Feminism: The Feminist Movement

Former professor and director Cheris Kramarae of Women’s Studies at the University of Oregon says, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings” (Kramare; “Quote by Cheris Kramarae”). Kramare makes a bold statement by touching on the idea that feminism, even today, is a struggle; the so-called radical component of the feminist movement prevents the advancement of gender equality. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines feminism: “Feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms.” However, feminism is also a broad topic that includes many subcategories. Stanford expands on this explanation of feminism by stating that feminist theory can

Unfortunately, internalized sexism is just one example that makes feminism necessary. Steve Bearman, M.S., Neill Korobov, Ph.D., and Avril Thorne, Ph.D. analyzed everyday conversations between 45 pairs of female friends and focused on internalized sexism. “Internalized sexism, which occurs when women enact learned sexist behaviors upon themselves and other women, also takes everyday forms” (Bearman, Korobov, and Thorne 10). Although woman may not intentionally promote sexist and anti-feminist positions, it occurs at a large scale. Bearman, Korobov, and Thorne’s study found that, “On average, 11 such practices [of sexism] occurred per 10-minute conversation.” The excessive use of sexism makes this conversational material ordinary—whether the participants realize it or not. The authors included a dialogue where a woman “demonstrates the kind of mild objectification wherein speakers identify women by physical appearance rather than based on their behaviors or relationships.” In one example of this, two participants used objectification in a regular conversation: “They were up in their room with Bill and Lorraine, or whatever her name is – the blonde chick who’s not really a blonde.” Referring to Lorraine by her physical appearance is the mild objectification. In order for gender equality to be achieved, women themselves have to stop promoting sexist ideas in regular, everyday expressions. Feminism is also deemed

The feminist movement is still alive, and there is a lot of progress to be made. Jean Edelstein—researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research—says, “Younger generations of feminists have mistakenly focused on work-life balance and gender-related pay gaps rather than the hard issues of sexual violence and subjugation of women. We are now experiencing the consequences.” While feminists may not have mistaken focused on issues of work-life balance and gender-related pay gaps, one thing remains true: we need to focus on the serious issues like sexual violence. In this idea, it could be said that feminism has accomplished great steps of progress. However, a new era with new ideas has risen, and attention to these newer issues is critical. Edelstein says, “Incentives for women to report sexual assaults are low, with the chances of them seeing their attacker imprisoned having steadily decreased since the 1970s.” According to Edelstein, the appropriate legal framework is not currently in place to incentivize reporting serious issues like rape. Since serious issues like sexual violence still occur even at an international level and feminism is a political movement that seeks to involve law into the fight for a more gender-equal society, a “post-feminist” society has definitely not been reached. The public needs to be educated and legislation must be fought