Portal:Feminism

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. (Full article...)

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The Equal Protection Clause is a part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, providing that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In the broadest view, the Equal Protection Clause is part of the United States's continuing attempt to determine what its professed commitment to the proposition that "all men are created equal" should mean in practice. Before its enactment, the Constitution protected individual rights only from invasion by the federal government. After its enactment, the Constitution also protected rights from abridgement by state governments. For a long while after the Clause became a part of the Constitution, it was interpreted narrowly. During and after World War II, however, the United States Supreme Court began to construe the Clause more expansively. During the 1960s, the other two branches of the federal government—the executive and the legislative—joined in, as Congress and the President passed and enforced legislation intended to ensure equality in education, employment, housing, lodging, and government benefits.

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Credit: David Bransby, OWI

A 1942 aircraft worker at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California. Women on the United States home front during World War II took on many manufacturing jobs in factories, producing munitions and materiel for the battlefront. This photo was one of a series intended to chronicle many aspects of war mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training and women employees.

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In this month

April 1917 – American modern artist Georgia O'Keeffe's first solo art show
April 2007 – Mukhtaran Bibi (pictured) won the North-South Prize for human rights for speaking out regarding her gang rape, taking the rapists to court, and founding the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization
5 April 1858 – During the Central India Campaign, Rani Lakshmibai helped defend Jhansi and lead the Indian Rebellion of 1857
11 April 1881 – Establishment of Spelman College, the oldest historically black college for women in the United States
22 April 1766 – Birth of Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, a salonnière of political influence, who challenged Napoleon, and an author

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Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it's the latter, so I sign up.

— Margaret Atwood

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Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose writings are often credited with launching the global environmental movement. Carson started her career as a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and transitioned to a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her financial security and recognition as a gifted writer. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the republished version of her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, were also bestsellers. Together, her sea trilogy explores the gamut of ocean life, from the shores to the surface to the deep sea. In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation and the environmental problems caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented portion of the American public. Silent Spring spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy—leading to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides—and the grassroots environmental movement it inspired led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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... that the retelling of stories can focus on female characters to reflect the feminist perspective?
... that Margareth Rago seeks to establish a methodology for what she calls "feminist science"?
... 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?

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... that Lydia Becker (pictured), founder of the Women's Suffrage Journal, was also an amateur botanist and friend of Charles Darwin?
... that Johanna Brandt detailed spying for the Boers with her mother in her book Petticoat Commando?
... that Mary Hallaren was the first woman to join the United States Army?

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

Image 1Marie Stopes (from History of feminism)
Image 2María 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 3Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (from History of feminism)
Image 4Nellie McClung (from History of feminism)
Image 5Ida B. Wells (from History of feminism)
Image 6Camilla Collett (from History of feminism)
Image 7The Nineteenth Amendment (from History of feminism)
Image 88M 2018 in Pamplona (from International Women's Day)
Image 9
  Official holiday
  Holiday for women
  Non-official holiday
(from International Women's Day)
Image 10Giorgia Meloni, first female prime minister of Italy at a 2024 Women's Day event in Rome (from International Women's Day)
Image 11Yellow mimosa is the symbol of International Women's Day in Italy as well as in Russia, Ukraine and many other ex-Soviet Union republics (from International Women's Day)
Image 12Margaret Sanger (from History of feminism)
Image 13Catharine MacKinnon (from History of feminism)
Image 14An 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 15Betty Friedan 1960 (from History of feminism)
Image 16A veil-burning ceremony in Andijan on International Women's Day in 1927 (from International Women's Day)
Image 17Irena Krzywicka (from History of feminism)
Image 18Women on the street celebrating International Women's Day in Cameroon (from International Women's Day)
Image 198M 2020 in Spain (from International Women's Day)
Image 20Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from History of feminism)
Image 21Huda Shaarawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union (from History of feminism)
Image 22Cover of WSPU's The Suffragette, April 25, 1913 (after Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830) (from History of feminism)
Image 23Emily Davison (from History of feminism)
Image 24Florence Nightingale (from History of feminism)
Image 25Wealthy 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 26The vandalized Concepción Feminist Mural in Spain, which was vandalized on International Women's Day 2021. (from International Women's Day)
Image 27Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910 (from International Women's Day)
Image 28The White Feather: A Sketch of English Recruiting" (Arnold Bennett, 1914) (from History of feminism)
Image 29Suffrage parade in New York, May 6, 1912 (from History of feminism)
Image 30Board of directors of "Jam'iat e nesvan e vatan-khah", a women's rights association in Tehran (1923–1933) (from History of feminism)
Image 31Bessie Rayner Parkes (from History of feminism)
Image 32First edition print of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (from History of feminism)
Image 33bell hooks (from History of feminism)
Image 34Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 35Lucy Stone (from History of feminism)
Image 36John Neal (from History of feminism)
Image 37Matilda Joslyn Gage (from History of feminism)
Image 38Simone de Beauvoir (from History of feminism)
Image 39Sylvia Pankhurst (from History of feminism)
Image 40Frances Cobbe (from History of feminism)
Image 41Germaine Greer in June 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 42Christine de Pizan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. (from History of feminism)
Image 43Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney (from International Women's Day)
Image 44Author and scholar Helen Kendrick Johnson opposed women's suffrage. (from History of feminism)

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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