Brazilian Feminism
For decades, women around the world have looked to each other for support and help in empowering the gender overall. In Brazil, for example, women have been making themselves heard and seen in the public arena since the early 1970’s. Brazilian feminism is a political action in which both theory and practice are incorporated. Moreover, it centers on women as agents effecting change in their conditions. They seek to create opportunities for women’s political participation, demand better conditions in women’s daily live and “address issues stemming from women’s socially defined reproduction roles.”
In addition to the struggle to change existing laws and create new laws, they’re emphasizing the demand for more rights, new public policies, and more participation. Presently, feminist movements are concentrating against human misery and women’s exercise of citizenship. “Brazilian Feminists struggle in congress, in the streets, for the right to formal education, to vote, equal salaries, and suitable working conditions. In addition to obtaining control over their bodies and sexual pleasures.”
Beginning with the power of the pen, Nisia Floresta Brasileira Augusta, advocated women’s right to formal education by publishing many works. Brazilian suffragist campaigns led to women’s right to vote in 1932. Brazilian Communist Party “mobilized low-income women to strive for better working conditions and participate in the broader struggles of society.” Such mobilizations, especially after the 1940’s, started many women’s organizations.
The conservative stances of the Catholic Church have had an enormous impact on laws, including such issues as contraceptives and abortions. Moreover, the military coup of the 1960’s put an end to the women’s movements. It brought women two steps backwards in that it “focused on maintaining order, preserving traditional family ties, protection of property, obeying the church, family, military hierarchy.” Oppression by the military caused Feminism not to reemerge until the 1970’s.
In addition to demanding better conditions in daily lives, ending human misery and the exercising of citizenship, feminists and women’s organizations in Brazil identified and targeted such issues as denouncing political repression. This was especially true during military regime. At this time they also fought against increase costs of living, demanding adequate schools, health centers, running water, transportation, electricity, and housing. Women were behind the first public demonstrations during this time of repression. Eventually new themes and more specialized issue such as women’s rights, female sexuality, sexual violence, and abortion were introduced. Overall, they fought for and continue to fight for new rights for women.
Subsequently, “Feminism was also viewed to be Anglo, middle-class, and bourgeois, and Chicanas were thus denounced as being traitors to ‘la causa’” (Vigil 277). Additionally, I believe that is interesting that feminism was considered to be middle class because I contemplate that feminism basically is middle class. To tell the truth, women are constantly struggling to be equal with men, and feminism is directed towards middle ground, so I definitely am new to the idea that feminism is like bourgeois. Also, the Chicanas who were denounced as traitors were initially being restrained in communicating their demands (Vigil 277). Furthermore, I believe that it is important for demands to be met no matter what kind of restraint there is, humans are not meant to be restrained, but to live life to the utmost righteousness. As a final thought, “Confronting these difficulties, Chicanas have fought for equality and justice within their community organizations. Demands have included welfare rights, rehabilitation programs for pintas (female ex-convicts), safeguards against male violence, access to birth control, and the right to refuse forced sterilization” (Vigil
The rise of nationalist movements and the modern nation-state has affected women’s political and economic participation and social freedoms. Based on the following documents, there were many opportunities and barriers that nationalist movements posed concerning women's rights in the twentieth century. Many women saw the opportunities of the movements accessible to women, but other women focused on the barriers and didn’t feel that the opportunities were accessible.
The journals review signifies the perception through an author’s concentration being on specific scope in regards to the women’s suffrage. The collection of information led to an enhanced understanding of the subject matter. Therefore, the perspective author’s analyzing topics varying in methods used by women for political recognition, the feminist movement impact, challenges faced within the campaign, and the history of the national and social movements in the global battle for women suffragists. However, some of the author’s did not provide a direct link of their articles to other information from other works of literature though they all have significant contributions to the topic.
“Compare and contrast women’s suffrage movements of the late nineteenth and early centuries with the European feminist movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s.” Whereas the women’s suffrage movements focused mainly on overturning legal obstacles to equality, the feminist movements successfully addressed a broad range of other feminist issues. The first dealt primarily with voting rights and the latter dealt with inequalities such as equal pay and reproductive rights. Both movements made vast gains to the social and legal status of women.
