Before taking women’s studies course, my knowledge about feminist issue was limited and I was not aware that how social inequality affects women’s lives in our society today, it is really a shame how women are being treated so unfair. After now I am in my last week of this course, I realized that my awareness of the history and experiences of women increased throughout all aspects of society. According to the textbook Feminism is for Everybody Passionate Politics by Bell Hooks, I have learned about the definition of feminism and what it means to truly be a feminist in todays world. Feminism is simply defined as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (Hooks, 2000). My expectation before taking the Women’s studies …show more content…
Although women do get involved in leadership position but they are often being discriminated against by the society due to their gender. It is rare for a woman to reach the highest level of employment such as CEO or a boss as the man is usually the one society sees should be the leader not the woman. Even though we live in the 21st century, gender inequality issue is still a major problem towards women nowadays. This is due to the fact that women are often underrepresented in the society with the dominance of males overemphasized. Although inequality in women still exists especially in workplace, but things are changing now. Women are currently more improved in their leadership roles. As a result, they are undoubtedly suitable for running higher and more qualified positions. According to Deseret News, “the number of women rising to roles of prominence in Utah has grown dramatically over the years — in business, academia, politics and more” (Lee, 2015). This news has shown that women have the potential to become a leader and higher positions in business, academia and politics. On the other hand, women have such an oppression against them today when it comes to them being leaders. When it comes to women in todays society people think that they should stay in the home take care of the children housework and manage everything while the male goes out to
Before I took this course, I thought that feminism was about equality, fighting, and power. When it comes to equality, I thought about being on the same level as men in every aspect of life. An equal opportunity to attend college, an equal opportunity to serve in the military, an equal opportunity to run for office, etc. When it comes to fighting, I think about fighting for
Feminism is the belief that men and women are equal and it advocates women’s rights for social, political, and economical equality to men. Feminism significantly changed the way society views women because it challenged and demanded the inclusion women in social and political circles in a very patriarchal society. There were
“Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” (1) This is the first line of Bell Hooks’ book, Feminism is for everybody. This sentence, a simple statement about the sense of feminism, has come into much debate in recent years. This is done by people claiming feminism is not a movement to end sexism- but rather a movement to give women superiority over men. Despite the literal definition of feminism being “an advocacy for the equal rights of the genders,” many people still claim that feminists are women who want to be of higher power than their male counterparts. Hooks acknowledges this by saying “and a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male” (1). Like most aspects of today’s society,
A question that a lot of people, especially women, seem to wonder is why are women being held back from leadership positions in the workplace. According to PEW Research Center ‘the problem is that women still have to do more
Feminism is considered a political concept. It is an analysis of why and how women are oppressed. It is a vision of a society where women are liberated and sex role stereotypes are no more. It is also a conviction that oppression of women is a contradiction in society. Women feminists fought for their right to not be property, rights to their inheritance, rights to an education and to a religion that was not patriarchal. Even though feminism had been seen for quite some time, the actual term "feminist" was not first used until 1912. "The modern feminist movement began a as result of sweeping social, political and industrial changes in Europe and the United
Women’s Studies has led me to speak up for the voiceless, to become an educator, and an activist. I have become elated by the different feminists’ theory that I have learned and I was able to conclude that feminism is for everyone. As a result, I have become an advocate for Women’s Studies classes and I solely encourage my friends and peers to take at least one course because of the beneficial factors being provided by the
Based on your statement, it is evident that you are unaware about many important realities of the study of gender from a feminist perspective today. First, I think it is necessary to point out that it is a fallacy that the term “feminism,” the historical basis of the discipline of Women’s and Gender studies (WGS), is rooted in biases towards women and hate for men. In reality, as my Threshold Concepts text reveals, Bell Hooks defines feminism as “the struggle to end oppression,” noting that this definition then “directs our attention to systems of domination and inter-relatedness of sex [sic.], race, and class oppression” (Launius and Hassel, 4). Truly, feminism, and by extension WGS, delves into the oppression of minority groups by dominant groups. This means that it affects and involves all people, not just plainly men and women, revealing its relevance and importance to you, me, and everyone else.
