feminism extended essay

Essay on Feminism

500 words essay on feminism.

Feminism is a social and political movement that advocates for the rights of women on the grounds of equality of sexes. It does not deny the biological differences between the sexes but demands equality in opportunities. It covers everything from social and political to economic arenas. In fact, feminist campaigns have been a crucial part of history in women empowerment. The feminist campaigns of the twentieth century made the right to vote, public property, work and education possible. Thus, an essay on feminism will discuss its importance and impact.

Importance of Feminism

Feminism is not just important for women but for every sex, gender, caste, creed and more. It empowers the people and society as a whole. A very common misconception is that only women can be feminists.

It is absolutely wrong but feminism does not just benefit women. It strives for equality of the sexes, not the superiority of women. Feminism takes the gender roles which have been around for many years and tries to deconstruct them.

This allows people to live freely and empower lives without getting tied down by traditional restrictions. In other words, it benefits women as well as men. For instance, while it advocates that women must be free to earn it also advocates that why should men be the sole breadwinner of the family? It tries to give freedom to all.

Most importantly, it is essential for young people to get involved in the feminist movement. This way, we can achieve faster results. It is no less than a dream to live in a world full of equality.

Thus, we must all look at our own cultures and communities for making this dream a reality. We have not yet reached the result but we are on the journey, so we must continue on this mission to achieve successful results.

Impact of Feminism

Feminism has had a life-changing impact on everyone, especially women. If we look at history, we see that it is what gave women the right to vote. It was no small feat but was achieved successfully by women.

Further, if we look at modern feminism, we see how feminism involves in life-altering campaigns. For instance, campaigns that support the abortion of unwanted pregnancy and reproductive rights allow women to have freedom of choice.

Moreover, feminism constantly questions patriarchy and strives to renounce gender roles. It allows men to be whoever they wish to be without getting judged. It is not taboo for men to cry anymore because they must be allowed to express themselves freely.

Similarly, it also helps the LGBTQ community greatly as it advocates for their right too. Feminism gives a place for everyone and it is best to practice intersectional feminism to understand everyone’s struggle.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Feminism

The key message of feminism must be to highlight the choice in bringing personal meaning to feminism. It is to recognize other’s right for doing the same thing. The sad part is that despite feminism being a strong movement, there are still parts of the world where inequality and exploitation of women take places. Thus, we must all try to practice intersectional feminism.

FAQ of Essay on Feminism

Question 1: What are feminist beliefs?

Answer 1: Feminist beliefs are the desire for equality between the sexes. It is the belief that men and women must have equal rights and opportunities. Thus, it covers everything from social and political to economic equality.

Question 2: What started feminism?

Answer 2: The first wave of feminism occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It emerged out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. This wave aimed to open up new doors for women with a focus on suffrage.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

5 Essays About Feminism

On the surface, the definition of feminism is simple. It’s the belief that women should be politically, socially, and economically equal to men. Over the years, the movement expanded from a focus on voting rights to worker rights, reproductive rights, gender roles, and beyond. Modern feminism is moving to a more inclusive and intersectional place. Here are five essays about feminism that tackle topics like trans activism, progress, and privilege:

“Trickle-Down Feminism” – Sarah Jaffe

Feminists celebrate successful women who have seemingly smashed through the glass ceiling, but the reality is that most women are still under it. Even in fast-growing fields where women dominate (retail sales, food service, etc), women make less money than men. In this essay from Dissent Magazine, author Sarah Jaffe argues that when the fastest-growing fields are low-wage, it isn’t a victory for women. At the same time, it does present an opportunity to change the way we value service work. It isn’t enough to focus only on “equal pay for equal work” as that argument mostly focuses on jobs where someone can negotiate their salary. This essay explores how feminism can’t succeed if only the concerns of the wealthiest, most privileged women are prioritized.

Sarah Jaffe writes about organizing, social movements, and the economy with publications like Dissent, the Nation, Jacobin, and others. She is the former labor editor at Alternet.

“What No One Else Will Tell You About Feminism” – Lindy West

Written in Lindy West’s distinct voice, this essay provides a clear, condensed history of feminism’s different “waves.” The first wave focused on the right to vote, which established women as equal citizens. In the second wave, after WWII, women began taking on issues that couldn’t be legally-challenged, like gender roles. As the third wave began, the scope of feminism began to encompass others besides middle-class white women. Women should be allowed to define their womanhood for themselves. West also points out that “waves” may not even exist since history is a continuum. She concludes the essay by declaring if you believe all people are equal, you are a feminist.

Jezebel reprinted this essay with permission from How To Be A Person, The Stranger’s Guide to College by Lindy West, Dan Savage, Christopher Frizelle, and Bethany Jean Clement. Lindy West is an activist, comedian, and writer who focuses on topics like feminism, pop culture, and fat acceptance.

“Toward a Trans* Feminism” – Jack Halberstam

The history of transactivsm and feminism is messy. This essay begins with the author’s personal experience with gender and terms like trans*, which Halberstam prefers. The asterisk serves to “open the meaning,” allowing people to choose their categorization as they see fit. The main body of the essay focuses on the less-known history of feminists and trans* folks. He references essays from the 1970s and other literature that help paint a more complete picture. In current times, the tension between radical feminism and trans* feminism remains, but changes that are good for trans* women are good for everyone.

This essay was adapted from Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability by Jack Halberstam. Halberstam is the Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He is also the author of several books.

“Rebecca Solnit: How Change Happens” – Rebecca Solnit

The world is changing. Rebecca Solnit describes this transformation as an assembly of ideas, visions, values, essays, books, protests, and more. It has many layers involving race, class, gender, power, climate, justice, etc, as well as many voices. This has led to more clarity about injustice. Solnit describes watching the transformation and how progress and “ wokeness ” are part of a historical process. Progress is hard work. Not exclusively about feminism, this essay takes a more intersectional look at how progress as a whole occurs.

“How Change Happens” was adapted from the introduction to Whose Story Is it? Rebecca Solnit is a writer, activist, and historian. She’s the author of over 20 books on art, politics, feminism, and more.

“Bad Feminist” extract – Roxane Gay

People are complicated and imperfect. In this excerpt from her book Bad Feminist: Essays , Roxane Gay explores her contradictions. The opening sentence is, “I am failing as a woman.” She goes on to describe how she wants to be independent, but also to be taken care of. She wants to be strong and in charge, but she also wants to surrender sometimes. For a long time, she denied that she was human and flawed. However, the work it took to deny her humanness is harder than accepting who she is. While Gay might be a “bad feminist,” she is also deeply committed to issues that are important to feminism. This is a must-read essay for any feminists who worry that they aren’t perfect.

Roxane Gay is a professor, speaker, editor, writer, and social commentator. She is the author of Bad Feminist , a New York Times bestseller, Hunger (a memoir), and works of fiction.

You may also like

15 Quotes Exposing Injustice in Society

14 Trusted Charities Helping Civilians in Palestine

The Great Migration: History, Causes and Facts

Social Change 101: Meaning, Examples, Learning Opportunities

Rosa Parks: Biography, Quotes, Impact

Top 20 Issues Women Are Facing Today

Top 20 Issues Children Are Facing Today

15 Root Causes of Climate Change

15 Facts about Rosa Parks

Abolitionist Movement: History, Main Ideas, and Activism Today

The Biggest 15 NGOs in the UK

15 Biggest NGOs in Canada

About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

10 Essential Feminist Texts You Should Read

It was only the late 19th century that saw feminist approaches attempted inside mainstream works. Today, there is a plethora of influential books with a sharp focus on the women’s movement available. From fully-fledged novels, collections of stories, and social studies, here is an essential list of groundbreaking feminist texts to familiarize yourself with.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Published in 1963, this influential text is praised with triggering the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States, as well as around the world. Focusing on the lives of American housewives in the 50s, The Feminine Mystique dissects the unhappiness that lies at the crux of their domestic lives. Beginning with an introduction to “the problem that has no name,” the text discusses the issues and frustrations that lie beneath the surface of middle-class suburbia. According to futurist Alvin Toffler, the work “pulled the trigger on history”. This is definitely worth your time.

Sylvia Plath’s only published text was actually released under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas a month prior to her suicide in 1963. A semi-autobiographical piece of writing, it highlights the narrators struggles with adhering to rigid societal structure in a male-dominated society. A prisoner of her own domesticity, Plath’s Esther introduces readers to the limiting female rites of passage, all the while continuing to break contemporary stereotypes of mental instability. In fact, The Bell Jar was one of the first novels to dive into the topic of female depression that was written by a woman.

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth is a seminal work of non-fiction that discusses the pattern of social power within women; as it rises, it urges them into maintaining unrealistic and detrimental standards of beauty. An in-depth study of the effects of commercialism and mass media on the female psyche, the text sets out to redefine our relationship with beauty and thus, our own identity. For Wolf, the ultimate threat lies in our own obsession with the aesthetic ideals of ‘flawlessness’ and that is certainly something crucial to think about.

Become a Culture Tripper!

Sign up to our newsletter to save up to 500$ on our unique trips..

See privacy policy .

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Written as an extended essay put together from a series of lectures that Virginia Woolf conducted at the University of Cambridge , A Room of One’s Own remains an essential work of feminist literature in the 20th century. As well as combating the status of women within fiction, exploring their access to education and touching on the then-taboo subject of homosexuality, the text is ultimately a powerful critique of the restrictive nature of patriarchal society in the late 1920s. For those looking for an essential introduction to feminine discourse in literature, this is the text to delve into.

Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott

Published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women follows the lives of four sisters, focusing on their progression into adulthood, their contemplations of womanhood, marriage, child-birth and perhaps above all, personal independence. Although intrinsically a period family drama set at the time of the American Civil War, many have argued that the novel represents the first vision of the “all-American girl.” Themes of female empowerment and self-determination lie at the crux of the text.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Written in 1985, Margaret Atwood ‘s The Handmaid’s Tale is many things. As well as being a pivotal dystopian novel, it also explores the politics of religion, power and gender. Inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, it casts a glimpse into how women make up mainstream society, and what it means to be valued as “illegitimate.” A bold satirical view of social trends in 1980s America, it also hints at, and warns against, the aggressive anti-feminist waves rippling through the country.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing’s 1962 novel explores the psychological and social processes at the heart of society. With a focus on the story of Anna Wulf and the four notebooks in which she records the stand-out events of her life, The Golden Notebook raises questions of female consciousness and their sexuality in relation to men. Although the authoress has rejected the novel’s status as a feminist work of fiction, the literary masterpiece has gone on to influence many forward-thinking women throughout the 60s — something that has continued into our present day.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

For a short introduction to one of the essential gems of feminist literature, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work is a must. Initially published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper is written as a secret diary of woman who is deemed too fragile by her husband and is thus confined to her bed in the countryside. Unable to do anything, work or engage with her personal interests, she begins a slow descent into psychosis as she becomes obsessed with the fading yellow wallpaper in her room. A troubling illustration of damaging attitudes towards women’s health in the 19th century, the text is considered to be one of the most important works of early American feminist literature.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple was published in 1982 and went on to win the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — these days, you can also stumble across film and musical adaptations of this essential text. Set in rural Georgia, the epistolary novel follows the lives of African-American women in the 1930s, providing an insight into a myriad of social issues restricting them at the time. Alongside this, the novel lends a sharp focus on the breaking of boundaries within conventional male and female gender roles. A must-read.

Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

Despite perhaps better known for her internationally acclaimed novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? should not be underestimated as one of her most influential texts. A memoir about the quest to find happiness, the novel follows a young woman growing up in England’s industrial north, all the while being confronted with a difficult past and the search for her biological mother. A fierce contribution to the feminist genre for its dissection of female identity, Winterson’s part-autobiographical text throws the reader headlong into how our close relationships with others mould our very being.

KEEN TO EXPLORE THE WORLD?

Connect with like-minded people on our premium trips curated by local insiders and with care for the world

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.

Places to Stay

Dittisham hideaway: a peaceful retreat for you and your four-legged friend.

Why this gastronomic hotel in Devon is the ultimate romantic winter getaway

Wild swimming, hiking and stargazing: why this sustainable hotel should be on your bucket list

Guides & Tips

Why this cornish fishing village is a must-visit for sustainable food.

An Electrifying Escape to a Tasty Special Cornish Retreat

See & Do

Why you should book a surf weekend in cornwall this summer.

A Solo Traveller’s Guide to Devon

The Best Campsites and Cabins to Book in Cornwall

The Best Cottages to Book in Cornwall

Well Intentioned: A Winter Wellness Guide to the Cotswolds

Well Intentioned: A Winter Wellness Guide to Sussex

Well Intentioned: A Winter Wellness Guide to Surrey

Winter sale offers on our trips, incredible savings.

• Post ID: 718470
• Sponsored? No
• View Payload

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

5 Contemporary Feminism and Beyond

Jo Reger is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of Women and Gender Studies at Oakland University in Michigan and the author of numerous works, including Everywhere and Nowhere: Contemporary Feminism in the United States . She is a scholar of social movements, gender, and theory.

• Published: 10 May 2017
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

Feminism in the United States has been declared dead or in serious decline repeatedly throughout its history. This chapter examines contemporary, or “third wave,” feminism and examines whether or not it is in a state of decline, the identities embraced by contemporary feminists, and the coexistence of different feminist generations. It investigates contemporary issues of racial-ethnic identity, sexual orientation, and transgender inclusion and exclusion in the movement. By juxtaposing the tactics, strategies, and tools of previous feminist generations with the goals and concerns of contemporary activists, this chapter provides a corrective to those who announce the death of feminism, while detailing the issues that continue to plague feminist organizations and activism.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, women and men who were engaged in the U.S. women’s movement felt a rush of accomplishments as legislative and cultural change unrolled before them ( Jay 1999 ; Snitow and Dupleissis 1998 ; Taylor and Whittier 1997 ). In this period, national and local feminist organizations flourished, abortion was legalized, and the Equal Rights Amendment passed in Congress, along with a myriad of other political and cultural successes. However, these victories slowed, and many were reversed in the Reagan-era 1980s, as well as the decades that followed. Many of the gains were undermined through legislation and policies that pushed back on the ideas of gender equality ( Faludi 1991 ). Labeled a “backlash,” the 1980s tempered feminist optimism and set the stage for the cultural hazing to come, epitomized in the “femi-nazi” label coined by right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh. In 1992, televangelist Pat Robertson claimed that “[t]‌he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” 1

Together, this combination of accomplishment and cultural change mixed with disillusionment and backlash created the context for what has come to be called the “third wave” of feminism, emerging in the mid- to late 1990s and continuing into the twenty-first century. This strand of feminism draws on the ideologies and issues of older feminisms (e.g., promoting reproductive rights, and combating violence against women and institutionalized discrimination, among others), while at the same time, it critiques the feminism that had come before it. The result is a feminist generation engaged in “traditional” feminist issues, as well as new areas of resistance, which critiques the past and is situated in a digital era of communication and community. In this chapter, I review the scholarship and popular writing on “third wave” feminism and first trace the origin of the term “third wave” while noting critiques of the wave metaphor. I then provide a characterization of this generation, outlining whom it incorporates and how it structures activism. I conclude by speculating on the potential directions of feminist research.

Origins of the “Third Wave”

Multiple sources are credited with naming and identifying this feminist generation. Lynn Chancer notes that in 1991 she called for a “third wave” feminism to signify a turn from the defensive posture of the 1980s feminism and its backlash (1998). Many credit the idea to Rebecca Walker when she called herself “third wave” in a Ms. magazine article in 1992. In the article “Becoming the Third Wave,” Walker examined her anger in the aftermath of the Clarence Thomas hearings and called for young women and men to start a new wave of activism. For others, the Riot Grrrl uprising in the Northwest United States in 1989 signaled the reconceptualization of a new, punk-infused, generationally defined form of feminism ( Marcus 2010 ). It revolved around self-made feminist ’zines, grassroots Riot Grrrl groups, and bands such as Bikini Kill, with singer Kathleen Hanna, until it began to retreat by 1996 ( Marcus 2010 ; Rosenberg and Garofalo 1998 ). Finally, many credit the rise of the “third wave” as having its origins in the challenges made by women of color to “second wave” feminism for its lack of racial-ethnic inclusivity, among other issues ( Baumgardner and Richards 2000 ; Dicker and Piepmeier 2003 ; Heywood and Drake 1997 ). The Combahee River Collective expressed this sentiment when they wrote that “racism and elitism within the [women’s] movement have served to obscure our participation” (1979: 6). As a result of critiques such as these, feminist writers Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards argue that “[t]‌he Third Wave was born of diversity realized by the latter part of the Second Wave” (2000: 77).

While each of these origin stories points to a different narrative for the inception of contemporary feminism, each of these origin stories illustrates a defining characteristic. Lynn Chancer’s naming points to the interplay of empowerment and backlash, of the “old” tactics and the “new” context as the 1980s receded. Rebecca Walker’s identification of the “third wave” brings with it energy as well as intergenerational dissension and critique. The Riot Grrrl uprising signals a focus on girlhood, femininity, and individualized empowerment. The critiques of Black feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Creshaw, and bell hooks forge understandings of race, ethnicity, inclusion, and privilege through the concept of intersectionality. However, just as critiques played a role in the origins of the “third wave,” the label of “third wave” also came under critique as feminist scholars sought ways to understand and conceptualize women’s movement activism through time.

Wave Metaphor

The U.S. women’s movement has a long history, dating back to the 1700s and 1800s, and scholars have come to conceptualize this history as one of waves of activism that rise, peak, and diminish over time. The wave metaphor presents the history of the women’s movement in terms of differentiated decades, such as the “first wave,” from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, and the “second wave,” from the 1960s to 1980s. The “third wave,” according to this metaphor, is from the mid- to late 1990s into the twenty-first century. While the metaphor allows for the longevity of the movement to be easily understood, scholars have argued that relying on the idea of “waves” can be historically reductive, leaving out groups of activists, issues, and types of activism. Feminist scholar Astrid Henry (2008) summarizes the critiques, arguing that the metaphor of “waves” creates the sense of a single “demographic” generation that transitions through time and homogenizes ideologies, identities, and beliefs within a historical moment.

As a result, scholars argue that feminist history, as well as the activists and organizations within certain time periods, become simplified. For example, in the telling of the “first wave,” the 1860s and early 1900s become a time of suffrage. In the “second wave,” activism focuses on consciousness-raising by one group of feminists and the obtaining of legislative rights by another, dropping out an array of activism, and activist identities, as well as missing the complicated merging and dividing of groups within U.S. feminism. In addition, the focus on the linear nature of waves often only captures the most visible public protests by elite groups of women, missing the activism of marginalized groups such as women of color, working-class women and feminist labor union organizing, and lesbians ( Cobble 2010 ; Hewitt 2010a ; Nadasen 2002 ; Roth 2002 ; Thompson 2002 ). Scholars Benita Roth, Premilla Nadasen, and Becky Thompson argue that the history of the U.S. women’s movement, as told through the wave metaphor, is “whitewashed,” leaving out organizing by women of color. 2

Overall, these critiques point to a metaphor that serves to flatten the diversity of thought and action, draws on a mother-daughter structure of interaction, presents all changes as forward, progressive and linear, and reinforces a Western perspective and context, ignoring the global ( Henry 2011 ; Nicholson 2010). Instead, scholars work to create a more complicated view of women’s movement history, arguing that the types and forms of women’s rights activism did not happen in discrete time periods but often overlapped and existed outside historically determined boundaries ( Hewitt 2010b ; Naples 2005 ). In addition, Cathryn Bailey (1997) argues that our understanding of the feminism of the day should incorporate the ambiguity and contradiction that has been present in all the “waves.” 3 With this in mind, contemporary feminism is a part of overlapping feminist generations that commingle and coexist, both working cooperatively and in opposition to each other (see Reger 2012 , 2014 ). Contemporary feminists therefore, are a generation emerging in a common context, coexisting and overlapping with other feminist generations. Drawing on “generations” instead of “waves” allows for later twentieth- and early twenty-first-century feminists to be understood as coming into feminism in a particular social context, yet allows them to be seen as a diverse group, intermingling with feminists who came into the movement before them.

Dead or Alive?

Regardless of the use of “wave” or “generation,” if contemporary feminism is only viewed through the lens of popular culture, one would quickly come to the conclusion that feminism is nonexistent. Through the history of U.S. feminism, the popular media and some political pundits have repeatedly declared feminism dead or in decline. According to these accounts, feminism died in the 1920s when suffrage was won, again in the 1980s with the backlash against feminism, and again in the late 1990s with the infamous 1998 Time magazine cover that asked whether feminism was dead (and concluded that it was). 4 These all heralded periods of “post-feminism,” where women supposedly turned away from feminism, having been disillusioned by its promises of progress and equality. Feminism’s viability was again called into question in 2014 when Time magazine again addressed U.S. feminism by adding the word “feminist” to a poll of “worst words” that needed to be eliminated from the lexicon (this was later removed after an outcry by feminists). 5 Feminist media scholar Jennifer Pozner, with tongue in cheek, labels this the “False Feminist Death Syndrome,” which includes the “Passing Fad Fantasy,” the “Premature Obituary,” and the “Postfeminist Fiction” (2003: 31). According to feminist scholar Mary Hawkesworth (2004) , these death notices serve a larger goal, erasing the social justice efforts of women around the world, while preserving the status quo. She writes, “The recurrent obituaries of feminist activism can also be interpreted as a redrawing of community boundaries designed to accomplish far more than the exile of feminism, designed, in fact, to annihilate it” (2004: 982).

There is significant evidence that feminist ideas, beliefs, and policies have shaped the dominant culture even when we are not aware of it. Feminist gains altered the institutions of education, medicine, government, religion, family, and the workplace. Cultural changes due to feminism submerged into the popular culture ( Douglas 2010 ). Corporations draw on feminist ideas in the promotion of their products ( Johnston and Taylor 2008 ; Messner 2002 ) and more and more female celebrities openly claim a feminist identity ( Contrera 2014 ). Research shows that people continue to claim the identity of feminist in a variety of communities, including feminist networks ( Reger 2012 ), OCCUPY mobilizations (Hurwitz and Taylor, forthcoming), anti-war protests ( Kutz-Flamenbaum 2007 ), art groups ( Raizada 2007 ), hip-hop ( Peoples 2007 ), crafting ( Kelly 2014 ; Pentney 2008) as well as the surge of Women’s Marches in early 2017. In sum, scholars continue to provide evidence that, despite the bemoaning of some and the jubilant obituaries of others, feminism endures in the twenty-first century as an ideological basis of activism and in the formation of activist identities.

Who Are Contemporary Feminists?

Researchers find that significant numbers of women and men still identify as feminists ( Hall and Rodriquez 2003 ; Houvouras and Carter 2008 ; McCabe 2005 ). Elaine Hall and Marnie Rodriquez (2003) used public opinion data to examine the “post-feminist” era of the 1990s and found that both women and men continue to claim a feminist identity. In addition, they found that women are not increasingly growing more anti-feminist and that the women’s movement continues to have public support. Pamela Aronson’s research found that while some young women may not publicly adopt a feminist identity, they continue to agree with many of the goals and beliefs of feminism (2003). In sum, the notion that young women and men do not adopt feminist identities is false. Instead, young women and men come into feminism in a society changed by the women’s movement through “surfacing,” the gradual process of coming to identify and act on feminist ideas in a world with submerged feminism ( Reger 2012 : 56). This process is aided by factors such as personal experiences, feminist parents, educational experiences, in particular women’s studies, and experiences in other social movements ( Glickman 1993 ; Hercus 2005 ; McGuire et al. 2010 ; Reger 2012 ).

Generations

People come into feminism as they have life experiences that politicize them. Nancy Whittier ( 1995 , 1997 ) refers to these politicized groups as micro-cohorts within a larger generation who, because of their similarities, often view the world in similar ways. The idea that different cohorts, either micro-cohorts or generations, view the need for social justice in different ways is insightful when considering the contemporary women’s movement. Indeed, Jason Schnittker and his colleagues (2003) found generational differences in in the definition of feminism, with a younger generation adopting a more heterogeneous view of what it means to be a feminist. This process of differential defining between political generations is labeled “disidentification” ( Braungart and Braungart 1984 ; Henry 2004 , 2005 ). According to Braungart and Braungart (1984) , disidentification is the process in which the younger generation intentionally distances itself from the older generation. While the Braungarts refer to age as the source of disidentification, experiences due to sex and gender can also be the foundation of a political generation ( Schneider 1988 ). Therefore, contemporary feminism is shaped by the politicized experience of being an aged, gendered, and sexed being, among other social categories made relevant in a particular social context. Deborah Stevenson and her colleagues provide evidence for these generational differences in feminist identities. They argue that women in the 1970s and 1980s “felt constrained by the fact that they were women,” whereas younger women “take for granted that their gender is not, or at least should not, be a limiting factor in their lives” (2011: 134). Ednie Garrison argues that this process is not necessarily a negative one in that it can aid in the construction of feminist identities, as different generations create new feminist agendas, goals, and strategies, and mobilize new participants (Garrison 2000 , 2005 ; Henry 2004 ). Social movement scholars argue that constructing a sense of “we” in opposition to “them,” a key component in constructing a collective activist identity, creates group solidarity ( Taylor and Whittier 1992 ) and can be a positive movement outcome ( Staggenborg and Taylor 2005 ). However, because feminist generations are forged in different times and contexts, contemporary feminism is often presented as being at odds and in conflict with previous generations.

This sense of generational division comes from both the popular media as well as from feminists themselves. Scholars Nancy Naples (2005) and Stephanie Gilmore (2005) document the intergenerational dialogue at the 2002 Veteran Feminists of America conference, where contemporary feminists were berated by older feminists for not making, in their eyes, meaningful social change. The older generation often views the contemporary generation as lacking a sense of feminist history, flattening multiple strains of 1960s and 1970s feminism into a monolithic, mainstream feminism ( Orr 1997 ). In response, contemporary feminists have often turned to anger and denial of the older generation’s accomplishments. The contemporary generation often critiques the previous generation on multiple fronts, arguing that they focused only on institutional change, leaving contemporary feminists to correct their omissions, particularly those around class, race, sexuality, and gender ( Henry 2004 ). This dissension between groups of feminists is often presented as a mother-daughter “catfight.” Feminist writer Katha Pollit noted that the generational division was often characterized around sexuality as “angry prudes versus drunken sluts” (2009: 1). Overall, both generations of feminists often draw on misinformation and stereotypes in dealing with each other.

In sum, while scholars find the demise of feminism to be untrue, the existence of a generational divide has some grounding in the truth. Johanna Foster finds that “veteran feminists” from the 1960s and 1970s feel “significant anger at the loss of systemic political analyses among younger Americans, and sometimes younger feminists” (2015: 72). Contemporary feminists respond by seeing their feminism as making amends for the mistakes of previous generations ( Reger 2012 ). This divide often gets played out in the media, particularly on the web, with headlines floating back and forth accusing each other of being out of touch. It is important to note that not all generational interactions are hostile. Feminist generations do peacefully coexist, as evidenced in Chris Bobel’s work on menstrual activism (2010) . In addition, generations may work cooperatively in some contexts, such as in Suzanne Beechey’s study of feminist workplaces (2005) and in feminist communities immersed in a hostile environment ( Reger 2012 ).

