Argumentative Essay on the Core Beliefs of Feminism.
Introduction
Discrimination of the vulnerable society members and women since history immemorial is very evident worldwide. Alongside the suffering of women in the society, social, economic, and political discrimination on the vulnerable not left behind. After numerous attempts to change the world in terms of better policy and rules formulation, invention, and change of ancient ideas and thoughts, women still struggle to attain their rights. In general, feminism has created endless debates worldwide as it’s geared towards solving women’s problems. It acted as the women’s voice at a time they couldn’t express or speak their opinions in the confines of justice.
Apart from women and the vulnerable society members, feminism plays a significant role in the fight against discrimination of either black women or race relations in general. Therefore, several questions can be asked regarding feminism. For example, what are women doing? What political/social locations are they part of or exempted from? How the activities they do compares to those of men? Are the exclusions inter race discrimination, and why? What extent does the feminism influence woman’s fight towards achieving their rights? Are there some ripped fruits of feminism till now? Was the concept of feminism alone enough to change the life of women?
The departure in the context, McAfee (2018), describes feminism in the angles of intellectual commitment and political association or movement aiming at the realization of women justice and putting to a stop all forms of sexism. With a primary concern of social justice, the feminist quest outlays a broader perspective regarding the political, cultural, economic, and social arenas. Regardless of many commitments shared by various agencies and organizations, there are many differences amidst feminist philosophies, especially in the philosophy orientation. For example, whether continental or analytic, ontological orientation (women category), and the kind of moral or political solutions to determined.
There are various types of feminism with distinct principles and conditions predetermined to give women rights and equity. To start with; Liberal Feminism focused on the objective of achieving equality between men and women. It puts more emphasis on the equality of women before the law, professional and education opportunities, and equal pay for equal work, rape protection, property rights, inequitable divorce, and dehumanizing forces. Most scholars and women movements consider Liberal feminist as the most significant kind of feminism as it dictates women structuring and integration in society and emphasizes the Social Contract theory of government that was instituted by the American Revolution in the early 19th century. It advocates for the individuals in the community to be able to help women to push for legislation, create awareness, and equally use tools and resources available to support for change.
The second type is the Radical Feminism that holds a belief that sexism is in-depth in the society and that elimination of gender in the society is the only cure. Its emergence commenced in the 1960s, spearheaded by the famous leaders T. Grace Atkinson and Shulamith Firestone. It argues out the liberal claim that the lack of civil or political rights propagates women’s oppression in society. The central belief under the radical feminist is to challenge and overthrow the societal patriarchal hegemony societal order. It opposes the standard of gender roles and oppression of women calling for radical reinstatement of the society.
The radicalization is based on the belief women’s oppression is a result of the primary form of man’s dominion set by the societal orders on race, economic, and cultural strength. The movement intents to foster social change rather than proportional changes that are revolutionary. Radical feminist claims that the root cause of women oppression is biological. The oppressions include the physical subordination of women by men. Thus, a demand for patriarchy destruction is needed, primarily through legal forms. They advocate for the women adopting specific roles based on the biological orientations, thus questioning why men assume certain tasks based on their gender. Radical feminists attempt drawing lines between culturally and biologically determined habits with the aim of women achieving their freedom and rights quest.
Last but not least, socialist feminists (Marxist Feminism). Marxists argue against capitalism through fostering economic reforms by embracing of socialism. They view the various gender inequalities in the society as intrinsic to the capitalist systems that are profit-making oriented, characterized by unpaid and underpaid labour in the workforce. Their antagonism against capitalist is based on the fact that capitalism empowers and supports sexist status with men dominating power and money. The final result is that women are left with fewer opportunities and resources. Therefore, the socialist tried to eliminate the capitalist systems and entrench socialism objectively to collectively share the wealth, create human labour, and clear all forms of economic exploitation.
Notably, sexism profited capitalism by the provision of cheap labour for the industry, most of which characterized the women and the vulnerable in society. As a result, low pay, or even unpaid work, and loss of status rose and became famous. Meaning, the Marxists rejected the idea of women liberation to abolish childbirth. They analyzed women’s subordination as linked to various forms of oppression and with unity fight against them. Marxist spearheaded the restoration of women to autonomy in society. The birth of the modern industrial revolution commenced the women’s liberation allowing the working-class women into wage labour equitably as men. Equal salary for both women and men was a vital principle endowed in the Marxist theory of socialism.
According to Rakowo (2015), contemporary feminists also philosophy scholars emerged in the nineteen seventy’s when more women started their careers in higher education, even majoring in philosophy. Doing so led them to begin picking up matters from their own opinions and experience to scrutinize philosophy. The scholars were hence influenced by the feminist movements and the philosophical pieces of training involving the fight of women’s rights and race relations. Until in the recent past, one could not be admitted to the higher learning institutions for the study of “feminist philosophy,” unlike today’s situation. As a result, most of the feminists, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, emerged with training and analysis of matters “women liberalization. ” For instance, the current emerging issues on opportunity equity, affirmative action, abortion, marriage institutions, sexuality, and love. Also, feminist philosophy scholarship has similarly focused on the same matters ancient philosophers concentrate on.
The whole journey of feminist philosophical scholarship started with particular attention to women, the roles and locations they have in terms of social, economic, and political perspectives. Thus, the analytical tools by the feminist philosophers were brought on the context to bear answers to some of these questions (Rowe, 2012). Since most of the philosophical tools were used and brought promising results, the emergence of feminist started from the traditions of western philosophy by the end of the 20th century, including Classical American and Continental philosophy. The thematic focus of most of the works was, in most cases, impacted by the topics and questions noted in the traditions. The results, therefore, can be highlighted and looked at from different perspectives and sometimes discussed with contradictory answers.
