Portal:Feminism

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The Feminism Portal

Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern societies are patriarchal—they prioritize the male point of view—and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Originating in late 18th-century Europe, feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, run for public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, receive education, enter into contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to contraception, legal abortions, and social integration; and to protect women and girls from sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical activities for women have also been part of feminist movements.

Many scholars consider feminist campaigns to be a main force behind major historical societal changes for women's rights, particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, gender-neutral language, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property. Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women's rights, some argue for the inclusion of men's liberation within its aims, because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles. Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experiences. Feminist theorists have developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues concerning gender.

Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years, representing different viewpoints and political aims. Traditionally, since the 19th century, first-wave liberal feminism, which sought political and legal equality through reforms within a liberal democratic framework, was contrasted with labour-based proletarian women's movements that over time developed into socialist and Marxist feminism based on class struggle theory. Since the 1960s, both of these traditions are also contrasted with the radical feminism that arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and that calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate patriarchy. Liberal, socialist, and radical feminism are sometimes referred to as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought.

Since the late 20th century, many newer forms of feminism have emerged. Some forms, such as white feminism and gender-critical feminism, have been criticized as taking into account only white, middle class, college-educated, heterosexual, or cisgender perspectives. These criticisms have led to the creation of ethnically specific or multicultural forms of feminism, such as black feminism and intersectional feminism. Some have argued that feminism often promotes misandry and the elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to both men and women. (Full article...)

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Under English common law, a common scold was a species of public nuisance—a troublesome and angry woman who broke the public peace by habitually arguing and quarrelling with her neighbours. The Latin name for the offender, communis rixatrix, appears in the feminine gender, and makes it clear that only women could commit this crime. The prescribed penalty for this offence involved dunking the convicted offender in water in an instrument called the cucking stool, which by folk etymology became ducking stool. The stool consisted of a chair attached to a lever, suspended over a body of water; the prisoner was strapped into the chair and dunked into the water for her punishment.

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Credit: Detroit Publishing Co.

Two Belgian women sell milk from a dogcart, c. 1890-1900. Peddlers played a significant historic role in supplying isolated populations diverse goods. Some carried their wares and others, as here, used a domesticated animal for transport. Early photochrom print.

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2 November 1938 – First woman awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, Marina Raskova (pictured) was a Soviet aviator known as the "Russian Amelia Earhart" who helped found three female air regiments for World War II
2 November 2004 – Theo van Gogh murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri over the movie Submission, written by the feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which attacked Koranic verses allowing the abuse of Muslim women.
3 November 1793 – Guillotining of Olympe de Gouge, playwright and journalist who demanded equal rights for women during the French Revolution in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen
18 November 1872 – Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined for voting in a presidential election—a fine she refused to pay for the rest of her life
28 November 1893 – Women voted for the first time in New Zealand

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Feminist politics aims to end domination, to free us to be who we are - to live lives where we love justice, where we can live in peace. Feminism is for everybody.

— bell hooks

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Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches. She was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and derided as an advocate of politically-motivated murder and violent revolution by her critics. Born in the province of Kaunas, Lithuania she moved with her sister Helena to Rochester, New York in the United States at the age of sixteen. Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket Riot, Goldman was trained by Johann Most in public speaking and became a renowned lecturer, attracting crowds of thousands. The writer and anarchist Alexander Berkman became her lover, lifelong intimate friend and comrade. Together they planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Though Frick survived, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. In 1917 Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested – with hundreds of others – and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. Eventually she traveled to Spain to participate in that nation's civil war. She died in Toronto on 14 May 1940.

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... that Margareth Rago seeks to establish a methodology for what she calls "feminist science"?
... that after dying in her daughter's arms in an asylum in 1897, Maria Trubnikova was remembered as the "heart and soul" of feminist activism in Russia?

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...that Rear Admiral Evelyn J. Fields (pictured) is the first woman and first African American to be the director of the Office of NOAA Corps Operations and the NOAA Commissioned Corps?
...that by passing as a man, Isobel Gunn became in 1806 the first woman of European descent employed by the Hudson's Bay Company in Rupert's Land?
...that Ann C. Noble, inventor of the "Aroma Wheel", was the first woman hired as a faculty member of the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology?