Race and Ethnicity in the Movement

While the separations between generations may promote the construction of new feminist identities sustaining the movement, the divisions between feminists caused by issues of race and ethnicity have a history of tearing apart feminist networks, organizations, and the movement itself ( Breines 2006 ). The dissension caused by the unacknowledged racism, classism, and homophobia is a part of U.S. women’s movement history ( Laughlin et al. 2010 ). Feminists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are accused of excluding women of color, and poor and working-class women. Feminists in the 1960s and 1970s were additionally charged with homophobia and heterosexism. The movement’s ideology of “universal sisterhood,” which argues that sex is the most salient social category, placed non-White, non-middle-class, and lesbian women in the position of having to see themselves as “either/or” with the women’s movement—that is, either “women” or members of another social category such as race-ethnicity, class, or sexual orientation ( Collins 2000 ). Scholars document how women of color and working-class women often worked in separate organizations and networks on issues that addressed multiple aspects of their lives ( B. Roth 2002 ; S. Roth 2008 ; Thompson 2002 ) and that many “mainstream” feminist organizations paid insufficient attention to race and ethnicity ( Giddings 1984 ). This resulted in feminist activists and scholars, such as the Combahee River Collective (1979) , Deborah King (1988) , and later, Patricia Hill Collins (2000) , conceptualizing an intersectional feminist paradigm that views race-ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality as interlocking systems of oppression, forming a “matrix of domination” in which one social identity cannot be understood completely without considering all aspects of a person. This conceptual development, along with scholarship such as the anthology This Bridge Called My Back by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (1981) , became a staple in women’s studies courses. The scholarship of the 1980s was followed by contemporary women of color feminists who continued to struggle to be seen, heard, and acknowledged in contemporary feminism. One example is the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism , edited by Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman, in which they write, “We can’t have someone else defining our lives or our feminism” and that their experiences with “white feminism was bittersweet at best” (2002, xxii).

While the writings of women of color shape contemporary feminists’ views on the need for inclusivity and diversity in the movement, White feminists still struggle with creating a multiracial, multicultural movement. Juanita Johnson-Bailey, in her study of African-American women’s relationship to feminism (2003), found that Black women largely felt that the women’s movement had not addressed their concerns and that White women contribute to their oppression and marginalization. Kia Caldwell and Margaret Hunter found similar understandings in their quest to build a feminist community, drawing on two different generations of women of color (2004). Kimberley Springer argues that young Black women may think and do feminism but do not claim the label (2005. The gap between White women and women of color was evident in the 2011 mobilization of “slutwalks.” 6 While many White women eagerly claimed the label of “slut” as empowering, many women of color did not. In a letter to the organizers and the cyberfeminist community, the group Black Women’s Blueprint explained that using “slut” as empowering ignores a history of sexual exploitation and oppression experienced in some form by all women of color. They wrote, “We know the SlutWalk is a call to action … we struggle with the decision to answer this call by joining with or supporting something that even in name exemplified the ways in which mainstream women’s movements have repeatedly excluded Black women …” (2011: 1).

While a racial-ethnic divide still continues in contemporary feminism, there are some success stories. Ellen Scott (2005) argues that while feminist organizations have largely failed to accomplish diversity and inclusion, some groups have succeeded. Scott attributes this success to a combination of an ideology of inclusion and structural opportunities for leadership by women of color. In her study, she finds that a commitment to keeping women of color in leadership positions, along with a hierarchical organizational structure, helped organizations combating violence against women to maintain a racially diverse group. Other research illustrates that the most diverse and inclusive feminist organizations and networks are often the ones that are situated in communities that are also diverse in race and ethnicity ( Reger 2012 ).

It is important to note that while a discussion of social class and economic privilege has been a central part of feminist theories, the focus on diversity in the movement tends to ignore class and instead emphasizes race-ethnicity, generations, gender, and sexuality ( Helmbold 2002 ). Indeed, a meeting of several prominent feminist scholars, including Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Barbara Ehrenreich, concluded that contemporary feminism has far to go with addressing classism and needs to address the widening gap between social classes and the exploitation of poor and immigrant women by privileged women. 7

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Whereas the sex category of “woman” was the basis of much previous activism in the U.S. women’s movement, many contemporary feminists embrace a more fluid way of identifying one’s sex, gender, and sexuality. Instead of sex categories of male and female, and sexual identity categories of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual, many contemporary feminists identify instead as gender queer or simply queer, with a growing number identifying as transgender. Drawing on queer theory, this approach identifies sex, sexuality, and gender binaries as constraints, molding people to norms that control and limit their behavior and potential. Instead, gender and gender expression are seen as fluid, and exploring gender can be a politicizing experience ( Shapiro 2007 ). Contemporary feminists often play with gender norms and identity outside of the gender/sex binaries ( Snyder 2008 ). In Bobel’s study of different generations of menstrual activists, she found that contemporary, or “third wave” feminists move away from “woman” as an essential sex category. She writes,

Womb imagery, for instance, rings hollow for women who don’t identify with their procreative capacities (or lack of capacities). Calling attention to the uniquely female experience of monthly bleeding excludes young girls, post menopausal women, transgendered and transsexual women and women, who for myriad other reasons, cannot or will not bleed. Third Wave feminists are invested in inclusion, not essentialism. (2006: 340)

With the category of woman in flux, so too are categories of sexual identity. Instead of identifying on a continuum from heterosexual to bisexual to homosexual, contemporary feminists may also choose to expand the spectrum, identifying as queer, as in no category, or asexual. While sexual orientation in the past was an issue of discrimination within the movement, with events such as the labeling of lesbians as the “Lavender Menace” by Betty Friedan, twenty-first-century feminism is more focused on issues of transgender and how transgender women (transitioning from male to female, or MtF) fit in contemporary feminism. In the past, transgender, or transsexual, men (transitioning from female to male, or FtM) were seen as seeking male privilege and as traitors to their biological sex by some radical feminists ( Raymond [1979] 1994 ). Contemporary studies find that some feminists still resist including transgender women and men in their communities ( Hines 2005 ). For example, the Michigan Women’s Music Festival, an annual music festival started in the mid-1970s, continues to allow only woman-born-women to attend, despite decades of protest from the transgender community and its allies. However, some argue that the focus on gender fluidity, queer theory, and transgender rights is reshaping feminism in important ways ( Connell 2012 ; Stein 2010 ). Raywyn Connell writes that transgender people illustrate “living the instability of the sex/gender binary” and provide “key evidence about how gender categories are sustained in everyday practices of speech, styles of interaction, and divisions of labor” (2012: 861, 860). Arlene Stein notes that “[t]‌oday’s emergent categories are much more fine-tuned, combining sexual preferences, gender presentation and other modes of identification” (2010: 28). Indeed, Clare Snyder (2008) argues that one of the key components to “third wave” feminism is the way in which young feminists must address how transgender women and men have complicated the category of “woman.” This concerns some feminists, who are afraid that losing the sex and gender category of “woman” is problematic in a world where women as a group still do not experience equality ( Reger 2012 ; see also Stein 2010 ).

Along with gender and sexual identity, some contemporary feminists, reflecting on the “sex wars” of the 1980s, argue that feminism of the past has limited sexuality and the articulation of sexual desire for contemporary feminists ( Johnson 2002 ; Snyder 2008 ). While the feminist “sex wars” emerge from a complicated set of factors, one source comes from a 1982 conference at Barnard College where anti-pornography, sex radicals, and pro-sex feminists collided and debates over power, sexual expression, and eroticism broke out. Some argue that an oversimplified understanding of these differences between the anti-pornography and radical pro-sex feminists has been portrayed to a contemporary feminist generation ( Duggan and Hunter 2006 ; Gerhard 2001 ). For many young feminists, their understanding is that the generation before them advocated only “politically correct” and somewhat asexual and passive sexuality ( Johnson 2002 ; Reger 2012 ). Instead, contemporary feminists argue for a more “sex-positive” approach that embraces overt sexuality, and “emphasizes an inclusive and nonjudgmental approach that refuses to police the boundaries of the feminist political” ( Snyder 2008 : 175–176). One illustration of these ideas is the emergence of the 2011 “slutwalks” in which participants argued against the double sexual standard and the ways in which women are targeted by “slut shaming” and “sexual profiling” (SlutWalk Toronto 2011). Though short-lived, the slutwalks restored to public view not only the issue of sexual violence, but also the idea of the sexual empowerment of women. In sum, women and men continue to adopt feminist identities and participate in a movement that struggles with issues of generations, race-ethnicity, and sex, gender, and sexuality. I now turn to the contexts where contemporary feminists situate themselves.

Organizations, Networks, and Communities

Despite the death knell being sounded for feminism, there continue to be national-level, large-scale feminist organizations in the United States. Contemporary feminists continue work in organizations founded by previous generations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and Planned Parenthood ( Beechey 2005 ; Reger 2012 ). Contemporary feminists have also started their own national organizations such as the Third Wave Foundation, started by Rebecca Walker and Shannon Liss in 1992. The foundation is described as a “feminist, activist foundation that works nationally to support the vision and voices of young women, transgender and gender nonconforming youth ages 15 to 30” ( http://www.thirdwavefoundation.org ). The group provides grants to youth-led and focused organizations, advocates for social justice within the philanthropic community, and works on leadership development.

While acknowledging the existence of national-level organizations provides proof of feminism’s continuity, scholars warn against taking an overly narrow focus on large, national, and state-focused actions. Staggenborg and Taylor (2005) argue that when national-level mobilization slows, a movement is often declared dead, even though it continues to develop a broad spectrum of organizations. They argue that the women’s movement embraces multiple organizational forms that are often embedded in communities in local organizations and networks (see also Rupp and Taylor 1987 ; Taylor 1989 ). Examinations of feminism find active community networks of feminists working within national and local organizations, as well as those linked to activists in other movements ( Bobel 2010 ; Hurwitz and Taylor, forthcoming; Kutz-Flamenbaum 2007 ; Reger and Staggenborg 2006 ; Reger 2012 ). While contemporary feminists resemble their foremothers in the organizations and networks in which they work and live, the Internet has introduced new ways of experiencing activism and community.

Contemporary feminists move in a digital world ( Alfonso and Trigilio 1997 ; Crossley 2015 ; Daniels 2009 ; Everett 2004 ). The Internet is filled with contemporary feminist websites that offer advice, reading lists, calls for action, rants, merchandise, and most important, that serve as a foundation of feminist community and connection. Barbara Duncan illustrates how the contemporary feminist magazine Bust , through an online forum and website, can serve as a feminist community or “home,” much as Ms. magazine’s Letters to the Editor section did in the 1970s and 1980s (2005: 165). This engagement in the digital world is labeled “cyberfeminism,” defined as “experimentation and engagement with various Internet technologies by self-identified women across several domains, including work, education, domestic life, civic engagement, feminist political organizing, art, and play” ( Daniels 2009 : 103). Jesse Daniels argues that although digital technology has been dominated by men, cyberfeminists “use the Internet to transform their material, corporeal lives in a number of complex ways that both resist and reinforce hierarchies of gender and race” (2009: 101). Indeed, Alison Crossley notes that “[w]‌hile some people may wonder where the feminists have gone, it is clear that many feminists are online, fueling the feminist movement” (2015: 265). This place of resistance and protest also has the potential to bring together generations of feminists (Evertt 2004), or at the least, indicate generational shifts in tactics ( Crossley 2015 ). Anna Everett optimistically argues that conversations and debates between feminists about the practicality and purpose of cyberfeminism have the ability to reconceptualize generational relationships. She writes,

This is a good thing. For even as older feminists tell younger feminists how to do feminist history and philosophy, younger feminists can tell older feminists how to do cyberfeminist art, “hactivism,” and technological wizardry. Finally, we can move beyond some false or socially engineered generational barriers, develop mutual respect, and ultimately get over the so-called nagging-mother–daughter thing. (2004: 1281)

In sum, contemporary feminists move in what historian Leandra Zarnow calls “inherited intellectual and organizational spaces” (2010: 294), as well as in new frontiers in cyberspace.

Tactics, Strategies, and Goals

Writers and scholars have characterized contemporary feminism as undergoing a tactical shift from the feminism of the 1970s and 1980s with an emphasis on the everyday and the cultural versus a more institutional approach ( Evans and Bobel 2007 ; Fixmer and Wood 2005 ; Heywood and Drake 1997 ). This shift is to address what Snyder calls “impasses that developed within feminist theory in the 1980s” (2008: 175). As a result of these impasses, contemporary feminists focus on intersectionality versus “woman” as category, “multivocality over synthesis” (drawing on a postmodern perspective) and an open, accepting, and nonjudgmental view of the world ( Snyder 2008 : 175). In addition, some characterize contemporary feminists as viewing the individual as an important change agent who should engage in “personal acts of resistance in local sites where injustices occur” ( Fixmer and Wood 2005 : 237–238; Evans and Bobel 2007 ; Stevenson el al. 2011 ). In this perspective, contemporary feminist ideology and strategies are often viewed as overcoming the past mistakes of second-wave generation feminists and forging into more cultural and everyday life arenas.

The notion of the everyday and the individual as sites of protest moves away from more collective and feminist-identified protests. Evans and Bobel, in their review of popular feminist writings, argue that the everyday becomes a site of activism in “daily acts of resistance that may or may not be enacted under the feminist banner” (2007: 217). They give as examples serving as a feminist role model, challenging gender socialization at home, or organizing in neighborhoods, or working with different social movements. As such, the everyday can be outwardly focused or centered on the individual. In the late twentieth century, some contemporary feminist writers talked of doing feminism by playing with appearance through makeup, hair, clothing, and piercings as a way to construct and transmit a political message. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards labeled one expression of this as “girlie feminism,” in which feminists seek to reclaim the femininity and joy they perceive as missing in second wave feminism by embracing “disparaged girl things” (2000: 80). This reclaiming of “disparaged girl things” is also evident in twenty-first-century feminist crafting communities. Beth Ann Pentney, in her study of fiber arts and feminism, quotes knitting “guru” Debbie Stoller as saying, “valuing the craft of knitting is feminist act in itself … because the denigration of knitting correlates directly with the denigration of traditionally women-centred activity” (2008: 1). Self-expression as a form of activism is also evident in other ways in contemporary feminism. Alison Piepmeier (2009) documented the large feminist subculture of ’zines (self-published magazines), often made and distributed by individuals. She argues that these ’zines are more than creative expressions, but can be seen as efforts toward social change.

However, it is inaccurate to characterize all contemporary feminism as focused on individual and everyday notions of resistance. Contemporary feminist activism is also evident in the institutional and global context. Ara Wilson (2007) noted that transnational social justice gatherings, such as the World Social Forum, draw feminists from around the world working in a variety of organizations on a myriad of feminist issues. Indeed, feminist activism continues to grow in the global arena ( Ferree and Tripp 2006 ). For example, Jessica Taft documents the activism by girls across the Americas that mixes a variety of issues with aspects of feminism (2011). However, engaging in work with other movements, as well as working within some communities, can hide feminist activism from the general public’s view. Indeed, contemporary feminists continue to work on topics ranging from prison reform to anti-poverty programs to electoral politics, continuing the coalition and crossover work begun in the 1960s and 1970s with feminist engagement in a variety of other movements, including community, welfare rights, self-help, environmental, gay and lesbian, peace, anti-racist, and global justice ( Staggenborg and Taylor 2005 ; Taft 2011 ).

In sum, contemporary feminists resemble other generations of feminists in many ways. They continue to adopt feminist identities and engage in feminist activism. They struggle with building a diverse and inclusive movement, and they work in organizations and agencies founded in the 1970s and 1980s geared at women’s lives. However, contemporary feminists also are situated in a very different context from that of earlier feminists. They live in a digital and computerized world that creates new communities and forms of activism. They address ideas of intersectionality and gender/sex/sexual fluidity in their beliefs and actions. They focus on the individual and the everyday, while at the same time engaging in efforts at larger social change. Scholars of the U.S. women’s movement illustrate how, just as in the past, contemporary feminists are a diverse group who bring a multitude of meanings, beliefs, and identities to feminist activism.

Future Directions for Research

The core characteristics of contemporary feminism also highlight the direction that the future of feminist research will take. Feminist researchers will continue to examine the interplay between digital technology and feminist identity, ideology, and activism, the role of transgender and gender/sex/sexual fluidity in a “women’s” movement, the continuing barriers to racial-ethnic diversity and inclusion in the movement, and the way that feminism often aligns with other protests, remaining submerged yet relevant.

Cyberfeminism

Feminist research must continue to examine the interplay between digital technology and the creation of feminist identities, ideology, and activism. Stephanie Schulte notes (2011) that early feminist scholarship tended to see the Internet as either a space for genderless, and bodiless, liberation or as a male-dominated sphere where gender oppression would be reinscribed. In a review of cyberfeminism scholarship, she notes that feminist research is less focused on this binary and is turning its attention to how “online power only matters if it also translates to offline power” (2011: 737). A goal for researchers will be to take the rich world that exists online and see how it is transformed into collective action in the “real” world, beyond the Internet. Cyberfeminism offers social movement scholars an opportunity to examine how social change efforts and locations are shifting and how outcomes can be measured.

Shifting views of gender and its relationship to sex and sexual identity will continue to be of concern for feminists and feminist researchers. Transgender and the notion of gender fluidity will continue to challenge the notion of a movement of “women.” As Connell notes, “The issue of transsexual women’s relation to the feminist project has not been settled. It is time to reconsider the terms in which the problem has been framed” (2012: 823). She argues that transgender is more than an identity that can be understood as a group process, claiming, instead, that transgender offers feminist researchers a site to investigate and expand on gender dynamics of context, space, and time. Feminist researchers need to heed this call to investigate what it means to move beyond gender binaries and the impact that this shift has on movement organization, ideology, and identity. What does it mean to let go of ideas of universal sisterhood and the category of “woman”? In particular, researchers need to examine what undoing gender means in trans- and international contexts. Ferree and Mueller (2004) define the difference between feminist movements, concerned with gender equity, and women’s movements, focused on women’s lives. Researcher must investigate questions such as: How do Western conceptions of “gender fluidity” influence women’s movements in other contexts? Can feminist or women’s movements exist without the idea of “woman” as a given category?

As the research of Benita Roth and Becky Thompson illustrates, the history of race in the women’s movement is a complicated one that deserves close examination. Most studies of contemporary feminism find that feminists embrace the idea of inclusion, while at the same time constructing organizations and networks that reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of their communities and daily lives. Scholars need to continue to look closely at White women’s feminism and organizations to see what barriers exist to racial-ethnic diversity and inclusion. Scholars will also need to heed Angela Davis’s warning that “[d]‌iversity is not a synonym for justice” and consider what it means to experience diversity within the movement and what that accomplishes for feminism. 8

Scholars will also continue to look closely at communities of color for the way feminism is being done in ways not yet recognized as feminist. Black feminist scholars have noted how feminism done by women of color has not always aligned with feminism done by White women. These variations in what it means to be and do feminism can add both theoretically and empirically to our understanding of women’s movements. In addition, racial identifications beyond White and Black, as well as identifications of social class, need continued close examination to have a more complete understanding of contemporary feminism. Social class is clearly one of the most understudied aspects of the U.S. women’s movement. Researchers need to delve into the past to understand the dynamics of class and then examine the current movement for the ways in which class continues to influence and shape the movement.

Looking in Unexpected Places

The call to end the use of the “wave” metaphor has been sounded by contemporary scholars who will continue to look for new ways to understand a complicated movement. Part of re-examining the history of the U.S. women’s movement will also be to examine what has been defined as “feminist.” Contemporary feminists have illustrated how feminist ideologies often underlie issues that do not appear to be feminist as first glance. Continuing to draw on “waves” to see “feminist” protests will result in a myopic view of the women’s movement. Moving beyond the notion of “waves” will allow researchers to conceptualize the movement in new and important ways. Researchers are tasked with understanding how feminists adopt tactics, work in generational situations, and define themselves in coalitions with a variety of organizations. This will most likely entail a new conceptual vocabulary and new methods of investigation that have the potential of shaping the field of social movements. In sum, continued examinations of U.S. feminism in all of these directions will expand our knowledge of women’s activism, as well as our understandings of social movements in general.

1. 1992 Iowa fundraising letter opposing a state equal-rights amendment ( “Equal Rights Initiative in Iowa Attacked,” Washington Post , August 23, 1992 ).

Roth and Thompson argue that this simplified history creates an understanding of 1960s and 1970s activism that is focused on individual rights and equality with men with little regard to class and race analyses. Nadasen combines issues of race and social class in her analysis of the feminist underpinnings of the Welfare Rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Hewitt traces this back further in history and argues that when the story of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention is told, missing is the racial and class diversity of activists. She argues that African-American women were particularly important in both women’s rights and abolition efforts, a fact often left out.

For example, Lelia Rupp and Verta Taylor document that feminism was sustained through the “doldrums” between the first and second waves and never completely disappeared. Kate Weigand argues that from the 1940s to the 1960s the Communist Worker’s Party provided a place to continue a dialogue about feminism, illustrating the murkiness of the discrete wave model. Even ideologies are not simple to characterize by wave. For example, Stephanie Gilmore illustrates how the National Organization for Women (NOW), often described as a moderate liberal feminist organization, actually embraced a range of ideologies on sex and sexuality, many of which do not fit neatly into the organization’s popular characterization.

http://time.com/3576870/worst-words-poll-2014/ .

The “slutwalks” emerged in 2011 after a Toronto police officer was quoted as saying if women dress like “sluts,” they put themselves in danger of sexual assault. Within a short period of time, “slutwalks” were organized around the globe, sparking new mobilization around sexual assault and rape. While the “slutwalks” seemed to invigorate the movement, they prompted debates (divided by issues of generation and race) on the use of the word “slut” as empowering ( Reger 2014 ).

Alfonso, Rita , and Jo Trigilio . 1997 . “ Surfing the Third Wave: A Dialogue Between Two Third Wave Feminists. ” Hypatia 12(3): 7–16.

Google Scholar

Aronson, Pamela.   2003 . “ Feminists or ‘Postfeminists’? Young Women’s Attitudes toward Feminism and Gender Relations. ” Gender & Society 17(6): 903–922.

Bailey, Cathryn.   1997 . “ Making Waves and Drawing Lines: The Politics of Defining the Vicissitudes of Feminism. ” Hypatia : A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 12(Summer): 17–28.

Baumgardner, Jennifer , and Amy Richards . 2000 . Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future . New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

Google Preview

Beechey, Suzanne.   2005 . “When Feminism Is Your Job: Age and Power in Women’s Policy Organizations.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 117–136. New York: Routledge.

Bobel, Chris.   2006 . “ Our Revolution Has Style”: Contemporary Menstrual Product Activists ‘Doing Feminism’ in the Third Wave. ” Sex Roles 54: 331–345.

Bobel, Chris.   2010 . New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Braungart, Richard , and Margaret A. Braungart . 1984 . “ Life Course and Generational Politics. ” Annual Review of Sociology 12: 205–231.

Breines, Winifred.   2006 . The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement . New York: Oxford.

Caldwell, Kia Lilly , and Margaret Hunter . 2004 . “ Creating a Feminist Community on a Women of Color Campus. ” Frontiers 25(1): 23–38.

Chancer, Lynn S.   1998 . Reconcilable Differences: Confronting Beauty, Pornography and the Future of Feminism . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Cobble, Dorothy Sue.   2010 . “Labor Feminists and President Kennedy’s Commission on Women.” In No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism , edited by N. A. Hewitt , pp. 144–167. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Combahee River Collective. 1979 . “ Combahee River Collective: A Black Feminist Statement. ” Off our Backs 9(6): 6–8.

Collins, Patricia Hill.   2000 . Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment . Rev. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Routledge.

Connell, Raewyn.   2012 . “ Transsexual Women and Feminist Thought: Toward New Understanding and New Politics. ” Signs 37(4): 857–881.

Contrera, Jessica. September 29, 2014. “ Can Stars Mix Fame and Feminism? Female Celebrities Being Asked about ‘F-word’ More and More. ” The Toronto Star , p. E1.

Crossley, Alison Dahl.   2015 . “ Facebook Feminism: Social Media, Blogs and New Technologies of Contemporary U.S. Feminism. ” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 20(2): 253–268.

Daniels, Jesse.   2009 . “ Rethinking Cyberfeminism(s): Race, Gender, and Embodiment. ” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly 37(1–2): 101–124.

Dicker, Rory , and Alison Piepmeier , eds. 2003 . Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century . Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Douglas, Susan J.   2010 . Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work Is Done . New York: Times Books.

Duggan, Lisa , and Nan D. Hunter . 2006 . Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture . New York: Taylor & Francis.

Duncan, Barbara.   2005 . “Searching for a Home Place: Online in the Third Wave.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 161–178. New York: Routledge.

Evans, Meredith A. , and Chris Bobel . 2007 . “ ‘I Am a Contradiction’: Feminism and Feminist Identity in the Third Wave. ” New England Journal of Public Policy 1–2: 207–222.

Everett, Anna.   2004 . “ On Cyberfeminism and Cyberwomanism: High-Tech Mediations of Feminism’s Discontents. ” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30(1): 1278–1286.

Faludi, Susan.   1991 . Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women . New York: Crown Publishers.

Fixmer, Natalie , and Julia T. Wood . 2005 . “ The Personal Is Still Political: Embodied Politics in Third Wave Feminism. ” Women’s Studies in Communication 28(2): 235–257.

Foster, Johanna E.   2015 . “ Women of a Certain Age: ‘Second Wave’ Feminists Reflect Back on 50 years of Struggle in the United States. ” Women’s Studies International Forum 50: 58–79.

Ferree, Myra Marx , and Carol McClurg Mueller . 2004 . “Feminism and the Women’s Movement: A Global Perspective.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements , edited by D. Snow , S. A. Soule , and H. Kriesi , pp. 576–607. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ferree, Myra Marx , and Aili Mari Tripp , eds. 2006 . Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights . New York: New York University Press.

Garrison, Ednie K.   2000 . “ U.S. Feminism—Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub)Cultures and the Technologics of the Third Wave. ” Feminist Studies 26(1): 141–151.

Garrison, Ednie K.   2005 . “Are We on a Wavelength Yet? On Feminist Oceanography, Radios and Third Wave Feminism.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 237–256. New York: Routledge.

Gerhard, Jane.   2001 . Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought, 1920 to 1982 . New York: Columbia University Press.

Giddings, Paula.   1984 . When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America . New York: Bantam.