It is believed by the author that the feminist movement in many ways parallels the struggles faced by African Americans in the US during the same time period. The authors will offer ideas on where the pro...
The feminist movement raises political campaigns for the rectification of rights that should be permitted to women in the public, workplace and most importantly in one’s home. Women’s movement turn out to be a significant role as time advanced, diminutive ideas were anticipated at first, minor alterations occur but not much was being done for the privileges of a woman therefore making the women’s movement more hostile. It can be proposed that women are far too emotional to have equal rights as men due to the hormones that occur while a woman is pregnant or on her menstrual cycle, although the women’s movement has been more beneficial than crucial. Women have helped enhance the economy drastically, improve the family time in homes, as well as
But when the “Women’s Movement,” is referred to, one would most likely think about the strides taken during the 1960’s for equal treatment of women. The sixties started off with a bang for women, as the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman, and Betty Friedan published her famous and groundbreaking book, “The Feminine Mystique” (Imbornoni). The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s was a ground-breaking part of American history because along with African-Americans another minority group stood up for equality, women were finished with being complacent, and it changed women’s lives today.
World Book, Inc. “The Rise of the Modern Women’s Movement.” The Modern Women’s Movement. 2004 ed. 1. 2 May 2005 .
Feminism is a political movement that seeks equality between the sexes. Motivated by the search for social justice, feminist analysis provides a wide range of perspectives on social, cultural, economic, and political ideologies. Important topics for feminist politics and theory include: the body, class and work, family life, globalization, human rights, popular culture, race and racism, reproduction, sex work, human trafficking, and sexuality. From early beginnings, to its current state, feminism has been a pervasive movement that has incited social, political and economic change and advancements. Generationally speaking, over the decades feminism has taken on many different meanings. Feminism has become a spectrum; each generation, or wave,
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
To ensure that women would have the same opportunities as men in jobs, education, and political participation, the National Organization for women was formed in 1966 (Foner 944). The sixties also marked the beginning of a public campaign to repeal state laws that banned abortion or left the decision to terminate a pregnancy to physicians instead of the woman (Foner 945). Although the sixties were a decade in which the United States became a more open, more tolerant, and a freer country, in some ways it became less of a thing. During the sixties, America intervened in other nations and efforts were made to stop the progress of the civil rights movement. Because of America’s foreign policy and Americans fighting against the civil rights movement, it is clear that the sixties in America were not purely a decade of openness, tolerance, and freedom in the United States.
One of the main causes of the women’s movement was the loss of their legal rights in society, especially civil and economic rights during the tota...
In the mid nineteenth century America was going through an age of reform. The person who would be the center of these reforms would be the women in society. Women soon realized that in order to make sure that all the reforms went through they would need more power and influence in society. The oppression and discrimination the women felt in this era launched the women into create the women’s right movement. The women fought so zealously for their rights it would be impossible for them not to achieve their goals. The sacrifices, suffering, and criticism that the women activist made would be so that the future generations would benefit the future generations.
Academic discourse is the means by which new and old theories may be applied to a topic in order to reach a better understanding or challenge a notion raised within the field. It is through discussing and analyzing these concepts that individual voices may be applied to an academic community, allowing for a wider lens of thought to be picked up and further discussed. Grewal participates in this discourse in her article “'Women's Rights as Human Rights': Feminist Practices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality”. This paper shall analyze and discuss how Grewal applies previous theoretical concepts related to feminist discourse in order to offer a Transnationalist Feminist critique to the Global Feminist notion of Women's Rights as Human Rights.
The attempt for feminist movement dates back to the early 1800’s, where women were not considered equal to that of a man in religious contributions. If women did not belonged to a rich class, they had no privileges or the will to think freely. Around the 19th century religion gained some popularity amongst the general women population. The goal for the religious feminists was to change how their roles were perceived in the church life. Their aim was to create an image that would shape their role in the church and hope the outcome would positively influence their quality of life at home. This motivation for change created two feminist camps, egalitarians and complementarianism. Egalitarians were feminist camps, focused on equality. The Democratics Socialist Perspective belief was ...