Lizanne de Beer, 2014120162 Essays (445 words) - Womens Rights

Lizanne de Beer, 2014120162 ENGL 3728: SEMINAR - INTERRACIAL ADOPTION Mrs Hanta Henning 14 August 2017 Opinion piece: Does feminism have a place in the world? All types of feminism are concerned with improving the lives of women. All feminists are also committed to analysing women's present position in the world and trying to understand its causes in order to improve it. W ithin this common understanding of the importance of feminist knowledge, there is much room for considerable (and constant) disagreement. Such disagreement is not only about the means through which the position of women is improved, but also about what such improvement would be. In the sixties, feminists began to question various images, representations, ideas and presumptions traditional theories have developed about women and the feminine. To begin with, feminists directed their attention to patriarchal discourses, those which were either openly hostile or aggressive about women, or those which had nothing at all to say about women. Femin ists seemed majorly preoccupied with the inclusion of women in those spheres from which they have been excluded - they were trying to create representations which would enable women to be regarded as men's equals. Issues of direct relevance to women's lives - the family, sexuality, the private' and domestic sphere - were to be included, in some instances for the very first time, as a relevant and worthy object of intellectual and political concern. While problematic and in the long run impossible, the aspiration towards equality between men and women was and is nevertheless politically and historically necessary. Without such attempts, women cannot que stion the inevitability of women's second-class status as citizens, subjects and sexual beings. The aim of feminism and equality serves as a political, and perhaps as an experiential, prerequisite to the more far-reaching struggles directed towards female autonomy - that is, to women's right to political, social, economic and intellectual self-determination. This seems probably the most striking shift in feminist politics since its revival in the 60s. As women are constantly trying to strengthen their identity, their roles become increasingly more flexible. Instead of defining them as narrow, traditional ways, women begin to interpret more broadly roles, bonds with o thers, and expectations. Because of feminists, women no longer feel obligated, as did our ancestors, to undertake certain responsibilities such as marriage or child-bearing. Our freedom rests in our ability to choose the values we designate as the most sacred. Women must honour the values of their new convictions about gender by preventing former restrictive values from reappearing and exercising influence in their lives - and therefore, feminism will always have a place in this world.