Gilmore, Stephanie.   2005 . “Bridging the Waves: Sex and Sexuality in a Second Wave Organization.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 97–116. New York: Routledge.

Glickman, Rose L.   1993 . Daughters of Feminists . New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Hall, Elaine , and Marnie S. Rodriquez . 2003 . “ The Myth of Postfeminism. ” Gender & Society 17(6): 878–902.

Hawkesworth, Mary.   2004 . “ The Semiotics of Premature Burial: Feminism in a Postfeminist Age. ” Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 29(Summer): 961–986.

Helmbold, Lois.   2002 . “ Classless and Clueless in NWSA: A History of the Poor and Working Class Caucus. ” NWSA Journal 14(1):58–70.

Henry, Astrid.   2004 . Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Henry, Astrid.   2005 . “Solitary Sisterhood: Individualism Meets Collectivity in Feminism’s Third Wave.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 81–96. New York: Routledge.

Henry, Astrid.   2011 . “Waves.” In Rethinking Women and Gender Studies , edited by C. Orr , A. Braithwaite , and D. Lichtenstein , pp. 102–118. New York: Routledge.

Hercus, Cheryl.   2005 . Stepping Out of Line: Becoming and Being Feminist . New York: Routledge.

Hernandez, Daisy , and Bushra Rehman , eds. 2002 . Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism . New York: Seal Press.

Hewitt, Nancy , ed. 2010 a. No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Hewitt, Nancy.   2010 b. “From Seneca Falls to Suffrage: Reimagining a ‘Master’ Narrative in U.S. Women’s History.” In No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism , edited by N. A. Hewitt , pp. 15–38. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Heywood, Leslie , and Jennifer Drake . 1997 . “Introduction.” In Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism , edited by L. Heywood and J. Drake , pp. 1–20. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Hines, Sally.   2005 . “‘I am a Feminist but …’ Transgender Men and Women and Feminism.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 57–77. New York: Routledge.

Houvouras, Shannon , and J. Scott Carter . 2008 . “ The F word: College Students' Definitions of a Feminist. ” Sociological Forum 23(2): 234–256.

Hurwitz, Heather McKee , and Verta Taylor . Forthcoming. “Women Occupying Wall Street: Gender Conflict and Feminist Mobilization.” In 100 Years of the Nineteenth Amendment: An Appraisal of Women’s Political Activism , edited by L. A. Banasak and H. J. McCammon . New York: Oxford University Press.

Jay, Karla.   1999 . Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation . New York: Basic Books.

Johnson, Merri Lisa.   2002 . “Jane Hocus, Jane Focus.” In Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire , edited by M. L. Johnson , pp. 1–12. New York: Four Walls, Eight Windows.

Johnson-Bailey, Juanita.   2003 . “ Everyday Perspectives on Feminism: African American Women Speak Out. ” Race, Gender & Class 10(3): 82–99.

Johnston, Josee , and Judith Taylor . 2008 . “ Feminist Consumerism and Fat Activists: A Comparative Study of Grassroots Activism and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. ” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 33(4): 941–966.

Kelly, Maura.   2014 . “ Knitting as a Feminist Project? ” Women’s Studies International Forum 44(May–June): 133–144.

King, Deborah.   1988 . “ Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology. ” Signs: Journal of Culture and Society 14(1): 42–72.

Kutz-Flamenbaum, Rachel.   2007 . “ Code Pink, Raging Grannies, and the Missile Dick Chicks: Feminist Performance Activism in the Contemporary Anti-War Movement. ” NWSA Journal 19(1): 89–105.

Laughlin, Kathleen A. , Julie Gallagher , Dorothy Sue Cobble , Eileen Boris , Premilla Nadasen , Stephanie Gilmore , and Leandra Zarnow . 2010 . “ Is It Time to Jump Ship? Historians Rethink the Waves Metaphor. ” Feminist Formations 22(1):76–135.

Marcus, Sara.   2010 . Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution . New York: Harper.

McCabe, Janice.   2005 . “ What’s in a Label? The Relationship between Feminist Self-Identification and ‘Feminist’ Attitudes among U.S. Women and Men. ” Gender & Society 19(4): 480–505.

McGuire, Kristin , Abigail J. Stewart , and Nicola Curtin . 2010 . “ Becoming Feminist Activists: Comparing Narratives. ” Feminist Studies 36(Spring): 99–125.

Messner, Michael.   2002 . Taking the Field: Women, Men and Sports . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Moraga, Cherrie , and Gloria Anzaldua , eds. 1981 . This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color . New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press.

Nadasen, Premilla.   2002 . “ Expanding the Boundaries of the Women’s Movement: Black Feminism and the Struggle for Welfare Rights. ” Feminist Studies 28(2):271–303.

Naples, Nancy.   2005 . “Confronting the Future, Learning from the Past: Feminist Praxis in the Twenty-First Century.” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of The Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 215–236. New York: Routledge.

Nicholson, Linda. 2010. “Feminism in ‘Waves’: Useful Metaphor or Not?” New Politics . http://newpol.org/content/feminism-waves-useful-metaphor-or-not (accessed March 14, 2014).

Orr, Catherine.   1997 . “ Charting the Currents of the Third Wave. ” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 12(3): 29–45.

Pentney, Beth Ann. 2008. “Feminist Activism, and Knitting: Are Fibre Arts a Viable Mode for Feminist Political Action?” thirdspace: a journal of feminist theory & culture 8(1). http://journals.sfu.ca/thirdspace/index.php/journal/article/viewArticle/pentney/210 (accessed November 25, 2016).

Peoples, Whitney.   2007 . “ ‘Under Construction’: Identifying Foundations of Hip-Hop Feminism and Exploring Bridges between Black Second-Wave and Hip-Hop Feminism. ” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 8(1): 19–52.

Piepmeier, Alison.   2009 . Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism . New York: New York University Press.

Pollit, Katha. 2009. “Amber Waves of Blame.” The Nation [Online]. http://www.thenation.com/article/amber-waves-blame (accessed November 25, 2016).

Pozner, Jennifer.   2003 . “The ‘Big Lie’: False Feminist Death Syndrome, Profit, and the Media.” In Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century , edited by R. Dicker and A. Piepmeier , pp. 31–56. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Raizada, Kristen.   2007 . “ An Interview with the Guerilla Girls, Dyke Action Machine (DAM!), and the Toxic Titties. ” NWSA Journal 19(1): 39–58.

Raymond, Janice. [ 1979 ] 1994. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male . New York: Teachers College Press.

Reger, Jo.   2012 . Everywhere and Nowhere: Contemporary Feminism in the United States . New York: Oxford University Press.

Reger, Jo.   2014 . “ Micro Cohorts, Feminist Generations and the Making of the Toronto Slutwalk. ” Feminist Formations 26(1): 49–69.

Reger, Jo , and Suzanne Staggenborg . 2006 . “ Patterns of Mobilization in Local Movement Organizations: Leadership and Strategy in Four National Organization for Women Chapters. ” Sociological Perspectives 49(3): 297–323.

Rosenberg, Jessica , and Gitana Garofalo . 1998 . “ Riot Grrrl: Revolutions from Within. ” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 23(Summer): 811–841.

Roth, Benita.   2002 . Separate Roads to Feminism: Black Chicana and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second Wave . New York: Cambridge.

Roth, Silke.   2008 . “Dealing with Diversity: The Coalition of Labor Union Women.” In Identity Work in Social Movements , edited by J. Reger , D. J. Myers , and R. L. Einwohner , pp. 213–231. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Rupp, Leila J. , and Verta Taylor . 1987 . Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to 1960s . New York: Oxford University Press.

Schneider, Beth.   1988 . “ Political Generations in the Contemporary Women’s Movement. ” Sociological Inquiry 58: 4–21.

Schnittker, Jason , Jeremy Freese , and Brian Powell . 2003 . “ Who Are Feminists and What Do They Believe?: The Role of Generations. ” American Sociological Review 68: 607–622.

Schulte, Stephanie Ricker.   2011 . “ Review: Surfing Feminism’s Online Wave: The Internet and the Future of Feminism. ” Feminist Studies 37(3): 727–744.

Scott, Ellen K.   2005 . “ Beyond Tokenism: The Making of Racially Diverse Feminist Organizations. ” Social Problems 52(2): 232–254.

Shapiro, Eve.   2007 . “ Drag Kinging and the Transformation of Gender Identities. ” Gender & Society 21(2): 250–271.

SlutWalk Toronto (SWTO). 2011. “Who”; “Why.” https://www.facebook.com/pg/SlutWalkToronto/about/ .

Snitow, Ann , and Rachel Dupleissis . 1998 . The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women’s Liberation . New York: Three Rivers Press.

Snyder, Clare.   2008 . “ Third Wave Feminism: A New Directions Essay. ” Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 33(4): 175–196.

Springer, Kimberly.   2005 . “Strongblackwomen and Black Feminism: A Next Generation?” In Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement , edited by J. Reger , pp. 3–21. New York: Routledge.

Staggenborg, Suzanne , and Verta Taylor . 2005 . “ Whatever Happened to the Women’s Movement? ” Mobilization: The International Journal of Research and Theory about Social Movements, Protest and Collective Behavior 10(1): 37–52.

Stein, Arlene.   2010 . “ The Incredible Shrinking Lesbian World and Other Queer Conundra. ” Sexualities 13(1): 21–32.

Stevenson, Deborah , Christine Everingham , and Penelope Robinson . 2011 . “ Choices and Life Chances: Feminism and the Politics of Generational Change. ” Social Politics 18(1): 125–145.

Taft, Jessica K.   2011 . Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change across the Americas . New York: New York University Press.

Taylor, Verta.   1989 . “ Sources of Continuity in Social Movements: The Women’s Movement in Abeyance. ” American Sociological Review 54: 761–775.

Taylor, Verta , and Nancy Whittier . 1992 . “Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Feminist Mobilization.” In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory , edited by A. D. Morris and C. M. Mueller , pp. 104–129. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.

Taylor, Verta , and Nancy Whittier . 1997 . “The New Feminist Movement.” In Feminist Frontiers IV , edited by L. Richardson , V. Taylor , and N. Whittier , pp. 544–561. New York: McGraw Hill.

Third Wave Foundation. “Mission.” http://www.thirdwavefoundation.org/about-us/mission/ (accessed March 2015).

Thompson, Becky.   2002 . “ Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism. ” Feminist Studies 28: 337–360.

Walker, Rebecca. 1992. “ Becoming the Third Wave. ” Ms . Magazine (January–February), 39–41.

Whittier, Nancy.   1995 . Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women’s Movement . Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Whittier, Nancy.   1997 . “ Political Generations, Micro-cohorts, and the Transformation of Social Movements. ” American Sociological Review 67: 760–778.

Wilson, Ara.   2007 . “ Feminism in the Space of the World Forum. ” Journal of International Women’s Studies 8(3): 1–27.

Zarnow, Leandra.   2010 . “From Sisterhood to Girlie Culture: Closing the Great Divide between Second and Third Wave Cultural Agenda.” In No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism , edited by N. A. Hewitt , pp. 273–302. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Feminism: An Essay

Feminism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 27, 2016 • ( 6 )

Feminism as a movement gained potential in the twentieth century, marking the culmination of two centuries’ struggle for cultural roles and socio-political rights — a struggle which first found its expression in Mary Wollstonecraft ‘s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The movement gained increasing prominence across three phases/waves — the first wave (political), the second wave (cultural) and the third wave (academic). Incidentally Toril Moi also classifies the feminist movement into three phases — the female (biological), the feminist (political) and the feminine (cultural).

The first wave of feminism, in the 19th and 20th centuries, began in the US and the UK as a struggle for equality and property rights for women, by suffrage groups and activist organisations. These feminists fought against chattel marriages and for polit ical and economic equality. An important text of the first wave is Virginia Woolf ‘s A Room of One’s Own (1929), which asserted the importance of woman’s independence, and through the character Judith (Shakespeare’s fictional sister), explicated how the patriarchal society prevented women from realising their creative potential. Woolf also inaugurated the debate of language being gendered — an issue which was later dealt by Dale Spender who wrote Man Made Language (1981), Helene Cixous , who introduced ecriture feminine (in The Laugh of the Medusa ) and Julia Kristeva , who distinguished between the symbolic and the semiotic language.

The second wave of feminism in the 1960s and ’70s, was characterized by a critique of patriarchy in constructing the cultural identity of woman. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) famously stated, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” – a statement that highlights the fact that women have always been defined as the “Other”, the lacking, the negative, on whom Freud attributed “ penis-envy .” A prominent motto of this phase, “The Personal is the political” was the result of the awareness .of the false distinction between women’s domestic and men’s public spheres. Transcending their domestic and personal spaces, women began to venture into the hitherto male dominated terrains of career and public life. Marking its entry into the academic realm, the presence of feminism was reflected in journals, publishing houses and academic disciplines.

Mary Ellmann ‘s Thinking about Women (1968), Kate Millett ‘s Sexual Politics (1969), Betty Friedan ‘s The Feminine Mystique (1963) and so on mark the major works of the phase. Millett’s work specifically depicts how western social institutions work as covert ways of manipulating power, and how this permeates into literature, philosophy etc. She undertakes a thorough critical understanding of the portrayal of women in the works of male authors like DH Lawrence, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and Jean Genet.

In the third wave (post 1980), Feminism has been actively involved in academics with its interdisciplinary associations with Marxism , Psychoanalysis and Poststructuralism , dealing with issues such as language, writing, sexuality, representation etc. It also has associations with alternate sexualities, postcolonialism ( Linda Hutcheon and Spivak ) and Ecological Studies ( Vandana Shiva )

Elaine Showalter , in her “ Towards a Feminist Poetics ” introduces the concept of gynocriticism , a criticism of gynotexts, by women who are not passive consumers but active producers of meaning. The gynocritics construct a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature, and focus on female subjectivity, language and literary career. Patricia Spacks ‘ The Female Imagination , Showalter’s A Literature of their Own , Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar ‘s The Mad Woman in the Attic are major gynocritical texts.

The present day feminism in its diverse and various forms, such as liberal feminism, cultural/ radical feminism, black feminism/womanism, materialist/neo-marxist feminism, continues its struggle for a better world for women. Beyond literature and literary theory, Feminism also found radical expression in arts, painting ( Kiki Smith , Barbara Kruger ), architecture( Sophia Hayden the architect of Woman’s Building ) and sculpture (Kate Mllett’s Naked Lady).

Share this:

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: A Literature of their Own , A Room of One's Own , Barbara Kruger , Betty Friedan , Dale Spender , ecriture feminine , Elaine Showalter , Feminism , Gynocriticism , Helene Cixous , http://bookzz.org/s/?q=Kate+Millett&yearFrom=&yearTo=&language=&extension=&t=0 , Judith Shakespeare , Julia Kristeva , Kate Millett , Kiki Smith , Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Man Made Language , Mary Ellmann , Mary Wollstonecraft , Patricia Spacks , Sandra Gilbert , Simone de Beauvoir , Sophia Hayden , Susan Gubar , The Female Imagination , The Feminine Mystique , The Laugh of the Medusa , The Mad Woman in the Attic , The Second Sex , Toril Moi , Towards a Feminist Poetics , Vandana Shiva , Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Related Articles

• Mary Wollstonecraft’s Contribution to Feminism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• The Influence of Poststructuralism on Feminism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Sigmund Freud and the Trauma Theory – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Gender and Transgender Criticism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Second Wave Feminism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

10 Essential Feminist Texts That Everyone Should Read

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique , a book that, as the Times put it, “ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world.” To celebrate the book’s anniversary, we’ve put together a list of ten essential feminist reads, from fiction and poetry to essays and nonfiction dissections. Read through our picks after the jump — and since there are so many more than ten important feminist texts worthy of pressing into any friend’s hands, add your own favorites to our list in the comments.

The Feminine Mystique , Betty Friedan

Friedan’s 1963 investigation into “the problem that has no name” — that is, the unrepentant unhappiness she found among housewives — is one of the most influential books of the 20th century, and is generally credited with being the catalyst for the rise of second-wave feminism in the United States.

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics , bell hooks

Well, you heard her — this is by its very project a book for everyone. bell hooks has written a host of books that could fit this list, but this one is a primer of sorts to the movement — or at least hooks’s interpretation of the movement. She calls for a feminism that breaks barriers: “A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving,” she writes. “There can be no love without justice.”

A Room of One’s Own , Virginia Woolf

Another classic, we’d recommend Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own — an extended essay that explores women’s relationship to writing — to just about anyone. The Woolf devotees in this writer’s life happen to be almost exclusively men, so this might be a particularly good place to start for all you literary boys curious about feminism.

The Beauty Myth , Naomi Wolf

This 1991 text, which dissects the relationship between the growing social prominence of women and society’s demands for them to conform to specific standards of beauty, is as relevant now as it was 20 years ago — since, sadly, nothing much has changed in this arena since then. Betty Friedan herself wrote in Allure that “ The Beauty Myth and the controversy it is eliciting could be a hopeful sign of a new surge of feminist consciousness.”

Sister Outsider , Audre Lorde

One of the most influential voices of the feminist movement rings out in this collection of 15 essays and speeches by Caribbean-American activist Audre Lorde. “Perhaps,” Lorde challenges her reader in “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” “I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself — a Black woman warrior poet doing my work — come to ask you, are you doing yours?”

The Second Sex , Simone de Beauvoir

“I hesitated a long time before writing a book on woman,” De Beauvoir begins. “The subject is irritating, especially for women; and it is not new. Enough ink has flowed over the quarrel about feminism; it is now almost over: let’s not talk about it anymore.” This was in 1959 — and the sentiment is as fresh now as it was then, just like (most of) the rest of De Beauvoir’s lucid, equal parts literary and philosophical, book. Another installment in the classic-for-a-reason file.

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton , Lucille Clifton

Feminism and poetry have a long and storied history together , and Lucille Clifton is one of the most beloved of its flagbearers, her poems ringing with race, sex, and the ever-present body. This volume, which collects all 11 of Lucille Clifton’s published collections, plus 50-odd unpublished works, is not only an essential text for those interested in feminism, but a must for all readers of poems, heralded by Publisher’s Weekly as “the most important book of poetry to appear in years.”

The Woman Warrior , Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston’s take on the memoir blends her personal experiences with traditional Chinese folktales, examining the Chinese-American experience as well as the female one, taking on the cultural source of oppression. She writes: “There is a Chinese word for the female I — which is ‘slave’. Break the women with their own tongues!” So why not seek the attention reserved for boys by channeling Fa Mu Lan and swapping out her gender? “I refused to cook. When I had to wash dishes, I would crack one or two. ‘Bad girl,’ my mother yelled, and sometimes that made me gloat rather than cry. Isn’t a bad girl almost a boy?”

Sexual Politics , Kate Millett

For the staunchly literary-minded among you, try Kate Millett’s 1970 book, widely heralded as the very first work of “academic feminist literary criticism,” which started as her doctoral dissertation. Though the book stirred up as much denunciation as it did praise, we think it’s an essential lens (one of many) for looking at the Western canon.

How to Be a Woman , Caitlin Moran

This list is filled with books written decades ago, so we thought we’d conclude with a recent triumph: Caitlin Moran’s manifesto on being a woman today, filled with brash, no-nonsense criticism steeped in a saucy sense of humor. An example: “We need to reclaim the word ‘feminism’. We need the word ‘feminism’ back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist – and only 42% of British women – I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? ‘Vogue’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?”

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family

Historically, few of the philosophers who defended justice in the public political realm argued for just family structures. Instead, most viewed the family as a separate realm that needed to be protected from state intrusion. The private sphere and the public sphere were dichotomized into separate realms with the latter beyond the reach of public action. Where these philosophers did not legitimate private power in the family, they simply ignored it.

John Stuart Mill was a notable exception, arguing in The Subjection of Women , that the inequality of women in the family was incompatible with their equality in the wider social world. Consider, he asks, the consequences of “the self-worship, the unjust self preference” nourished in boys growing up in male dominated households in which “by the mere fact of being born male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race” (1869, 86–87). How will such boys grow up into men who treat women as equals? Feminist scholarship has continued, extended and deepened this attack on the conception of the family as a private personal realm. Indeed, the idea that “the personal [that is, the family] is political” is the core idea of most contemporary feminism.

1.1 The family is a political institution

1.2 the family affects the development of future citizens, 1.3 the family constrains or enables women's freedoms, 2.1 choice based evaluations, 2.2 equality based evaluations, 2.3 the interests of children, 3.1 abortion, 3.2 commercial surrogacy, 4. concluding thoughts, other internet resources, related entries, 1. why the family is subject to principles of justice.

Feminists argue that the so-called private realms of family, sex and reproduction must be part of the political realm and thus subject to principles of justice for three distinct reasons:

• Families are not “natural” orderings, but social institutions backed up by laws. For example, marriage is a social institution. Therefore, the state cannot choose not to intervene in families: the only question is how it should intervene and on what basis.
• The state has a critical interest in the development of future citizens.
• The division of labor in traditional families constrains women's opportunities and freedoms in the wider society.

Let us consider each of these three arguments in turn.

Traditional views of the family often treat it as a pre-political or as a non-political institution. The family is viewed as pre-political by those that hold that its basis lies in certain facts of biology and psychology. The family is viewed as non-political by those who hold that the circumstances of politics — scarcity, conflict of interests and power — do not obtain in the family. Both of these assumptions are problematic and have been subject to feminist criticism.

1.1.1 Why the family is not pre-political

For many traditional theorists of the family, nature itself necessitates the division of tasks within the family. Women naturally want to have and raise children; men by nature do not (Rousseau 1762). There is thus a physiologically grounded basis of gender difference: women's predominant role in childrearing and domestic labor is their biological destiny.

Feminists have given three responses to this argument.

Social constructivists deny that there are any essential differences between male and female bodies or psychologies that explain women's position in the family (Haslanger 2000). Social constructivists have explored the ways in which culture and society have shaped even the most ostensibly natural differences between men and women. They argue that many of the differences between men and women alleged to be the source of gender inequality should instead be viewed as the outcome of that inequality. For example, they claim that we cannot understand sex-based differentials of height and physical strength without considering the influence of diet, division of labor, and physical training. Feminist historians and anthropologists have sought to demonstrate the significant roles that culture, religion and social class have played in shaping women's lives (Scott 1988).

Difference feminists accept that there are essential biological or psychological differences between men and women. But they seek to challenge the normative and social implications of these differences. Even if women are by nature more nurturing than men, or more concerned with their relationships with others, the effects of these differences depend on how we value them (Gilligan 1982, Noddings 1986). If nurturing were a more valued activity, for example, then we might arrange the work world so that women (and men) could spend more time with their children. Or, we might pay women (and men) for their household labor and work in raising children. Difference feminists seek to celebrate and revalue those characteristics traditionally associated with women. On their view, there is no necessary problem with a sex-based division of labor, provided it is voluntary and that male and female roles are appropriately valued. This difference perspective is perhaps best summed up by the words of the familiar quip: women who want to be equal with men lack ambition.

The anti-subordination feminist perspective aims to dislodge questions about biological and psychological difference from the center of debates about the family and reproduction. A narrow focus on men and women's “difference” versus their “equality” obscures what is at stake in treating people as equals. Even if there are some natural differences between men and women, the crucial point is that these differences do not justify social structures that leave women vulnerable to poverty, unequal pay for equal work, and domestic violence. Whatever the facts about women's biology or psychology, such differences do not entail women's social subordination (MacKinnon 1989, Rhode 1989). Biology does not explain coverture — the eighteenth century doctrine that assigned a wife's property and rights wholly to her husband — contemporary divorce law, child custody laws, or laws governing women's reproduction. Nothing in our nature dictates the structure of work and school hours that make it extremely difficult for anyone to combine work and raising children. Even if nature is part of the causal story of gender differences, it cannot by itself explain — or more importantly justify — the extent of the social inequality between men and women.

1.1.2 Why the family is not non-political

The fact that law already has permeated the family — as in the doctrine of coverture — is an important insight of contemporary feminism. Families have always been shaped by law — by coercion, as well as by social convention. For example, state laws in the United States regulate who can marry, who has parental rights, who can divorce and on what terms, and who can inherit property. Almost all countries have laws that prevent gay couples from marrying and in many places from adopting children; in other countries daughters cannot inherit property at all with devastating consequences for their well-being. The family has, in fact, always been heavily regulated by the state, often in ways detrimental to women's equality (Fineman 1995).

Nevertheless, some political thinkers argue that law — particularly, the assignment of rights and obligations — are inappropriately applied within the family. While families may appropriately be regulated as a legal entity through marriage and divorce, these thinkers argue that the day-to-day interactions of families are based on different principles. Families are based on the ties of love and affection, not justice. The circumstances of justice — conflict of interests, power, and scarcity — do not belong in families, at least when they are functioning properly. These thinkers criticize the idea — which they associate with bringing justice into the family — that the task of washing the dishes should be allocated on principles of justice (Sandel 1982).

There is something to be said for an ideal of families as associations beyond justice whose participants think from a sense of their intertwined lives, of a common good. In Christopher Lasch's resonant phrase, such families can be a “haven in a heartless world”. But this view of the family is limited in certain crucial respects. First, many families, rather than based on love and consent are based on coercion. Real families are often characterized by disagreements, and in the extreme, by violence. In these families, the internalization of norms of justice would be an improvement. Second, even in loving families, women are made vulnerable by the unequal division of labor in the family, by assumptions about child-rearing and household responsibilities. While ideal families may go beyond justice in their relations to their members, it is still appropriate for citizens to reflect on the ways that domestic arrangements affect social justice and family life. Most of us are simultaneously members of families and members of a larger polity: there is no reason why a perspective based on harmonious affection cannot coexist with a perspective based on standards of justice (Okin 1989). Finally, given the existence of two complementary but diverse perspectives, there is no reason to think that citizens will seek to apply principles of justice to dishwashing.

Justice, however, must govern families not only because real families are far from ideal. The state also has an interest in promoting and maintaining just families because of the effects of families on future citizens and on women's opportunities and real freedoms.

Almost every person in our society starts life in a family of some kind. The kind of family one has influences the kind of person one grows up to be. In families, children first encounter concepts of right and wrong, as well as role models who shape their sense of what it is possible for them to do and be. Families are an important school of moral learning, but too many families teach inequality and subordination, not principles of justice. Following Mill, feminist scholars question how children whose first experiences of adult interaction are unequal altruism, domination and manipulation can learn and accept the principles of justice they need to be citizens in a democracy committed to the equal worth of all (Okin 1989).

Plato also recognized the importance of the family for the moral development of individuals. Families inhibit or promote children's talents and abilities. In Book V of the Republic, Socrates discovers that when theorists of justice take into account the profound and often unfair effects of the family on the development of children's potentials , they will be forced to the conclusion that the family must be abolished. While few feminists follow Plato in proposing to abolish the family, almost all see the family as in need of reform.

