Definition Of Feminism

Definition of Feminism The modern definition of feminism, as described by the oxford online dictionary, is that feminism is “[t]he advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” Although this definition is incredibly broad and does not focus on the methods that feminists use to achieve this method, it covers the broad goals of the feminist movement, and gives an overarching, goal-driven definition. For the most part, this definition is based in the political and suffrage movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where the primary goals of the various movements were to gain the same human rights as men. As time continued, the methods and goals of feminism may have deviated as basic

Eco-feminism seems to be the combination of an environmental protection group combined with feminist ideology. They take on and protest ecological issues and problems that have some unequal impact towards women in some way. For instance, in Eco/Feminism, Non-Violence and the Future of Feminism, which is the article where the definition came from, the author interviewed and focused on an eco-feminist camp on the West Coast of Canada during the early nineties. Their main goal was to slow and stop the clear-cut logging that was occurring in the surround, almost national park area in Canada through non-violent protesting and publicizing the “injustices” done by the logging companies in the area. However, they also protested the companies due to wage differences in their workers based on gender and due to the effect of the company’s pollution on pregnant women. So, put simply, this branch of feminism combines the ideas of environmental protection with feminist

For instance, one of the common ideas or points to take away from everyone’s presentations on their respective scholarly articles, was that there are still some barriers to women trying to work in the STEM fields. These barriers range from biases in hiring processes, which we discussed in class multiple times using the example of two theoretical, identical applicants with only their names changed, to difficulties in young women getting into the field of STEM. Although these barriers are not a matter of life and death, nor is it, necessarily, a problem that feminists need to solve, it is a way that feminism could help to improve women in some way. Furthermore, if feminists are able to break down some of these barriers of entry into the STEM fields, then they would be able to start breaking down biases within the field itself; this, in turn, would create an environment free of bias towards women, and help break several stereotypes, including the rather common stereotype that men are inherently stronger in the math and science