emile of Rousseau of a female ideal restricted to the role of mothers and wives, rare being those which, like Condorcet, assert the right to vote of the women in the name of the fight against the Despotisme and the Esclavage.

In November 1793, any female political association is prohibited, but the women however will continue to play a part until the Insurrection of the spring 95, whose watchword is “bread and the Constitution of 93”, before the generalized repression which marks the end of the Revolution does not put a provisional term at this first political speech, for the women as for the men.

Echoes in Great Britain

In 1792, a woman of letters British, Mary Wollstonecraft makes appear “ Vindication off the Rights off Woman ”, a work translates into French the same year under the title of “ Défense of the women's right ”. The author, who takes part in the passionate debates caused on the other side of the channel by the Révolution in France, does not hesitate to bring the marriage there closer to the prostitution. She opposes and brings closer the exploitation whose are victims the poorest women, constraints with paid work or the remuneration of their sexual services, the fate of the young women of small and private middle class of all prospects professional by the prejudices and the defect for education, and reduced to make beautiful a left.

Mary Wollstonecraft will quickly be forgotten in France, before being redécouverte by Flora Tristan in 1840.

Socialism and stamping from the women

In France, a feminism militant will develop again in the mediums Socialiste S of the romantic generation, in particular at the Saint-Simonians of the capital. Women adopt free lifestyles there, often with the scandal of the public opinion; they claim the equal rights and take part in the abundant literature of the time, as Claire Démar which publishes in 1833 its Appel with the people on the stamping from the woman .

On the political plan, the constitution of the Monarchy of July depriving of its rights the majority of the population, their combat joined that of the first defenders of the workmen and the proletarians, but they are also mobilized against the civil statute of the woman, submitted in legal and financial matters to her husband - The woman owes obedience with her husband affirm the Civil code - and for the re-establishment of the Divorce prohibited by the Restauration (1816). The Révolution of 1848 is one strong moment which makes it possible feminism to be publicly expressed through active associations; after the failure of the social revolution, their participation in these events and their standpoint will be worth with certain militant feminists to share the fate of proscribed.

First organizations and suffragettes

In the years 1820, the first feminist organizations were born with the the United States: The Female Anti-slavery Society denounced the Esclavage; the American Female Moral Reform Society wanted to fight against the Prostitution and the Alcoolisme.

About fifty years later, other movements known as of the Suffragettes (1865) appear, first of all in Great Britain then with the the United States. The American feminists asserted the civic equal rights. In 1869, the State of the Wyoming authorizes the female vote, follow-up in 1911 of the California. In 1920, the 19th amendment is ratified at the federal level: all American obtains the right to vote (two years after the English ones).

The first international demonstration of the women takes place on March 8th, 1911, following a proposal of Clara Zetkin. The principal claim is the right to vote.

As from the years 1960, to the United States, the equal rights progress. In 1963, the law on the equality of wages ( Equal Pay Act ) is voted. July 2nd 1964, the law on the civic rights ( Civil Rights Act ) abolishes theoretically any form of Discrimination in the United States. But it is as from the years 1970, with the social dispute born in the university of Berkeley in California, that the feminist claims are structured in true movements, such as the Women' S Lib and MLF in France, then take expansion.

Last decades

With the years 1980, the feminist movements, after the projections of the previous decade, know a pause. From now on the women vote everywhere in the western world whose Parliaments of practically all the countries voted laws on the Divorce and the legalization of the Contraception and the Avortement, which were the principal fights of the years 1970. The development of the tertiary sector allowed a massive entry of the women in many professions, although in general on levels subordinates. The will of the mediums of businesses simultaneously to find new consumers and new employees to be put at the task possibly contributed to it.

A priori, it seems that a certain parity is acquired. However taking into consideration study which was made and published at the time of the Conference of Beijing, promoted by UNO in 1995 with an aim of taking stock of the Female condition in the world, one could realize that it was not the case in many countries; even in occident, the question remains discussed.

One will remember in France the strike the mothers, during whom the men in support of the feminists kept the children when the women left to express. Since 2003, the movement French Neither subjected whores nor took again the torch. Médiatisées, these girls, especially originating in suburbs, more largely made know problems like the forced marriages, the Viol S, the Excision. The association of Fadela Amara developed considerably, cash an about sixty committees and more than 10.000 voluntary, but underwent many departures following the entry of Fadela Amara in the Sarkozy government.

Currents of the feminist thought

Feminism today

Modern feminism lends itself to various interpretations.

Feminism analyzes the Female condition in the History and the contemporary world while following the reflection initiated by Simone de Beauvoir, one of the first feminists who asserted in France the equality of the Droit S between men and women. In the Second Sex , it affirms: One is not born woman, one becomes it ; it is the construction of individualities which imposes different roles, according to the kind, with the people of both sexes.

Feminism affirms to exist since always in order to fighting against the male usurpation of the universality. According to this definition, the human identity is not made up of two identities, female and male, but well of human single which is different in Homme or in Femme.

The analyzes, more pragmatic, from American feminism, more radical, are born from the distinction between the Sexe and the kind. They pose that the human being is universal thus that the social identity of the female or male kind is the historical resultant of the oppression of a sex on the other.

According to another current of the feminist thought, the approach of the problem is primarily of nature socio-economic and is due to the distribution of the roles between the sexes. According to this theory, the disadvantage of the women in the companies would hold so that are the men who, historically, were to provide for food. The women, occupied with the reproduction, the maternage and the house works which surround these functions, would never have seen themselves recognizing the importance, considered to be marginal by the men, remote heritage of the companies of hunters of prehistory, these functions and this “invisible work”. When they enter massively on the job market, at the 20th century, without having more the capacity to negotiate the rules equitably of them that the workmen had had of it before them, they are forced to undergo what a patriarchate always in full form imposes to them, from where need for radically reconsidering the bases of the social life common to the men and the women.

Some feminist women

Elisabeth Badinter
Simone de Beauvoir
Judith Butler
Francoise d' Eaubonne (which introduced the term of ecofeminism in 1974)
Christine Delphy
Antoinette Fouque
Emma Goldman
Olympe de Gouges
Susan Griffin (author of traditional the Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her , 1978)
Colette Guillaumin
Gisele Halimi
Beautiful Hooks
Alexandra Kollontaï
Marie-Victoire Louis (founder of European Association against the Violences made to the Women with Work)
Florence Montreynaud (founder of the Watchdogs)
Emmeline Pankhurst
Etta Palm
Flora Tristan
Monique Wittig
Virginia Woolf
Clara Zetkin

Resources

Random links: