Feminism as a Highly Relevant Ideology - Essay Example

Feminism remains a highly relevant ideology in its challenge to patriarchy and gendered inequality affiliation Feminism remains a highly relevant ideology in its challenge to patriarchy and gendered inequality Feminism is based on the fact that women have had their rights infringed both in politics, cultural and socially. The uprising has been geared towards ensuring that both men and women have equal rights in accessing social amenities through different sections. In the ancient times women had no right to own property, hold public office, vote, enter into contracts, they were discriminated in terms of pay at the place of work. Furthermore, women were viewed as the lesser partners in marriage. Besides, the feminist, have worked hard to ensure that women bodily integrity and autonomy is maintained by protecting women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape. Through the efforts of earlier feminists, there have been major historical changes to favour women in enhancing their rights mostly in the west. Feminism has gone through development in three waves with each of the aiming at achieving particulars goals within a particular period. The first wave that came into place in the early twentieth century to the late 1950s mostly referred to as women’s suffrage that ensured that women had the right to vote in different parts of the world. After that came in the second wave that began in the 1960s that majored in ensuring that women had equal social and legal rights in the society. Later on, the 1960s came the third wave that is aimed to achieve most of the second wave goals that were not achieved within that period. The third wave has extended since then to date with various feminist identifying and fighting for the rights of women that are being infringed in different parts of the world. In today’s world feminism remains to be a highly related philosophy in its challenge to gender inequality and patriarchy (Fraser 2009). The idea of gender offers acknowledgement to the fact that each recognized society differentiates between men and women. Thus, the concept/term of gender is a logical method of understanding women and men socially and the modelling of affiliations amongst them. The idea of patriarchy assists the study of male domination in the social order. Gender inequality denotes to the unequal perception or treatment of individuals according to their gender. It ascends from dissimilarities in socially built gender roles in addition to biologically through hormonal differences, brain structure, and chromosomes. Feminists are individuals either men or women who require equivalent opportunities for both genders. Feminist writings on gender became common in the early 1970s when the feminist saw the need for equality amongst men and women. In simple words, gender describes the dissimilarities between women and men in social terms as women and men, and what a woman or man cannot or can do. Hence, gender is a logical category that is constructed socially to distinguish the biological dissimilarity amongst women and men (Davis & Greenstein 2009). Additionally, the term gender is as well applied to explain the difference in behaviour in women and men that are termed as feminine and masculine. Moreover, some theorists claim that the genetic differences between women and men also lead to their physical and mental differences. They debate that biologically, man are mentally and physically superior to their female counterparts. Others claim that this biological dissimilarity is exaggerated, and the dissimilarities are constructed socially by the patriarchal structure of the society where men are said to be superior to the females. Thus, females become subordinates to the males in the society. The writing of feminist emphasize on this feature and assert that these dissimilarities are not genetic but are social structures of patriarchal society. The notion of feminism assists to study the rights of women on economic, social, and political grounds and their equality to men. Feminism is concerned with gaining equal opportunities and rights for women, and permitting women to take control over their bodies and lives. At a period when women tend to be objectified and sexualized in multiple cultures, feminism is as well concerned with empowering young girls and women. Even though, there are numerous divisions of feminism, the main purpose of the majority of these divisions is equality. For instance, liberal feminists, postmodern feminists, and Marxist feminists may vary in their domain and approach; however, their final goals are equality and freedom for women. Furthermore, the most negatively viewed and stereotyped division of feminism is radical feminism (Harnois 2012). Radical feminists are termed as extremists who dislike men, but that is not factual. However, there are particular great feminists who need matriarchy, and others have deep-seated bitterness against men; however, these individuals do not signify the many radical feminists. What radical feminists want is a radical change: a comprehensive restructuring of the community from a patriarchal society to one that has equal opportunities for both women and men. With time, feminism has gained a destructive label, and this is mainly because of ignorance. It as if the community nurtures self-proclaimed feminists to be complaining and whining women who dislike