Portal:Feminism

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The Feminism Portal

Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern societies are patriarchal—they prioritize the male point of view—and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Originating in late 18th-century Europe, feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, run for public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, receive education, enter into contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to contraception, legal abortions, and social integration; and to protect women and girls from sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical activities for women have also been part of feminist movements.

Many scholars consider feminist campaigns to be a main force behind major historical societal changes for women's rights, particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, gender-neutral language, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property. Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women's rights, some argue for the inclusion of men's liberation within its aims, because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles. Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experiences. Feminist theorists have developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues concerning gender.

Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years, representing different viewpoints and political aims. Traditionally, since the 19th century, first-wave liberal feminism, which sought political and legal equality through reforms within a liberal democratic framework, was contrasted with labour-based proletarian women's movements that over time developed into socialist and Marxist feminism based on class struggle theory. Since the 1960s, both of these traditions are also contrasted with the radical feminism that arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and that calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate patriarchy. Liberal, socialist, and radical feminism are sometimes referred to as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought.

Since the late 20th century, many newer forms of feminism have emerged. Some forms, such as white feminism and gender-critical feminism, have been criticized as taking into account only white, middle class, college-educated, heterosexual, or cisgender perspectives. These criticisms have led to the creation of ethnically specific or multicultural forms of feminism, such as black feminism and intersectional feminism. Some have argued that feminism often promotes misandry and the elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to both men and women. (Full article...)

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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is an 1899 book by Charles Godfrey Leland. The book is an attempt to portray the beliefs and rituals of an underground religious witchcraft tradition in Tuscany that had survived for centuries until Leland's claimed discovery of its existence in the 1890s. Scholars have disputed the veracity of this claim. Still, the book has become one of the foundational texts of Wicca and Neo-paganism. Its fifteen chapters portray the origins, beliefs, rituals and spells of an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition. The central figure of that religion is the goddess Aradia who came to Earth to teach the practice of witchcraft to oppressed peasants in order for them to oppose their feudal oppressors and the Christian church. Leland's work remained obscure until the 1950s, when other theories about, and claims of, "pagan witchcraft" survivals began to be widely discussed. Aradia began to be examined within the wider context of such claims. Scholars are divided, with some dismissing Leland's assertion regarding the origins of the manuscript, and others arguing for its authenticity as a unique documentation of folk beliefs.

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Credit: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mary Pickford (1892-1979) was an Academy Award-winning Canadian motion picture star. She was a co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named Pickford 24th among the greatest female stars of all time.

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In this month

2 November 1938 – First woman awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, Marina Raskova (pictured) was a Soviet aviator known as the "Russian Amelia Earhart" who helped found three female air regiments for World War II
2 November 2004 – Theo van Gogh murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri over the movie Submission, written by the feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which attacked Koranic verses allowing the abuse of Muslim women.
3 November 1793 – Guillotining of Olympe de Gouge, playwright and journalist who demanded equal rights for women during the French Revolution in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen
18 November 1872 – Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined for voting in a presidential election—a fine she refused to pay for the rest of her life
28 November 1893 – Women voted for the first time in New Zealand

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[Feminism is] about women having intrinsic value as persons rather than contingent value as a means to an end for others: fetuses, children, the "family", men.

— Katha Pollitt

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Natalie Clifford Barney (1876 - 1972) was an American expatriate who lived, wrote and hosted a literary salon in Paris. She was a noted poet, memoirist and epigrammatist. Barney's salon was held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote. She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". In her writings she supported feminism, paganism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping, long and short-term relationships, including an on-and-off romance with poet Renée Vivien and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness, arguably the most famous lesbian novel of the 20th century.

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that after dying in her daughter's arms in an asylum in 1897, Maria Trubnikova was remembered as the "heart and soul" of feminist activism in Russia?
... that Margareth Rago seeks to establish a methodology for what she calls "feminist science"?

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... that the contributions of Mary Shelley (pictured) to Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men are considered early works of feminist historiography?
...that feminism in Poland is traditionally divided into seven historical periods, the first one dating to the beginning of the 19th century?
...that award-winning biographer Jenny Uglow described her dictionary of women's biographies as "a mad undertaking, born of a time when feminists wanted heroines and didn't have Google"?

