2 years, 1 month ago-
Let’s start with the definition of feminism. Feminism is a movement that aims at defending, establishing and providing equal social, political and economic rights for women as well as equal opportunities for them. A movement begins when there comes a gap in the answers to two questions:
1. What ought to be?
2. What is?
The feminism movement began when people started questioning the treatment of women in our society and how they should be viewed and treated. The answers to these two questions have gaps but vary from society to society. Women have been facing subordination, discrimination and oppression throughout the ages. They have faced such circumstances because of an age-old view that we mean by nature are weak and irrational. According to Aristotle, the relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior to imperial and of the ruler to ruled. According to Thomas Jefferson, a woman’s position is in the house not in politics and public office. According to Charles Darwin, men are intellectually superior to women. Due to social and economic changes in the US, these theories started to change. Liberal ideas like liberty, equality and dignity spread in the USA and Europe. When democratic norms were being established in the US and UK things seemed to change. Monarchy was being challenged. People were given citizenship rights and political rights. Women’s suffering continued because all rights were limited to men only. Women were not given the right to citizenship. Devar called second rate citizens. They were not given political rights. They kept on facing social, political and economic discrimination. The divine right of the king had been challenged, but the divine right of the father or husband was still not challenged. Society was first challenged by Mary Wollstonecraft. He wrote a book titled “Vindication of rights of women” in 1792. In this book, he mentioned that women are equally capable as men. The publication of this book was an informal beginning of the first wave of feminism. The demand for equality and the end of discrimination cut the shape of an organised movement in 1848 when the convention was held in America. Declaration of sentiments of women was fast in which it was said that men and women are equal. The first wave of feminism started with the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. The period of the women’s movement between 1848 to 1920 is called first-wave feminism. The main demands of the first wave feminism were:
• Women demanded legal and political equality. They demanded full citizenship like men.
• They demanded suffrage for the right to vote.
• The feminists where are of the view that the right to board solve all women’s problems.
The national women’s suffrage association was established in America in 1869. The main purpose of this association was to fight for the right to vote for women.
The first wave of feminism came to an end when the right to vote was granted to women in the west. The key features of first-wave feminism were the focus on restrictions. Women demanded emancipation. Women wanted to see themselves equal to men in all areas of life.The first wave of feminism came from a climate of urban industrialism and liberal socialist policy in the late 19th-and early 20th centuries. The aim of this wave was to provide women with opportunities with an emphasis on voting. The feminism of the first wave was a period of feminist activities, which occurred throughout the Western world in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The focus was on legal problems, particularly the safeguarding of the right of women to vote. Some theorists attempted to find Sappho’s (d. around 570 BEC) or Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179) or Christine de Pisan’s roots of feminism in ancient Greece (d. 1434). Of course, the Modern Women’s Movement was predominating in the Olympics de Gouge, Mary Wollstonecraft, d. 1797, and Jane Austen,d. 1817. All these persons promoted the dignity, intelligence, and fundamental human potential of women’s sex. It was not, however, until the end of the 19th century that initiatives towards equality of women’s rights solidified into a clearly recognizable movement or a succession of movements. The first wave of feminism came from a climate of urban industrialism and liberal socialist policy in the late 19th-and early 20th centuries. The aim of this wave was to provide women with opportunities with an emphasis on voting.
The wave formally began in 1848 when 300 men and women rallied to the Seneca Falle Convention for Women’s Equality. Seneca Falls Statement, which describes the ideology and political objectives of the new movement, was drawn out by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (d.1902). Victorian America has seen women acting in extremely “un-lady” ways (speaking, demonstrating, holding in prison), challenging the “cult of domesticity.” Discussions about voting and the engagement of women in politics led to an investigation of the differing views between men and women. Some argued that the presence of women would be ethically superior to men and thus enhance public behavior and the political process.
