Portal:Feminism

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. (Full article...)

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Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novelistic sequel to her revolutionary political treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously in 1798 by her husband, William Godwin, and is often considered her most radical feminist work. Wollstonecraft's philosophical and gothic novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as the patriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it. However, the heroine's inability to relinquish her romantic fantasies also indicts women for wallowing in a false and damaging sentimentalism. The novel pioneered the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. Such themes, coupled with the publication of Godwin's scandalous Memoirs of Wollstonecraft's life, made the novel unpopular at the time it was published. Twentieth-century feminist critics embraced the work, integrating it into the history of the novel and feminist discourse. It is most often viewed as a fictionalized popularization of the Rights of Woman, as an extension of Wollstonecraft's feminist arguments in Rights of Woman, and as an autobiography.

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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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In this month

12 October 1810 – Birth of Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta (pictured), considered the "first Brazilian feminist", she wrote the first Brazilian book to discuss women's rights
16 October 1869 – Girton College, Cambridge, first residential college for women in England, established by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon
16 October 1916 – Margaret Sanger opened the first family planning and birth control clinic in the United States.
17 October 1947 – Birth of Brinda Karat, an Indian activist within the labor and women's movements, she gained prominence reforming rape laws and became the first female member of the CPI(M) Politburo.
24 October 1929 – First publication of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, a book-length essay which includes the famous dictum "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction"

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The people who resent me do so because I'm a woman, I'm young, and I'm a Bhutto. Well, the simple answer is, it doesn't matter that I'm a woman, it doesn't matter that I'm young, and it's a matter of pride that I'm a Bhutto.

— Benazir Bhutto

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Stamata Revithi was a Greek woman who ran the 40-kilometre marathon during the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Games excluded women from competition, but Revithi insisted that she be allowed to run. Revithi ran one day after the men had completed the official race, and although she finished the marathon in approximately 5 hours and 30 minutes and found witnesses to sign their names and verify the running time, she was not allowed to enter the Panathinaiko Stadium at the end of the race. She intended to present her documentation to the Hellenic Olympic Committee in the hopes that they would recognize her achievement, but it is not known whether or not she did so. No known record survives of Revithi's life after her run. According to contemporary sources, a second woman, "Melpomene", also ran the 1896 marathon race. There is debate among Olympic historians as to whether or not Revithi and Melpomene are the same person.

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... 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?
... that the subculture of Aristasia combined Guénonian Traditionalism with lesbian separatism?
... that the retelling of stories can focus on female characters to reflect the feminist perspective?
... that Mary Kahil, an Egyptian Christian mystic, cofounded one of the earliest women's movements in the Arab world?
... that Margareth Rago seeks to establish a methodology for what she calls "feminist science"?

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...that Japanese painter Uemura Shoen (work pictured) was the first woman awarded Japan's prestigious Order of Culture?
...that Clare Winger Harris was the first woman to publish short stories under her own name in science fiction magazines?
...that Lois DeBerry is the first African-American woman speaker pro tempore of the Tennessee House of Representatives?

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

Image 1Catharine MacKinnon (from History of feminism)
Image 2Board of directors of "Jam'iat e nesvan e vatan-khah", a women's rights association in Tehran (1923–1933) (from History of feminism)
Image 3Lucy Stone (from History of feminism)
Image 4Cover of WSPU's The Suffragette, April 25, 1913 (after Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830) (from History of feminism)
Image 5Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from History of feminism)
Image 6John Neal (from History of feminism)
Image 7Huda Shaarawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union (from History of feminism)
Image 8Matilda Joslyn Gage (from History of feminism)
Image 9The Nineteenth Amendment (from History of feminism)
Image 10Margaret Sanger (from History of feminism)
Image 11Nellie McClung (from History of feminism)
Image 12Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (from History of feminism)
Image 13
  Official holiday
  Holiday for women
  Non-official holiday
(from International Women's Day)
Image 14Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney (from International Women's Day)
Image 15Emily Davison (from History of feminism)
Image 16Marie Stopes (from History of feminism)
Image 17Camilla Collett (from History of feminism)
Image 18Florence Nightingale (from History of feminism)
Image 19María 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 20Author and scholar Helen Kendrick Johnson opposed women's suffrage. (from History of feminism)
Image 21Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 22The White Feather: A Sketch of English Recruiting" (Arnold Bennett, 1914) (from History of feminism)
Image 23An 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 24Yellow mimosa is the symbol of International Women's Day in Italy as well as in Russia, Ukraine and many other ex-Soviet Union republics (from International Women's Day)
Image 258M 2020 in Spain (from International Women's Day)
Image 26Irena Krzywicka (from History of feminism)
Image 27Suffrage parade in New York, May 6, 1912 (from History of feminism)
Image 28First edition print of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (from History of feminism)
Image 29Betty Friedan 1960 (from History of feminism)
Image 30Giorgia Meloni, first female prime minister of Italy at a 2024 Women's Day event in Rome (from International Women's Day)
Image 31A veil-burning ceremony in Andijan on International Women's Day in 1927 (from International Women's Day)
Image 32Germaine Greer in June 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 33Christine de Pizan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. (from History of feminism)
Image 34Bessie Rayner Parkes (from History of feminism)
Image 35The vandalized Concepción Feminist Mural in Spain, which was vandalized on International Women's Day 2021. (from International Women's Day)
Image 36Ida B. Wells (from History of feminism)
Image 37Frances Cobbe (from History of feminism)
Image 38Women on the street celebrating International Women's Day in Cameroon (from International Women's Day)
Image 39Wealthy 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 40Simone de Beauvoir (from History of feminism)
Image 41Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910 (from International Women's Day)
Image 428M 2018 in Pamplona (from International Women's Day)
Image 43Sylvia Pankhurst (from History of feminism)
Image 44bell hooks (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