Sarah Grey’s article discusses Gloria Steinem’s recent statement about women’s involvement in the political sphere. She trivialized women’s ability to make autonomous decisions by implying that they simply follow and replicate men’s decisions. By stating that “the only reason millennial women overwhelmingly support Bernie Sander for the Democratic nomination is that we want to impress men”, she fails to recognize that individual women are capable of making decisions without male influence. Sarah Grey argues that Steinem’s statement is representative of imperial feminism and thus, as white woman of privilege within our political landscape, inherently benefits from the structures of power currently in place. Gloria Steinem advocacy for reformist …show more content…
Most second wave feminists tend to be white, middle class women who inherently benefit from existing class structures with regard to race and income class. Their positioning within society does not place them at the margins and thus, they will not advocate for radical change. Radical change occurs as a result of marginalization and exclusion which results in an individual’s need to transform a system in which they are exploited. Steinem, as a privileged white woman, benefits from the exploitation of the marginalized and thus does not require societal transformation. Radical change inherently occurs at margins because social change occurs when people dedicate their time and energy to transforming a system. Radical change requires a complete overhaul of our existing structures and can only be perpetuated by individuals who do not benefit from existing class …show more content…
This shifts her perspective on the transformations of change based on her societal placing. Furthermore, it can be argued that Steinem, as a white, able-bodied, middle class, heterosexual woman, was never marginalized. Intersectional feminism would recognize that her income, sexuality, and race play far greater roles in her position of privilege than gender. Therefore, even during the women’s liberation movement, activists like Gloria Steinem still operated in positions of privilege. An individual in a position of power such as Gloria Steinem is unable to effectively advocate for radical change due to their societal position. As a result, they will advocate for reformist change, which will not change the societal dynamics that benefit them. Marginalization and exploitation create the conditions for radical change and unless, one can identify with them, one cannot be a proponent of
Dye drew together the essays of esteemed scholars, such as Ellen Carol DuBois, Barbara Sicherman, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, to shed light on the intersectionality between race, gender, and social class at the turn of the 20th Century. While many believe that it was a period of widespread activism and reform, these scholars support the idea that the Progressive Era was more of a conservative than liberal movement, in that it failed to challenge stereotypes about the female’s role in society and created a limited public sphere for women. While the women’s suffrage movement provided more opportunities for white middle-class women, it failed to lessen, or even worsened, the marginalization of immigrant and minority women. Many white-middle class women sympathized with European and Jewish immigrants and were willing to overlook socioeconomic class, but few supported the cause of colored women for labor and education
Nolan, Sarah. "Gloria Steinem & The Second Wave of Feminism." YouTube. YouTube, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 May 2014. .
Women, Race and Class is the prolific analysis of the women's rights movement in the United States as observed by celebrated author, scholar, academic and political activist. Angela Y. Davis, Ph.D. The book is written in the same spirit as Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Davis does not merely recount the glorious deeds of history. traditional feminist icons, but rather tells the story of women's liberation from the perspective of former black slaves and wage laborers. Essential to this approach is the salient omnipresent concept known as intersectionality.
In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.
...over the centuries, gender inequalities have changed, from being focused on public inequality such as getting women into both in education and the workplace, as well as giving females voting rights to being focused on the diversity and variety in women’s lives in today’s society as described by third wave feminists from the 1980s onwards, focussing on the women who were previously overlooked by other feminist schools. Earlier feminist schools have been criticised for ignoring the ‘other’ which subsequently led to the development of other schools of feminism such as black feminists, (Smith, 2013). Subsequently, in order to achieve equality for all ‘types’ of females; white, black, working-class, middle-class, heterosexual and homosexual; there will need to be a development of new schools of feminism in order to explain the experiences that each of these groups live.