In 19th and early 20th century first wave feminism was occurred and it was the period of feminist activity. It focuses on women issues, women equality and especially women’s right to vote. This wave also sees that women gets the equal opportunities like men. The leader of first wave feminism was Elizabeth Cady Stanton who focuses on women’s suffrage movement. In march 1968 Journalist Martha Lear who invented the term first wave feminism in New York Times Magazine article. First wave feminism generally focusing for the fight of women’s political power and inequality. During suffrage movement young women’s education was very important. Due to which women will have their own self identity, confidence and potential. In 1960s Swiss suffrage movement trusted that education of girls is very important to have a purpose for their life rather than only seeing after children and it was universal thought during suffrage movements. Women suffrage movement encourage and support young women to have higher education. In 1971, women’s rights for vote in political elections was permitted. We all that society has the assumptions that men and women having separate duties like women will be housewives and men will be working at office which is wrong. This movements supports that women should have equal access for education and equal opportunities. The success of the women suffrage movement improves in higher education, workplace, equal opportunities and health care.
The first wave of feminism was starting of our fight for equality in the world, to achieve something a fresh start is very necessary so the first wave of feminism was started in the nineteenth century till the twentieth century. The first wave was focused on ensuring women’s basic legal right that is ensuring our liberty today, at very thing was dominated by the man, and women were only limited to the household activities, so women were treated as the property of males, at that time condition of women was very inferior eve very few women were arguing about this, so at that time women do not have the right to vote in elections also in this first wave about all this opinions voice of the people were raised. Feminism was tried to bring and slowly establishing women’s status. Also, formation national woman party was formed in the year 1916 by very young feminist woman Alice Paul a lot of campaigns and protest Infront of a white house, also the first wave of feminism gave rise to the second wave there were many such people who considered first wave feminists were considered not powerful and old generation, narrow-minded people. Many political started thinking about women welfare and about their but still, a lot of things remained that would be done in the second wave but after that time gaining women right to vote, right to higher education, marriage women property rights were everything. Luni stone, Elizabeth cady Stanton, Susan Anthony were feminists of the first wave.
The term ‘first wave feminism’ refers to the feminist movement of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. During this time women in the organised and advocated for equal social and constitutional right to white men, including the right to vote, right to education, right to own property. The first wave denotes the period in which figureheads advocated for women’s rights and worked toward basic legal reform for single and married women. At times, this movement addressed working women’s issues and earning a higher education, but most of the efforts concentrated on obtaining the right to vote. First-wave feminism was an important era of history that helped bring about significant social change and pave the way for equality for women of the Western world. However there were some criticisms associated with it too. One of the biggest criticisms of first-wave feminism is that it primarily focused on the plight of white women. Many early feminists involved in this movement were middle class and white. It ignored the plight and suffering of white women. First wave feminists were viewed as stuffy and part of a narrow-minded older generation. Despite its faults, the first wave lay the groundwork for future feminists and played a vital role in giving women basic legal rights.
Feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights. It’s about acknowledging both the genders equally, none more or less than the other. It’s about assuring that girls and women get the same opportunities that boys and men get in their lives. It’s about learning, unlearning, and relearning the basic concept associated with women’s equality. It’s not about hating men. It’s not about women’s superiority. It’s about accepting women as equals whether in a political, economic, or social context
The first wave of feminism generally refers to the nineteenth and early twentieth century in the western world. This phase revolved largely around gaining basic legal rights for women that today we cannot imagine reality without. Politics and business were completely dominated by powerful men who didn’t consider women capable enough to be a threat. Women were confined to their households and didn’t retain any control there as well. Unmarried women were seen as the property of their fathers, and married women the property of their husbands. They couldn’t file for divorce or be granted custody of their children. Women had no right to vote in elections, calling them second-class citizens was an understatement. For 70 years, the first-wavers would march, lecture, and protest, and face arrest, ridicule, and violence as they fought tooth and nail for the right to vote. As Susan B. Anthony’s biographer Ida Husted Harper would put it, suffrage was the right that, once a woman had won it, “would secure to her all others.” First-wavers fought not only for white women’s suffrage but also for equal opportunities to education and employment, and for the right to own property. And as the movement developed, it began to turn to the question of reproductive rights. In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US, in defiance of a New York state law that forbade the distribution of contraception. She would later go on to establish the clinic that became Planned Parenthood. In 1920, Congress passed the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. (In theory, it granted the right to women of all races, but in practice, it remained difficult for black women to vote, especially in the South.) The first wave came to a close in around 1920 when some white women (of a certain age and economic background) had been granted the right to vote in the US and the UK.
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