AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES A critique of feminism (original) (raw)
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Feminists are on a daily basis transforming the way women are viewed in the world. Today, thanks to the effort of the feminists, women are no longer seen as good only for the kitchen and the bed. They have been liberated from the shackles that held them bound to the homes. We see them now everywhere, contributing their quota to the development of the society. While this is commendable, this paper sees some demands of the feminists as too extravagant, destructive and unfounded. If these demands are attained it would have dysfunctional effects on both the women and the society at large. This paper using critical reasoning is therefore, aimed at showing the feminists where they got it right and more especially where they got it wrong. They got it right when they demand for freedom from all forms of discriminations and when they campaign for their inalienable rights but they got it wrong when they seek political, economic and social equality. These rights are alienable and thus cannot be granted but attained. The rights that are fundamentally human, can be granted but there are others that can only be developed by the individual. The feminists are wrong to demand for such rights. The feminists are therefore advised to work hard to attain equality, for it is a product of hard work and not something that is to be granted. However, while working to attain this equality they should be mindful of the consequences of this struggle.
Feminist contributions, challenges and claims
Shamim Meer (2013): Feminist contributions, challenges and claims, Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity, DOI:10.1080/10130950.2013.798958
This Article highlights key contributions of second wave feminism, arguing that these are of relevance today, as we struggle to deal with questions of social justice within a context of increasing poverty and inequality. I look at feminist understandings of expanded social justice which highlighted crucial links between the economic, political and the cultural, and which stressed that the personal was political. I look at feminist strategies which stressed women’s agency and the need for separate women’s movements even as feminist women challenged men alongside whom they worked in trade unions, liberation movements and radical social movements. I look at how feminist struggles have fragmented over the decades alongside an increasing hegemony of economic and political neoliberalism, and the demobilisation of emancipatory movements. While women made gains within state institutions and the United Nations (UN) system in the 1990s, alongside these gains was the co-option and depoliticisation of feminist concepts forged in the throes of struggle of the earlier decades. Women’s agency too came under threat and was challenged as men’s movements came to be promoted as vehicles for gender equality. I argue that while men can play a vital role in struggles for gender equality it is women’s movements that need to be advanced and supported as key actors in repoliticising feminism today.
Feminist Critiques and Visions of the Future
1998
One does not need to be an expert to realize that wherever we look, either into our past or into our present, either within our local community or around the world, one fact remains almost universal: society always treats its women worse than it treats its men.
Ensuring justice in feminism: Feminist movement and its realizations
Ezeh, Christabel Chidimma, 2020
This paper examined ways of ensuring justice in feminism. The specific objective of feminist jurisprudence is to vindicate women in the society where they are relegated to the background. To achieve this goal, it scrutinizes the analysis, critique and the use of law. It further observes the ways in which women have been influenced by the interpretations given about them by the society. These interpretations take biological, social, religious, legal and cultural undertone. Several works from theorists endlessly explored among others, issues that pertain to identity, subjectivity, gender equality, difference, patriarchal dominance, and female authenticity. They revealed ways through which women have been molested, treated as means to ends, and objects rather than subjects. Some achievements have been realized because women are being recognized in recent times. They contribute their quota tremendously in the government positions they occupy; they are no longer regarded as only baby makers and home keepers. The paper in the light of some steps that have been taken to rectify the imbalances inherent in gender, argue that equity does not connote equal share of everything. Justice should be the focal point in the search for equity to enable the rights and liberty of men and women flourish in the society. A balanced co-existence is vital for humanity since the subjugation of one sex by the other is inhumane. The paper adopted a historical, expository and evaluative approach to reveal the past state, current state and the corrective measures to ensure justice and equity.
Introduction: Speaking of feminism
Left Feminisms: Conversations on the personal and the political, 2023
Speaking of feminism Jo Littler This book brings together a series of interviews I have conducted with feminist academics on the left over the past decade. It features a spread of people, ranging from their twenties to their eighties, from political scientists to psychologists, from Bristol to Buenos Aires. All the interviewees have very different experiences, opinions, and interests in relation to feminism. But they are all concerned, in some way or another, with relating gender to economic inequality; and they are all involved with political, creative or activist projects outside, as well as inside, universities.
Vol-II * Issue-XII* Women Empowerment and the Rise of Feminism
2016
Feminism is an ideology which seeks not only to understand the world but to change it to the advantages of women. It aims at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women. Feminism focuses on the marginalisation of women and how they are being relegated to a secondary position. Most feminists believe that our culture is a patriarchal culture and it is organised in favour of the interests of men. Feminist literary critics try to explain how power imbalances due to gender in a given culture are reflected in or challenged by literary texts. Feminism is a movement for the empowerment of women. It is a social movement which redresses the gender imbalance in society. Aim of the Study The aim of the study is to find a connection between women empowerment and the movement of feminism. Being popularised in the early twentieth century, feminism struggles for securing women"s suffrage and the later socio-political movement for women"s eman...
FEMINISM: CONFRONTING A CONTRADICTION
The contemporary debate centering round the circumference of feminist discourse has of late been very potent in addressing the issues of certain prejudiced notions in our existing patriarchal structure. This paper is an attempt to show the ongoing paradox existing in the world of feminism which has thoroughly critiqued the patriarchal culture and has naturalized sexual identities, thereby glorifying man's supremacy and dominion. The patriarchal culture lionized the ideals of brevity, courageousness, and intellect and thought of these as the only special possessions of man in society. The qualities of being submissive, kind and caring in nature is considered to be " ideal " and exclusive qualities of a woman. Even though these qualities are " ideal " to women, they are discarded from being considered as universal in nature and are thought of as insignificant in the mainstream societal structure. These qualities are treated as inferior, and exclusively womanly and hence cannot make their stand in the conventional patriarchal social order. For this reason a dilemmatic situation arises here. My effort is to show that this dilemma cannot be exposed in the sense of gender specific human qualities.