feminism Essays (1922 words) - Womens Rights,

What are the goals of feminism? Feminist would like to see equal pay, equal education, equal opportunities as well as free abortion, contraception and childcare, improved maternity and health benefits. Feminism as a philosophy shares with all traditions of progressive thought since the ?enlightenment,? the principle of equal worth of all human beings. Unequal treatment because of someone?s sex is called sexism. There is sexism in some of the language we speak i.e. masterpiece, forefathers, statesmen and God the Father. Women, as blacks were (and still sometimes are) treated inferior to men simply because of who they were. What is Feminism? Feminism is an ideology, which has made an increasing impact on the modern world. The origins of feminism can be traced back far into the past. The divide between the public, the personal, and the phrase ?personal is the political. The divide has been changed from both sides, in that feminist have argued that the public world is devalued by its exclusion of women and the private world has suffered by exclusion of men from domestic duties and child ? bearing. There are many different feminism groups and many different theories to feminism. There is legal feminism, Marxist feminism, cultural feminism, liberal feminism, post-modern feminism amongst others. There is a theory of feminism called matriarchy; defined by the government as a mother of mothers or an order of society where descent is reckoned in the female line. The assumption underlying the matriarchal theory is not simply that power should be given to women but that in doing so would create a less violent and materialistic society, since the past matriarchal society is conceived as having been more spiritual, peaceful and democratic than our own. There is also socialist feminism, which tend to be developed from a Marxist perspective. In 1847, there was the first leaflet advocating for women to vote, after this leaflet many suffrage societies began to emerge throughout the country. Richard Pankhurst a Lawyer and MP from Manchester made a fresh attempt to win votes for women in 1868. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst founded, the Women?s Social Political Union, Emmeline and her daughter Christabel became the two most important figures in the Women?s movement. Emmeline married Richard Pankhurst; he was responsible for drafting an amendment to the Municipal Franchise Act of 1869 that had resulted in unmarried women householders to vote in local elections. Richard was a committed socialist and was a strong advocate for women?s suffrage World War 1 had a significant impact on women?s lives as the men went out to war there women gained a profile and rights in society that had previously been denied to them. Some historians argue that the war greatly increased opportunities for women. There have been lots of differences between men and women, including the pay gap, two thousand and seven marks thirty years after the equal pay Act was introduced, and unbelievably women working full time are still being paid over 17 per cent less than their male counterparts and part time women workers are even worse off with 45 per cent less pay. We need to look at what has happened since the days of the man been the sole breadwinner. Therefore, to show that women have come some way, at least since the seventeen hundreds, below is a brief time line of how far the goals of feminism have come: 1869 - Women ratepayers get the vote in local elections 1918 - There were two Acts that granted women over the age of thirty the right to vote, and gave women the right to be elected to the House of Commons (qualification of women act) then in 1928 the age for women to vote was lowered to the age of 21 1970 - The Equal Pay Act was bought in which implemented the right to equal treatment where men and women do broadly similar work 1975 - Saw the Sex Discrimination Act, which covered areas such as employment, training, education, provision of housing, and services. 1976 ? The Domestic Violence Act was passed enabling married or cohabitating women to obtain a court order aimed at preventing further violence and exclude her violent partner from the home. 1979 - The first women Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher 1980 -Equality of