Search Results: definition of feminism

If you do, what is it about feminism that speaks to you? And who are the feminists who you've read or admire?

If not, why not? What have you hears about feminism from media or other sources that makes you not want to identify with it.

As Susan Faludi wrong in "Backlash", ever since feminism hit the mainstream media in the early 1970s, there has been a concerted effort to malign and ridicule it as a legitimate human rights and civil rights movement. The woman-hating media has succeeding in teaching a whole new generation that we don't need feminist activism or feminist values.

Since the backlash by mass media, by corporate white male supremacist media, many girls and women, as well as boys and men, have disidentified with feminism, thinking of it as something negative rather than positive. The media's impact has been enormous, as has the preponderance of anti-woman industries like pornography, which teaches all who consume it that "women exist to meet men's sexual needs" (regardless of how harmful or degrading those "needs" are).

There is more sexual slavery of women and children on Earth now than ever before. And men, mostly white men, are the "consumers", the purchasers, and the profiteers.

Sexual abuse and woman-hating terms for women abound. Terms like "b*tch" and "sl*t" are commonly uses against women and girls by men and boys, as if this is ok, normal, and appropriate. It is normal, but that doesn't make it good.

Here is a working definition: "Feminism is a movement towards women being seen and treated as deserving of full human rights. Feminism opposes interpersonal behavior and institutional practices and values that disrespect women and treat women as inferior to men. Feminism is a practice of valuing women as equal to men. Feminism seeks to end rape and racism because rape and racism hurt and degrade women as a class of people, and as individuals."

There are plenty of anti-racism movements in the U.S., that historically do not respect women as equals and welcome women as leaders equal in numbers to the leaders who are men. The Black Power Movement is one. And the Nation of Islam in the U.S. is another.

There are plenty of progressive movements that do not respect women that are white-led. Historically, the anti-war and peace movements tended to hold men in positions of leadership. So too environmental movements. So too "same-sex rights" movements, which also tend to be very racist in ignoring the specific conditions lesbian women of color experience that white gay men do not.

For all these reasons, feminist movements that centralise the experiences of women of color, of lesbian women, and of poor and other disenfranchised women, is especially important.

See Andrea Smith's book, "Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide", as well as Patricia Hill Collins' book, "Black Sexual Politics" for excellent examples of feminist writing and analysis.