Families are schools of moral learning, but they are more than that. Parents play an extremely large role in the lives of their dependent children. States need to regulate families to insure that all children are educated, are inoculated against contagious diseases and have their basic needs met. No state can be indifferent to whether or not children grow up to be literate, functioning members of its economy. For this reason, all societies provide some degree of publicly financed education for children. All states also depend, at least in part, on the labor of caretaking and childrearing, work that is today overwhelmingly done by women. Given its evident importance, why is domestic labor not given greater public recognition? Feminists have made a strong case for taking such care-giving within the family seriously, and for the state to attend to the justice issues involved in care provision (Kittay 1999). Feminists have also argued that just states must provide care in a way that ensures that all children — boys and girls, rich and poor — have equal opportunities to grow up able to take part in their society.

Despite the advances prompted by the feminist movement during the last quarter of the twentieth century, most families are based on an unequal division of labor. Around the globe, women still do the vast majority of domestic labor — not only tending the house, but also raising and caring for children. Feminist scholars have attacked traditional approaches to the family that obscure this inequality. For example, they have criticized the dominant economic approaches to the family that regard the head of the household as an altruistic agent of the interests of all the family's members (See Becker 1981 for such an approach). They have shown that, in poor countries, when development aid is given to male rather than female heads of household, less of it goes to care for children (Haddad et al . 1997).

Feminist economists and sociologists have also shown how women's role in parenting constrains their ability to pursue careers and compete for demanding jobs (Bergmann 1986, Folbre 1994). Many women therefore remain economically dependent on their male partners, and vulnerable to poverty in the event of divorce. In one widely cited study, ex-husbands' standard of living was found to have risen by 42% the year after their divorce, while ex-wives' standard of living was reduced by 78% (Weitzman 1985). This huge discrepancy in income and wealth results from a number of factors, including the fact that women who have devoted themselves to raising children usually have lower job qualifications than their husbands and less work experience.

Women's economic dependency in turn allows them to be subject to physical, sexual or psychological abuse by their husbands or other male partners (Gordon, 1988; Global Fund for Women Report, 1992). Women have an asymmetric ability to exit from marriage; and this gives husbands/male partners considerably more power and bargaining advantage within the marriage (Sen 1989).

Defenders of the status quo often argue that if women have less opportunity than men, this is largely due to their own choices. Feminists have countered this claim by showing the ways that such choices are shaped and constrained by forces that are themselves objectionable and not freely chosen. Some feminists follow Nancy Chodorow's argument (1978) that the fact that children's primary nurturers are mothers leads to a sexually differentiated developmental path for boys and girls. Girls identify with the same-sex nurturing parent, and feel more connected to others; boys, by identifying with the absent parent, feel themselves to be more “individuated”. Chodorow argues that mothering is thereby reproduced across generations by a largely unconscious mechanism that, in turn, perpetuates the inequality of women at home and at work.

Chodorow's work is controversial, but it is undeniable that girls and boys grow up facing different expectations of how they will behave. Children receive strong cultural messages — from parents, teachers, peers and the media — about sex-appropriate traits and behaviors. Girls are supposed to be nurturing, self-sacrificing, non-aggressive and attractive; “care” is largely seen as a feminine characteristic. These traits traditionally contribute to women's inequality: nurturers are not seen as good leaders. There are few women CEOs, generals, or political leaders. Girls may also become disadvantaged by the anticipation of marriage and child-rearing, insofar as they are less likely than boys to invest in their human “capital”.

A second feminist response stresses the ways that women's choices in the family interact with unjust social structures outside the family, in particular, with the sex segregated division of labor in the economy, where women still earn only about 75% of what men earn, for comparable work. Given women's lower wages, it is rational for families who must provide their own childcare to choose to withdraw women from the workforce. Once women withdraw, they find themselves falling further behind their male counterparts in skill development and earning power. Child care is an immensely time consuming activity and those who do it single-handedly are unlikely to be able to pursue other goods such as education, political office or demanding careers. The structures of work and family thus form a “cycle of vulnerability” that conditions the lives and choices of women (Okin 1989). Even those who do somehow manage to combine work and family, face serious obstacles including the lack of good quality subsidized day care; jobs with little flexibility for those who need to care for a sick child; school schedules that seem to be premised on having a parent at home; and the expectation that they will continue to work a “second shift”, (Hochschild 1989) assuming the responsibility for the bulk of household labor. Statistical analysis shows that motherhood tends to lower a woman's earnings, even if she does not take any time off from paid work (Folbre 1994). Gender inequality persists in access to positions in economy and government where white males are about 40% of population but 95% of senior managers, 90% of newspaper editors, and 80% of congressional legislators (Rhode 1997). And although women have made progress in entering elite positions in the economy and government, there is evidence that such progress has now stalled (Correll 2004).

Feminists share the view that contemporary families are not only realms of choice but also realms of constraint. Feminists also agree that the gender hierarchy in our society is unjust, although they differ on what they take its sources to be. Some feminists emphasize the family as the “linchpin” of gender injustice (Okin 1989); while others see the main causes in the structure of work and opportunity (Bergmann 1986); still others stress sexual domination and violence (MacKinnon 1989). All of these strands seem important contributors to gender inequality, and it is doubtful that any one can be fully reduced to the others. It is therefore important to deepen our understanding of the interplay of these different sources of subordination. There is clearly what Okin (1989) termed a “cycle of vulnerability” through which women's unequal position in the home interacts with women's unequal position in the workplace. For example, because women tend to earn less than men, if someone has to take time off to raise the kids, it makes economic sense for it to be the female lower earner. Gender also undoubtedly interacts with other axes of social disadvantage, such as race and class. Indeed, feminist work on families has increasingly recognized the diverse experiences of women in families that encompass not only heterosexual two parent families, but also single women, lesbian and gay families, and families in poverty. We need to be careful not to lump together distinct social phenomena. Although I will sometimes refer to “the family” in this essay, it is crucial to keep in mind the diversity of family forms and circumstances.

Whether families are the primary cause, or a contributing cause along with other social structures and culturally generated expectations, feminists point to the ways that families are part of a system that reproduces women's social and economic inequality. Families cannot be viewed apart from that system or in isolation from it. Nor can they be assumed to be just: too many of them are not. The issue, for feminists, is not whether the state can intervene in the family and reproduction but how, and to what ends.

2. How should family structures be evaluated?

How should parenting and household responsibilities be distributed? Who should have a right to household earnings? Who has the right to form a family? To have a child? What defines a parent? How many parents can a child have? How many children can a parent have? Answering these already complex questions is additionally complicated by the existence of new technologies that make possible multiple ways of becoming a parent. Below, I examine two main values that feminists have argued should guide the families we make: individual choice and equality.

The traditional family has seen many changes in the last fifty years. In the decades following WW II increasing numbers of women entered the labor force. Divorce rates increased dramatically: the divorce rate in the 1980s was almost two and a half times what it had been in 1940. The development of the birth control pill has made it easier for women to avoid unwanted pregnancies and to plan when to have children. There are a growing number of single parent families, gay families, and extended families. By 1989, 25% of children were living in single parent households, many of which were poor, prompting a sense that the family was in crisis (Minow 1997). Economic, technological and social factors have together made the full time-stay at home housewife and mother with a working husband a statistical minority.

Laws governing families have also changed. Modern laws are more likely to view men and women as equals, who can be subjected to the authority of each other only with their own consent. In almost all developed nations, legal restrictions on marriage, divorce and abortion were relaxed in a relatively short time, between the mid 1960s and the mid-1980s (Glendon 1987). In Loving v Virginia , for example, the US Supreme Court struck down state laws preventing people from different races from marrying; Roe v Wade legalized abortion. Of course, many of these changes have been contested and there remain serious constraints on women's reproductive choices. Nor can gay people usually marry, although laws and norms have been evolving in favor of gay marriage (see, most recently: Hollingsworth v. Perry; United States v. Windsor). The family has increasingly evolved from a hierarchical institution based on a fixed status to a set of relationships between individuals based on contract. Indeed, many people now view marriage not as an unalterable condition, but as a contract whose terms can be altered and negotiated by the parties involved.

How far should the contract idea of marriage be taken? Some feminists have proposed extending the contract model to allow any and all consenting adults to marry and to freely choose the terms of their association. These feminists would abolish state-defined marriage altogether and replace it with individual contracts drawn up by each couple wanting to marry (Fineman 1995, Weitzman 1985). Indeed, contracts would allow not only gay couples to marry but would also allow plural marriages, as in the case of polygamy.

Contract or choice based feminists would allow individuals themselves to determine what kinds of families they want to create. Thus, they would allow people to make their own agreements about procreation without state restriction. These arrangements could include not only rights to abortion and contraception, but also rights to contract away parental bonds and to sell and buy gametes and reproductive labor. Thus, choice feminists would allow gay or infertile couples or single persons to contract for sperm or eggs or gestational services before a child is conceived on terms that they alone decide.

On the contract view, the traditionalist's sense that there is a “crisis” surrounding the family is unwarranted. What is in crisis is the nuclear, heterosexual marital unit. But this unit was never good for women (Coontz 1992). Advocates of contract marriage argue that extending the role of choice in reproduction and in the families we make will empower women. For example, contracting can help spur new forms of family, enabling gay couples and single women and men to have children. Gay families have traditionally been more egalitarian in the division of domestic labor then heterosexual families, and less likely to reproduce mothering along gender lines. Others argue that allowing women to sell their reproductive services would empower women and improve their welfare by unleashing a new source of economic power (Shalev 1989).

In contrast to the ideal of families as having an internal nature beyond justice, some feminists have even proposed using a marriage contract to determine the domestic division of labor. They argue that by moving marriage from an implicit status based, patriarchal arrangement to an explicit contract, women's freedom and equality would be enhanced (Weitzman 1985). This proposal has been criticized on several grounds: as inattentive to the background inequalities would give rise to unequal bargaining power in such a contract (Sen 1989); as potentially undermining to intimacy and commitment within marriage (Anderson 1993) and as opening the door to illiberal intrusions into family life, given the need for states to enforce such contracts (Elshtain 1990).

Other feminist authors have criticized the very idea of choice as applied to reproduction and marriage. They argue that practices such as prostitution, surrogacy or gendered marriages are based on objectionable views of women — as bodies, as breeders, or as domestic helpmates — and that these views in fact underlie seemingly freely choices to enter these practices. For example, Catherine MacKinnon (1989) argues that such choices can as easily be viewed as based on subordination and domination as on free consent. And Carole Pateman (1983) similarly questions the choices alleged to underlie women's decisions to engage in prostitution.

How deep a challenge do these arguments present to the choice based view of marriage? Proponents of the choice view might plausibly claim that if men and women could explicitly define the terms of their relationships, and retain a right of exit when the terms were not fulfilled, then at least extreme forms of gender domination would be undercut. They might also stress the ways that their view accommodates a plurality of understandings of human relationship: allowing for experimentation, diversity and exit options. It is true that contracts would allow men and women to contract for traditional gendered families, but why should we object to such families if they are freely entered into and express the values of the participants? Behind this disagreement is an important division over the extent to which a just society must accommodate different views of family relation. Where does society draw the line on toleration of hierarchical views of men and women's roles? When should a view of family form be ruled out of bounds because it is too inegalitarian?

Many egalitarian arguments agree with much of the choice based perspective and hold that choice, liberty and privacy are all important elements of just families and reproductive practices. But feminists making these arguments question whether a contractual, choice based approach to these issues adequately captures other values that are also important. The fact that an arrangement has been chosen does not make it just. In addition to choice, egalitarian feminists stress gender equality and the protection of the vulnerable.

Consider the domestic division of labor. Drawing on the above discussion of labor market segregation, some feminists argue that the gendered division of labor in the family, even if freely chosen, operates in the context of a background system of injustice. The fact that it is freely chosen then (if it is) does not seek to justify it. Choices are not all that is relevant to moral evaluation for two reasons. First, because we need to maintain just background social structures, we must be attentive to choices that would undermine these structures. If gendered families encourage the subordination and deference of girls, and produce unequal opportunities for boys and girls, then a just society must seek to redress those effects. Second, the understanding of marriage as a choice does not by itself draw attention to the background social institutions — institutions which feminists argue are unjust. It is not enough to allow people to choose if their choices are unfairly constrained by unequal family and workplace structures, unequal pay for equal work, and inadequate social and welfare services which together render so many women vulnerable. Over a century ago, Mill had pointed out that women's decision to marry could scarcely be called “free” given women's low wages, and dim employment and educational prospects. The choice to marry was he said, a Hobson's choice, that or nothing. Although the situation of women has improved, marriage remains an economic necessity for many women today as well. We must attend to the wider context in which choices are made.

Egalitarians supplement and constrain the contract-based perspective where it renders woman subordinate or especially vulnerable. They might also point out, with the critics of choice based views, that some choices are not and cannot be fully informed. Consider, for example, a contract based view of marriage and child-bearing that holds people fully responsible for the results of their choices. Contracts in marriage and childbearing involve potentially long-term contracts, with implications that are not easily known in advance. Can a woman who has never been pregnant accurately predict the effects of ceding her parental rights to a child? Can an eighteen year old woman who agrees to a traditional gendered division of labor in her marriage know what she will feel like as a fifty year old woman suddenly left by her husband?

Feminists differ on whether choices within the family that undermine gender equality should be respected. They also differ on how to deal with those choices when it is agreed that they must be redressed. Some feminists prefer to de-rail such choices indirectly , by creating incentives for people to act so as to maintain just social structures or by creating external counterweights to individual actions. Okin (1989) argues, for example, that spouses should be equally entitled to each other's earnings, that day care should be available to all families, and that work should be made more flexible. She believes that reconfiguring outward structures is the most appropriate way to shape individual choice inside the family. Alternative views give less room for individual choice within the family. Consider proposals to legally mandate shared domestic responsibilities. Other feminists consider such a remedy worse than the malady it is designed to redress (Elshtain 1990).

Some feminist scholars explicitly try to combine and balance a commitment to choice with a commitment to equality. Molly Shanley (2003) advocates an “equal status” view of marriage that combines a commitment to the public importance of marriage as an institution with elements of individual choice that broaden the idea of who can marry to groups that have been denied such status as a result of their subordination and stigmatization. Shanley emphasizes the public's interest in sustaining just marriages, as well as its interest in sustaining certain forms of family relationship in the face of poverty or illness. Equal status requires attention to the background in which individual choices are made, especially to issues of poverty, workplace structure and job market segregation. But it also attends to the value of intimacy and the role of choices as enabling or undermining that intimacy.

Choice based arguments and equality arguments differ on the nature of the marriages they would allow. For example, while a choice based contractual view favors plural marriages, egalitarian arguments do not straightforwardly imply a right to legalized polygamy. For egalitarians, the crucial question would be whether polygamy is possible without the subordination of women.

There is thus serious disagreement among feminists (and non feminists!) as to how to balance freedom and equality, and more specifically values based on freedom of association and freedom of religion with the value of gender equality. This disagreement has implications for the scope of legitimate state intervention in family life. (For further discussion, see Nussbaum 2000.)

Although some families cannot or choose not to have children, it is impossible to think about issues surrounding the family and reproduction without considering the interests of children. Putting children into the equation also shows how we need to think very concretely about the meaning and implications of the values we endorse.

Consider choice based arguments in favor of contractual families. Children do not choose to enter their families; moreover, children are, at least initially, completely dependent on their caretakers. Parents are rightly taken to have an obligation to care for their children that does not rest on children's consent or contract. Furthermore, a choice by parents to participate in a gendered family affects the lives of their children. The free choices of such parents generate unequal opportunities for their children, inequalities that children themselves have not chosen.

Although some thinkers have advocated licensing parents (Mill 1869, LaFollette 1980), today anyone who can biologically produce a child can be a parent. (The issue becomes complicated when more than two people are involved in the production of a child, as we will see below.) Adoption is highly regulated by law, but once an adoption is completed, law treats biological and non-biological parents alike with respect to raising their children. Society gives wide discretion to all families in rearing children and intervenes only when children suffer abuse, or where the family falls apart. Earlier courts used a “best interests” standard to determine custody in such cases. But this standard has been subjected to powerful criticisms: reasonable people will differ about what constitutes the “best” for their child; and the standard is easily susceptible to biases based on class, race and sexual orientation. Ian Shapiro (1999) advocates a “basic interest” standard for legitimizing state intervention. We might think of such basic interests as defining a line beneath which no child should be allowed to sink. The question for feminists here is whether gender equality is a basic interest of children and if so how best to promote it.

Feminists have begun to explore some of the gender issues surrounding adoption and parental rights; including whether an unwed father should have veto rights to the mother's decision to place their child up for adoption; and the roles of gestational as well as genetic contribution in determining parenthood (Shanley 2001).

When we think of children, we must also think of how they are produced. Some feminists see women's subordination as fundamentally caused by their role in reproduction: on this view, only test tube babies will make possible women's equality (Firestone 1970). But this seems like an overstatement: it is not the biology of child production that makes women subordinate but its sociology and economics. Surely, adoptive mothers are as vulnerable to inegalitarian workplace structures of gender hierarchy as biological ones. Nonetheless, bearing a child can have dramatic and negative consequences for women when it occurs in a context of little social support and rigid job structures. Researchers have increasingly documented a “motherhood penalty”: women who raise children fall behind their unmarried counterparts in salary and position. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act was a partial step in the right direction of compensating parenthood, granting twelve weeks of unpaid leave for a new parent with all benefits and the right to return to the same or a comparable job. But it is difficult to enforce, and work culture makes it hard for those entitled to exercise their right. Men, in particular are unlikely to take time off following the birth of a child.

It is therefore worthwhile to look into new technologies that make possible new ways of becoming (or failing to become) a parent. What are the implications of these technologies for the condition of women? For children?

3. Reproductive Choice

Historically, men have exercised enormous power over women's bodies through controlling their sexuality and reproduction.

Roe v Wade (1973) granted women the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, based on an implicit fundamental right to privacy. Although the Supreme Court in its decision did not hold such right was absolute, and argued that it must be weighted against competing state interests in maternal safety and the protection of prenatal life, it protected this right during the first trimester of pregnancy. In the decades following Roe, its ruling has been weakened, most notably by requirements of spousal and parental notification and consent, the enactment of “waiting periods” and restrictions on the use of public funds. In the wake of continued social controversy as well as violence and harassment directed at abortion service providers, the number of doctors who are willing and able to provide such services is declining. By the mid 1990s, 85% of America's counties had no facility offering abortions; 2 states had only 1 provider (Rhode 1997). Many states have moved to criminalize late term abortions.

Although most feminists endorse some right to abortion, the issue of abortion cannot easily be reduced to the interests of men versus the interests of women. Women are represented on both sides of the abortion issue, as leaders, activists and supporters. Even among feminist arguments in favor of abortion there are a diversity of views as to the grounds that serve to justify it.

Some arguments for permitting a right to abortion depend on denying rights to the fetus. Only persons have rights and fetuses, it is argued, are not yet persons (Tooley 1972). Yet while many arguments against abortion depend on the idea that the fetus has a right to life, not all arguments supporting legal abortion reject that right. Judith Jarvis Thomson (1971) argued that even if the fetus is a person with a right to life, there are limits on what the state can compel women who carry fetuses in their bodies to do. If women have rights over their own bodies, then they have rights not to have their bodies used by others against their will. The state has no right to force someone to donate use of her body to another person, even if that person is in extreme need. (In Thomson's famous example, a person is hooked up to a famous violinist, who will die if she withdraws her body's support. While it might be virtuous to remain hooked up, Thomson argues that it is not required by morality.) Thomson's argument stresses bodily integrity and self-ownership, and argues that if we accept these premises we can only allow fetuses to use women's bodies with women's consent. Implicit in Thomson's argument is also a point about gender equality: since we do not in general compel people (i.e., women and men) to donate use of their bodies to others even in cases of extreme need, then why do we think we are justified in only compelling women?

For some feminists Thomson's analogy is not appropriate. They reject the perspective of thinking of fetus and mother as distinct persons and emphasize their intertwined relationship. Others worry that the perspective of abortion as a right having to do with ownership and control of one's body would make it difficult to question abortions performed on grounds of sex selection, a practice which is becoming more common around the world in countries where having girls is disfavored; or abortions sought on trivial grounds like the timing of a vacation.

To view abortion only in terms of the freedom of individual choice or even as a clash of rights neglects a range of other relevant considerations. These include: the fact that women and only women get pregnant and bear children, that women earn less than men, that they are subjected to sexual violence, have little or no access to publicly provided day care, and that they have less familial or political decision-making power than men. Abortion is connected to other issues that need to be considered, especially the effects of unwanted pregnancies on the lives of women and children (Sherwin 1987).

Feminists who see a range of values at stake in abortion are more likely to advocate compromise than those who hold single valued perspectives. Shrage (1994), for example, proposes that given the diversity of values involved in the abortion controversy — including views of life's sanctity (Dworkin 1993) and the meaning of motherhood (Luker 1984) we seek only conditional access to abortion — during the first trimester — and advocate policies that help minimize the need for abortion, such as easily available contraception.

It is now possible for individuals or couples to transact for reproductive services. New technologies now make possible the creation of children whose genes come from people unrelated to the woman who gives birth to them or to the people who raise them. For example, a couple can buy eggs from one woman and then implant those eggs in another woman. Or they can implant a man's sperm in a woman who will bear the child.

Of course, market transactions regarding genetic materials are not new: men have sold sperm in the United States for decades. But contemporary law is unsettled on the issue of commercial surrogacy.

The so-called Baby M case is perhaps the best-known case involving “surrogate motherhood”, although the use of the term in this case is, arguably, misleading. Mary Beth Whitehead agreed to be inseminated with the sperm of William Stern and to give up any resulting child to him and his wife for $10,000. After giving birth to a child and turning that child over to the Sterns, Whitehead became distraught. A conflict ensued over parental rights, and a New Jersey court initially gave full custody to the Sterns and discounted the fact that Whitehead was the child's genetic and gestational mother. On appeal, the decision was overturned and the surrogacy contract was invalidated. The court granted custody to the Sterns but ordered that Whitehead be granted visitation rights.

Feminists are divided on the issue of commercial surrogacy. Those who support surrogate motherhood often stress the increase in freedom it brings. Surrogate contracts allow women to have additional choices over their reproduction. Carmel Shalev (1989) goes further, arguing that prohibiting such contracts fails to give due respect to the choices women do make. If a woman freely enters into a contract to produce a child, it is paternalistic and demeaning to prevent her choice.

Defenders of commercial surrogacy also carefully distinguish it from baby selling: children are not sold as commodities, but rather women's reproductive services are for sale. Since we allow men to sell their sperm, why should women be prevented from participating in an analogous transaction? Finally, defenders point out that commercial surrogacy offers new ways for gays and lesbians and single people to become parents.

Critics of commercial surrogacy likewise offer a diversity of objections. Perhaps the most common objection is based on the claim that gestational labor is different from other types of labor. Margaret Jane Radin (1988) and Carole Pateman (1983) stress the ways that the labor of bearing a child is more intimately bound up with a woman's identity than other types of labor. Contract pregnancy involves an alienation of aspects of the self so extreme as to make it an illegitimate practice. Selling sperm is not analogous: the work of pregnancy is long-term, complex and involves an emotional and physical bonding between mother and fetus. (See also Rich 1976 for a brilliant phenomenology of pregnancy.)

Elizabeth Anderson (1990) echoes this objection, but adds that surrogacy contracts also alienate a woman from her love for the child and frequently involve exploitation, as surrogate sellers have less wealth and are more emotionally vulnerable than buyers. Other objections stress the weakening of the link between parent and child, and the special vulnerability of children.

Satz (1992) argues that there are limits to the objections based on an intimate connection between reproductive labor and our selves. Writers are intimately bound up with their writing, but they also want to be paid for their novels. Further, if the link between mother and fetus/reproductive labor is so strong, how can abortion be justified? Instead, Satz's argument stresses the background context of commercial surrogacy: the gender inequality in modern society. Commercial surrogacy allows women's labor to be used and controlled by others, and reinforces stereotypes about women. For example, pregnancy contracts give buyers substantial control rights over women's bodies: rights to determine what the women eat, drink and do. They also may deepen stereotypes: that women are baby-machines. Finally, the race and class dimensions of such markets also need to be considered. In another well known case involving commercial surrogacy, a judge referred to the African American women who gave birth to a child with genes from a white father and a Philippina mother as the baby's “wet-nurse” and refused to grant her any visitation rights to see the child.

Interestingly, practices such as in vitro fertilization, commercial surrogacy and egg and gamete markets are largely unregulated. There are also huge for profit agencies involved in these ways of making a baby. By contrast, adoption is highly regulated: prospective parents have to submit to intrusive interviews and home visits. It is worth reflecting on this differential treatment, especially since many reproductive technologies also involve vulnerable third parties (Spar 2006).

Feminist writing on the family and reproduction is rich and multifaceted. By forcing mainstream political philosophy to take into account the importance of the family for social justice, feminists have changed the field. At the same time, our efforts remain very much a work in progress, much as are our current social practices of making families and babies. In conclusion, I will mention two areas that need more attention:

(1) The claim that the family is not private is not the same as the claim that there is no value to having a concept of privacy, nor does it entail that there is no way to draw a useful distinction between the private and public realms. How much public structuring of private choices is permissible to foster gender justice? How do we balance claims of gender injustice with other moral considerations like freedom of religion and freedom of association?

(2) With notable exceptions, too few feminist philosophers have offered specific policy proposals for changes in domestic arrangements, or for policies designed to counteract those arrangements. We need more attention to creative family related policies that might lessen the hold of centuries of gender hierarchy. We also need good cross-country comparisons, which draw on some of the alternative policies that have been tried in other countries, including policies designed to re-shape labor markets, reform divorce law and provide safety nets for poor families and their children.

