Feminism

“Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's social roles, experience, interests, and feminist politics in a variety of fields. Feminist theory focuses on analyzing gender inequality. Themes explored in feminism include discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping, art history and contemporary art, and aesthetics.” And the definition of feminism is the advocacy of woman’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men.

                

In my opinion, or simple terms, feminism is just the push for women to have rights equal to that of men in our society. In our world today we see more women in power and in other roles that were typically known as a “mans” position. But even though women have been making great strides to be equal with men, they are still lacking behind. A major area that we see this in is the business realm. “Among the 200 best-paid chief executives in the country, just 11 are women, according to a data analysis conducted for the New York Times. That figure means women make up just 5.5 percent of the highest paid CEOs. And to make matters worse, they appear to earn less." Women are now able to become great business leaders but when we look at the study done by the New York Times we can see that female CEO's are being paid less than their male counterparts. Even though women are now more visible in the CEO position of a company, only 48 of the chief executives at the country's 1,000 largest companies are women.

If we are to look at feminism and if we are going to fight for equal rights for women, we need to look at women’s role in society and how it was established centuries ago. Looking back at the hunter and gather society, men went out to hunt and kill for food, while women stayed behind caring for the children and doing other things while the men were gone. These actions established the roles for the men and women; then men were the strong who provided while the women were the nurtures who cared for everything else. And these roles persisted throughout time and I feel that they still exist today but only to an extent.

Today women are more equal to men than in the past. I feel that women made their first steps in becoming equals with men on August 18, 1920. It was on this date that women were granted the right to vote. Being able to vote meant that women could have a bigger voice in what the government did. Another big step for women, and what I feel really opened the door for equal rights was during WWII. When all the men were conscripted into war, the women were left behind to fill all the jobs the men left behind. Major jobs that needed to be filled were jobs like mechanics or factory workers. And even when the men came back from war and claimed their jobs back, the women were still empowered with what they had accomplished.

                

Comparing today’s society to the societies of the past, women have made great strides in being equals with men. Not only is this evident in the business world but it can be seen in our media as well. There are several movies and TV shows out today that have a female as the main protagonist rather than a female being the typical damsel in distress. Some examples include The Hunger Games with Jennifer Lawrence or Divergent with Shailene Woodley. An example of a TV show is the Legend of Korra on nickelodeon. The creators were hesitant about making this because of a female main character but the show is now on its fourth season. Females should completely equal to men but the truth is our world is not there yet. More men need to be open to this and not talk down to women or objectify them.