Do you ever think about the women who work hard each day yet get paid less? What about women of color who experience racism along with sexism? Do you think feminism is here to help both sexes gain equality? Well, I can tell you, feminism is defined as, “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” So now you are probably thinking, “Okay well that sounds easy.” But really, feminism has so much structure to it. You need to understand the concept of intersectional feminism, equal pay, and women’s body rights.
Marie A. Chisholm-Burns states that “perhaps no sector has been more publicly scrutinized for its gender disparities than the corporate world” (312). While women tend to do most of the shopping for the household, they still lack the ability to voice their opinions about what can be done to improve consumption or shopping. USA Today recently wrote an article that was boldly named “Sexism in the Workplace is Worse Than You Thought” which talks about the gender bias women face in the workplace as they progress in their career (Chisholm-Burns 312). Since white males are considered superior in today’s society, diversity is hard to find in high-paying jobs. Because women face discrimination, many businesses struggle to reach their full potential. The glass ceiling is also very condescending and causes women to act negatively towards themselves. The discrimination in pay between men and women has caused many women to form anxiety or stress disorders, such as depression. It also causes women to not strive to be the best they can and because they struggle with this, the possibilities of having great women in leadership decreases even lower than it was originally. These low levels of female leaders also lack encouragement from good role models who would help them learn how to be a leader. If equality becomes a strong focus for corporations, then they should see a positive overall
The most important point that I learn through this quarter is the definition of feminism. Before the class, I thought that feminism means equal right, which means that women should have the same rights in politics, employment, education and many others aspects as men have. However, through learning, especially through reading about hooks’s essay, I then realize that this definition, which limited feminism to “equal rights”, is not complete and inclusive enough to describe goals of all women, no matter the race, age, and class, around the world. hooks tells me that “Women in lower class and poor groups” “would not have defined women’s liberation as women gaining social equality with men” since lower-class women do not share equal rights as
Northouse (2016a) describes the development of female leadership. It was once a question if women could lead; yes, they can, but a gender gap exists. Differences between men and women that affect their job attainment. Although men and women may have equal access to entry and lower level positions, men hold more prestigious upper level jobs. Why does this occur? Generally, women have invested less than men in human capital: job history, training, and school. Women invest more time than men in taking care of family. As a result, men obtain jobs that require more responsibilities (Northouse, 2016a).
Let’s begin with what feminism really is. Feminist theory, according to my first literary criticism, by Haiyan Gao, is to achieve gender equality in all of humanity. “All feminist theory has a basic premise, which is, women worldwide are under an oppression, discrimination, and hierarchy state. In such a social structure prevalent among women in the political, economic, cultural, ideological, knowledge, ideas, ethics and other fields are in an unequal position with men, even in a private sphere of family, women are also in a position of inequality with men. Feminism
My understanding of feminism before taking this course was foul and misleading of the actual definition. On the first day of class, I believed that feminism was about women wanting power or dominance over men. I assumed the fight for feminism was only about women wanting more rights and freedom. In fact, when I imagined feminist protests, I received the impression that all feminist women were anti-male. I believed that all feminists hated men since males tend to have more dominance over them. In my mind, this made sense because women were protesting about taking power away from males. Prior to this class I has only heard about feminism in songs or public speeches; I never had a reason to look up the real definition of feminism. My understanding of feminism might have been incorrect at the start of this class, but from reading the book and being involved in classroom activities I can improve my definition.
According to Hooks (2000) as cited in Considine and Dukelow (2009:141) “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression”. It is necessary to explain the different types of feminism that are present in society first. Freedman
Gender and leadership? Leadership and gender? A journey through the landscape of theories start off by giving a statistical summary of percentages of women in higher echelon position in the workforce. With this information in the intro, the article quickly highlights the limited representation of women in exclusive positions in Fortune 500 companies. Next, the paper examines multiple theories why this problem exists in the workforce. The four theories examined are biology and sex; gender role; causal factors; and attitudinal drivers (Appelbaum et al, 2003, p. 44).