• Anderson, Elizabeth, 1990, “Is Women's Labor a Commodity”, Philosophy and Public Affairs , 19(1): 71–92.
• –––, 1993, Value in Ethics and Economics , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Becker, Gary, 1981, A Treatise on the Family , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Bergmann, Barbara, 1986, The Economic Emergence of Women , New York: Basic Books.
• Chodorow, Nancy, 1978, The Reproduction of Mothering , Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Coontz, Stephanie, 1992, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap , New York: Basic Books.
• Correll, Shelley, 2004, “Constraints into Preferences: gender, status and emerging career aspirations,” American Sociological Review , 69: 93–113.
• Dworkin, Ronald, 1993, Life's Dominion , New York: Vintage.
• Elshtain, Jean, 1990, Power Trips and Other Journeys , Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Fineman, Martha. A., 1995, The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies , New York: Routledge.
• Firestone, Shulamith, 1970, The Dialectics of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution , New York: William Morrow.
• Folbre, Nancy, 1994, Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint , New York: Routledge.
• Gilligan, Carol, 1982, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Glendon, Mary Anne, 1987, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law; American Failures, European Challenges , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Global Fund for Women Report, 1992, Ending Violence Against Women: A Resource Guide , Menlo Park, CA: Shaler Adams Foundation.
• Gordon, Linda, 1988, Heroes of their Own Lives , New York: Viking Press.
• Haddad, L., Hoddinott, J., and Alderman, H. (eds.), 1997, Intra-household Resource Allocation In Developing Countries: Models, Policies and Methods , Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Haslanger, Sally, 2000. “Gender and Race: [What] are they? [What] do we want them to be?” Noûs , 34(1): 31–55.
• Hochschild, Arlie, 1989, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home , New York: Viking Press.
• Kittay, Eva, 1999, Love's Labor , New York: Routledge.
• LaFollette, Hugh, 1980, “Licensing Parents”, Philosophy and Public Affairs , 9(2): 183–97.
• Luker, Kristin, 1984, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood , Berkeley: University of California Press.
• MacKinnon, Catherine, 1989, . Toward a Feminist Theory of the State , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Mill, John Stuart, 1869, The Subjection of Women , Indianapolis: Hackett, Publishing Co., 1988.
• Minow, Martha, 1997, “All in the Family and in All Families: Membership, Loving and Owing”, in Estlund, D. and Nussbaum, M. eds. Sex, Preference and Family , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Noddings, Nel, 1986, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , Berkeley: University of California Press
• Nussbaum, Martha, 2000, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Okin, Susan, 1989, Justice, Gender and the Family , New York: Basic Books.
• Pateman, Carole, 1983, “Defending prostitution: charges against Ericson”, Ethics , 93: 561–565.
• Phillips, Anne, 2013, Our Bodies, Whose Property? , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Radin, Margaret Jane, 1988, “Market Inalienability”, Harvard Law Review , 100: 1849–1937.
• Rhode, Deborah, 1997, Speaking of Sex: The Denial of Gender Inequality , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• –––, 1989, Justice and Gender , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Rich, Adrienne, 1976, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and as Institution , New York: Norton.
• Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 1762, Emile: Or, On Education , trans. A. Bloom, New York: Basic Books, 1979.
• Sandel, Michael, 1982, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Satz, Debra, 1992, “Markets in Women's Reproductive Labor”, Philosophy and Public Affairs , 21(2): 107–131.
• Scott, Joan W., 1988, Gender and the Politics of History , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Sen, Amartya, 1989, “Gender and Cooperative Conflict”, in Persistent Inequalities , ed. Irene Tinker, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 123–49.
• Shalev, Carmel, 1989, Birth Power , New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Shanley, Mary Lyndon, 2001, Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in an Age of Reproductive Technologies, Surrogacy, Adoption, and Same-Sex and Unwed Parents , Boston: Beacon Press.
• –––, 2003, “Just Marriage”, Boston Review , Volume 28, Nos. 3–5 (Summer).
• Shapiro, Ian, 1999, Democratic Justice , New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Sherwin, Susan, 1987, “Abortion Through a Feminist Lens”, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review , 30(3): 265–84.
• Shrage, Laurie, 1994, Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery and Abortion , New York: Routledge.
• Spar, Debora, 2006, The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception , Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
• Thomson, Judith J., 1971, “A Defense of Abortion”, Philosophy and Public Affairs , 1(1): 47–66.
• Tooley, Michael, 1972, “Abortion and Infanticide”, Philosophy and Public Affairs , 2(1): 37–65.
• Weitzman, Lenore, 1985, The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America , New York: Free Press.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

[Please contact the author with suggestions.]

childhood, the philosophy of | feminist philosophy, interventions: ethics | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on class and work | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on sex and gender

Copyright © 2013 by Debra Satz

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2023 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

277 Feminism Topics & Women’s Rights Essay Topics

18 January 2024

last updated

Feminism topics encompass a comprehensive range of themes centered on advocating for gender equality. These themes critically address the social, political, and economic injustices primarily faced by females, aiming to dismantle patriarchal norms. Feminism topics may span from intersectional feminism, which underscores the diverse experiences of women across various intersections of race, class, and sexuality, to reproductive rights that advocate for women’s bodily autonomy and healthcare accessibility. They also involve the examination of workplace discrimination through concepts, such as the gender wage gap and the glass ceiling. Violence against women, including work and domestic abuse, sexual assault, and harassment, is a hot aspect, providing many discussions. In turn, one may explore the representation of women in media, politics, and STEM fields. Explorations of gender roles, gender identity, and the significance of male feminism are integral parts of these discussions. As society continues to evolve, feminism topics persistently adapt to confront and address emerging forms of gender inequality.

Best Feminism & Women’s Rights Topics

• Achievements of Women in Politics: A Global Perspective
• Emphasizing Gender Equality in the 21st-Century Workplace
• Evolving Representation of Women in Media
• Fight for Women’s Voting Rights: The Historical Analysis
• Intersectionality: Examining its Role in Feminism
• Unpacking Feminism in Third-World Countries
• Dissecting Misogyny in Classical Literature
• Influence of Religion on Women’s Rights Worldwide
• Unveiling Bias in STEM Fields: Female Experiences
• Gender Pay Gap: Global Comparisons and Solutions
• Probing the Historical Evolution of Feminism
• Reshaping Beauty Standards Through Feminist Discourse
• Importance of Reproductive Rights in Women’s Health
• Exploring Women’s Role in Environmental Activism
• Glass Ceiling Phenomenon: Women in Corporate Leadership
• Trans Women’s Struggles in Feminist Movements
• Empowering Girls: The Role of Education
• Intersection of Race, Class, and Feminism
• Effects of Feminism on Modern Art
• Impacts of Social Media on Women’s Rights Movements
• Deconstructing Patriarchy in Traditional Societies
• Single Mothers’ Challenges: A Feminist Perspective
• Dynamics of Feminism in Post-Colonial Societies
• Queer Women’s Struggles for Recognition and Rights
• Women’s Contributions to Scientific Discovery: An Underrated History
• Cybersecurity: Ensuring Women’s Safety in the Digital Age
• Exploring the Misrepresentation of Feminism in Popular Culture
• Repositioning Sexuality: The Role of Feminism in Health Discourse
• Women’s Economic Empowerment: The Impact of Microfinance
• Investigating Sexism in Video Gaming Industry
• Female Leadership During Global Crises: Case Studies

Easy Feminism & Women’s Rights Topics

• Power of Women’s Protest: A Historical Study
• Feminist Movements’ Role in Shaping Public Policy
• Body Autonomy: A Key Aspect of Feminist Ideology
• Cyber Feminism: Women’s Rights in Digital Spaces
• Violence Against Women: International Legal Measures
• Feminist Pedagogy: Its Impact on Education
• Depiction of Women in Graphic Novels: A Feminist Lens
• Comparing Western and Eastern Feminist Movements
• Men’s Roles in Supporting Feminist Movements
• Impacts of Feminism on Marriage Institutions
• Rural Women’s Rights: Challenges and Progress
• Understanding Feminist Waves: From First to Fourth
• Inclusion of Women in Peace Negotiation Processes
• Influence of Feminism on Modern Advertising
• Indigenous Women’s Movements and Rights
• Reclaiming Public Spaces: Women’s Safety Concerns
• Roles of Feminist Literature in Social Change
• Women in Sports: Overcoming Stereotypes and Bias
• Feminism in the Context of Refugee Rights
• Media’s Roles in Shaping Feminist Narratives
• Women’s Rights in Prisons: An Overlooked Issue
• Motherhood Myths: A Feminist Examination
• Subverting the Male Gaze in Film and Television
• Feminist Critique of Traditional Masculinity Norms
• Rise of Female Entrepreneurship: A Feminist View
• Young Feminists: Shaping the Future of Women’s Rights

Interesting Feminism & Women’s Rights Topics

• Roles of Feminism in Promoting Mental Health Awareness
• Aging and Women’s Rights: An Overlooked Dimension
• Feminist Perspectives on Climate Change Impacts
• Women’s Rights in Military Service: Progress and Challenges
• Achieving Gender Parity in Academic Publishing
• Feminist Jurisprudence: Its Impact on Legal Structures
• Masculinity in Crisis: Understanding the Feminist Perspective
• Fashion Industry’s Evolution through Feminist Ideals
• Unheard Stories: Women in the Global Space Race
• Effects of Migration on Women’s Rights and Opportunities
• Women’s Land Rights: A Global Issue
• Intersection of Feminism and Disability Rights
• Portrayal of Women in Science Fiction: A Feminist Review
• Analyzing Post-Feminism: Its Origins and Implications
• Cyberbullying and Its Impact on Women: Measures for Protection
• Unveiling Gender Bias in Artificial Intelligence
• Reimagining Domestic Work Through the Lens of Feminism
• Black Women’s Hair Politics: A Feminist Perspective
• Feminist Ethical Considerations in Biomedical Research
• Promoting Gender Sensitivity in Children’s Literature
• Understanding the Phenomenon of Toxic Femininity
• Reconsidering Women’s Rights in the Context of Climate Migration
• Advancing Women’s Participation in Political Activism

Feminism Argumentative Essay Topics

• Intersectionality’s Impact on Modern Feminism
• Evolution of Feminist Thought: From First-Wave to Fourth-Wave
• Gender Wage Gap: Myths and Realities
• Workplace Discrimination: Tackling Unconscious Bias
• Feminist Theory’s Influence on Contemporary Art
• Intersection of Feminism and Environmental Activism
• Men’s Roles in the Feminist Movement
• Objectification in Media: A Feminist Perspective
• Misconceptions about Feminism: Addressing Stereotypes
• Feminism in the Classroom: The Role of Education
• Feminist Analysis of Reproductive Rights Policies
• Transgender Rights: An Extension of Feminism
• Intersection of Feminism and Racial Justice
• Body Shaming Culture: A Feminist Viewpoint
• Feminism’s Influence on Modern Advertising
• Patriarchy and Religion: A Feminist Critique
• Domestic Labor: Feminist Perspectives on Unpaid Work
• Sexism in Sports: The Need for Feminist Intervention
• The MeToo Movement’s Influence on Modern Feminism
• Feminism and the Fight for Equal Representation in Politics
• Women’s Rights in the Digital Age: A Feminist Examination
• Feminist Critique of Traditional Beauty Standards
• Globalization and Its Effects on Women’s Rights
• The Role of Feminism in LGBTQ+ Rights Advocacy
• Popular Culture and Its Reflection on Feminist Values

Controversial Feminist Research Paper Topics

• Intersectionality in Modern Feminist Movements: An Analysis
• Representation of Women in High-Powered Political Roles
• Cultural Appropriation Within the Feminist Movement: An Inquiry
• The Role of Feminism in Defining Beauty Standards
• Women’s Reproductive Rights: A Debate of Autonomy
• Feminism and Religion: The Question of Compatibility
• Male Allies in the Feminist Movement: An Evaluation
• Shift in Traditional Gender Roles: Feminist Perspective
• Impacts of Media on Perceptions of Feminism
• Dissecting the Wage Gap: A Feminist Examination
• Menstrual Equity: A Battle for Feminist Activists
• Feminism in Popular Music: Power or Appropriation?
• Climate Change: The Unseen Feminist Issue
• Education’s Role in Shaping Feminist Beliefs
• Power Dynamics in the Workplace: A Feminist Scrutiny
• Cyber-Feminism: Harnessing Digital Spaces for Activism
• Healthcare Disparities Faced by Women: An Analysis
• Transgender Women in Feminist Discourse: An Exploration
• Feminist Perspectives on Monogamy and Polyamory
• Feminist Analysis of Modern Advertising Campaigns
• Exploring Sexism in the Film Industry through a Feminist Lens
• Debunking Myths Surrounding the Feminist Movement
• Childcare Responsibilities and Their Feminist Implications
• Women’s Sports: Evaluating Equity and Feminist Advocacy

Feminist Research Paper Topics in Feminism Studies

• Evaluating Feminist Theories: From Radical to Liberal
• Women’s Health Care: Policies and Disparities
• Maternal Mortality: A Global Women’s Rights Issue
• Uncovering Sexism in the Tech Industry
• Critique of Binary Gender Roles in Children’s Toys
• Body Positivity Movement’s Influence on Feminism
• Relevance of Feminism in the Fight Against Human Trafficking
• Women in Coding: Breaking Stereotypes
• The Role of Women in Sustainable Agriculture
• Feminism in the Cosmetics Industry: A Dual-Edged Sword
• The Influence of Feminism on Modern Architecture
• Bridging the Gap: Women in Higher Education Leadership
• The Role of Feminism in Advancing LGBTQ+ Rights
• Menstrual Equity: A Key Women’s Rights Issue
• Women in Classical Music: Breaking Barriers
• Analyzing Gendered Language: A Feminist Approach
• Women’s Rights and Humanitarian Aid: The Interconnection
• Exploring the Role of Women in Graphic Design
• Addressing the Lack of Women in Venture Capitalism
• Impact of Feminism on Urban Planning and Design
• Maternal Labor in the Informal Economy: A Feminist Analysis
• Feminism’s Influence on Modern Dance Forms
• Exploring the Role of Women in the Renewable Energy Sector
• Women in Esports: An Emerging Frontier
• Child Marriage: A Grave Violation of Women’s Rights

Feminist Topics for Discussion

• Feminist Criticism of the Fashion Modelling Industry
• Domestic Violence: Feminist Legal Responses
• Analyzing the Success of Women-Only Workspaces
• Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Human Rights Issue
• Women’s Role in the Evolution of Cryptocurrency
• Women and the Right to Water: A Feminist Perspective
• Gender Stereotypes in Comedy: A Feminist View
• Intersection of Animal Rights and Feminist Theory
• Roles of Feminism in the Fight Against Child Labor
• Representation of Women in Folklore and Mythology
• Women’s Rights in the Gig Economy: Issues and Solutions
• Revisiting Feminism in Post-Soviet Countries
• Women in the Space Industry: Present Status and Future Trends
• The Influence of Feminism on Culinary Arts
• Unraveling the Impact of Fast Fashion on Women Workers
• Feminist Perspectives on Genetic Engineering and Reproduction
• Assessing the Progress of Women’s Financial Literacy
• Sex Work and Feminism: A Controversial Discourse
• Women in Cybernetics: An Untapped Potential
• Uncovering the Women Behind Major Historical Events
• The Impact of the #MeToo Movement Globally
• Women’s Rights in the Cannabis Industry: Challenges and Progress
• Redefining Motherhood: The Intersection of Feminism and Adoption
• Roles of Feminist Movements in Combatting Child Abuse

Women’s Rights Essay Topics for Feminism

• Evolution of Women’s Rights in the 20th Century
• Roles of Women in World War II: Catalyst for Change
• Suffrage Movement: Driving Force Behind Women’s Empowerment
• Cultural Differences in Women’s Rights: A Comparative Study
• Feminist Movements and Their Global Impact
• Women’s Rights in Islamic Societies: Perceptions and Realities
• Glass Ceiling Phenomenon: Analysis and Impacts
• Pioneering Women in Science: Trailblazers for Equality
• Impacts of Media Portrayal on Women’s Rights
• Economic Autonomy for Women: Pathway to Empowerment
• Women’s Rights in Education: Global Perspective
• Gender Equality in Politics: Global Progress
• Intersectionality and Women’s Rights: Race, Class, and Gender
• Legal Milestones in Women’s Rights History
• Inequities in Healthcare: A Women’s Rights Issue
• Modern-Day Slavery: Women and Human Trafficking
• Climate Change: A Unique Threat to Women’s Rights
• Body Autonomy and Reproductive Rights: A Feminist Analysis
• Globalization’s Effect on Women’s Rights: Opportunities and Threats
• Gender Violence: An Erosion of Women’s Rights
• Indigenous Women’s Rights: Struggles and Triumphs
• Women’s Rights Activists: Unsung Heroes of History
• Empowerment Through Sports: Women’s Struggle and Success
• Balancing Act: Motherhood and Career in the 21st Century
• LGBTQ+ Women: Rights and Recognition in Different Societies

Women’s Rights Research Questions

• Evolution of Feminism: How Has the Movement Shifted Over Time?
• The Workplace and Gender Equality: How Effective Are Current Measures?
• Intersectionality’s Influence: How Does It Shape Women’s Rights Advocacy?
• Reproductive Rights: What Is the Global Impact on Women’s Health?
• Media Representation: Does It Affect Women’s Rights Perception?
• Gender Stereotypes: How Do They Impede Women’s Empowerment?
• Global Disparities: Why Do Women’s Rights Vary So Widely?
• Maternal Mortality: How Does It Reflect on Women’s Healthcare Rights?
• Education for Girls: How Does It Contribute to Gender Equality?
• Cultural Norms: How Do They Influence Women’s Rights?
• Leadership Roles: Are Women Adequately Represented in Positions of Power?
• Domestic Violence Laws: Are They Sufficient to Protect Women’s Rights?
• Roles of Technology: How Does It Impact Women’s Rights?
• Sexual Harassment Policies: How Effective Are They in Protecting Women?
• Pay Equity: How Can It Be Ensured for Women Globally?
• Politics and Gender: How Does Women’s Representation Shape Policy-Making?
• Child Marriage: How Does It Violate Girls’ Rights?
• Climate Change: How Does It Disproportionately Affect Women?
• Trafficking Scourge: How Can Women’s Rights Combat This Issue?
• Female Genital Mutilation: How Does It Contradict Women’s Rights?
• Armed Conflicts: How Do They Impact Women’s Rights?
• Body Autonomy: How Can It Be Safeguarded for Women?
• Women’s Suffrage: How Did It Pave the Way for Modern Women’s Rights?
• Men’s Role: How Can They Contribute to Women’s Rights Advocacy?
• Legal Frameworks: How Do They Support or Hinder Women’s Rights?

History of Women’s Rights Topics

• Emergence of Feminism in the 19th Century
• Roles of Women in the Abolitionist Movement
• Suffragette Movements: Triumphs and Challenges
• Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Advocacy for Women’s Rights
• Impacts of World War II on Women’s Liberation
• Radical Feminism in the 1960s and 1970s
• Pioneering Women in Politics: The First Female Senators
• Inception of the Equal Rights Amendment
• Revolutionary Women’s Health Activism
• Struggle for Reproductive Freedom: Roe vs. Wade
• Birth of the Women’s Liberation Movement
• Challenges Women Faced in the Civil Rights Movement
• Women’s Roles in the Trade Union Movement
• Intersectionality and Feminism: Examining the Role of Women of Color
• How Did the Women’s Rights Movement Impact Education?
• Sexuality, Identity, and Feminism: Stonewall Riots’ Impact
• Influence of Religion on Women’s Rights Activism
• Women’s Empowerment: The UN Conferences
• Impact of Globalization on Women’s Rights
• Women’s Movements in Non-Western Countries
• Women in Space: The Fight for Equality in NASA
• Achievements of Feminist Literature and Arts
• Evolution of the Women’s Sports Movement
• Advancement of Women’s Rights in the Digital Age
• Cultural Shifts: The Media’s Role in Promoting Women’s Rights

Feminism Essay Topics on Women’s Issues

• Career Challenges: The Gender Wage Gap in Contemporary Society
• Examining Microfinance: An Empowering Tool for Women in Developing Countries
• Pioneers of Change: The Role of Women in the Space Industry
• Exploring Beauty Standards: An Analysis of Global Perspectives
• Impacts of Legislation: Progress in Women’s Health Policies
• Maternity Leave Policies: A Comparative Study of Different Countries
• Resilience Through Struggles: The Plight of Female Refugees
• Technology’s Influence: Addressing the Digital Gender Divide
• Dissecting Stereotypes: Gender Roles in Children’s Media
• Influence of Female Leaders: A Look at Political Empowerment
• Social Media and Women: Effects on Mental Health
• Understanding Intersectionality: The Complexity of Women’s Rights
• Single Mothers: Balancing Parenthood and Economic Challenges
• Gaining Ground in Sports: A Look at Female Athletes’ Struggles
• Maternal Mortality: The Hidden Health Crisis
• Reproductive Rights: Women’s Control Over Their Bodies
• Feminism in Literature: Portrayal of Women in Classic Novels
• Deconstructing Patriarchy: The Impact of Gender Inequality
• Body Autonomy: The Battle for Abortion Rights
• Women in STEM: Barriers and Breakthroughs
• Female Soldiers: Their Role in Military Conflicts
• Human Trafficking: The Disproportionate Impact on Women
• Silent Victims: Domestic Violence and Women’s Health

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

385 odyssey essay topics & ideas, 415 rogerian essay topics & good ideas.

334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples

If you’re looking for original feminist topics to write about, you’re in luck! Our experts have collected this list of ideas for you to explore.

📝 Key Points to Use to Write an Outstanding Feminism Essay

🌟 top feminism title ideas, 🏆 best feminism essay topics & examples, 🥇 most interesting feminist topics to write about, 📌 creative feminist essay titles, ✅ simple & easy feminism essay titles, 🔍 interesting topics to write about feminism, 📑 good research topics about feminism, ❓ feminism questions for essay.

You may find yourself confused by various theories, movements, and even opinions when writing a feminism essay, regardless of your topic. Thus, producing an excellent paper becomes a matter of more than merely knowing your facts.

You should be able to explain difficult concepts while coincidentally touching upon fundamental points of feminist theory. Here are some starter examples of crucial essay-writing points, which can make your work better:

• Research and create a bibliography before beginning to write. There are various book and journal titles available both online and in libraries, and using them defines your essay’s credibility. You may use both books published long ago, such as “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir, and modern-day publications. Referencing reliable sources throughout your work will help you convince your readers that your approach is factual and in line with the main trends of the academic community.
• Writing a feminism essay outline beforehand will save you precious time. Not only because it is a tool to get your thoughts in order before beginning to write but also because it allows you to judge whether you have covered the subject thoroughly. Furthermore, structuring beforehand enables you to understand possible drawbacks of your previous research, which you can promptly correct.
• Explain the history behind your problem. Doing so allows you to set the scene for your essay and quickly introduce it to an audience, who may not be as well versed in feminism essay topics as you. Furthermore, you can use your historical introduction later as a prerequisite to explaining its possible future effects.
• Be aware of the correct terminology and use it appropriately. This action demonstrates a profound knowledge of your assigned issue to your readers. From women’s empowerment and discrimination to androcentrism and gynocriticism, track the terms you may need to implement throughout your work.
• Do not overlook your title as a tool to gain your readers’ attention. Your papers should interest people from the beginning and making them want to read more of your work. Writing good feminism essay titles is a great start to both catching their attention and explaining what your central theme is.
• Read available feminism essay examples to understand the dos and don’ts that will help you write your own paper. Plagiarism and inspiration are different concepts, and you can get great ideas from others’ work, so long as you do not copy them!

After you have done your research, drafted an outline, and read some sample works, you are ready to begin writing. When doing so, you should not avoid opposing opinions on topics regarding feminism, and use them to your advantage by refuting them.

Utilizing feminist criticism will allow you to sway even those with different perspectives to see some aspects worthy of contemplation within your essay. Furthermore, it is a mark of good academism, to be able to defend your points with well-rounded counterarguments!

Remember to remain respectful throughout your essay and only include trusted, credible information in your work. This action ensures that your work is purely academic, rather than dabbling in a tabloid-like approach.

While doing the latter may entertain your readers for longer, the former will help you build a better demonstration of your subject, furthering good academic practices and contributing to the existing body of literature.

Find more points and essays at IvyPanda!

