Portal:Feminism

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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 societies 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 females 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. Some have argued that feminism often promotes misandry and the elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to both men and women. (Full article...)

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The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy from 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. Even its title contains a lewd pun. Based on several plays by Molière, it turns on two indelicate plot devices: a rake's trick of pretending impotence in order to safely have clandestine affairs with married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town life, especially the fascinating London men. The scandalous trick and the frank language have for much of the play's history kept it off the stage and out of print. Between 1753 and 1924, The Country Wife was considered too outrageous to be performed at all and was replaced on the stage by David Garrick's cleaned-up and bland version The Country Girl. The original play is again a stage favourite today, and is also acclaimed by academic critics, who praise its linguistic energy, sharp social satire, and openness to different interpretations.

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Credit: Anna Bilińska/MNK

Anna Bilińska (1854–1893) was a Polish Realist painter. Born in Zlatopil, she moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian. Bilińska is one of the first Polish female artists to receive professional artistic education and critical acclaim. Her paintings include A Negress and At the Seashore. This self-portrait of Bilińska, wearing an apron and holding a bundle of brushes, was painted in oil on canvas in 1887 and is now in the collection of the National Museum in Kraków.

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In this month

April 1917 – American modern artist Georgia O'Keeffe's first solo art show
April 2007 – Mukhtaran Bibi (pictured) won the North-South Prize for human rights for speaking out regarding her gang rape, taking the rapists to court, and founding the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization
5 April 1858 – During the Central India Campaign, Rani Lakshmibai helped defend Jhansi and lead the Indian Rebellion of 1857
11 April 1881 – Establishment of Spelman College, the oldest historically black college for women in the United States
22 April 1766 – Birth of Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, a salonnière of political influence, who challenged Napoleon, and an author

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What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. Women do not change institutions simply by assimilating into them. We need a feminism that teaches a woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military or corporate hierarchy within which she finds herself. We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.

— Barbara Ehrenreich

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Sir John Vanbrugh was an English architect and dramatist, best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697), which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. Vanbrugh was in many senses a radical throughout his life. As a young man and a committed Whig, he was part of the scheme to overthrow James II, put William III on the throne and protect English parliamentary democracy, dangerous undertakings which landed him in the dreaded Bastille of Paris as a political prisoner. In his career as a playwright, he offended many sections of Restoration and 18th-century society, not only by the sexual explicitness of his plays, but by their messages in defence of women's rights in marriage. His architectural work was as bold and daring as his early political activism and his marriage-themed plays, and jarred conservative opinions on the subject.

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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 Margareth Rago seeks to establish a methodology for what she calls "feminist science"?

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... that in 1814 Mary Shelley (pictured) eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, later publishing her first work, History of a Six Weeks' Tour, about their walking tour of Europe?
... that philanthropist Harriet Nevins left an animal shelter, a fountain, and a John LaFarge stained glass window to the people of Massachusetts?
... that the niece of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, Sirarpie Der-Nersessian, became the first woman to be awarded the Order of St. Gregory the Illuminator by the Catholicos of Armenia?

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

Image 1Frances Cobbe (from History of feminism)
Image 28M 2018 in Pamplona (from International Women's Day)
Image 3Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney (from International Women's Day)
Image 4Christine de Pizan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. (from History of feminism)
Image 5Wealthy 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 6The Nineteenth Amendment (from History of feminism)
Image 7John Neal (from History of feminism)
Image 8Camilla Collett (from History of feminism)
Image 9Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910 (from International Women's Day)
Image 10Cover of WSPU's The Suffragette, April 25, 1913 (after Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830) (from History of feminism)
Image 11Suffrage parade in New York, May 6, 1912 (from History of feminism)
Image 12Florence Nightingale (from History of feminism)
Image 13Irena Krzywicka (from History of feminism)
Image 148M 2019 in Spain (from International Women's Day)
Image 15Board of directors of "Jam'iat e nesvan e vatan-khah", a women's rights association in Tehran (1923–1933) (from History of feminism)
Image 16First edition print of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (from History of feminism)
Image 17Margaret Sanger (from History of feminism)
Image 18Catharine MacKinnon (from History of feminism)
Image 19Bessie Rayner Parkes (from History of feminism)
Image 20bell hooks (from History of feminism)
Image 21Marie Stopes (from History of feminism)
Image 22Matilda Joslyn Gage (from History of feminism)
Image 23Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 24Yellow mimosa is the symbol of IWD in Italy as well as in Russia, Ukraine and many other ex-Soviet Union republics (from International Women's Day)
Image 25Women on the street celebrating International Women's Day in Cameroon (from International Women's Day)
Image 26Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (from History of feminism)
Image 27Emily Davison (from History of feminism)
Image 28Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from History of feminism)
Image 29Huda Shaarawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union (from History of feminism)
Image 30
  Official holiday
  Holiday for women
  Non-official holiday
(from International Women's Day)
Image 31Germaine Greer in June 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 32Nellie McClung (from History of feminism)
Image 33Author and scholar Helen Kendrick Johnson opposed women's suffrage. (from History of feminism)
Image 34Sylvia Pankhurst (from History of feminism)
Image 35Betty Friedan 1960 (from History of feminism)
Image 36Ida B. Wells (from History of feminism)
Image 37Simone de Beauvoir (from History of feminism)
Image 38Lucy Stone (from History of feminism)
Image 398M 2020 in Spain (from International Women's Day)

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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