The political struggles of Chicana women during the 1960s and 1970s heavily involved a confrontation with both sexism and racism. At the time, the Chicano Movement was fighting against the discrimination and oppressive nature against Mexican Americans present within the United States. The culturally nationalistic movement stressed both freedom and liberation for the population. However, the immediate constraints of male domination within Chicana women’s daily lives helped mold a concern of the traditional gender roles within a patriarchal society. It seemed hypocritical that it was only men that were deemed able to achieve freedom and liberation (García).
In here, we have two forces that are contradicting as perceived “Feminism “and “Patriarchal system”. Feminism, as both an ideology and movement to emancipate and liberate women from the constricting values practice in the Patriarchal system, is believed to be a way to attain woman’s transcendence. Feminism in the pursuit of equality, has always been in protest against masculine domination, in fact there are three waves of feminism or movement that are continuously modified to help women in many aspect of oppression-economically, politically and socially. On the other side is Patriarchal system, as defined is the oppressive system that elevates men while subjugating women. In here, we may notice how woman in many aspects of her condition, have also, whether she admit it or not, give importance of men and the values created within this system.
Given the variety of answers from males in terms of being a feminist, it would seem natural to assume that most men would not care about having more women in office or even disagree with the statement: “It is very important that more women hold elected office”. Of the females interviewed, 3 out of the 5 women strongly agreed and 2 out of 5 of the men held the same opinion. The same amount of men and women somewhat agreed with the statement, while two men were neutral about the statement. Surprisingly, there was one female who disagreed with the statement. The immediate reaction would be that this one female was anti-feminist regarding women and politics, but her explanation was that she thought that gender should not be a factor in the election.
She started with the oppression; women were facing at that time and concluded the subject that lack of education in women is the one major reason behind their subjugation. After her successful campaign of brining change in the department of education and marriage, many feminists looked at the components which are attributing to the oppression of women. Writer such as Simon de Beauvoir explored the fact about a woman body which was considered as an object from years and was dealt as property. She propagated the idea that the women are only sex object for men and have no place in man’s world. She raised the question on the subjectivity of man and illustrated the position of “women as other” (1).
The majority of modern society’s advertising conveys an oppressive message to American women. In advertisement campaigns, women are typically only considered and marketed as beautiful if they fit a very specific mold that society has created. Women who don’t fit this mold of being feminine, thin, and pretty are shamed and encouraged to change. However, it isn’t just the “ugly” women who are shamed in the media. There is a consistent message that runs throughout advertisements that suggests that women are lesser than men, and that they exist solely for the benefit of men.
In the context of India too, women who participated in the movement were middle class, upper caste, urban and educated and thus their theorization of patriarchy missed out caste-class differences among women themselves. Universal sisterhood gained significance in Indian context as well as a movement that had both intellectual and political concerns, feminism tried to bring awareness among women about oppression, domestic violence, rape and patriarchy and so on. It discusses the issues of gender inequalities and sexual oppression of women to make them rise in revolt against the discrimination that prevails in the family system and in the society. In India (as in case of the west), women belonging to other sections of society other than upper-caste women have powerfully critiqued feminism for its exclusive focus on issues concerning upper-caste (middle class) sections of women which are made to look like the concerns of all women. Before tracing the brief history of feminism in India, we perceive feminism or any such category at two levels: firstly, feminism that works at the theoretical level and secondly, at the organizational level.
Throughout history, women have often been subjected to prejudice and an inferior status to men. Due to sexist ideologies of men believing that women are not capable of controlling their own lives, women have often been reduced to the status of property. This concept is prominent in many pieces of literature to demonstrate the struggles women have to go through in a predominantly, male structured world. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, the author illustrates a woman’s battle in an extreme society ruled by men to express the misogyny occurring in the time period when it was written, 1894. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia summarizes Atwood’s story as one that “depicts one woman’s chilling struggle to survive in a society ruled by misogynistic fascism, by which women are reduced to the condition of property.” Although written 100 years earlier, this is also seen in the novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, because both authors show the oppression of women through the experiences the characters go through and the means of survival they use.
Women are especially perceived as the cause for social order disruption due to their “uncontrolled” sexual habits outside of marriages which can cause diseases. They are also seen as unvirtuous women who had too much freedom. “Attached to the idealized monogamous model of marriage were ideas about sexuality and morality, particularly the restriction of sexual intimacy to one man and one woman who were married for life. Women who “lost their virtue” before marriage were regarded as “utterly destitute of moral principle” (25). Sexuality is controlled by the state though blaming women for having too much freedom.
In all over the world, in every country women had limited rights and works for the men. In India devdasi system, sati system and baal vivah system was very unpleasant to the women’s rights. In America there was no suffrage for the women and in Europe also women were in very worse condition. They were treated as a slave of men. In history Women’s rights is the fight for the idea that women should have equal rights with men.
is a theory which focuses on women’s ability to maintain their equality through their own actions and choices. Liberal feminists argue that society holds the false belief that women are, by nature, less intellectually and physically capable than men; thus it tends to discriminate against women in the academy, the forum, and the marketplace. Liberal feminists believe that "female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that blocks women’s entrance to and success in the so-called public world" (Kingma 2005). Liberal feminists advocates for the individual rights of women, equal opportunities must be given between women and men in political, economic and social spheres and they also argue that dependency of women to