• 21st Century Patriarchy.
• Third Wave Feminism.
• Men in the Movement.
• Gender Roles in Sports.
• Femininity in Media.
• The History of Feminist Slogans.
• Must-Read Feminist Books.
• Feminist Perspective in Politics.
• Gender Equality in Patriarchal Society.
• Feminism & Contemporary Art.
• Feminism: Benefits over Disadvantages They believe that feminists make the importance of family less critical than it used to be, which affects children’s lives and their psychological state.
• Feminism in “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen Nora is referred by her husband as a songbird, a lark, a squirrel, names that suggest how insignificant she is to her.
• Feminist Perspective: “My Last Duchess”, “To His Coy Mistress”, and “The Secretary Chant” He thinks such behavior is offensive to his position and his power, this is why this woman is in the past, and the other one is waiting for him downstairs to enlarge Duke’s collection of […]
• The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
• Feminist Approach to Health In general feminist recognize gender as an important aspect and believe that gender inequality essentially exist.
• Third-World Feminism Analysis Although the primary aim of western feminists is centered on the issues women face, the beliefs of the third world consist of various tenets compared to western feminist interpretations.
• Feminist Criticism in Literature: Character of Women in Books Wright The unimportance of women in the play is a critical factor for the women should follow all the things that their men counterparts impose on them.
• Top Themes About Feminism It’s a movement that is mainly concerned with fighting for women’s rights in terms of gender equality and equity in the distribution of resources and opportunities in society.
• Feminism in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft expressly makes her stand known in advocating for the rights of the women in her novel, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but her daughter is a bit reluctant to curve a […]
• Female Characters in Shakespeare’s “Othello”: A Feminist Critique This shows that Desdemona has completely accepted and respected her role as a woman in the society; she is an obedient wife to Othello.
• Metropolis’ Women: Analysis of the Movie’s Feminism & Examples This film is an endeavor to examine the image of the female depicted, the oppression that they have to endure before they are liberated, as well as the expectations of men with regard to the […]
• Feminism in “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood Religion in Gilead is the similar to that of the current American society especially, the aspect of ambiguity which has been predominant with regard to the rightful application of religious beliefs and principles.
• “We Should All Be Feminists” Adichie’s TED Talk For Adichie, the only thing necessary to qualify as a feminist is recognizing the problem with gender and aspiring to fix it, regardless of whether a person in question is a man or woman. This […]
• Feminism in Advertisements of the 1950s and Today In the paper, the author discussed how the whole process of advertising and feminism is depicted in print advertisements. The common characteristic is the advertisements’ illustration of feminism in the media.
• Hedda Gabler: Feminist Ideas and Themes Central to the female world was the woman with knowledge.”Think of the sort of life she was accustomed to in her father’s time.
• Character Analysis in Pride and Prejudice From the Feminist Perspective Darcy is a character who is able to evolve over the span of the story, and eventually, he recognizes his mistakes.Mr.
• Feminism in The Yellow Wallpaper In an attempt to free her, she rips apart the wallpaper and locks herself in the bedroom. The husband locks her wife in a room because of his beliefs that she needed a rest break.
• Race, Class and Gender: Feminism – A Transformational Politic The social construction of difference in America has its historical roots in the days of slavery, the civil war, the civil rights movement, and the various shades of affirmative action that have still not managed […]
• Feminism in the “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath This piece of writing reveals the concept of gender in general and “the role of female protagonists in a largely patriarchal world” in particular. In Plath’s novel, the bell jar is a metaphor used to […]
• Yves Klein’s Works From a Feminist Perspective The images were painted in the 20th century in the backdrop of the rising pressure in many parts of the globe for the government to embrace gender equality.
• Feminism in “Heart of Darkness” and “Apocalypse Now” However, one realizes that she is voiceless in the novel, which highlights the insignificance of role of women in Heart of Darkness.
• Feminist Theory of Delinquency by Chesney-Lind One of the core ideas expressed by Chesney-Lind is that girls are highly susceptible to abuse and violent treatment. At the same time, scholars note that girls do not view delinquency as the “rejection of […]
• A Feminist Life Lesson in “Sula” by Toni Morrison This essay is going to review gender and love and sexuality as the key themes that intertwined with Nel and Sula’s friendship, while also explaining how these influenced each of the two main characters. On […]
• Mary Rowlandson’s Feminism and View on Women’s Role The sort of power developed by Rowlandson was such that it set her apart from the traditional roles of the Puritan women in her time and within her culture.
• Gender Issues: Education and Feminism These experiences in many times strongly affects the individual’s understanding, reasoning, action about the particular issue in contention In this work two issues of great influence and relevance to our societies are discussed.
• Kate Chopin’s Feminist Short Stories and Novels Two short stories were written by Chopin, A Story of One Hour and The Storm well as her brilliant novel Awakening should be regarded as one of the best examples of the feminist literature of […]
• Female Chauvinist Pigs: Raunch Culture and Feminism The biological make-up of women and the cultural perception by the society has contributed to this position of women in the society.
• The Picture of Arabic Feminist Najir’s father’s taking of her sexually excludes her from chances at a marriage of her own, because she is deprived of her virginity, and exposes the young woman to the risk of a pregnancy which […]
• Feminism in “The Introduction” and “A Nocturnal Reverie” by Finch One of Anne Finch’s poems, “The Introduction,” talks about female writers of her time in the first twenty lines of her text.
• Feminist Critique of Jean Racine’s “Phedre” Racine view Phedre as in a trap by the anger of gods and her destiny due to the unlawful and jealous passion that resulted into the deaths of Hippolytus and Oenone.
• Feminist Approach: Virginia Woolf In “A room of ones own” Virginia Woolf speaks about the problems of women, gender roles, and the low social position of women writers in society.
• The Fraternal Social Contract on Feminism and Community Formation The contract was signed by men to bring to an end the conditions of the state of nature. Life was anarchic and short lived which forced men to sign a social contract that could bring […]
• Feminism: “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir According to post-structural feminism structures in society still hold the woman back.de Beauvoir states that this is because structures still exist in the minds of people as to the place of women in society.
• Feminist Literature: “The Revolt of Mother” by Mary E. Wilkins The woman in her story goes against the tradition of the time and triumphs by challenging it and gaining a new self-identity. The author uses this story to address the issue of women oppression that […]
• Judith Butler’s Feminist Theory From a phenomenological point of view, gender is a stable identity that is realized through the repetition of certain acts. Butler’s article is dedicated to the role of gender, its relation to a body and […]
• Willa Cather and Feminism Ability to work and/or supervise oneself as a woman is also quietly depicted through the girl who is able to work in the absence of her father. Cather depicts most of the women in her […]
• Feminist View of Red Riding Hood Adaptations The Brothers Grimm modified the ending of the story, in their version the girl and her grandmother were saved by a hunter who came to the house when he heard the wolf snoring.
• Feminism in Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Chocolate” At the center of this story is Tita, a young woman who is the last born in her family. This is a very unique way of championing the right of women.
• Shifting the Centre: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood The author is very categorical in that it is necessary to put the role of the woman of color in the same position as that of the white one since this ensures that cultural identity […]
• Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics It seems that this approach to this problem is important for discussing the origins of social inequalities existing in the community. This is one of the main points that can be made.
• Feminist Accountability Approach Therefore, the feminist accountability approach involves the collective responsibility to fight social injustices regardless of gender and race. Therefore, integrating the global approach to social injustice promotes the aspect of universality and unity in promoting […]
• Feminist Film Strategy: The Watermelon Women These techniques have the capabilities of shifting meaning away from the narrative as the source of meaning to the audience’s background knowledge in making meaning.
• “Feminism and Religion: The Introduction” by R. Gross Gross critically in order to see the essence of the book and the competence of the author in the current issue.
• “Feminism and Modern Friendship” by Marilyn Friedman Individualism denies that the identity and nature of human beings as individuals is a product of the roles of communities as well as social relationships.
• Seven Variations of Cinderella as the Portrayal of an Anti-Feminist Character: a Counterargument Against the Statement of Cinderella’s Passiveness It is rather peculiar that, instead of simply providing Cinderella with the dress, the crystal slippers and the carriage to get to the palace in, the fairy godmother turns the process of helping Cinderella into […]
• Feminist Connotations in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” It is a call to reexamine the value of women in a patriarchal society; through their central role in the drama, the female characters challenge traditional notions about women’s perspective and value.
• Feminist Research Methods The study of methods and methodology shows that the unique differences are found in the motives of the research, the knowledge that the research seeks to expound, and the concerns of the researchers and the […]
• World Politics: Realist, Liberals, and Feminists Theories The development of the League of Nations to protect the interest of the allies, the partnership of France, Britain and USA to form the allies and the struggle for Germany to control Eastern Europe clearly […]
• Elena Poniatowska and Her Feminism Thus, the primary objective of her journalism and fiction was to break the indifference of the society and to open people’s eyes to the problems of those who are silently excluded from public life.
• The Adoption of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism Basics in Feminist Cultural Theory On the contrary, post structuralism is opposite to such an assumption and uses the concept of deconstruction in order to explain the relations and the position of women in the society.
• Feminist Challenge to Mainstream International Relations Theory Feminist international relations approaches in the past used to be part of the major debate that ensued between the post-positivists and their counterparts, the positivists.
• Feminist Analysis of Gender in American Television The analysis is guided by the hypothesis that the media plays a role in the propagation of antagonistic sexual and gender-based stereotypes.
• Importance of Feminism in Interpersonal Communication in “Erin Brockovich” In this presentation, the theme of feminism in interpersonal communication will be discussed to prove that it is a good example of how a woman can fight for her rights.
• Feminism in ‘Telephone Video’ To demonstrate how feminist theory in communication is relevant to music, the paper will analyze the depiction of females, the vocal arrangements, representation of female roles and their visual appearance in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music […]
• Feminist Approach in Literary Criticism The reason for this is simple this particular plot’s development suggests that, just as it happened to be the case with the functioning of a male psyche, the working of a female psyche implies that […]
• Feminist Theory in “A Family Thing” Movie Discrimination and disregard of someones basic rights are one of the central causes for the emergence of significant psychological problems and the gradual deterioration of the quality of life.
• Feminism in the Past and Nowadays The definition of liberal feminism is the following: “a particular approach to achieving equality between men and women that emphasizes the power of an individual person to alter discriminatory practices against women”.
• Feminism in the Story “Lord of the Rings” The movie, in its turn, instead of focusing on the evolution of the female leads, seemed to be concerned with the relationships between the male characters as well as the growth of the latter.
• Historical Development of Feminism and Patriarchy This gain was highly attributed to the undying efforts of women movements, which for the purpose of the discussions of this paper, are considered as belonging to the umbrella that advocates of feminism.
• Equal Society: Antebellum Feminism, Temperance, and Abolition It is characterized by the emergence of a women’s rights movement that was spearheaded by activists who sought to secure the rights of women to vote, own property, and participate in education and the public […]
• Feminism in the “Lorraine Hansberry” Film Her activism aligns with the fundamental tenets of women of color feminism, which emphasizes the intersecting nature of oppression and the importance of centering the experiences of marginalized groups in social justice movements.
• Gloria Steinem: Political Activist and Feminist Leader Thesis: Gloria Steinem’s direct, bold, argumentative, and explicit style of conveying her ideas and values is the result of her political activism, feminist leadership, and her grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem.
• The Myntra Logo from a Feminist Perspective The first feature of the Myntra logo that comes under the scrutiny of transnational feminism is the commercialization of female sexuality.
• Feminist Geography and Women Suppression Tim Cresswell’s feminist geography explores how the patriarchal structures of our society have silenced women’s voices and experiences in the field of geography for centuries and how recent changes in the field have allowed for […]
• Feminism from a Historical Perspective Accordingly, the discontent facilitated the development of reform-minded activist organizations across Europe and the United States and the subsequent rise of the Modern or New Women’s Movement.
• “Othello” Through the Lens of Feminist Theory It depicts female characters in a state of submission and obedience and shows the disbalance in the distribution of power between men and women.
• The Feminist Theory in Modern Realities The theory and culture of feminism in modern philosophy and the development of society play a significant role in cultural and social development.
• Alice Walker’s Statement “Womanist Is to Feminist…” In her short tale “Perspectives Past and Present,” author and poet Alice Walker famously uses the statement “Womanist Is to Feminist as Purple Is to Lavender,” meaning that womanist is a larger ideological framework within […]
• Feminist Perspective on Family Counselling The author of the article considers the study and the data obtained as a result of it as information reporting not only about the specifics of homosexual relationships but also about their perception in American […]
• The Feminist and Gender Theory Influence on Nursing That is, gender and feminist theories are still relevant in the modern world. This is explained by the fact that women are struggling to demonstrate their professionalism in order to receive the same recognition and […]
• Modern Feminism and Its Major Directions Radical feminism views patriarchy as the reason men have more rights than women and attempts to fight against it. Liberal, intersectional, and radical feminism differ in many ways as they have various perspectives on women’s […]
• Feminist Theory and Its Application Alice Walker advocated for the rights of women of color at the end of the 20th century, creating a feminist branch named womanism. The feminist theory is one of the most known and popular theories […]
• The Feminist Theory in Nursing Since nursing has traditionally been a women’s profession, it is important to understand the oppression of women to gain insight into some of the most pressing issues in nursing.
• Discussion of Feminist Movements The feminist movements have been behind a sequence of political and social movements that champion the equal rights of women in all aspects of life.
• Feminists on the Women’s Role in the Bible The author of the article uses the term intertextuality, which plays a significant role in the text analysis, including from the feminist aspect.
• The Incorporation of Feminism in Literature By focusing on the character, the book portrays the demand for feminism in society to allow females to have the ability and potential to undertake some responsibilities persevered by their male counterparts. The belief in […]
• Feminist Contribution to International Relations Moreover, it will be shown that the concept of gender is important as it helps to shed light on the power dynamics in the sphere of international relations and explain female exclusion from politics.
• Feminist Therapy: Gwen’s Case Study The application of a feminist perspective in Gwen’s case is different from other theoretical frameworks as the approach highlights the impact of gender and associated stressors on the client’s life.
• Emotional Revival in Feminist Writers’ Short Stories This paper aims to discuss the emotional revival of heroines in the short stories of Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.”The Story of an Hour” is a very short story that describes a woman’s experience […]
• Emotion and Freedom in 20th-Century Feminist Literature The author notes that the second layer of the story can be found in the antagonism between the “narrator, author, and the unreliable protagonist”.
• The Cyborg Term in the Context of Feminist Studies In other words, during the transition of identity from the individual to the collective level, people, especially women, may encounter inequalities manifested in the collective space.
• Feminist and Traditional Ethics The feminist ethics also criticize the gender binary of distinct biological formation between men and women. Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are the three theories of conventional ethics.
• Feminism: A Road Map to Overcoming COVID-19 and Climate Change By exposing how individuals relate to one another as humans, institutions, and organizations, feminism aids in the identification of these frequent dimensions of suffering.
• White Privilege in Conflict and Feminist Theories They see how the privilege of whiteness and denial of non-whiteness are connected to the social and political meaning of race and ethnicity.
• Women’s Role in Society From Feminist Perspective Also, in Hartsock’s opinion, that the whole society would benefit if women were allowed to have a role equal with men in a community.
• The Feminist Theory and IR Practice Focusing on how international relations theorists explained some concepts, such as security, state, and superiority that led to gender bias, feminists felt the need to develop and transform the international relations practice and theory.
• Intersectionality and Feminist Activism Therefore, I hope to study the academic literature to discuss the existing tendencies and difficulties to contribute to the understanding of the identified topic in terms of gender and female studies.
• Feminism: Reflection of Cultural Feminism If they found that the gases were harmful and may lead to complications in their body, they would approve the employer’s right to prohibit women from working in the company.
• Feminist Theoretical Perspectives on Rape There is a number of theoretical perspectives aimed at explaining what stands behind rape, that is, how rape is reinforced by, why it is more widespread in specific concepts, and what a rapist’s motivations for […]
• A Feminist Reading of “Wild Nights” and “Death Be Not Proud” From the feminist perspective, the key feature of the speaker’s stance in “Death Be Not Proud” that sets it apart from “Wild Nights” is the speaker’s persona, which is openly and unequivocally male.
• Body: Social Constructionist & Feminist Approaches The idea of the gendered body was based on the focus on the concept of gender, which sees masculinity and femininity as social roles and the need for the representatives of genders to maintain within […]
• Feminist Film Theory Overview The presence of women on the screen is commonly accomplished by the sexualization and objectivization of female characters. Along with that, sadism and fetishism toward the physical beauty of the object and the representation of […]
• “Daddy-long-Legs”: Why Jerusha Is a Feminist Heroine Jerusha is a feminist because she uses the letters to communicate the inequalities she feels in her relationship with Daddy-long-legs and her limits.
• Homosexuality and Feminism in the TV Series The depiction of these complex topics in the TV series of the humoristic genre implies both regressive and progressive impulses for the audience.
• Popular Feminism in Video Post of Emma Watson According to Emma Watson, now feminism is increasingly associated with hatred of men, although in reality it only implies the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.
• Contingent Foundations: Feminism and Postmodernism Feminism offers women theoretical bases on which to interrogate the issues of womanhood while Postmodernism takes this away by arguing for the “death of subjects”.abolition of the foundations of the ideals of reality.
• The Feminist Theory, Prostitution, and Universal Access to Justice In the essay, it is concluded that the theory is a key component of the reforms needed in the criminal justice system with respect to prostitution. In this essay, the subject of prostitution is discussed […]
• Art, Pornography and Feminism and Internet Influence The purpose of pornography is not the desire to admire the human body and respect physical intimacy. Indeed, society can say that women themselves agree to such rules, but the choice of a minority forms […]
• The Contemporary Image of Feminism Following the initial surge of the movement, governments finally came to acknowledge the magnitude of the situation and satisfied the demands of the female population.
• Historical Development of Feminism and Patriarchy Women in the United States have always encountered challenges that interfere with their individual fulfillment in society.
• Feminism and Nationalism: The Western World In this case, we find that feminism has been a different that all the time and therefore, it is impossible to predict the trend of feminism in future.
• Gould’s and Sterling’s Feminist Articles Critique The focal point of this paper is to prepare a critical reflection on the articles by Stephen Jay Gould named “Women’s Brains” in The Panda’s Thumb and by Anne Fausto-Sterling named “The biological Connections,” from […]
• Core Aspects of Black Feminist and Womanist Thoughts Compared to Jones, who believes in “unparalleled advocates of universal suffrage in its true sense,” Lindsey does not support the relegation of the “voices and experiences of women of color to the background”.
• Barbara and Beverly Smith: Black Feminist Statement Sexism was an explicit element of the African American Civil Rights Movement. Fight against segregation was rather single-sided.
• Feminism: Fundamentals of Case Management Practice The feminist therapy’s main emphasis is put on the notion of invoking social changes and transforming the lives of people in favor of feminist resistance in order to promote equality and justice for all.
• Feminist Contributions to Understanding Women’s Lives This gave women a clear picture of the daily realities in their lives. The success of feminism is evident at all levels of human interaction since there is a better understanding of women and their […]
• As We Are Feminist Campaign’s Strategic Goals The present paper is devoted to the analysis of the goals of a feminist campaign As We Are that is aimed at challenging gender stereotypes that are being promoted by the media and society in […]
• Feminist Ethics in Nursing: Personal Thoughts The concept of feminist ethics emphasizes the belief that ethical theorizing at the present is done from a distinctly male point of view and, as such, lacks the moral experience of women.
• Feminism: Kneel to the Rest of Life, or Fight for the Fairness It seems that the law is not perfect, and the public opinion of sexual harassment might influence a woman’s life negatively.
• Feminist Perspective Influence on Canadian Laws and Lawmakers The change in the statistics is attributed to social changes, which include increase of women in the labor force, conflict in female-male relations, increase in alcohol consumption and increase in the rate of divorce. Feminists […]
• Blog Post: Arab Feminism in Contemporary World Women of the Arab world have struggled to overcome inequality, oppression, and rights deprivation by state authorities, which takes the discussion of the Islamic feminist movement to the political domain. According to Sharia, the unity […]
• Feminist Movement and Recommendations on Women’s Liberation According to Nawal El-Saadawi In Egypt, the feminist movement was started by Nawal El-Saadawi, and her article “The Arab Women’s Solidarity Association: The Coming Challenge” has historical importance as it addresses the plight of women in the community.
• Technological Progress, Globalization, Feminism Roots However, the work becomes more complicated when the time distance of the events and processes is shorter, and the stories are unfinished.
• Race at the Intersections: Sociology, 3rd Wave Feminism, and Critical Race Theory In this reading, the author examines the phenomenon of racism not merely as an issue but a systematic, institutionalized, and cultural phenomenon that is hard to eliminate.
• The Feminist Performers: Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic, Gina Pane The feminist artists ccontributed to the women’s image, its role in society, and exposed the passiveness and submissiveness the women are obliged to endure.
• Feminism and Multiculturalism for Women The foundation of liberalism is having an interest in all the minority cultures that are put together to form the larger special group.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
• Pornography’s Harm as a Feminist Fallacy In this scenario, scientific research has proven the argument not to be true. It is weakened by the fact that people are not forced to watch the video.
• Feminism in Mourning Dove’s “Cogewea, the Half-Blood” The patriarchal practices embraced by the Indian community and the subsequent system of governance humiliated the writer; hence, the use of Cogewea in the passage was aimed to imply the abilities that were bestowed upon […]
• The Emerging Feminism in India and Their Views on God as a Feminist However, among the explanation of the cause of the phenomenon for this lack of agreement is the tendency for people to define religion too narrowly, and in most cases from the perspective of their own […]
• Feminist Psychology in Canada The introduction of the article gives the purposes of the research that include the historical and present condition of the psychology of women field of interest.
• American Art Since 1945 Till Feminism The entire movement represented the combination of emotional strength and the self-expression of the European abstract schools: Futurism, the Bauhaus and Synthetic Cubism.
• Modernist Art: A Feminist Perspective Clarke limited the definition of modernism even further by his restriction of it to the facets of the Paris of Manet and the Impressionists, a place of leisure, pleasure, and excesses, and it seems that […]
• Enlightenment, Feminism and Social Movements As a result of Enlightenment, the creative entrepreneurs as well as thinkers enjoyed the high freedom benefits that were brought in by the Enlightenment thinkers, enabling them to apply the newly acquired liberty to invent […]
• “Our Journey to Repowered Feminism” by Sonja K. Foss Foss tried to work out a new conception of repowered feminism in the article “Our Journey to Repowered Feminism: Expanding the Feminist Toolbox”.
• Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde: The Black Feminist Poets The themes of double discrimination are developed in the poems “Woman Work” and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and poems “A Meeting of Minds” and “To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and […]
• Feminist Position on Prostitution and Pornography The only requirement is that it should not violate the norms of the law. On the other hand, one of the suggestions for feminists is to envisage individual cases of enslaving women as prostitutes.
• The Politics of Feminism in Islam by Anouar Majid Considering the work The Politics of Feminism in Islam by Anouar Majid written in 1998, it should be noticed that the main point of this article is the Muslim feminism and the relation of West […]
• The Feminist Art Movement in the 1970s and Today The feminist art movement emerged in the 1960s and from that time the women had taken much interest in what causes them to be different from the male gender and particularly, what causes the art […]
• Feminist Theory. Modes of Feminist Theorizing The second point of conflict is the acknowledgment that most of the feminist ideas are part and parcel of our culture yet these ideas might be presented in a way that is hard for us […]
• Australian Feminism Movements The fact that feminism movements do not have a great following in Australia is because they are not generally seen to address issues that women and the society are facing.
• Feminism in Canadian Literature First of all, the female author of the article considered by Cosh is evidently a supporter of the equality of rights for men and women, and her account on the women liberation movement in the […]
• Understanding of Feminism: Philosophical and Social Concepts The vision that emerges, in the narrative as in the world it represents, is of a whole composed of separate, yet interdependent and interrelating, parts.
• Geoffrey Chaucer: A Founder of English Literature as a Feminist Despite the distorted interpretation of gender in the patriarchal society, Chaucer’s vision of women contradicts the orthodox view of the biological distinction of males and females as the justification for gender inequality.
• Feminist Activism for Safer Social Space by Whitzman The scientist pays special attention to the municipal parks, mainly High Park in Toronto, from the point of view of feminists trying to make women involved into the discourse concerning different aspects of the park.
• Feminist Theory in Psychotherapy This theory puts women at the first place, and this place is reflected in three aspects: the first is its main object of study – the situation and difficulties faced by women in society, and […]
• Feminism in ‘Trifles’ by Susan Glaspell The Feminist Movement, also called the Women’s Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement, includes a series of efforts by women in the world to fight for the restoration of gender equality.
• Western Feminism as Fighters Against Oppression For postmodern feminists and post-colonial feminists, the second component of the new women’s ideology is the idea of the responsibility of the state to rule and administer both genders on the basis of their interpretation […]
• Perils and Possibilities of Doing Transnational Feminist Activism These have promoted awareness of human rights among women and other masses, ensured and led to the adoption of the rules and regulations recognizing women rights and that supports ending of women violations and participated […]
• The Feminist Gendering Into International Relations These are early female contributions to IR academic and the In terms of conferences, the theme of gender and politics was being explored in conferences.
• Western Feminists and Their Impact on the Consciousness and Self-Identity of Muslim Women One of the main objectives of the Western feminism is to give to the citizen of the new nation a feeling of dignity and importance resulting from that citizenship and from his ethnic origin, and […]
• Feminism – Women and Work in the Middle East The history of feminism consists of different movements and theories for the rights of women. The first wave of this phenomenon began in the 19th century and saw the end only in the early 20th […]
• Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Marianne Weber: Feminist Sociologists Through her writings she always advocated for the equal rights of women with men and remarked the importance of financial self-sufficiency among women in the society. She observed the role of women in society and […]
• Feminist Theory and Postmodern Approaches It seems to me that such technique can be quite helpful because it helps to get to the root of the problem.
• English Language in the Feminist Movement In addition to that, it is of the crucial importance to explore the underlying causes of this phenomenon. Now that we have enumerated the research methods, that can be employed, it is of the utmost […]
• Feminist Ideas in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” One of these issues and the subject of this paper is the theme of feminism in Shelley’s novel. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners”.- Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the […]
• Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Works and Feminism The woman’s role is depicted ever so poignantly in the works of Divakaruni and this also reflects the importance of reclaiming the understanding of the role of women in society.
• Black Feminism: A Revolutionary Practice The Black Feminist Movement was organized in an endeavor to meet the requirements of black women who were racially browbeaten in the Women’s Movement and sexually exploited during the Black Liberation Movement.
• Popular Culture From the Fifties to Heroin Chic: Feminism The women have become aware of their legal rights and disabilities as a consequence of the inclusion of educated women in movements to repair the legal disabilities.
• Positive Changes That Feminism Brought to America And when, in 1919, the American Constitution was amended such that the women in all the States were given the right to vote, it was then that the first period of feminism officially ended, their […]
• Are Feminist Criticisms of Militarism Essentialist? In the following essay, I will trace the essentialist feminists and their juxtaposition to the extent of their deep thoughts and activities toward the militaristic attitude and the changing perception of women in the militarism […]
• Western Feminist Critics and Cultural Imperialism To be able to fulfill the above-provided task, it would be necessary to discuss and analyze the issues of race, gender, sexuality, the oppression of multiculturalism, cultural relativism, the attitude of the feminists toward the […]
• Social Justice and Feminism in America So as to make a change in this situation, the feminists in America took efforts to improve the condition of women.
• American Women in History: Feminism and Suffrage It is important to note that the key sharp issues discussed in this chapter are: a finding of the independent women suffrage movement, the role of the constituency in this process, the role of war […]
• Wendy McElroy: A Feminist Defense of Men’s Rights The author sees the recent violation of men’s rights in the excessive spread of gender feminism, which appeared in the 1960s and touched primarily the family aspects of woman’s life, in particular, the right to […]
• The Concept of Feminist Epistemology The analysis starts with an overview of the evolutions process of standpoint epistemology; then, the philosophical movement is defined and the major ideas and arguments embedded into the theory are discussed.
• Modern Feminism as the Part of Intellectual Life Feminism In France has split lots of features recognizable to the anglophone world by the means of the feminist movements in the UK and the USA: on the one hand, the wish and the fight […]
• Feminist Movements in Contemporary Times The artists are the intellectual leaders of a society who incur significant influence in the patterns of culture and civilization. The participation of women in the development of cultural values and literary achievements are also […]
• Feminist Critiques of Medicine In the area of new reproductive technologies, for instance, some women have campaigned to end the use of techniques such as IVF, seeing them as potentially genocidal and of no value to women.
• Shakespeare: A Feminist Writer A careful analysis of Lady Macbeth’s intensely complicated character and her role in the play proves that Shakespeare is actually a feminist writer.
• Feminism in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler
• Liberal Feminism Movement Analysis
• Feminism and Support of Gender Equality
• Feminism: Liberal, Black, Radical, and Lesbian
• Women and Law. Feminist Majority Foundation
• Empowerment and Feminist Theory
• A Feminist Analysis on Abu Ghraib
• “The Historical Evolution of Black Feminist Theory and Praxis” by Taylor
• Is Power Feminism a Feminist Movement?
• Postcolonial Feminism Among Epistemological Views
• Feminist Theory: Performing and Altering Bodies
• Feminist Theories by Bordo, Shaw & Lee, Shildrick & Price
• Feminist Examination of Science
• Race, Sex and Knowledge From Feminist Perspective
• Colonialism and Knowledge in Feminist Discourse
• Feminist Perspective in “Ruined” Play by Nottage
• Feminism and the Relational Approach to Autonomy
• Feminism and Sexuality in the “Lila Says” Film
• Ecological Feminism and Environmental Ethics
• Feminist Perspective: “The Gender Pay Gap Explained”
• Second Wave of Feminist Movement
• Education and Feminism in the Arabian Peninsula
• Black Women in Feminism and the Media
• Spiritual and Educational Feminist Comparison
• Feminist Theoretical Schools in Various Cultures
• The Application of Psychoanalysis in Feminist Theories
• Feminism: Exposing Women to the Public Sphere
• Feminist Psychoanalysis From McRobbie’s Perspective
• Feminist Films: “Stella Dallas” and “Dance Girl, Dance”
• Ageism and Feminism in Career and Family Expectations
• “Feminist Geopolitics and September 11” by Jenifer Hyndman
• The History of Feminism in the 1960
• Feminist Theory of Family Therapy
• Feminism in Tunisia and Jordan in Comparison
• Feminism and Gender Studies in Science
• Feminism in the United Arab Emirates
• Conceptualization of Difference in Feminism
• Feminist Political Theory, Approaches and Challenge
• Feminism in Latin America
• Planet B-Girl: Community Building and Feminism in Hip-Hop
• Hello Kitty as a Kitsch and Anti-Feminist Phenomenon
• Methods of Feminism Education and Its Modern Theories
• Feminism in Lorrie Moore’s “You’re Ugly, Too”
• Anti-Feminism and Heteropatriarchal Normativity
• Feminist Archaeologists’ Interpretations of the Past
• The Theory of Feminism Through the Prism of Time
• Development of Feminism in Chile
• Concept of “Western Feminism”
• Marxism vs. Feminism: Human Nature, Power, Conflict
• Feminism in Lorber’s, Thompson’s, Hooks’s Views
• Prison and Social Movement in Black Feminist View
• Great Awakening, American Civil War, and Feminism
• Feminism and Roles in “A Raisin in the Sun” Play
• Feminist Miss America Pageant Protest of 1968
• Black Feminist Perspectives in Toni Morrison’s Works
• Feminist Movement as an Attempt to Obtain Equal Rights
• Axel Honneth Views on Feminism
• Activist and Feminist Rose Schneiderman
• Feminist Deceit in Short Stories
• Post-Feminism in the Wonder Bra Commercial
• Feminist Movement Influence on the Arab Film Industry
• Third World Feminism and Its Challenges
• “First Wave” Feminist Movement
• Feminism: the Contraception Movement in Canada
• Beyonce and Assata Shakur Feminism Ideas Comparison
• Feminism in “‘Now We Can Begin” by Crystal Eastman
• Gender Studies of Feminism: Radical and Liberal Branches
• Feminism and Film Theory
• The Realization of Third-wave Feminism Ideals
• Sexuality as a Social and Historical Construct
• Modern Feminist Movements
• Feminist Theories in Relation to Family Functions
• Rebecca Solnit’s Views on Feminism
• Feminism and Respect for Culture
• “Old and New Feminists in Latin America: The Case of Peru and Chile” by Chaney E.M.
• “Frida Kahlo: A Contemporary Feminist Reading” by Liza Bakewell
• Chinese Feminism in the Early 20th Century
• Feminism in the 20th Century: a Literature Perspective. Research Summaries
• Feminism and Modern Friendship
• Women and Their Acceptance of Feminism
• Women, Religion, and Feminism
• Women’s Health and Feminism Theory
• The History of the Pill and Feminism
• Challenges to Build Feminist Movement Against Problems of Globalization and Neoliberalism
• Feministic Movement in Iron Jawed Angels
• Hillary Clinton: Furthering Political Agenda Through Feminism
• Feminist Pro-Porn During Sex Wars
• Feministic View of McCullers’ “The Member of the Wedding”
• “Feminism, Peace, Human Rights and Human Security” by Charlotte Bunch
• Feminism in China During the Late Twentieth Century
• Feminist Political Change
• Antonio Gramsci and Feminism: The Elusive Nature of Power
• Changes That Feminism and Gender Lenses Can Bring To Global Politics
• Feminism Has Nothing to Tell Us About the Reality of War, Conflict and Hard, Cold Facts
• Feminism in the works of Susan Glaspell and Sophocles
• Cross Cultural Analysis of Feminism in the Muslim Community
• The Adoption of Feminist Doctrine in Canada
• Feminist Movement in Canada
• The Feminist Power and Structure in Canada
• Feminism and Gender Mainstreaming
• Feminist Movement: The National Organization for Women
• Feminist Analysis of the Popular Media: The Sexualization Process Takes Its Toll on the Younger Female Audience
• Women in the Field of Art
• The Reflection of the Second-Wave Feminism in Scandinavia: “Show Me Love” and “Together”
• Liberal and Socialist Feminist Theories
• What Does Feminism Stand For? Who are These Creatures who call themselves Feminists?
• Full Frontal Feminism – What is Still Preventing Women from Achieving Equality?
• The Ordeal of Being a Woman: When Feminist Ideas Dissipate
• Comparison and Contrast of Spiritual and Educational Feminists
• Gender Issue and the Feminist Movement
• Dorothy E. Smith and Feminist Theory Development
• Feminism Builds up in Romanticism, Realism, Modernism
• Feminist Movement Tendencies
• Scholars Comment on Gender Equality
• The Smurfette Principle in the Modern Media: Feminism Is over?
• The Feminist Movement
• Feminism and Evolution or Emergence of Psychology
• Reasons Why the Black Women Population Did Not Consider Themselves a Part of the Ongoing Feminist Movements
• Black Women and the Feminist Movement
• Feminism and Patriarchy
• Feminism Interview and the Major Aim of Feminism
• Gender and Religion: Women and Islam
• Charlotte Gilman’s feminism theory
• Concept and History of the Liberal Feminism
• Feminism and Women’s History
• Feminist Criticism in “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
• Obesity: Health or Feminist Issue?
• Feminism in Roger and Dodger Film
• Comparing Views on the Feminism of Wollstonecraft and Martin Luther King
• Anarchy, Black Nationalism and Feminism
• Concepts of Feminism in the Present Societies
• Gender Issues and Feminist Movement
• “Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal” by Kitzinger and Frith: Summary
• Feminist Ethics Concept
• How Did African Feminism Change the World?
• Why Might Feminism and Poststructuralism Be Described as an Uneasy Alliance?
• Does Feminism and Masculinity Define Who People Are Today?
• How Did Feminism Change New Zealand?
• Can Feminism and Marxism Come Together?
• How Did Second Wave Feminism Affect the Lives of Women?
• Does Arab Feminism Exist?
• How Does Chivalry Affect Feminism?
• Has Feminism Achieved Its Goals?
• How Does the French Feminism Theory Manifest Itself?
• Does Feminism Create Equality?
• How Has Feminism Changed the Lives of Women, Men, and Families?
• Has Feminism Benefited the American Society?
• How Does Feminism Explain Gender Differences in Comparison to the Mainstream Psychology?
• Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?
• How Does Feminism Harm Women’s Health Care?
• Does Feminism Really Work?
• How Does Feminism Threaten Male Control and Alters Their Dominance in Society?
• What Are the Basic Traits of Liberal Feminism?
• How Has Economic Development and Globalization of South Korea Influenced the Role of Feminism?
• What Are the Concepts of Marxism and Feminism?
• How Has Feminism Developed?
• What Are the Main Theoretical and Political Differences Between First and Second Waves of Feminism?
• Why Should Men Teach Feminism?
• How Does Popular Fiction Reflect Debates About Gender and Sexuality?
• When Does Feminism Go Wrong?
• How Do Teenage Magazines Express the Post-feminism Culture?
• Why Has Patriarchy Proved Such a Contentious Issue for Feminism?
• What Are the Main Contributions of Feminism to the Contemporary Lifestyle?
• Can Modern Feminism Start the Discrimination of Men?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 24). 334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/

