Why is Feminism called Feminism?

Why is Feminism called Feminism?

Firstly there a lot of people who misunderstand or do not understand the basic facts about this movement or idea.

Feminism origins

Feminism as a idea if not as a word came about when Mary Wollstonecraft first suggested that women were not inferior to men but lacked education. Her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792 was of course not given as much attention as who she slept with. (As things change, how they stay the same).
We tend to forget that women have been fighting long and hard for rights and autonomy for a long time. That this fight still isn't over. That women are still viewed as property, to be sold, bartered and domesticated like a cow, or even swapped for one.

More modern Movements

Feminism isn't a single set of ideas. It is wave after wave, ebbing and falling, like a tide coming in, 

First Wave Feminism

It is odd that when I think about Suffragettes I don't think of forced feeding, hunger strikes and arson (which there were plenty of) I think of Mrs Banks in her colourful sashes in Mary Poppins. Wealthier women had access to mass produced books, were educated and driven. While some made things better for poorer women important things like family planning, and domestic violence (much of the Temperance movement was based on the idea that alcohol created domestic violence and poverty, not just poverty) they wanted to have a voice, a say in how the country was run.

The odd thing about this first wave if how people some how felt they achieved this, yet the Suffragettes movement was largely dissolved because of the 1st World War. What changed was 16 million people died in or around the fighting.

Women got more jobs and freedoms because there were no men to do them.

Second Wave

The second wave came about much later in the 1960's. The time between women won the vote but it had been a slow process. Where as the first wave wanted to be treated wanted to treated better than criminals and the legally insane, the second wave wanted to treated as equal.

How women should be treated equally meant the fracture of the world and the idea of feminism. 

Many rights and laws were past increasing women's rights, but not bringing about equality. Many feminist who were angry (and some who were not) rejected anything that they thought repressed women, from marriage; to children; wars and military service; even bras.

This image of the bra burning screaming feminist, who hates men is a Germane Greer classic, but  my mother was one of these women in her own way. She did not have a high opinion of men, mostly from experience. While this wave looks like a shower of shits now who messed up a lot (which is true) they also made huge strides in how we treat women and how we treat each other. This wave over mostly over by the 1980's.

The Third Wave

This wave I was aware of, just, as a teen. Oddly enough we thought we had won but then, we had not. We still didn't get equal pay, we still got verbally abused in the street, raped and blamed.

I grew up with a feminist and knew for me and those who used the world it meant equality. This feminism broadened again and allowed people from all races, and religions and backgrounds into the forum. Herstories, especially those of black and ethic peoples opened up and we found new hero's and brave souls who did amazing things. They fought for reproductive rights, for anti-discrimination laws.

I never imagined that the seeming progress we made would have such backlashes, but they seem as constant of the waves of progress. 

It seems amazing to me that people think that feminism is about and for only women. That it belittles them, or that they have already won.

Yet the truth is we do not have equality. From the countries that still have child brides, or cover up wholesale celebrity child abuse. The the rapists are "poor boys" and the victims get death threats. 

It was not against the law to sexually discriminate in the Isle of Man (part of the uk) until after 2001.

In Summary

Feminism is an idea that women are not cattle. That they should have a voice, a vote. That they have a right to an education, to their own bodies, and they own sexual desires. How this feminism is expressed or held together will depend on who the feminist is. 

My feminism is no milder than my mothers. I do not believe marriage is a yolk that woman are slaves under, that children are anchors or millstones that draw out your creative and independence; but my passion to be treated and that my daughter is treated as an equal, that she should not have to worry about being harassed in the street, groped a work, paid a pittance, fired for being pregnant, or gay, or pagan, or different; is just as fierce if not more so. That she should not have to be hard, or bitchy, or one of the boys to get on in her carer. That she should have to pretend to be less smart than she is, shave her body hair (it is choice), have a certain size or shape to be worthy. That a man will talk over her, interrupt her and explain something to her like she is a child, simply because he is male and certain that she could not be correct, regardless of her knowledge on a given subject.

I believe in equality, for women and men, for anyone of the sexual or gender spectrum, and any skin colour. That how well we do our jobs should define how we get paid and that a living wage so that a parent can stay at home raise their own children is important. That employers need to change how they work and the hours people are expected to put in. That paternity rights and benefits should be up held and people should be able to adopt and foster more easily. 

My feminism will not be someone else's yet I am aware I sand on the shoulders of giants. That thousands if not millions of women chipped away at this wall of ignorance and assumptions, traditions and fear.

The work goes on.