FEMINISM

WHAT IS FEMINISM?

• Feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

The start of the feminist movement primarily started in the 1963 with the publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan:
"Is that all there is? Is this really all a woman is capable of doing?" Where she talked about why women always had to be housewives.

Alice Paul, who fought for suffrage for all women in the United States and after a long fight and a trip to prison she finally gave women what they deserved. Honorable mentions to the role of women's suffrage is Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton, and Ida Wells.

The start of the 20th century women were moving into the workforce and demanding equal rights. This really had an impact when the triangle shirtwaist fire happened in 1911, killing 146 women and injuring more. The employees had a weekly wage if $15, but worked more than 12 hours daily.

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WOMEN TRYING FOR EQUAL RIGHTS CONT

• 1909 - international ladies garment workers Union strikes. (for higher pay and shorter, more predictable, hours) The women striking were imprisoned by thug looking officers while the politicians of this time were paid off to look the other way.
• 1923 - National Women's Party proposed an amendment that would prohibit all discrimination based on sex, the "Equal Rights Amendment" has never been ratified.

WHAT DOES THE FEMINISM MOVEMENT FIGHT FOR?

• Freedom of Reproductive rights - the freedom to choose whether or not to take birth control and the heated debate of abortion.
• Women in the military- while all women can enlist, only recently have women officially been able to fight for the United States and they can only fight in the back lines not the front lines.
• The double standards of today, like the topic of breastfeeding. To be disgraced for feeding your child in public isn't okay :)

WHO ELSE DO FEMINISTS FIGHT FOR

• Women in other countries who cannot fight for themselves, who do not have a voice fighting the injustices done against them
• Rape victims, although it's a touchy topic, feminists have had rallies because clothing DOES NOT give consent :)
• Young women who cannot go to school because there isn't one, they feel too threatened to go, or are not allowed to go.
• Above all, feminists fight the patriarchy, that has people conforming into something that as a whole they are not.