"334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." IvyPanda , 24 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples'. 24 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

• Women’s Rights Titles
• Gender Equality Questions
• Women’s Movement Questions
• Discrimination Essay Titles
• Gender Inequality Research Topics
• Sexism Essay Ideas
• Gender Roles Paper Topics
• Motherhood Ideas
• Gender Stereotypes Essay Titles
• Women’s Role Essay Topics
• Sociological Perspectives Titles
• Gender Discrimination Research Topics
• Masculinity Topics
• Activist Essay Titles
• Gender Issues Questions

Presentations made painless

• Get Premium

101 Feminism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Feminism is a powerful and important movement that has been shaping the world for centuries. It has brought about significant changes in society and continues to push for gender equality and women's rights. If you are tasked with writing an essay on feminism but are struggling to come up with a topic, fear not! Here are 101 feminism essay topic ideas and examples to help inspire you:

• The history of feminism and its impact on society
• The different waves of feminism and their significance
• The portrayal of feminism in popular culture
• Feminism and the media: How women are represented in the media
• Intersectionality and feminism: The importance of considering race, class, and sexuality in feminist discourse
• Feminism and reproductive rights
• The wage gap and feminism: How women are still paid less than men for the same work
• Feminism and body image: The pressure on women to conform to unrealistic beauty standards
• Feminism and motherhood: The challenges faced by working mothers
• Feminism and sexual harassment: The #MeToo movement and its impact on society
• Feminism and the LGBTQ+ community: How feminism intersects with queer rights
• Feminism and education: The importance of empowering girls and women through education
• Feminism and politics: The representation of women in government
• Feminism and environmentalism: How women are disproportionately affected by climate change
• Feminism and technology: The lack of diversity in the tech industry
• Feminism and healthcare: The impact of gender bias in medical treatment
• Feminism and literature: The portrayal of women in classic and contemporary literature
• Feminism and sports: The challenges faced by female athletes
• Feminism and religion: How different religions view women's rights
• Feminism and fashion: The objectification of women in the fashion industry
• Feminism and art: How women artists are often marginalized in the art world
• Feminism and mental health: The stigma surrounding women's mental health issues
• Feminism and domestic violence: The prevalence of domestic violence against women
• Feminism and sex work: The debate over whether sex work can be empowering for women
• Feminism and technology: How women are underrepresented in STEM fields
• Feminism and aging: The challenges faced by older women in society
• Feminism and disability rights: The intersection of feminism and disability advocacy
• Feminism and social media: The role of social media in the feminist movement
• Feminism and global activism: How women around the world are fighting for their rights
• Feminism and language: The importance of using gender-inclusive language
• Feminism and the law: The fight for legal protections for women
• Feminism and reproductive justice: The right of all women to make decisions about their own bodies
• Feminism and sex education: The importance of comprehensive sex education for girls and boys
• Feminism and mental health: The impact of gender roles on mental health
• Feminism and social justice: How feminist activism intersects with other social justice movements
• Feminism and race: The experiences of women of color in the feminist movement
• Feminism and disability rights: The unique challenges faced by disabled women
• Feminism and body positivity: The movement to embrace all body types
• Feminism and sex work: The rights of sex workers and the need for decriminalization
• Feminism and the workplace: The fight for equal pay and opportunities for women
• Feminism and reproductive rights: The impact of restrictive abortion laws on women's health
• Feminism and education: The importance of empowering girls through education
• Feminism and media representation: The portrayal of women in the media
• Feminism and LGBTQ+ rights: How feminism intersects with queer rights
• Feminism and reproductive justice: The fight for the right of all women to make decisions about their own bodies

Want to create a presentation now?

Instantly Create A Deck

Let PitchGrade do this for me

Hassle Free

We will create your text and designs for you. Sit back and relax while we do the work.

Explore More Content

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service

© 2023 Pitchgrade

• Thesis Statement Generator
• Online Summarizer
• Rewording Tool
• Topic Generator
• Essay Title Page Maker
• Conclusion Writer
• Academic Paraphraser
• Essay Writing Help
• Topic Ideas
• Writing Guides
• Useful Information

489 Feminism Essay Topics

Women make up half of the world’s population. How did it happen they were oppressed?

We are living in the era of the third wave of feminism, when women fight for equal rights in their professional and personal life. Public figures say that objectification and sexualization of women are not ok. Moreover, governments adopt laws that protect equal rights and possibilities for people of all genders, races, and physical abilities. Yes, it is also about feminism.

In this article, you will find 400+ feminism essay topics for students. Some raise the problems of feminism; others approach its merits. In addition, we have added a brief nuts-and-bolts course on the history and principal aspects of this social movement.

❗ Top 15 Feminism Essay Topics

• 💻 Feminism Research Topics
• 📜 History of Feminism Topics
• 🙋‍♀️ Topics on Feminism Movements

🔥 Famous Feminists Essay Topics

• 👩‍🎓 Topics on Women’s Rights in the World
• 👸 Antifeminism Essay Topics

📚 Topics on Feminism in Literature

🔗 references.

• Compare and contrast liberal and radical feminism.
• The problem of political representation of feminism.
• Is Hillary Clinton the most prominent feminist?
• How can feministic ideas improve our world?
• What is the glass ceiling, and how does it hinder women from reaching top positions?
• What can we do to combat domestic violence?
• Unpaid domestic work: Voluntary slavery?
• Why do women traditionally do social work?
• What are the achievements of feminism?
• Why is there no unity among the currents of feminism?
• Pornographic content should be banned in a civilized society.
• Does feminism threaten men?
• What is intersectional feminism, and why is it the most comprehensive feminist movement?
• Those who are not feminists are sexists.
• Why are women the “second gender?”

💻 Feminism Research Topics & Areas

Feminism is the belief in the equality of the sexes in social, economic, and political spheres. This movement originated in the West, but it has become represented worldwide. Throughout human history, women have been confined to domestic labor. Meanwhile, public life has been men’s prerogative. Women were their husband’s property, like a house or a cow. Today this situation has vastly improved, but many problems remain unresolved.

A feminism research paper aims to analyze the existing problems of feminism through the example of famous personalities, literary works, historical events, and so on. Women’s rights essay topics dwell on one of the following issues:

Healthcare & Reproductive Rights of Women

Women should be able to decide whether they want to have children or not or whether they need an abortion or not. External pressure or disapprobation is unacceptable. In many countries, abortions are still illegal. It is a severe problem because the female population attempts abortions without medical assistance in unhygienic conditions.

Economic Rights of Women

Women’s job applications are often rejected because they are expected to become mothers and require maternity leave. Their work is underpaid on a gender basis. They are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions because of the so-called “ glass ceiling .” All these problems limit women’s economic rights.

Women’s Political Rights

Yes, women have voting rights in the majority of the world’s countries. Why isn’t that enough? Because they are still underrepresented in almost all the world’s governments. Only four countries have 50% of female parliamentarians. Laws are approved by men and for men.

Family & Parenting

The British Office for National Statistics has calculated that women spend 78% more time on childcare than men. They also perform most of the unpaid domestic work. Meanwhile, increasingly more mothers are employed or self-employed. It isn’t fair, is it?

Virginity is a myth. Still, women are encouraged to preserve it until a man decides to marry her. Any expression of female sexuality is criticized (or “ slut-shamed “). We live in the 21st century, but old fossilized prejudices persist.

📜 History of Feminism Essay Topics

First wave of feminism & earlier.

• Ancient and medieval promoters of feminist ideas.
• “Debate about women” in medieval literature and philosophy.
• The emergence of feminism as an organized movement.
• Enlightenment philosophers’ attitudes towards women.
• The legal status of women in Renaissance.
• Women’s Liberation Movement Evolution in the US.
• Mary Wollstonecraft’s views on women’s rights.
• Sociopolitical background of the suffrage movement.
• The most prominent suffrage activists.
• The Liberation Theme Concerning Women.
• “Declaration of sentiments”: key points and drawbacks.
• What was special about Sojourner Truth and her famous speech?
• The significance of the first feminist convention in Seneca Falls.
• The National Woman Suffrage Association: goals and tactics.
• The influence of abolitionism on feminism ideas.
• Why did some women prefer trade unions to feminism?
• Radical feminists’ criticism of the suffrage movement.
• The UK suffragists’ approach to gaining voting rights for women.
• Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst’s role in the suffrage movement.
• The Nineteenth Amendment: the essence and significance.
• Infighting in the post-suffrage era.

Second Wave of Feminism Essay Titles

• How did second-wave feminism differ from the suffrage movement?
• The roots of the second wave of feminism.
• John Kennedy’s policies concerning women’s rights.
• Eleanor Roosevelt’s contribution to feminism.
• Debates on gender equality in the late 1960s.
• Feminism activists’ achievements in 1960-1970.
• What was the focus of second-wave feminist research?
• Why was there no comprehensive feminist ideology?
• Anarcho-, individualist, “Amazon,” and separatist feminism: key ideas.
• The nature of liberal feminism.
• How did liberal and radical feminism differ?
• Why was cultural feminism also called “difference” feminism?
• Liberal and Postmodernist Theories of Feminism.
• What is the difference between liberal and radical feminism?
• Black feminists’ challenges and input to the fight for equity.
• Sociocultural differences in views on female liberation.
• The globalization of feminism: positive and negative aspects.
• Taliban’s oppression of Afghani women.
• Women in the US Military: World War II.
• What were the main concerns of feminists from developing countries?
• Why did Third World women criticize Western feminists?
• Feminism achievements to the end of the 20th century.

Third Wave of Feminism Research Topics

• What was peculiar about the third wave of feminism?
• Why did third-wave feminists consider their predecessors’ work unfinished?
• Social, political, economic, and cultural premises of third-wave feminism.
• How did the information revolution impact feminism?
• Third Wave Foundation’s major goals.
• Women’s Rights and Changes Over the 20th Century.
• Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards’ views on feminism.
• The impact of second wavers success on third-wave feminism.
• New approaches in fighting discrimination, utilized by third-wave feminists.
• The influence of the postmodern movement on feminism.
• The concept of a gender continuum.
• How did sexist symbols turn into female empowerment tools?
• What was specific about third-wave feminist art?
• Third-wavers’ redefinition of women as powerful and assertive figures.
• “Girl power” in pop culture.
• How did the Internet impact third-wave feminism?
• Sexualized behavior: sexual liberation or oppression in disguise?
• Why was third-wave feminism criticized?
• The multifaceted nature of third-wave feminism.
• Is multivocality a strength or weakness of third-wave feminism?
• How did third wavers counter the criticism?

Fourth Wave of Feminism Essay Topics

• The premises of fourth-wave feminism.
• Feminism’s major goals after 2012.
• Peculiarities of fourth-wave feminism.
• What behavior is sexual harassment?
• Gender Equality at the Heart of Development.
• Sexual harassment: different gender-based perspectives.
• Social media: a feminist tool.
• Can social media deepen discrimination?
• Gender discrimination in video games.
• Musical Preferences: Race and Gender Influences.
• GamerGate’s alleged “men’s rights campaign.”
• Sexism in Donald Trump’s speech.
• Women’s March: reasons and significance.
• Main steps in MeToo’s development.
• Tarana Burke’s fight for justice.
• Gender Stereotypes of Superheroes.
• MeToo’s contribution to women’s rights.
• The most impactful MeToo stories.
• Harvey Weinstein’s case: outcome’s implications.
• Gender Roles in the Context of Religion.
• Sexual harassment awareness after MeToo.
• MeToo’s influence on Hollywood’s ethics.
• Reasons for criticism of MeToo.
• Social Change and the Environment.
• Are sexual violence discussions necessary?

🙋‍ Argumentative Essay Topics on Feminism Movements

Mainstream feminism topics.

• What is the focus of mainstream feminism?
• Mainstream feminism predispositions in the 19th century.
• The place of politics within mainstream feminism.
• What is males’ place in mainstream feminism?
• The correlation of mainstream feminism and social liberalism.
• The correlation between mainstream feminism and state feminism.
• Gender equality in the doctrine of mainstream feminism.
• Why sunflower is the symbol of mainstream feminism?
• Anthony Gidden’s ideas regarding liberal feminism.
• Liberal feminism, according to Catherine Rottenberg.
• Mary Wollstonecraft and her vision of liberal feminism.
• Liberal feminism through John Stuart Mill’s perspective.
• Interdependence of mainstream feminism and political liberalism.
• NOW’s activities and mainstream feminism.
• LWV’s activities and mainstream liberalism.
• LGBT’s place in mainstream liberalism’s doctrine.
• Discourse Analysis of the Me Too Movement’s Media Coverage.
• Frances Wright’s role in establishing mainstream feminism.
• Mainstream feminism and the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
• Constitutional Equity Amendment and mainstream feminism.
• International Woman Suffrage Alliance’s activities and mainstream feminism.
• Mainstream feminism and Gina Krog’s works.
• Betty Friedan’s understanding of mainstream feminism.
• Gloria Steinem’s theoretical contribution to mainstream feminism.
• Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas and the framework of mainstream feminism.
• Rebecca Walker and her vision within the scope of mainstream feminism.
• NWPC’s activities and mainstream feminism.
• WEAL’s activities and mainstream feminism.
• Catherine Mackinnon and mainstream feminism’s critique.
• “White woman’s burden” and mainstream feminism’s critique.
• The roots of mainstream feminism in Europe.

Radical Feminism Essay Titles

• Society’s order according to radical feminism.
• Sexual objectification and radical feminism.
• Gender roles according to radical feminism.
• Shulamith Firestone’s ideas regarding the feminist revolution.
• Ti-Grace Atkinson’s ideas in Radical feminism.
• The vision of radical feminism on patriarchy.
• Radical feminism’s impact on the women’s liberation movement.
• Radical feminism’s roots in the early 1960s.
• Kathie Sarachild’s role in radical feminism movements.
• Carol Hanisch’s contribution to radical feminism.
• Roxanne Dunbar and her radical feminism.
• Naomi Weisstein and her vision of radical feminism.
• Judith Brown’s activities in terms of radical feminism.
• UCLA Women’s Liberation Front role in radical feminism.
• Why have women come to be viewed as the “other?”
• Ellen Willis’s ideas regarding radical feminism.
• Redstockings’ role in radical feminism.
• The feminist’s role in radical feminism.
• Differences between The Feminists’ and Restokings’ positions.
• The protest against Miss America in 1968.
• 11-hour sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal headquarters.
• Forms of direct action in radical feminism.
• Protest of biased coverage of lesbians in 1972.
• Lisa Tuttle’s vision of radical feminism.
• Catharine MacKinnon’s position regarding pornography.
• Peculiarities of radical lesbian feminism.
• Recognition of trans women in radical feminism.
• Radical feminism in the New Left.
• Mary Daly’s vision of radical feminism.
• Robin Morgan’s vision of radical feminism.

Other Interesting Feminism Essay Topics

• Ecofeminism’s role in feminism’s popularization.
• Greta Gaard, Lori Gruen, and ecofeminism.
• Petra Kelly’s figure in ecofeminism.
• Capitalist reductionist paradigm and ecofeminism.
• Ecofeminism. How does the movement interpret modern science?
• Essentials of vegetarian ecofeminism.
• Peculiarities of materialist ecofeminism.
• Interconnection between spiritual ecofeminism and cultural ecofeminism.
• Henry David Thoreau’s influence on ecofeminism.
• Aldo Leopold’s influence on ecofeminism.
• Rachel Carson’s influence on ecofeminism.
• The social construction of gender in post-structural feminism.
• Luce Irigaray as a post-structuralist feminist.
• Julia Kristeva’s contribution to post-structuralist feminism.
• Hélène Cixous and her activities as a post-structuralist feminist.
• L’Écriture feminine in feminist theory.
• Monique Wittig’s influence on post-structuralist feminism.
• Kimberlé Crenshaw’s views on intersectionality.
• Marxist feminist critical theory.
• Representational intersectionality in feminist theory.
• Marxism and Feminism: Similarities and Differences.
• Interlocking matrix of oppression.
• Standpoint epistemology and the outsider within.
• Resisting oppression in feminist theory.
• Women’s institute of science and feminism.
• Peculiarities of the Black feminist movement.
• Equity and race and feminism.
• Pamela Abbott’s ideas regarding postmodern feminism.
• Trans-exclusionary radical feminism today.
• Lipstick feminism’s ideas in the political context.
• Stiletto feminism and fetish fashion.
• Adichie’s proof that we should all be feminists.
• Analysis of Maya Angelou’s “And still I rise.”.
• Susan Anthony – the abolitionist movement’s champion.
• Maria Eugenia Echenique’s Contribution to Women’s Emancipation.
• Patricia Arquette’s arguments on the gender pay gap topic.
• Simone de Beauvoir’s role in feminism.
• Madonna’s contribution to the female sexuality argument.
• How did Clinton rebuild US politics?
• Davis’s opinion on feminism and race.
• Dworkin’s vision of a future society.
• Friedan and feminism’s second wave.
• Gay’s description of bad feminists.
• Ruth Ginsburg – first woman champion in law.
• Hook’s answer to “Is feminism for everybody”?
• Dorothy Hughes – feminist leader of the civil rights movement.
• Themes in Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.
• Lorde’s explorations of women’s identity.
• Mock’s role in transgender women’s equality movement.
• Page’s championship in feminism.
• Pankhurst’s arguments for women’s voting rights.
• Rhimes’ strong women image in Grey’s Anatomy.
• Sandberg’s opinion about female careers.
• Sanger’s feminist ideas’ contribution to happy families.
• Walker and her fight for women of color’s rights.
• Oprah Winfrey’s role in promoting feminism.
• Eleanor Roosevelt: history of the first politician – a woman.
• Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas about female education.
• Youngest-ever Nobel laureate – Malala.
• Emma Watson’s path from actress to feminist.
• Why is Steinem’s name feminism synonymous?
• Truth’s life from an enslaved person to activist.

🎯 Persuasive Women’s Rights Essay Topics

Healthcare and reproductive rights of women.

• Is abortion morally acceptable?
• Why is the fight for child care not over?
• Should government participate in birth control?
• Researching of Maternity Care in Haiti.
• Government’s moral right to cancel abortions.
• Should the government allow abortions?
• What are birth control and its meaning?
• Abortion rights recently disappeared in the US.
• Gender Disparity in Colorectal Cancer Screening.
• Why are women’s rights becoming less vital?
• Western world’s degradation in women’s rights issue.
• Canceling abortion endangers women’s human rights.
• Female access to healthcare in developing countries.
• Developed countries’ role in improving women’s healthcare.
• Media’s contribution to legalizing abortions.
• Middle-Aged Women’s Health and Lifestyle Choices.
• Female genital mutilation’s moral side.
• Feminism’s impact on LGBTQ healthcare rights.
• The reproductive rights of women are everyone’s problem.
• Abortion rights’ impact on country’s economy.
• Protection From Infringement and Discrimination.
• Women’s reproductive rights in developing countries.
• Abortion rights crisis and the UN’s failure in achieving SDG#4.
• UN’s contribution to achieving equal healthcare rights.
• IGO’s impact on women’s reproductive rights issue.
• Report on the Speech by Gianna Jessen.
• Is birth control already at risk?
• Why should abortions not be allowed?
• Meaning of reproductive justice.
• Reproductive rights movement’s role in the country’s development.
• Single Mothers, Poverty, and Mental Health Issues.
• The reproductive rights movement, as all social movements’ drivers.
• Abortion’s relation to healthcare rights.
• Healthcare rights’ impact on a country’s economic development.
• Political agenda behind abortion cancellation.
• Feminism’s role in national healthcare.

