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Feminism: the history of the fight for equal rights and the
relevance of the movement in the modern world
Iroda UMAROVA
1
Tashkent State University of Law
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received July 2023
Received in revised form
15 August 2023
Accepted 25 August 2023
Available online
15 September 2023
This article deals with the concept of feminism, its forms,
and way of expression. The history and stages of development
of feminism around the world are also described.
2181-
1415/©
2023 in Science LLC.
https://doi.org/10.47689/2181-1415-vol4-iss7/S-pp189-193
This is an open access article under the Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ru)
Keywords:
Feminism,
history of feminism,
women rights,
movements of feminism.
Feminizm: teng huquqlar uchun kurash tarixi va
zamonaviy dunyoda harakatning dolzarbligi
ANNOTATSIYA
Kalit so‘zlar
:
Feminizm,
feminizm tarixi,
ayollar huquqlari,
feministik harakatlar.
Ushbu maqolada feminizm tushunchasi, uning shakllari va
ifoda usullari ko‘rib chiqiladi. Dunyo bo‘ylab feminizm tarixi va
rivojlanish bosqichlari ham tasvirlangan.
Феминизм: история борьбы за равные права и
актуальность движения в современном мире
АННОТАЦИЯ
Ключевые слова:
Феминизм,
история феминизма,
права женщин,
феминистские движения.
В данной статье рассматривается понятие феминизма,
его формы и способы выражения. Также описаны история и
этапы развития феминизма во всем мире.
1
Teacher, Tashkent State University of Law
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190
INTRODUCTION
Feminism is the recognition that throughout history people have been treated
differently based on their biological sex as well as the prevailing understanding of gender
norms. Based on these factors, society granted an unequal degree of power to men and
women. Perceptions of gender and gender have exacerbated wage inequality,
discriminatory treatment at work or school, and unequal access to resources and political
power. In addition, most societies resort to organized and individual violence to reinforce
these sex and gender norms.
Violence against women and people who are perceived as or identify as women,
such as transgender people, was the norm in most societies until recently. Women have
been abused by men at all times and in all parts of the world. This violence against
women has taken many forms, from official and organized
–
like the systemic rape of
women by armies during the war
–
to what took place in the context of the home and
family: domestic violence, intimate partner violence. Some forms have also taken place in
conditions of unequal social power, such as sexual assaults on university campuses.
Feminism is about recognizing that all these factors have influenced women's lives and
the decision to organize to try to solve these injustices and create a more equal society.
THE CONCEPTION OF FEMINISM
The term "feminism" appears at the beginning of the 19th century. Under it in the
journalism of this era is understood the totality of the qualities inherent in a woman. Just
as there are specific male traits
–
masculinity, there is also femininity, or "feminism".
Towards the end of the 19th century, in the context of the suffragette movement,
the word “feminist”, originally French, appears, which is used to describe the activists of
the women's movement. Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, the meaning of the
term was gradually changing. For the last 100 years, feminists were understood as
women who were fighting for their rights. Moreover, these rights can be understood in
different ways, and the struggle is not always reduced to the demands of formal political
equality.
BEGINNINGS OF FEMINISM
There is no universal feminism. There are many different currents of feminism, so
if you look at the history of feminism, you need to consider different types of movements
for women and their allies. Currents of feminism often intersect with each other. There
were movements that included black and white women, rich and poor, young and old.
And all these movements focused on different issues. In addition, there were feminist
movements among labor movements, civil rights movements, and homosexual
movements. There were even environmentalist feminists. In addition, there were racist
feminist movements
–
Ku Klux Klan women and skinhead women.
The first feminist is usually called the Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft, who
lived at the end of the 18th century. In the treatise "Protection of the Rights of a Woman",
she raises questions related to the fate of a woman: how different is a woman from a
man, how fair are the accusations of a woman in her lack of reason, how motherhood and
domestic work affect the role of a woman. The main slogan of Wollstonecraft, which
caused a scandal, is that a woman can independently control her own destiny. Somewhat
in the shadow of Wollstonecraft is her compatriot Mary Astel, who relied on the
rationalist philosophy of Descartes, who made no difference between men and women.
Wollstonecraft is likewise influenced by and polemics with Rousseau. As we read these
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early texts, the caricature of the
feminists’
crumbles: they offer a versatile, often ironic,
and sometimes surprising argument. For example, Estel discussed the creation of
women's "secular monasteries" as a possible alternative to marriage and the transition of
a woman "to the property of a man."
Among the first feminists was at least one man, the classic of liberal philosophy,
John Stuart Mill, who in 1869 published a treatise, The Subjection of Woman, in defense
of women's rights. Most men, however, were strongly opposed to feminism. In part, they
simply could not understand what these women wanted. One male author even stated in
response to the publication of Wollstonecraft's treatise that the claim for the rights of
women was as ridiculous as the claim for the rights of pets. In response to the suffragette
movement, a “classic rebuttal” was also formulated:
supposedly only very ugly women
who count on finding a worthy husband cannot become feminists.
