Abstract: The Origin of Gender Discourse Feminism has its origin in struggle for women's rights. It began in late eighteenth century. The growth of feminism began in Europe and America when women became conscious of their oppression and took steps to redress this oppression. At present, feminism has spread all over globe although in many countries it has become tagged with different labels. Feminist ideas are now part of everyday thinking, and is historically diverse and culturally varied international movement with has been variously defined and described by many people. As such, it becomes difficult to have concise universal definition of term. While recognizing implications of sweeping definition, following definitions throw light on concept of feminism. According to Barrow and Millburn (1990:128), feminism is a label for commitment or movement to achieve equality for women; J.A. Cuddon (1991:338) defines it as an attempt to describe and interpret (or reinterpret) women's experiences as depicted in various kinds of literature, and sociologically, Maggie Humm (1992:1) says the word feminism can stand for belief in sexual equality combined with commitment to transform Ruth Sheila (1980:4) in her work rightly observes that feminists do not agree among themselves on one all-inclusive and universally acceptable definition of term and thus says that what feminism means to various people depends on one's political or sociological observations and goals, one's understanding or interpretation of word 'woman' and several other factors. Feminism, she emphasizes, may be 'a perspective, world-view, political theory, or kind of activism. Conversantly, feminism originates from Latin word 'femina' which describes women's issues. Hence, it is clear from above definitions that whatever feminism means to different people, it revolves primarily around female experience. Feminism is concerned with females not just as biological category, but female gender as social category, and therefore feminists share view that women's oppression is tied to their sexuality. This is so because women and men's biological differences are reflected in organization of society, and based on these differences, women are treated as inferior to men. Whether as theory, social movement or political movement, feminism specifically focuses on women's experiences and highlights various forms of oppression which female gender is subjected to in society. Since feminists are of view that male domination is found in virtually all important aspects of life, this male domination is seen as source of social inequalities and injustice which affect life of women. Feminists therefore seek to remove all barriers to equal social, political and economic opportunities for women and object to notion that women's worth is determined principally by her gender and that women are inherently inferior, subservient or less intelligent than men. Thus, feminist scholarship is aimed at 'deconstructing' established predominant male paradigms and 'constructing' female perspective which foregrounds female experience. Womanism--The African American Variant Although feminism claimed as its goal emancipation of all women from sexist oppression, it failed to take into consideration peculiarities of Black females and men of colour. In practice, feminism concentrated on needs of middle class white women in Britain and America while posing as movement for emancipation of women globally. Patricia Collins (1990:7) contends: Even though Black women intellectuals have long expressed unique feminist consciousness about intersection of race and class in structuring gender, historically we have not been full participants in white feminist organizations. bell hooks (1998:1,844) also accuses feminism of excluding Blacks from participating fully in movement, thus she criticizes Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) because though it is heralded as paving way for contemporary feminist movement, it is written as if Black/lower class women did not exist. …
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 40
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