Economic Rights, Salaries, and Access to Education for Women

• Definition of women’s economic rights.
• Female economic rights’ impact on the economy.
• Female economic rights and education.
• Gender Prevalence in Medical Roles.
• Can women do “male jobs”?
• Gender inequality in the workplace.
• Women’s economic rights movements.
• How Wealth Inequality Affects Democracy in America.
• Barriers to gender-equal economic rights.
• Gender inequality by social classes.
• Female economic rights and poverty.
• Can equal economic rights solve SDG#1?
• Gender-Based Discrimination in the Workplace.
• Why is it important to have equal access to education?
• How did the gender pay gap appear?
• Why does the gender pay gap exist?
• Women’s economic rights and industrialization.
• Characteristics of Mayo Clinic.
• Female economic rights worldwide.
• Legal rights of women workers.
• Laws that protect women’s economic rights.
• Women as leaders in the workplace.
• The Future of Women at Work in the Age of Automation.
• Why are companies against women workers?
• Fertility’s impact on female economic rights.
• Quiet revolution’s impact female workforce.
• Reasons to monitor occupational dissimilarity index.
• Women’s Roles in Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism.
• Female economic rights in developing countries.
• Democracy and female economic rights.
• Gender pay gap as a global problem.
• ILO’s role in the fight for equal economic rights?
• Politics’ impact on female economic rights.
• Health Disparities: Solving the Problem.
• Female economic rights movement and the fight against racism.
• The best practices in achieving gender-equal economic rights.
• Democracy and gender pay gap.
• Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value.

Women’s Political Rights Essay Topics

• Women’s suffrage movement definition.
• Female suffrage movement’s significance.
• Causes of gender inequality in politics.
• Women’s suffrage movement’s role today.
• Female suffrage’s impact on democracy.
• Women’s suffrage and economy.
• Suffrage movement’s effect on politics in the US.
• Do women need the right to vote?
• Effects of gender inequality on politics.
• Suffrage movement and politics in Britain.
• Laws for gender-equal political rights.
• The correlation between gender inequality in politics and authoritarianism.
• The possible solutions to gender inequality in politics.
• The role of IGOs in solving gender inequality in politics.
• How has the UN participated in the women’s suffrage movement?
• What is women’s role in politics in developing countries?
• How can women improve politics in their countries?
• What can men do for women’s equal political rights?
• Why equal rights to vote are everyone’s problem?
• The impact of Antoinette Louisa Brown on women’s suffrage.
• The effect of equal rights to education on equal political rights.
• Are western policies for equal rights applicable in developing countries?
• The importance of equal rights to vote.
• How to eliminate the gender pay gap?
• Why had women not had equal rights in politics?
• Is politics a “male job”?
• Benefits of appearance of female leaders in politics.
• Who created the women’s suffrage movement?
• How does women’s suffrage impact racism?
• Women’s suffrage contribution to LGBTQ communities’ equal political rights.

Family and Parenting Research Titles

• Female and male roles in a family.
• Sexism in families.
• Eliminating sexism in families is the best solution to gender inequality.
• Why is feminism a pro-family movement?
• The Childbirth Process in Women’s Experiences.
• The benefits of feminist upbringing.
• The causes of sexism in families.
• How does feminism help LGBTQ parents?
• Why should sexism be legally banned?
• Healthcare Resources and Equity in Their Distribution.
• The effects of sexism in families.
• The influence of sexist customs on society.
• Why should every family be feminist?
• How can feminism help solve the domestic violence issue?
• Government’s role in creating feminist families.
• What is feminist family value?
• The relation of authoritarian parent-paradigm on politics.
• Can feminist families bring democracy?
• Teaching feminism at home vs. at school.
• Traditional vs. Feminist parenting.
• Why should women have the right to be child-free?
• The impact of bringing up feminist daughters.
• Can feminist parents bring up mentally healthy children?
• Does the government have a moral right to endorse feminist values?
• The role of media for feminist families.
• How does feminism transform parent-child relationships?
• Can feminism help families overcome poverty?
• The role of feminist families in the economy.
• The influence of hierarchal husband-wife relationships on children.
• Do IGOs have moral rights to intervene in feminist families?
• The movements endorsing feminism in families.
• The effect of different views on feminism in parents on children.

Sexuality Essay Ideas

• The views of radical feminists on women’s sexuality.
• Who are sex-positive feminists, and their values?
• Feminism’s impact on sexual orientation.
• The role of feminism in sexual identity matters.
• Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls.
• How does feminism help eliminate sexual violence?
• What is harassment, and why are feminists fighting it?
• The role of media in women’s sexuality.
• Traditional views on women’s sexuality.
• How is feminism transforming sexuality?
• Domestic Violence and COVID-19 Relation.
• What are feminist sex wars?
• Why are some feminists against pornography?
• What are pro-pornography feminist arguments?
• How is feminism protecting the rights of sex workers?
• Rights of sex workers in developed vs. developing countries.
• Media Promotion of Cosmetic Surgery in Women.
• Feminist critique of censorship.
• What is behind the issue of sex trafficking?
• Children’s rape problem and feminism.
• The role of feminism in solving the sex trafficking problem.
• The Influence of the Women Image in the Media.
• R v. Butler case discussion.
• How is pornography enhancing sexual objectification?
• How is poverty causing prostitution?
• Can feminism eliminate prostitution by solving poverty?
• Child Marriage in Egypt and Ways to Stop It.
• Pro-sex worker feminists and their beliefs.
• What are the perspectives of pro-sex workers?
• The consequences of violence against women.
• The role of feminism to LGBTQ sex workers.
• Why are feminists trying to decriminalize prostitution?
• Beauty Standards: “The Body Myth” by Rebecca Johnson.
• Prostitution in developed vs. developing countries.
• The effect of class and race differences on prostitution.
• Short- and long-term impacts on sex workers.

👩‍🎓 Essay Topics on Women’s Rights in the World

Essay topics on feminism in developing countries.

• Social taboos and abortion in Nigeria.
• Access to sexual healthcare in Asia.
• Human Papillomavirus Awareness in Saudi Women.
• Sexual health and access to contraception in developing countries.
• Coronavirus pandemic’s impact on gender inequalities.
• Health and education access for women in Afghanistan.
• Female Empowerment in the Islamic States.
• Does poverty result in increased sexual violence?
• Regulations on gender equality in developing countries.
• Unsafe abortion, contraceptive use, and women’s health.
• Female genital mutilation in the 21st century.
• Practicing female genital mutation in Africa.
• Gender Discrimination After the Reemergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• Which countries have the highest gender gap?
• Forced and child marriages in humanitarian settings.
• The Taliban’s view: Is woman a property?
• Feminism in Latin America.
• Honor killing in Pakistan: 1000 women are killed annually.
• Women’s access to healthcare in Somalia.

Feminism Essay Topics in Developed Countries

• “Broken Rung” and the gender pay gap.
• What are the obstacles to reaching gender equality?
• Do gender stereotypes result in workplace discrimination?
• Increased educational attainment of young women.
• Culture: Women With Hijab in Western Countries.
• Ending sexual harassment and violence against women.
• Is sexual harassment a form of discrimination?
• Cracking the glass ceiling: What are the barriers and challenges?
• Domestic drama: The impact of sexual violence on women’s health.
• Socio-cultural Factors That Affected Sport in Australian Society.
• Feminism and the problem of misogyny.
• The challenges faced by women in developed counties.
• Female participation in the labor market.
• Discrimination Against Girls in Canada.
• Unequal pay for women in the workplace.
• How do developed countries improve women’s rights?
• Nations with strong women’s rights.
• Women’s employment: Obstacles and challenges.

👸 Antifeminist Essay Topics

• Antifeminism: The right to abortion.
• Gender differences in suicide.
• Manliness in American culture.
• Antifeminism view: Men are in crisis.
• The threats of society’s feminization.
• The meaning of antifeminism across time and cultures.
• Antifeminism attracts both men and women.
• Gender and Science: Origin, History, and Politics.
• Antifeminism: The opposition to women’s equality?
• How do religious and cultural norms formulate antifeminism?
• Saving masculinity or promoting gender equality?
• Traditional gender division of labor: Fair or not?
• Are feminist theories of patriarchy exaggerated?
• Oppression of men in the 21st century.
• Psychological sex differences and biological tendencies.
• Does feminism make it harder for men to succeed?
• The change of women’s roles: Impact on the family.
• How were traditional gender roles challenged in modern culture?
• History of antifeminism: The pro-family movement.
• Religion and contemporary antifeminism.
• Antifeminist on the rights of minorities.
• Heterosexual and patriarchal family: Facts behind antifeminism.
• Women against feminism in Western countries.
• Feminism versus humanism: What is the difference?
• Does feminism portray women as victims?
• Same-sex marriage: The dispute between feminists and antifeminists.
• Male-oriented values of religions and antifeminism.
• Does antifeminism threaten the independence of women?
• Men’s rights movement: Manosphere.
• Does antifeminism refer to extremism?
• The fear of being labeled as a feminist.
• A Vindication of the Right of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft.
• Jane Austen: Criticism of inequitable social rules.
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Frankenstein and aborted creations.
• Undercutting female stereotypes in Jane Eyre.
• “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body” by Marion.
• Oppression of woman’s traditional roles in The Awakening.
• Society’s inequitable treatment of women in The Age of Innocence.
• Virginia Woolf and her feminism.
• Orlando: A Biography. Evolving from man to woman.
• Harriet Jacobs’s Experiences as an Enslaved Black Woman.
• Feminist criticism: A Room of One’s Own.
• Social oppression in Three Guineas by Woolf.
• Rape, illegitimacy, and motherhood in The Judge by Rebecca West.
• Feminist utopias of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
• Women’s rights and societal reform views of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
• Feminist critics in a culture dominated by men.
• Black women’s aesthetic in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
• Alice Walker’s ideas on Feminist women of color.
• Female sexuality in Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.
• How do feminist novels address race and ethnicity?
• Society’s inequitable treatment of women in the Age of Innocence.
• Social and emotional pressures in Love Medicine by Erdrich.
• Feminist Parenting: The Fight for Equality at Home – Psychology Today
• Feminist Parenting: An Introduction – Transformation Central Home
• Women’s suffrage – Britannica
• Only half of the women in the developing world are in charge of their own bodies – Reuters
• Gender Equality for Development – The World Bank
• How #MeToo revealed the central rift within feminism today – The Guardian
• Feminist Novels and Novelists – Literary Theory and Criticism
• Health Care & Reproductive Rights – National Women’s Law Center

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Common Writing Assignments

9 The Extended Definition Essay

The extended definition essay presents a detailed account of a single term or concept that is central to the content of the course for which the essay is written. What is cryptocurrency? What is a black hole? What is an algorithm? What is symbolism? What is deoxyribonucleic acid? What is National Socialism? Every subject has its own special vocabulary, and teachers will often assign an essay requiring students to present a detailed definition of a key term.

Read carefully this extended definition of feminism.

Example: On Feminism

The word “feminism” describes a popular movement for social justice, based on the premise that women have been and continue to be systemically oppressed by men who do not want to share the greater social, political, and economic power they have historically possessed. But the definition of feminism extends beyond raising the status of one gender; feminism recognizes that equal standards for all people regardless of gender will benefit society as a whole (Montgomery). In this respect, feminism can be interpreted as synonymous with egalitarianism.

Feminist scholars divide the movement into three phases or “Waves.”  First-wave feminism emerged in the early twentieth century in the form of a fight for the rights to vote, to own property, and to qualify for work in fields historically reserved for men. Second-wave feminism emerged in the 1960s as baby boomers entered university and demanded admission to programs that traditionally favoured men, such as engineering, medicine, and forestry, as well as “equal pay for work of equal value” (Montgomery).  Third-wave or post-feminism is the movement’s twenty-first century incarnation, devoted essentially to ending all forms of gender discrimination. Some even argue that a fourth wave has recently emerged, one that is concerned with the portrayal of women in social media.

While there is no clear consensus as to when first-wave feminism began, most accept that it emerged as industrialization progressed in the nineteenth century. Martha Lear coined the term in 1968, though the first wave focused on what we now consider basic issues of inequality (“What Was”). One of the earliest feminists was Mary Wollstonecraft, who mostly wrote in the late eighteenth century advocating that societies, and individuals specifically, should have rights that the state provides. Most other philosophers and writers of the time ignored women and Wollstonecraft was among the first to call for gender equality. After the American Civil War, Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony rallied support for what they saw as one of the first great obstacles to greater freedom: the right to vote. Others, such as Barbara Leigh Smith, saw employment and education for women as critical areas to focus on.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Biblical interpretation of women’s role in the house and family prevented their ability to advance feminist ideals. To counteract the power of the church’s sex-based hierarchy, Stanton produced an influential work called The Woman’s Bible , in which she argued for equality using biblical references. This helped to provide religious justification, at least for some, for emerging feminism in the period. Furthermore, the National Woman Suffrage Association became a prominent organization, and in 1869, John Allen Campbell, the governor of Wyoming, became the first governor to grant women the right to vote (“What Was”). And when women replaced men in factories during the First World War, many realized that women did have equal skills to men. In Canada, women won the right to vote in most provinces during the war. In 1921, Agnes Macphail became the first woman in Canada elected to Parliament.

In the US, women had to wait a bit longer. Feminist organizations lobbied indefatigably and eventually convinced Congress that women should have the right to vote. Finally, in 1920, women won the right to vote across the United States. While the process itself was contentious, featuring hunger strikes and even mob violence, the gradual acceptance of women as voters can be considered the culminating success of first-wave feminism.

“The Progressive Era” took place in the 1930s; women’s social and political activism grew, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt advocated for the appointment of women to positions within the administration. Her cause was further advanced during the Second World War when, again, women had to take over the work enlisted men were forced to abandon. After the war, however, North America saw a new emphasis on domesticity. When the soldiers returned, women were almost uniformly fired and forced back into their duties of domestic chores and child-raising (Bisignani). Second-wave feminism was a reaction to this post-war obsession with the ideal of the contented housewife and suburban domesticity, a lifestyle that often isolated women and severely limited their choices and opportunities.

Feminism’s second wave truly began in the early 1960s and focused not just on legal barriers to civil equality but also examined social inequalities. Second-wave feminists sought to change discriminatory policies on sexuality and sexual identity; marriage and child-rearing; workplace environment; reproductive rights; and violence against women. They formed local, regional, and federal government groups on behalf of women, resulting in human rights and women’s equality becoming a growing part of the North American political agenda. Finally, they created new, more positive images of women in both pop culture and the media to fight the negative stereotypes commonly in circulation, primarily that of the “happy housewife.”

The second wave of feminism included many landmark moments. In the 1960s, many government health agencies approved the oral contraceptive pill, and in 1963, the Equal Pay Act was passed in the US. In 1968, Coretta Scott King assumed leadership of the African-American civil rights movement and expanded the platform to include women’s rights. This led to Shirley Chisholm becoming the first African-American woman elected to Congress. In 1972, the passage of Title IX ensured equal funding for women’s opportunities in education, and the first women’s studies program in the US opened at San Diego State University. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the second wave came in 1973, when the Roe v. Wade case resulted in women’s access to safe and legal abortion (Bisignani).

Third-wave feminism began in the 1990s and still exists today (Demarco). There are many different outlets and angles of feminism now, but the most important values of the third wave include gender equality, identity, language, sex positivity, breaking the glass ceiling, body positivity, ending violence against women, fixing the media’s image of women, and environmentalism.

Third-wave feminists assert that there is no universal identity for women; women come from every religion, nationality, culture, and sexual preference. Different forms of media such as fashion magazines, newspapers, and television favour white, young, slender women, a fact which negatively impacts all women and results in body anxiety. To combat this anxiety, modern feminists have fought for body positivity, quashing the opinions of those who believe that overweight people are lazy and unhealthy. Feminists want society’s view of women to expand, to recognize, for example, that it is possible to be beautiful enough to be a model, but also smart enough to be an astronaut or a CEO.  But considering that, in 2017, only 18 out of 500 Fortune CEOs and 22 out of 197 global heads of state were women, it is clear that third-wave feminism has not yet removed the glass ceiling (Demarco).

The emerging fourth wavers speak in terms of “intersectionality,” whereby women’s oppression can only fully be understood in the context of marginalization of other groups, who are victims of racism, ageism, classism, and homophobia (Demarco). Among the third wave’s bequests is the importance of inclusion; in the fourth wave, the internet takes inclusion further by levelling hierarchies. The appeal of the fourth wave is that there is a place in it for everyone. The academic and theoretical apparatus are now well-honed and ready to support new broad-based activism in the home, in the workplace, on the streets, and online.

No one is sure how feminism will progress from here. The movement has always included many political, social and intellectual ideologies, each with its own tensions, points and counterpoints. But the fact that each wave has been chaotic, multi-valanced, and disconcerted is cause for optimism; it is a sign that the movement continues to thrive.

Works Cited

Bisignani, Dana. “ Feminism’s Second Wave .” The Gender Press , 27 Jan. 2015, https://genderpressing.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/feminisms-second-wave-2/. Accessed 25 March 2019.

Demarco, April. “ What Is Third Wave Feminist Movement? ” Viva Media , 17 March 2018, https://viva.media/what-is-third-wave-feminist-movement.  Accessed 26 March 2019.

Montgomery, Landon. “ The True Definition Of Feminism .” The Odyssey , 8 March 2016, https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-true-definition-of-feminism. Accessed 27 March 2019.

“ What Was the First Wave Feminist Movement? ” Daily History , 19 Jan. 2019, https://dailyhistory.org/What_was_the_First_Wave_Feminist_Movement%3F. Accessed 28 March 2019.

On Feminism

Study Questions

Respond to these questions in writing, in small group discussion, or both.

• “On Feminism” is an extended definition essay, but it has qualities of what other rhetorical modes explained in this chapter?
• What are the main differences between first- and second-wave feminism?
• What are the main differences between third- and fourth-wave feminism?
• Respond to the conclusions the author offers in her final paragraph. Do you agree with what she writes?
• In academic writing assignments, paragraphs should be unified, coherent, and well-developed. Analyze two body paragraphs from this essay, commenting on the qualities of effective paragraphs they illustrate.

Writing Assignment

Write an extended definition of approximately 750 words on one of the following terms: Marxism, irony (in literature), recession (in economics), pentathlon (as Olympic sport), dressage, algorithm, neutral zone trap, cryptocurrency. You may also select your own topic or one provided by your teacher.

Composition and Literature Copyright © 2019 by James Sexton and Derek Soles is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

IBDP English A: Language & Literature

Website by David McIntyre & Tim Pruzinsky

Updated 28 March 2024

InThinking Subject Sites

Subscription websites for IB teachers & their classes

Find out more

• www.thinkib.net
• IBDP Biology
• IBDP Business Management
• IBDP Chemistry
• IBDP Economics
• IBDP English A Literature
• IBDP English B
• IBDP Environmental Systems & Societies
• IBDP French B
• IBDP Geography
• IBDP German A: Language & Literature
• IBDP History
• IBDP Maths: Analysis & Approaches
• IBDP Maths: Applications & Interpretation
• IBDP Physics
• IBDP Psychology
• IBDP Spanish A
• IBDP Spanish Ab Initio
• IBDP Spanish B
• IBDP Visual Arts
• IBMYP English Language & Literature
• IBMYP Resources
• IBMYP Spanish Language Acquisition
• IB Career-related Programme
• IB School Leadership

Disclaimer : InThinking subject sites are neither endorsed by nor connected with the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

InThinking Subject Sites for IB Teachers and their Classes

Supporting ib educators.

• Comprehensive help & advice on teaching the IB diploma.
• Written by experts with vast subject knowledge.
• Innovative ideas on ATL & pedagogy.
• Detailed guidance on all aspects of assessment.

Developing great materials

• More than 14 million words across 24 sites.
• Masses of ready-to-go resources for the classroom.
• Dynamic links to current affairs & real world issues.
• Updates every week 52 weeks a year.

Integrating student access

• Give your students direct access to relevant site pages.
• Single student login for all of your school’s subscriptions.
• Create reading, writing, discussion, and quiz tasks.
• Monitor student progress & collate in online gradebook.

Meeting schools' needs

• Global reach with more than 200,000 users worldwide.
• Use our materials to create compelling unit plans.
• Save time & effort which you can reinvest elsewhere.
• Consistently good feedback from subscribers.

For information about pricing, click here

Download brochure

See what users are saying about our Subject Sites:

Find out more about our Student Access feature:

• Extended Essay

The extended essay is an IB core requirement, where students explore a subject in depth. The subject must relate to one of the courses offered in Groups 1 - 6 of the IB Diploma Programme. The extended essay is an opportunity to demonstrate research and writing skills, along with other traits of the IB learner profile. While independent study and self-discipline are part of this task, an in-school supervisor is assigned...

To access the entire contents of this site, you need to log in or subscribe to it.

Alternatively, you can request a one month free trial .

• Extended Essay
• Remember me Not recommended on shared computers

Forgot your password?

Or sign in with one of these services

HELP ME WITH MY EXTENDED ESSAY ON FEMINISM

By maryneedshelp January 28, 2022 in Extended Essay

• Reply to this topic
• Start new topic

Recommended Posts

Maryneedshelp.

I've been debating for months on what to write about for my EE, I started with Abigail Adams, then moved onto Susan B. Anthony, then to women's rights to vote in the UK and the US. I want an interesting topic to write 4,000 words on without getting stuck that deals with feminism. Please help!

Link to post

Share on other sites, join the conversation.

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

×   Pasted as rich text.    Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.    Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.    Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

• Insert image from URL
• Submit Reply
• Existing user? Sign In
• Latest Activity
• Notes & Files
• Leaderboard
• Create New...

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

‘Stormy’ Reveals the Flawed Feminist Icon Looming Over Trump’s Trial

A documentary about Stormy Daniels explores the life of a woman whose silence former President Donald J. Trump is charged with trying to buy.

By Ginia Bellafante

Ginia Bellafante writes the Big City column, a weekly commentary on the politics, culture and life of New York City.

In an impressive bit of narrative synergy last week, significant judicial decisions in the Manhattan district attorney’s hush-money case against Donald J. Trump coincided with the premiere of a documentary, “Stormy,” about the woman at the center of it all. Hours before the film was screened at 3 Dollar Bill, a Brooklyn nightclub, a state court judge ruled that the prosecution’s star witness — Mr. Trump’s long-ago fixer and eventual turncoat Michael Cohen — could testify at the upcoming trial despite the former president’s objections.

The court granted the same permission to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star, director, author and resistance stripper to whom Mr. Trump, according to the 34-count indictment against him, funneled $130,000 to keep secret a sexual encounter between them.

“ Stormy ,” which is streaming on Peacock, comes to us from the filmmakers Erin Lee Carr and Sarah Gibson, who have focused their work on women bruised by the legal system, and they see Ms. Daniels’s story unfolding in that same tradition. Whether viewers will too turns out to depend on more than the revulsion so many Americans feel for the former president — a testament to filmmakers who see beyond their own obvious sympathies and beyond the narrative of ad hoc feminist heroism that has built up around Ms. Daniels to explore some of the mess and contradiction animating her.

Three years ago, Ms. Carr and Ms. Gibson made “Britney vs. Spears,” a documentary about the financial and psychological manipulation the pop singer had suffered at the hands of exploitive men in and out of her family. Ms. Gibson got to know her next subject when they worked together on a comedy show for a hedge fund’s Christmas party five years ago and remained in touch through text. One day, Ms. Gibson was driving in Los Angeles and heard an NPR segment on the trial of Michael Avenatti, the lawyer Ms. Daniels hired with a $100 retainer who stole two installments of her book advance, totaling close to $300,000 .

“He was making her seem crazy,” Ms. Gibson told me recently. “He was trying to say that she misremembered where she put the money. It reminded me of the Britney stuff.” The familiar trick of casting female rebellion as mental instability inspired her to make a film that eventually attracted the interest of Judd Apatow, who became the executive producer.

The main difference, of course, is that Britney Spears had been under involuntary conservatorship for more than a decade and had been deemed mentally unwell as a legal matter. Her father was never charged with any crime; Mr. Avenatti is now a resident of federal prison.

Ms. Daniels says she wound up in bed with Donald Trump at a 2006 charity golf tournament. He was starring in “The Apprentice,” and she thought she might get a shot at appearing on it. The interlude was, by her account, consensual. Long after, she signed a nondisclosure agreement promising not to talk about it in exchange for a sum of money that was meaningful to her at the time but would come to seem like a cheap price for her silence. Mr. Trump has consistently denied having had a sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels and paying her hush money.

The past several years, as the film details, have left her in an extended state of turmoil, mostly because of the harassment she has suffered from online trolls who scream their distaste for her in the most vile, misogynistic and threatening language. She has feared for her daughter’s safety; the marriage to the father of her child fell apart. At the same time, she has been buried in court documents — “a fire hazard in my house and in my brain,” as she puts it in the film. Two years ago, she lost a defamation suit against Mr. Trump that left her owing him hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

If Ms. Daniels is a victim of anything it is less convincingly a legal system that has failed her “in every single way,” as she insists in the documentary, than an upbringing marked by poverty, abuse and neglect. You are unlikely to find yourself in a Lake Tahoe hotel room spanking a 60-year-old reality television personality with a copy of Forbes, and talking about a career level-up — as she vividly claimed in a “60 Minutes” interview — when you come from a home with two loving, ever-present, say, middle-manager parents. Ms. Daniels’s father left when she was young, and her mother, according to a childhood friend interviewed in the film, was out drinking all the time “or worse.” A neighbor molested her when she was 9, Ms. Daniels reports in an especially affecting moment in the film, and no one protected or even believed her.

Growing up in Baton Rouge, Ms. Daniels loved horses and hoped to become a veterinarian; she earned a scholarship to Texas A&M, she says, but never went. The plan was cast aside when she met a girl who had bought a new car with the money she made stripping — a Camaro that as Ms. Daniels tells it, “in ’97, in Louisiana, is a purple Ferrari.”

The post-feminist universe has long seemed to require a tilt toward deifying women who make unconventional sexual choices, especially when those choices are professionalized and bring the women into contact with men of famously unsound character. “Stormy” is clearly in thrall to Stormy Daniels, though the film leaves the door ajar for our judgment, if not in regard to her activist place in the country’s political theater, then in her handling of her life as an ambitious working mother.

Ms. Daniels spends a lot of time lamenting long absences from her daughter when it is not always clear why she really needs to be away. At the end of the film, she is seen in a hotel room crying as she reads texts from her ex-husband telling her how wonderfully their daughter is doing in school. She had been doing the talk-show circuit in England. Was there a moral obligation to sit for an interview with Piers Morgan?

The ex, Glendon Crain, whom Ms. Daniels encouraged the filmmakers to interview, says he had wished at one point that they could take off to Cuba with their child and the dog and run away from all the ugliness. Ms. Daniels doesn’t seem inclined to do this. Instead, as he explains, she left him at home with their daughter while she embarked on “a strip club tour of North America.” He could not bring himself “to see the justification in any of it.”

“I hate saying that,” he admits, “because she is a great person.”

Ginia Bellafante has served as a reporter, critic and, since 2011, as the Big City columnist . She began her career at The Times as a fashion critic, and has also been a television critic. She previously worked at Time magazine. More about Ginia Bellafante