Second Wave feminists who campaigned for the ERA were mostly middle and upper class educated women, leaving behind the concerns of working class women. Gloria Steinem, a noted feminist and proponent of the ERA, for example testified on behalf of the ERA to the Judiciary Committee subcommittee dedicated to the ERA. Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio to a middle class family. Her father’s mother was a dedicated member of the first wave feminist/suffragette movement and Steinem’s mother encouraged her to read and learn. Steinem then attended Smith
The word “feminism” means the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. Gloria Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio and was forced to grow up faster due to her parents divorce. She began work as a freelance journalist and from there worked her way up to earn her title as one of the world’s most famous feminist’s. Gloria Steinem is a revolutionary figure in American history because she has changed the course of women’s rights in the United States.
Gloria Steinem travels widely as a feminist activist, organizer, writer and lecturer. Her books include the bestsellers Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe. She was an editor of The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History. Steinem co-founded New York Magazine and Ms. Magazine where she continues to serve as a consulting editor. She has been published in many magazines and newspapers here and in other countries, and is also a frequent guest commentator on radio and
Sandoval theory is influential within second wave feminism. The reasoning behind this article is to provide a framework for theorizing about oppositional activity and consciousness in the United States in the post-modern world (Sandoval, 1991). Primarily, interested in race, class, and culture third world feminist expand on the male/female division. Sandoval credits Louis Althusser for the use of his theory of ideology. Much of her article incorporates influential authors that we have previous discussed in our discussion including Sojourner Truth, bell hooks, and Barbara Christian. She first introduces the concept of hegemonic feminism by discussing the different periods in history: 1. Liberal: women are “as fully human as men” 2. Marxist: “women are different from men” 3. Cultural/radical: “women are superior” (Sandoval, 2001). She later argues that oppositional consciousness is topographical rather than typological. According to Sandoval, there are four cateofries that fit well into the hegemonic frame: equal rights, revolutionary, supremacist, separatist. Yet they add, differential to act as “the mechanism that permits the driver to select, engage, and disengage gears in a system for the transmission of power (Sandoval,
Thus Friedan’s persona and political positions she favored seemed to be entirely of a piece with her liberal feminism. The non-inclusion of women of color and of lower working classes agree with its goals such as; the right to an abortion and equality in job hiring. However, most women of color dismiss the label of feminism because the movement had largely focused on the concerns of the middle class white women. Attempts to address the racism of the feminist movement have largely been token efforts without lasting effects. Many young women of color still feel alienated from a mainstream feminism that doesn’t explicitly address race (Disch, 639). Feminism in the United States has stagnated in part because it has largely neglected a class and race analysis. Feminism can’t survive by helping certain women climb the corporate latter while ignoring women on welfare. Feminism has to recruit beyond just the college
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism introduces ideas by Becky Thompson that contradict the “traditional” teachings of the Second Wave of feminism. She points out that the version of Second Wave feminism that gets told centers around white, middle class, US based women and the central problem being focused on and rallied against is sexism. This history of the Second Wave does not take into consideration feminist movements happening in other countries. Nor does it take into consideration the feminist activism that women of color were behind, that centered not only on sexism, but also racism, and classism as central problems as well. This is where the rise of multiracial feminism is put to the foreground and a different perspective of the Second Wave is shown.
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives. Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women.
Commack (2014) draws comparisons between radical, conservative, and liberal feminisms, clearly explaining the differences in thought that allow for the distinctiveness of each approach (p.38-39). Although radical and conservative feminisms share an assumption of essentialist and biological differences between men and women, radical feminists focus and value almost entirely on women and their traits, while conservative feminists tend to value perceived ‘male’ traits (Commack, 2014, p.38). Evans (1995) disagrees slightly with Commack’s argument though, arguing that early radical feminist theory was more egalitarian and saw both sexes as “marred by society: by patriarchy and by capitalism,” and was less likely to blame men for the oppression of women (p.64). Commack (2014) states that radical feminism emerged in response to a liberal feminist approach and some of the criticisms that had emerged regarding it (p. 37). While a liberal feminist approach may call for administrative reform within society, a radical feminist framework calls for “transformation or major structural change” which may be necessary when the amount of inequality within society is considered