HISTORY OF FEMINISM
Feminism in the United States began as a social movement in the 1830s and
continued as women's struggle for the right to vote. Although this movement had many
prerequisites, the 1948 convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, is considered to be the
founding moment. The delegates drafted and approved a "Declaration of Sentiments",
often referred to as the "Declaration of Women's Rights". The 1776 "Declaration of
Independence" and the 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" stated that
women and men were equal before God and therefore had the right to education,
property, divorce, child-rearing, protection from violence from their husbands and,
finally, the right to vote. It took 72 years before they got the right to vote in the United
States.
Feminism was present during the American Civil War when women were nurses
and volunteers at the front. When they returned home, they wanted access to education
and various professions. After the Civil War, women fought for the right to dispose of
their property, since by law they could not control their income and savings. The Married
Women's Property Act of 1884 gave women greater financial independence from their
husbands. The men in the legislature agreed to this because in such a case, creditors
could not go to the families of the soldiers and take the property that their wives had
earned during the war.
Feminism was present in the 1910s when a large movement of immigrant workers
swept across the US. It included hundreds of thousands of working women. After World
War I, when a global labor and peace movement emerged, women began to feel they
were in a war that they did not start. A more global feminist movement emerged. The
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Women Workers'
International Federation, and other transnational women's federations emerged and met
in the 1910s and between the two wars.
It makes sense to supplement the chronology of the waves of feminism with an
idea of the ideological structure of the movement.
Liberal feminism suggests that feminism is primarily a story about equal rights for
men and women. As soon as we guarantee the formal and substantive equality of rights,
we can consider that, just as we once solved the issue of racism, we have solved the issue
of gender inequality.
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Liberal feminism is mainstream, and in the Western world, the big political parties
are geared towards it. Western political correctness towards women is also primarily a
product of liberalism.
The second variety is Marxist feminism. Marxist feminism suggests that the
oppression of women is a special case of capitalist and class oppression. In other words,
there is an exploitation of employees in the economy, and women are one of the types of
people who are exploited. Just as workers were exploited in the 19th century and later,
women were forced to work for men. Marxist feminism is interesting because it
introduces the problem of unpaid, free domestic labor as its central theme. There are
Marxist scholars who argue that the basis of the world economy is the work of
housewives, which is not valued in any way, but at the same time makes a key
contribution to our well-being.
Russia has made a great contribution to Marxist feminism, and this should not be
forgotten. The Bolshevik government in the early 1920s became the most progressive
government in the world in terms of gender equality: formal political equality was
guaranteed, formal electoral equality, women were taught to read and write, and
attempts were made to free them from "kitchen slavery" through the opening of
centralized proletarian canteens. Those moves were also made that were unacceptable to
Western Europe at that time. In particular, abortion was decriminalized. The most
famous defender of women's rights among the Bolsheviks is Alexandra Kollontai. After
the first years of Soviet power, attitudes towards women became gradually more
conservative. But before Comrade Stalin, we were an advanced feminist power.
FEMINISM IN THE 21
ST
CENTURY
There were many important feminists in the 1960s and 1970s. There was a really
powerful group in New York that included Kate Millett, who wrote the book Sexual
Politics, and journalist Betty Friedan. Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963.
It was an important book that helped middle-class women understand why they felt
trapped as mothers and wives. Friedan worked with attorney Pauli Murray, who
campaigned for racial and gender equality. They were members of the group that
founded the National Organization for Women in 1966. Murray coined the term "Jane
Crow" in reference to a system of laws that discriminated against women. Although
Murray was the author of an analysis of Jim Crow laws that would later be called "the
bible of the civil rights movement," she believed that Jane Crow was as good at restricting
women's rights as Jim Crow was at segregating blacks.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a member of the US Supreme Court, was a very important
figure in the 1970s. She was involved in changing the laws and making them fairer for
women. She founded the American Civil Rights Union for Women's Rights. She greatly
expanded the rights of women in the United States. Her role is invaluable. She has served
on Supreme Court cases, and many of the rights that women have today are due to her.
She was heavily influenced by Pauli Murray.
Of course, if we think about feminism in a global way, then we can think of many
other notable activists. But there are three important figures in the feminist movement
who stand out in particular. The first is Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan activist who founded
the Green Belt movement. The movement now has over 50,000 women planting trees in
sub-Saharan Africa. In these areas, trees were cut down by the colonialists. Wangari
helped create an environment that allowed women to support themselves and their
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families. This dealt a decisive blow to women's independence in a number of patriarchal
cultures, which was the goal of Maathai. It is also important to mention Berta Cáceres,
from Honduras, who was killed in the fight for the land rights of indigenous peoples,
whose houses were rented out to foreign corporations who planned to build a dam there.
Finally, credit must be given to Calpone Actor, the leader of the Bangladeshi clothing
movement, whose advocacy work to build a global coalition of workers, students, and
consumers has led to an agreement now signed by more than 200 corporations.
Today, in 2023, the big problem for feminism is the generation of millennials who
believe that women have basically already achieved equality. Indeed, great strides have
been made as a result of the labor of all the activists. Women can take out mortgages and
get business loans. But in popular culture, there is a normalization of violence against
women in popular songs and music videos, a concentration of women among the world's
least-paid and most exploited workers, and a small number of women in positions of
political power. So, the next generation of feminists has a lot of work to do.
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FRIEDAN, BETTY, The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton, 1963.
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