I’ve been assigned a poster project (for a class) on Feminism. I’ve done some research but was hoping to gain an even further insight into what people would expect to see on a poster about Feminism.
So, I pose the question, if you were to design a poster having to do with the activist movement feminism, what would you put on it?
Further, what does feminism mean to you as a person?
I realize that the board does not allow questions that pertain to doing other people’s homework, and ** I am not asking people to do the work for me but instead give me more ideas so the poster will be even more successful.** I feel that since I am neither a woman nor a feminist, I can not speak for that “community” of people without getting input from others.
So, please, answer truthfully.
Thanks
p.s. I’m trying to stay away from the usual symbolism of fists, female symbols etc as they have been quite overused. I’m hoping to come up with something that is a bit more abstract in nature but yet not too abstract that people can’t link it with the movement.
p.p.s. If a mod feels that this is in any way inappropriate, please feel free to lock/delete it and accept my apologies. I just felt that since the SD community is so large, it would be a great place to gain input from a wide variety of people.
How women act, feel, and are perceived is certainly not feminism; it might be femininity, but it’s certainly not feminism.
For the record, neither is trashing men.
Feminism to me is about equality in all areas: equal pay, equal treatment in terms of sexual harassment, etc; respecting women’s opinions, abilities, and gifts, and never dismissing anything a woman has to say because of her gender.
Amen, Zahava.
All I have to do to answer the question of “what is feminism?” is think of all the injustices my mother and my sister have suffered; in school, in the workplace, in financial dealings, and in marital situations. If society had been more clearly attuned to sensibliites like my Mom’s and my sister’s, the goals of feminism would have long since been realized.
I’m with **rjung ** and MidwinterF1. I don’t know how you would put “anti-sexism” on a poster, but that’s what feminism means to me. Any time I see an image of men and women treating each other with respect I think that’s feminism.
In both cases, one very important thing is the way it started off simply as a “fair and equal treatment” (parity) movement — one you could describe as a subset of generic ethical liberalism — and ended up with a much more radical and revolutionary theory (and accompanying politics) that is geared towards transforming the very basis of how society operates, not just achieving sexual integration. (The idea that most of our systems and values are patriarchal, that they are organized the way they are or prioritized the way they are as a historical result of the sexes being aligned into the pattern called patriarchy, and that these systems and priorities and values are not necessarily good ones for women to get in, nor good for men to remain in either, etc).
Whether you end up agreeing with their insights or concluding that they were out to lunch, the feminist movement that came of age in the 70s and 80s has been a powerful social-change force, the biggest thing on the map since the origins of marxist and socialist thought over a hundred years ago, and because it has been so recent we are nearly all of us contemporaries of it. Much of what is going on worldwide today is best understood by looking at the senses in which it is in reaction to feminism, whether as continuation/elaboration or reactive opposition.
Or “Feminism: needing to support what a woman does, even if you don’t agree with it, just because she’s a woman too.”
Feminism opened a lot of doors to women, and made things a lot better in the workplace. But that work, as great as it was, is mostly over now that the goals that were set were accomplished. The subtle undercurrent to many modern feminist messages isn’t that men and women are equal, but that women are in some way inherently better than men (kinder, gentler, less abusive, would never go to war etc) simply because we’ve got two X chromosomes. We’re not. We can maim and kill just like the fellas. Frankly, I prefer elitism: you get to look down on people regardless of gender.
I am a feminist: my life/safety is just as valuable as a man’s, my work is too, my health should be of the same concern to researchers and pharmaceuticals as a man’s, my unique health needs should be treated as respectfully and funded as fully as a man’s, I should be entitled to the same benefits and promotions as a man, no opportunity should be denied me on the basis of my gender, unless there is a factual reason for doing so (I cannot donate sperm, for example).
It all boils down to equal pay for equal work, in my head–and we don’t have that yet. To that, I would add–we must, as a society, find a way to provide for the presence of children in men’s and women’s lives–ie, the woman should not be “Mommy tracked” and denied promotion etc b/c of the decision to have kids.
dunno the answer to that conundrum, but we need it.
Hope it helps.
Any chance you putting in there the misconstrueing of the word “feminist” by others as a means of marginalizing them?
Feminism (to me) means the promotion of women in all aspects of life.
I no longer consider myself feminist, since I believe women have essentially reached legal equality with men and the female gender no longer requires promotion.
I wish there was a word for the belief in gender equity that wasn’t based on the word for one of the genders.
I don’t let that bother me since I figure everyone can understand that “man” often means “humanity” so everyone can probably understand that “feminism” doesn’t necessarily mean female supremacy. But I think you can also say anti-sexist if you like to be inclusive. I don’t know why more people don’t just say that. People use “anti-racist” so “anti-sexist” makes sense.
Feminism isn’t really about just women…even though that is what it appears to be on the surface. It has to do about recognising every person as an individual. It has to do with that person’s talents, and potentials rather than their gender, age, race and so forth.
So even if I (as a man in his sixties) had to change from the view of women that society had in the 1950’s…no more high heels and pearl necklaces, and more cooking by me…I still think that everyone has benefited. Women are still different, thank goodness, and I appreciate those differences but let them make no difference in my preception of their individual strengths and weaknesses.
Aw, man, I’m gonna get my ass kicked for this . . . .
I think employers sometimes have a legitimate beef. I know a lot of working moms who find themselves needing to change the hours that they work, or take time off at inconvenient times, leave work early, etc. because of their kids.
I will fully agree that an employee who has not had any problems should not be denied promotion simply because the potential exists that the child’s needs will interfere with her work. However, I think that sometimes working mothers complain they’ve been passed over for promotion just because they have kids when in reality the reason was their job preformance suffered after they had them.
How “understanding” should an employer be? If a promotion is available, and Candidate A has a track record of being more dependable than Candidate B, why shouldn’t work preformance take precedence?
All the employer cares about is whether the work is getting done. Some employers are better able to make concessions to their emplyees than others, but I don’t think an employer is necessarily “wrong” if they choose not to.
I was talking about the western world. And I fail to see what is debatable about it. Women have equal protection under law, or can you point out laws that unfairly discriminate against females?
Here’s a point I think we should all remember. Feminism as a significant force is a relatively new thing. I have found books from as recently as the 1970’s written under the assumption that women are a class of things somewhat higher than animals but less than fully humans, and not all of them written by fundamentalist religious people either. So the early feminist movement got its high energy level because it was fighting for very basic rights, rights that had been granted to men generations ago.
At the government level, the change, when it came, came extremely fast. And that, naturally, left some members of the movement wondering what to pursue next. As sunstone mentioned, it has since morphed into a movement that tries to provide recognition for all humans. The goal of much of the feminist movement now is to prod people into recognizing new approaches to understanding history and society.
