What is feminism: history and varieties

Definitions of what feminism is, there are a great many, but they all correspond to reality. Very often feminism is defined as science, politics or activity. Of course, we can say that this is a theory of the protection of women's rights and its application in practice. In principle, it is, but it is worth noting which interests of women are defended.

In general, rights can be denoted by one concept - the ability to choose a particular behavior, without expecting negative consequences. There are also specific rights related to the birth of children or pregnancy. But the main focus is still on equalizing the opportunities of women and men.

Female feminism: implications and goals

If we talk about the consequences, they can be social (meaning public opinion) and legal. Therefore, describing what feminism is, first of all note the prejudiced attitude towards women in judicial practice, legislation and requirements to certain principles of behavior.

The main goal of the activity of feminists is equalizing the living standards of men and women. True, any shifts in this direction take place with great difficulty and meet resistance. The quality of life of many women is at a lower level, compared to men. This is mainly due to discrimination of women's rights. As a result, there is a biased distribution of resources and total ignoring of women's needs.

Traditional and radical feminism

If we talk about what is traditional feminism, then this concept is usually called the first women's movement in the 1840s-1930s and its numerous varieties.

The feminism of the second wave, dating back to the 1960s, is called radical. Sometimes this version of the movement is compared with the work of F. Engels "On the origins of the oppression of women." Analogies are carried out due to the fact that radical feminists, just like Engels, view the situation in the world as a confrontation between two class groups: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, men and women. Radical feminists believe that the patriarchy was created to oppress the male sex of a woman.

But by the beginning of the 21st century, the question of what feminism is is not so popular, as its supporters have come to the conclusion that not only the rights of women, but also men are violated. After all, they were required to correspond to the roles assigned to them by the patriarchal society. It was decided that such compulsory matching harms the development of the person's personality, regardless of gender.

History of feminism

As a political trend, feminism was formed under the influence of situations typical for the female sex. For the first time, women demanded equality during the War of Independence (1775-1783). The first supporter of this movement in America, who raised the question of what feminism is, is Abigail Smith Adams. It is her phrase - "We will not obey the laws, in the acceptance of which we did not take part, and the authorities that do not care about our interests" - entered the history of feminism.

Many mistakenly believe that all feminists consider men their enemies. But in reality, the protest of supporters of this movement is aimed at patriarchy, and not at the strong half of humanity as a whole. After all, basically the patriarchy system functions to serve men, and women in this case are just consumed resources. In such a system, the distribution of roles takes into account the biological sex.