Feminism QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ALREADY PASSED

Waves of Feminism - - First Wave Feminism: Emerged in the mid 19th century and concentrated on the campaign for the vote and equal legal rights. In the UK it ended with the extension of the vote to women in 1918 and full suffrage in 1928. - Second Wave Feminism: Held to have started in the 1960s. It focused on the personal, psychological and social aspects of women's oppression ad aimed for liberation rather than reform. - Third Wave Feminism: Has moved feminism away from the aims of educated middle class women towards the aspirations of women from minorities. It has tended to emphasise the diversity of women's identities and aspirations. Key Individuals First Wave Feminism: Simone de Beauvoir - She formulated three principles: 1) Man 'is the subject, he is the absolute: she is the other'. Beauvoir argued that by virtue of being female, female deviate from the norm. The consequence is that women constantly experience conflict between their humanity and femininity. 2) Freedom is used in order to assess women's situation. Her status of Other is unjust and oppressive as women are a free consciousness. When women consent to their own oppression and help to oppress other women, they are to be blamed. 3) Finally, there is insight that some are not born but made, that every society has constructed a vast material, cultural and ideological apparatus dedicated to the fabrication of femininity. To Beauvoir 'femininity' is a sense of normative or patriarchal femininity. A 'feminine' women is one that accepts her position of Other. Key Individuals First Wave Feminism: Betty Friedan - - Believes that if women escaped the confines of traditional notions of femininity, they could then truly enjoy being women. Friedan attacked the cultural myths hat sustained domesticity, highlighting the sense of frustration and despair that afflicted suburban American women confined to the roles of housewife and mother. - In The Second Stage (1983), she nevertheless warned that the quest for 'personhood' should not encourage women to deny the importance of children, the home and the family.