Hard Times with Good Intentions

A thing that really jumped out at me while I was reading the article “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression” was that women don’t enjoy being associated with the word feminism due to many different ideas of what the actual meaning is.  This article is targeted to spread awareness of feminism and to hope eliminate the “absence of clear definitions.” I believe the article does a good job getting across points of how feminism is viewed, socially and politically.

The author starts the article telling the reader that we do not have a common ground or a set in stone definition of feminism which makes us “lack a sound foundation” of how to approach feminism.  It is a big hole in the forward progress to end sexist oppression.  When people start to “fear the word ‘feminism’ because they shun identification with any political movement” then that’s when you really have to wonder, is feminism a political movement?  If it is a political movement, it is not present in the “new terms that have no relationship to organized political activity” and people who are asked do they support feminism try to hide behind the fact they don’t engage in politics.

Socially, women have evolved having an identity.  When we think of dominance, males are to point the fingers at.  Feminism is hard enough to accept from a white women.  Throwing race and class status on top of it, the women cease up and want nothing to do with it. These women of different race “find themselves isolated if they support feminism.” So women don’t only worry about equality between them and men, but race and where they financially stand reflects them as well.  That’s a tough situation.  What do they approach first? One thing at a time or take it all as a package deal?

A lot of people coming together can change how society views feminism.  Accepting that “feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression” is when all humans should come together and find an even distribution of equality no matter gender, race or social status.