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The following are images from various feminism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1bell hooks (from History of feminism)
Image 2Wealthy Chinese women with bound feet (Beijing, 1900). Foot binding was a symbol of women's oppression during the reform movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. (from History of feminism)
Image 3Germaine Greer in June 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 4Women on the street celebrating International Women's Day in Cameroon (from International Women's Day)
Image 5Emily Davison (from History of feminism)
Image 6Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney (from International Women's Day)
Image 7Lucy Stone (from History of feminism)
Image 8Board of directors of "Jam'iat e nesvan e vatan-khah", a women's rights association in Tehran (1923–1933) (from History of feminism)
Image 9Ida B. Wells (from History of feminism)
Image 10Suffrage parade in New York, May 6, 1912 (from History of feminism)
Image 11María Elena Oddone holding a banner, on International Women's Day in 1984 in Argentina. The banner says "No to motherhood, yes to pleasure". (from International Women's Day)
Image 12Nellie McClung (from History of feminism)
Image 13Florence Nightingale (from History of feminism)
Image 14Matilda Joslyn Gage (from History of feminism)
Image 15Female soldiers from Peru, Egypt, India and other countries celebrate International Women's Day. (from International Women's Day)
Image 16Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (from History of feminism)
Image 17First edition print of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (from History of feminism)
Image 18Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from History of feminism)
Image 198M 2020 in Spain (from International Women's Day)
Image 20Bessie Rayner Parkes (from History of feminism)
Image 21Yellow mimosa is the symbol of IWD in Italy as well as in Russia, Ukraine and many other ex-Soviet Union republics (from International Women's Day)
Image 22Author and scholar Helen Kendrick Johnson opposed women's suffrage. (from History of feminism)
Image 23Sylvia Pankhurst (from History of feminism)
Image 24Margaret Sanger (from History of feminism)
Image 25The Nineteenth Amendment (from History of feminism)
Image 26Huda Shaarawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union (from History of feminism)
Image 27A veil-burning ceremony in Andijan on International Women's Day in 1927. (from International Women's Day)
Image 28Catharine MacKinnon (from History of feminism)
Image 29An Antimonumenta, installed in Mexico City on International Women's Day 2019, as photographed the day after. The circle part says "In Mexico 9 women are murdered daily" and the cross part says "Not one more!" On the opposite side, the Antimonumenta reads "We demand a national gender alert", and in the central part "No + Femicides". (from International Women's Day)
Image 30Simone de Beauvoir (from History of feminism)
Image 31Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 32Betty Friedan 1960 (from History of feminism)
Image 33Irena Krzywicka (from History of feminism)
Image 34Christine de Pizan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. (from History of feminism)
Image 35Cover of WSPU's The Suffragette, April 25, 1913 (after Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830) (from History of feminism)
Image 36John Neal (from History of feminism)
Image 37The vandalized Concepción Feminist Mural in Spain, which was vandalized on International Women's Day 2021. (from International Women's Day)
Image 38Frances Cobbe (from History of feminism)
Image 39Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910 (from International Women's Day)
Image 40Marie Stopes (from History of feminism)
Image 41Female soldiers from Peru, Egypt, India and other countries celebrate International Women's Day. (from International Women's Day)
Image 42
  Official holiday
  Holiday for women
  Non-official holiday
(from International Women's Day)
Image 43Camilla Collett (from History of feminism)
Image 448M 2018 in Pamplona (from International Women's Day)

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Feminism}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.

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Alice Manfield - Guide Alice, Mt Buffalo, c1900-30, SLV
Alice Park - Records of the National Woman's Party
Alice Paul (1915) by Harris & Ewing
Angela Davis in a half-length portrait by Bernard Gotfryd - crop
Anne Dallas Dudley LOC
Avril de Sainte-Croix - Restored, cropped
Bertha Lutz 1925
Cabinet Card of Sojourner Truth - Collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Convicts Lunatics and Women! Have No Vote for Parliament, ca. 1907-1918
Dr. Caroline Spencer 275029v
Ethel Smyth
Frances Benjamin Johnston, Self-Portrait (as "New Woman"), 1896
Fredrikke Mørck
George Charles Beresford - Virginia Woolf in 1902 - Restoration
Henrietta Rodman from the George Grantham Bain Collection
Henry Mayer, The Awakening, 1915 Cornell CUL PJM 1176 01 - Restoration
Hester Jeffrey
Hubertine Auclert 1910
Iris Calderhead
Joy Young Rogers outside the White House
Lucretia Mott, signed photo, by F. Gutekunst
Mabel Vernon, c. 1917, by Edmonston, Washington, D.C.
Marguerite Durand 1910 - Restoration
Marie Stopes in her laboratory, 1904 - Restoration
Mary Garrity - Ida B. Wells-Barnett - Google Art Project - restoration crop
Millicent Fawcett
Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict by Edmonston, Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Lillian Ascough, chairman of the Connecticut branch of the Woman's Party
Mrs. Pauline Adams 147002v
Portrett av Gina Krog (6276081582) - Restoration
Poster by Anna Soós Korànyi for the Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
Ray Strachey restored
Sojourner Truth, 1870 (cropped, restored)
Victoria Claflin Woodhull by Mathew Brady - Oval Portrait
Voltairine de Cleyre (Age 35)
We Can Do It! NARA 535413 - Restoration 2