When the feminist movement formally began in the late 1960s, many women saw the movement as an opportunity to raise the American consciousness about critical issues that had long impacted the ability of women to acquire social, political and economic equality. Although it is evident that feminism as a movement brought to light the inequalities facing women in both the home and the workplace, the way in which feminist conceptualized many of the issues impacting women appears to have a negative impact on the social development of women. To illustrate this point, one only needs to consider feminist viewpoints on both pregnancy and motherhood. Through a careful consideration of how feminism views these issues, it will be possible to demonstrate that the feminist movement, while positive in some respects, clearly had a detrimental impact on the ability of women to make notable strides and improvements in certain areas of their lives.
Feminist Viewpoint.In order to begin this investigation, it is first helpful to consider the underlying tenets of feminism and the specific ideologies that feminists use to understand and conceptualize the world.
[...] When women cannot agree on the importance of critical issues such as pregnancy and motherhood, women have no choice but to tune out the arguments in order to find happiness with their personal decisions. In many cases, women will find happiness in their decision to have children. In other cases, women will find happiness in their decision to remain childless. Because modern feminism clearly offers no real insightful understanding on these issues, women simply must make the decision that best suits [...]
[...] With no real means to escape the confines of the patriarchal society that regulated women to the home, women had no choice but to take a more active role in their efforts to control their bodies and reproduction. Thus, it is not surprising to find that as the feminist consciousness began to develop in the US, so too did political and social efforts to provide birth control to women. Conlin (2004) in her examination of birth control policies in the US notes that up until the 1960s, women were given few options for protecting themselves from unwanted pregnancies: This was an America where buying a single condom made you a criminal in 30 states; where priests told women who used black-market diaphragms that they would be haunted by the faces of their unborn children; and where some women who got pregnant 18 times and had 11 children and 7 miscarriages, died an early death from the ravages of so many births (p. [...]
[...] Specifically, Ramazanoglu notes the following characteristics as common to all definitions of feminism: All versions of feminism assert that the existing relations between the sexes, in which women are subordinated to men, are unsatisfactory and ought to be changed. Feminism challenges much that is taken for granted as natural, normal and desirable in our various societies. Feminism is not simply ideas. Its point is to change the world, to transform the relations between women and men so that all people can have more chance to fulfill their whole human potential. [...]
[...] For instance, feminist scholars examining the issue of abortion now believe that this practice is used by men as a means for them to assert control over certain groups of women in society. Murphy (2003) reports that a large number of abortions are sought by low-income women, who assert that they cannot financially support a child. In this context Murphy argues that the social construction of society is not one that supports the decision of a woman to have a child. [...]
[...] Arnold (2000) in her examination of the definition of modern feminism argues that women and men have both positive and negative definitions for this term. In particular, Arnold notes that overall women and men defining feminism as a positive force have argued that feminism is belief in women's rights and equality” (p. 15). In order to uphold these rights many respondents argued that action must be taken to ensure that women have the same rights and privileges as men. Negative definitions of feminism detail this process as one “related to women seeing themselves as superior to men or men seeing themselves as superior to women” (p. [...]
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