men. However, feminism is not about doing away with men; it is about eliminating sexism and patriarchy. Now that the females working in industrialized countries have the freedom to vote and work, particular individuals trust that gender equality has already been attained, and that it is only the developing and poor countries that still possess patriarchal systems (Branisa et al. 2013). However, do not believe there are no nations that have comprehensive equality for both women and men. Even in the United Kingdom, gender inequality and double standards are prevalent. Although, women have the freedom to work, there is still the sexual harassment, racial pay gap, the gender, and glass ceiling in sexual harassment at work, among other things. In numerous regions of the globe, females are exposed to female infanticide, domestic abuse, and honour killings, and the government does little to assist these women. What is worse is that numerous issues are not taken with seriousness, and the majority of them are frequently under-represented or misreported. For example, rape crimes in certain universities are labelled as misconduct to protect the universities reputation and sexual assault data is given a lower profile. Many times the victim is the one that is accused of the rape. Instead of criticizing the rapist, the community regularly blames women for wearing in a particular way or being drunk during the rape incident. The aim of feminists is to make sure that these incidents are reported. Feminism plays a key role in revealing certain problems that may otherwise be disregarded. Without uncertainty, feminism has a great deal assisted women’s struggle for gender equality. Due to these, the once massive breach between men and women in the society is with diminishing with time and effort. Many individuals recognize that women have scaled the social ladder to unbelievable heights, allowing some of them to turn out to be prominent individuals in the society. Despite this, it is difficult to define the third wave of feminism since we are placed in the middle of it. It is concerned with the fresh fields of gender studies where feminists still fight for women to be recognized as something instead of sexual accessories and beings. Additionally, it is concerned with globalization and sexualisation of the social space (Snyder-Hall 2010). As it can be viewed, devoid of doubt we still in certain ways, see the subordination of women in the industrialised community. Nevertheless, women are not oppressive preys of unfair structures. They have fought to alter both their instant circumstances and the broader social systems. This has made them go and set their mark on the use on the use of contraception, divorcing their husbands, having an abortion, and labour markets. Significant changes have been witnessed however, these does not mean there exists no limitation. There are also very important limitations that exist; therefore, the world is still patriarchal, and the gender equality has not reached its peak yet. This means still feminists are significant individuals in the society to the fight against patriarchy and gender inequality (Hunnicutt 2009). Concisely, in fact, I do desire that there was no necessity for feminism, not because it is not important, but since it should not have to be compulsory. In a perfect world, women should be viewed as human beings and not just sex objects and then we could not be fighting for their rights, as it is a dome in the present days. Nevertheless, up until the global community extends to such a point, feminism is precisely much important and relevant. Although particular issues of gender inequality and patriarchy have been addressed, and women are increasingly taking up tasks similar to their male counterparts, some issues have not been addressed effectively, and men are still seen to dominate. Hopefully, the coming year’s patriarchy and gender inequality will be embraced increasingly to reduce or do away with them. It is important to embrace equality to achieve the needed social progress, and this cannot be done without feminine upheaval. Lastly, studies on these issues must be incorporated in the elementary schools at an earlier age to make sure children grow up knowing that everybody should be treated equally. Through this, the society will be free from gender inequality and patriarchy (Snyder-Hall 2008). Reference list Branisa, B., Klasen, S. & Ziegler, M., 2013. Gender Inequality in Social Institutions and Gendered Development Outcomes. World Development, 45, pp.252–268. Davis, S.N. & Greenstein, T.N., 2009. Gender Ideology: Components, Predictors, and Consequences. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(1), pp.87–105. Fraser, N., 2009. Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history. New Left Review, 56(56), pp.97–117. Available at: http://newleftreview.net/?page=article&view=2772. Harnois, C.E., 2012. Sociological Research on Feminism and the Women’s Movement: Ideology, Identity, and Practice. Sociology Compass, 6(10), pp.823–832. Hunnicutt, G., 2009. Varieties of patriarchy and violence against women: resurrecting “patriarchy” as a theoretical tool. Violence against women, 15(5), pp.553–573. Snyder-Hall, R.C., 2008. The Ideology of Wifely Submission: A Challenge for Feminism? Politics & Gender, 4(04), p.563. Snyder-Hall, R.C., 2010. Third-Wave Feminism and the Defense of “Choice.” Perspectives on Politics, 8(01), p.255. Read More