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The following are images from various feminism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1First edition print of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (from History of feminism)
Image 2Ida B. Wells (from History of feminism)
Image 3John Neal (from History of feminism)
Image 4Female soldiers from Peru, Egypt, India and other countries celebrate International Women's Day. (from International Women's Day)
Image 5Board of directors of "Jam'iat e nesvan e vatan-khah", a women's rights association in Tehran (1923–1933) (from History of feminism)
Image 6Frances Cobbe (from History of feminism)
Image 7Sylvia Pankhurst (from History of feminism)
Image 8Yellow mimosa is the symbol of IWD in Italy as well as in Russia, Ukraine and many other ex-Soviet Union republics (from International Women's Day)
Image 9An Antimonumenta, installed in Mexico City on International Women's Day 2019, as photographed the day after. The circle part says "In Mexico 9 women are murdered daily" and the cross part says "Not one more!" On the opposite side, the Antimonumenta reads "We demand a national gender alert", and in the central part "No + Femicides". (from International Women's Day)
Image 10Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney (from International Women's Day)
Image 11Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910 (from International Women's Day)
Image 12Matilda Joslyn Gage (from History of feminism)
Image 13Marie Stopes (from History of feminism)
Image 14Cover of WSPU's The Suffragette, April 25, 1913 (after Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830) (from History of feminism)
Image 15María Elena Oddone holding a banner, on International Women's Day in 1984 in Argentina. The banner says "No to motherhood, yes to pleasure". (from International Women's Day)
Image 16Betty Friedan 1960 (from History of feminism)
Image 17Christine de Pizan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. (from History of feminism)
Image 18Germaine Greer in June 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 19Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (from History of feminism)
Image 208M 2018 in Pamplona (from International Women's Day)
Image 21
  Official holiday
  Holiday for women
  Non-official holiday
(from International Women's Day)
Image 22Simone de Beauvoir (from History of feminism)
Image 238M 2020 in Spain (from International Women's Day)
Image 24Female soldiers from Peru, Egypt, India and other countries celebrate International Women's Day. (from International Women's Day)
Image 25Suffrage parade in New York, May 6, 1912 (from History of feminism)
Image 26The vandalized Concepción Feminist Mural in Spain, which was vandalized on International Women's Day 2021. (from International Women's Day)
Image 27Florence Nightingale (from History of feminism)
Image 28Nellie McClung (from History of feminism)
Image 29A veil-burning ceremony in Andijan on International Women's Day in 1927. (from International Women's Day)
Image 30Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 31Irena Krzywicka (from History of feminism)
Image 32Women on the street celebrating International Women's Day in Cameroon (from International Women's Day)
Image 33bell hooks (from History of feminism)
Image 34Wealthy Chinese women with bound feet (Beijing, 1900). Foot binding was a symbol of women's oppression during the reform movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. (from History of feminism)
Image 35Lucy Stone (from History of feminism)
Image 36Margaret Sanger (from History of feminism)
Image 37Emily Davison (from History of feminism)
Image 38Catharine MacKinnon (from History of feminism)
Image 39Camilla Collett (from History of feminism)
Image 40Bessie Rayner Parkes (from History of feminism)
Image 41The Nineteenth Amendment (from History of feminism)
Image 42Author and scholar Helen Kendrick Johnson opposed women's suffrage. (from History of feminism)
Image 43Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from History of feminism)
Image 44Huda Shaarawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union (from History of feminism)

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Feminism}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.

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Alice Manfield - Guide Alice, Mt Buffalo, c1900-30, SLV
Alice Park - Records of the National Woman's Party
Alice Paul (1915) by Harris & Ewing
Angela Davis in a half-length portrait by Bernard Gotfryd - crop
Anne Dallas Dudley LOC
Avril de Sainte-Croix - Restored, cropped
Bertha Lutz 1925
Cabinet Card of Sojourner Truth - Collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Convicts Lunatics and Women! Have No Vote for Parliament, ca. 1907-1918
Dr. Caroline Spencer 275029v
Ethel Smyth
Frances Benjamin Johnston, Self-Portrait (as "New Woman"), 1896
Fredrikke Mørck
George Charles Beresford - Virginia Woolf in 1902 - Restoration
Henrietta Rodman from the George Grantham Bain Collection
Henry Mayer, The Awakening, 1915 Cornell CUL PJM 1176 01 - Restoration
Hester Jeffrey
Hubertine Auclert 1910
Iris Calderhead
Joy Young Rogers outside the White House
Lucretia Mott, signed photo, by F. Gutekunst
Mabel Vernon, c. 1917, by Edmonston, Washington, D.C.
Marguerite Durand 1910 - Restoration
Marie Stopes in her laboratory, 1904 - Restoration
Mary Garrity - Ida B. Wells-Barnett - Google Art Project - restoration crop
Millicent Fawcett
Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict by Edmonston, Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Lillian Ascough, chairman of the Connecticut branch of the Woman's Party
Mrs. Pauline Adams 147002v
Portrett av Gina Krog (6276081582) - Restoration
Poster by Anna Soós Korànyi for the Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
Ray Strachey restored
Sojourner Truth, 1870 (cropped, restored)
Victoria Claflin Woodhull by Mathew Brady - Oval Portrait
Voltairine de Cleyre (Age 35)
We Can Do It! NARA 535413 - Restoration 2