Therefore, the feminist philosophy scholarships are not uniform in terms of the method used or the conclusion arrived at (Rowe, 2012). Indeed, debates of great significance within feminist philosophical circles have arisen regarding the effectiveness of methods used for the philosophy analysis to provide clarity of form and argumentation lacking in some schools like Continental philosophy. Others suggest that such clarity allegations come from the expense of methodological approaches and rhetorical styles, providing insights into effectiveness, psychic, or embodied aspects of human experience. Some feminists also find approaches within American Pragmatism to give clarity of form and argumentation that, at times, miss in Continental approaches. Application to real-world situations sometimes misses in the analytic approaches.
In the current world, there have been different forms of feminism. The segregation is endowed in the black racial relations. Matters of equality, women’s rights, and suffering are automatic problems of black women segregation, if not black men. Even though feminists claim the goals and objectives of women equality of ethnic and social belonging, it did not birth any meaningful solutions to the Menes of black females. Practically, feminism concentrated on solving the needs of Middle-class white women in America and Britain but creating a picture of a movement advocating for women worldwide (Burton & Clancy, 2018). An example of Patricia Collins (World famous black feminist), argued that feminism did not fight for the rights of the black woman.
Moreover, the black females got segregated from any participation in any of the social, political, or economic errands done by feminist organizations managed at that time by the white man. Sincerely, women suffered, raped, and killed, but no one violently and painfully suffered like a black woman. The black women were classified by both the white man and woman as the lower class. Therefore, the idea of “womenism,” we can say, pinpointed the unique experiences, needs, and struggles of the black woman but was not capable of resisting the unethical activities of the white man to rescue the black woman. Practically, the fruition of feminism was not able to give the black woman a sense of humour and create justice for her.
In the context of Muslim feminism, justice and equity are intrinsic values and principles of the Islamic religion. They profess the belief that human beings equal to whether black or white man/woman. The ideology of equality between sexes emerged in Muslim society during the Islam centuries. Initially, an extremist from the Muslim community often removed the God-given rights to women and made her less or servant. By the early 20th century, different thoughts emerged from people creating new ideologies and women departments in the organization. Researches and scholars, too, studied stories in the Quran to establish women’s stake in the context of social justice, gender, equity, and challenge the patriarchal traditions against women.
According to Burton & Clancy (2018), women’s involvement in learning and education would make them question some of the powers and beliefs held by men. Thus, feminist researchers and teachers emphasize equity to education to include women too. For example, Marry Wollstonecraft became an excellent example to other feminists to check on equal opportunities for both boys and girls in the admission into learning institutions. For the realization of sustainable development, women’s education stands to be crucial, just like men’s. The participation of the women in the workforce was uncompleted in the 19th century since it was under unfair rules, with most priorities given to men. Fortunately, the arrival of the various feminist changed the situation, and currently, nations have policies that protect men and women equally.
Having discussed in details the various theories of feminism, a model that outshines others to my opinion, is the Liberal Feminism. Reasons being, Liberal Feminism is not devoted to many philosophical thoughts that undermine the cultural and social forms and believes. It endorses a global view that is dynamic and chromatic, supporting the various cultural dynamics in society. Notably, Liberalism magnifies the ability of a given culture to attain an autonomous personality’s dependent upon the social conditions. The insight of liberal feminism articulates the position of women in society. It is a form of sensible agents to women protection, fostering safeguard and inclusion of women in areas of education and voting rights. Also, liberalism advocates for a clear political obligation including equity and equality in opportunities, wages and salaries at workplaces, and property right ownership in the society.
CONCLUSION
For a long dispensation in history, women (either black or white) were not considered as equal citizens before the law. They were subjected to harmful treatments, racism, and discrimination under man control and dominion. The picture of a woman in the past stayed under unequal and unfair life. She had numerous barriers in the political, social, and economic arena. The specialized work for women then was to take care of the children and the home in general.
On the contrary, a man was a symbol of power and dominated all fields. Fortunately, after the prolonged suffering and miseries, women globally started to advocate for her life position in society. Significant efforts, wishes, and dreams for the formation of universal movements and associations that foster women’s view bigoted the appearance of feminism.
The fruition of feminism towards women’s position in the society in terms of access to rights and negative image can be seen evidently as various women globally being in leadership positions. It proved that a woman is capable of playing crucial mandates as a man. Moreover, the most significant objective of feminism included giving women total freedom, equal opportunities in the representation of social and political events. The current achievement and attainment of women’s position in the society have been pushed by the feminism development from idea to belief and theory of standard goals and principles. The major limitation that feminist philosophers are struggling to overcome is their limited attention to the numerous interacting modes that human beings are oppressed, i.e., nationality, ability, religion, class, race, and sexuality.
However, the various feminist principles and procedures have all contributed to the betterment of women. They have given women success in access to social, political, and economic rights. More enough, today, women have been made to believe that they have a right to live, to vote, to marry, and to make choices.
REFERENCES
Burton, S., & Clancy, L. (2018). Introduction: New Writings in Feminist and Women’s Studies. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 19(1), 1-5.
McAfee, N. (2018). Feminist philosophy.
Rakow, L. F. (2015). Women making meaning: New feminist directions in communication. Rout ledge.
Rowe, C., 2012, Plato, Republic, translated, with an introduction and notes, New York: Penguin Books.