FEMINISM
Being a feminist simply means believing in equal rights for all genders. It’s not about hating men. It’s not about women being better than men. It’s not about eschewing femininity.
It’s about learning and understanding the ways that inequality affect women and men, and remembering that we’re all in this together. True equality leaves no one behind.
We don’t claim to be authorities on anyone else’s feminism, but to us, acknowledging how different forms of discrimination intersect with and amplify gender-based discrimination is a critical way to ensure all women reap the benefits of women’s rights…
Equity and equality, these are 2 distinctive words.
My opinion about feminism let’s be human first, consider all equal but also accepting our differences… Martins chinweike couldn’t have addressed this better below in his open letter to the “Feminist”
Dear Feminist,
Male and Female.
I am talking to the feminist that went to school. The type that is not allergic to reading. This is going to be an intelligent review and i need your intelligent opinions.
If you are wondering why I am calling men to the discussion that should only involve “feminists”, then just stop reading.
Go and watch telemundo.
You obviously don’t know the meaning of the word.
DON’T SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU O!
Okay! Now that I have filtered and gotten the right audience, shall we begin?
HERE IS A QUESTION FOR YOU.
Did you know that as far back as 1920 (100 years ago), there were two schools of feminists?
Don’t look surprised, forget the terminology, it is pretty basic.
The social Feminist and the regular Feminist.
The social feminists, who held the numerical majority considered feminism as only a part of their reform program.
They believed in a woman’s traditional role as a mother and reformer of society. They wanted to make women equal only in the political and civil areas, and did not wish to forfeit protective labour legislation for women.
They considered measures like minimum wage, limitation of work hours, ban on night work, and exclusion of women from certain occupations beneficial.
Social feminists argued that special protective labour would always be needed for women, regardless of what labour laws existed for men. Without such laws, women could contract diseases and either become sterile or give birth to inferior babies.
The regular Feminist was pushing for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
What does ERA mean?
ERA is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.
The difference between the two is in their approach to the subject
“seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters”.
This part of the amendment was the real dividing factor and I will tell you why shortly.
But first, do you know who the woman in the below picture is?
If your answer is no, then you are a baby feminist.
You need to read up about your ancestors.
History shed its glorious light on the present and provides a gateway to the future. After all, if you don’t know where you are coming from, how will you know where you are going to?
Well! Enough with the teasing.
This is Eleanor Roosevelt.
Once a first lady of the United states of America.
She was a firm believer in women’s equality and her forty-year campaign to advance women politically, economically, and socially is proof to that.
It doesn’t matter the colour of your skin or your status, she fought any and all kinds of injustice to women. Once you were a woman reaching for the stars, she was there pulling the strings in your support.
She was a social feminist and she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) for 40 years.
Reason, she thought it would undermine the protective laws she and other reformers had sought for women in the workplace – factory safety standards, minimum-wage laws, the 48-hour workweek, elimination of night work and exclusion from dangerous jobs.
Remember that dividing factor? A lot of women agreed with her and that was why the amendment failed.
”Women are different from men, their physical functions are different, and the future of the race depends upon their ability to produce healthy children.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
I believe that Mrs Roosevelt believed more in equity than equality.
ER knew that women were different, but in a uniquely beautiful way. She is a queen who is not kinging. She knows that a queen is royal in every way a king can be, so she does not switch gender in a first call of convenience and she embraces the strength of womanhood and does not fail to acknowledge its limitations too.
Margaret Papandreou, wife of the Greek Prime Minister, in a recent speech to a women’s conference in New York believed that since Mrs. Roosevelt led an independent life and worked for women’s rights in her own way, she was indeed ”a feminist, a liberal feminist, for her times.”
Gloria Steinem, a founder of Ms. magazine said something refreshingly beautiful about the former first lady. “Bitterness didn’t seem to be a part of her life. She turned all that energy into something good.”
Mrs Roosevelt refusal to support the ERA has made many people to discredit her claim to feminism:
So i ask you my dear intelligent readers – Would you say she was a feminist or not?
