Feminism Effect in Between 1790 to 1940 - Essay Example

FEMINISM EFFECT IN BETWEEN 1790 TO 1940 FEMINISM EFFECT IN BETWEEN 1790 TO 1940 In order to address my discussion on Feminism duringthe above period of time, I have presented my paper in different sections. It is a review of the textbook “History 401/ Womens and Gender Studies 400 Feminism in the Western Tradition 1790s-1940s (Rev. A1)". The paper will explain different sections differently as per the requirements of the assignment. Strengths of Feminism Feminism is a multi-disciplinary approach that advocates women’s gender rights. It is based on the ground of social, economic and political equality of the whole gender. The term feminism can also be described as collection of ideologies that target on ensuring that there is equality in political, cultural, social and economic rights. It deals with fighting for the right of women. Its ideology is to have the same opportunities in the political, economic, social and cultural sectors. 1This right includes voting rights, contract rights and owning of properties. The activist of the ideology fights for the women’s rights against sexual harassment, domestic violence, and sexual assault in homes and industries. This section will look at different aspects of feminism as they are seen throughout. It will take a look on the weaknesses and strengths of feminism. As from the book, there seems to be more advantages/strengths of feminism than its weaknesses. This gives a conclusion that the feminism is a more important issue in the society. The first strength is that the program has changed the society without questioning. The initiative by the activist has changed the society automatically without problems. Women mainstreaming is one of the issues the initiative have been complaining about. For sure, women in the society have been empowered. This has gone automatically without negative attitudes from the society. Secondly, feminism is a transformative than just theoretical. From the author, one understands that the feminism issue has not been said but already done practically. There a lot that has improved in the women position in the society. Women have become a pillar in the society. The issue of feminism is already seen but not just heard theoretically. The third strength as from the definition is that, it has integrated a very important thing in the society. It has come out to be a voice for women. It is clear that through this campaign, women have found a very good way of airing their issues. It is good to not that the above point that has talked of the initiative being practical because it shows that the initiative have already been used to air grievances and want of women. The forth strength of the initiative is that it has revealed the plights of women in the society. These plights are the rights and issues of women. The initiatives have helped to reveal these issues that the society has ignored for long. Gender sensitive is revealed and addressed through the initiative. Fourth, the philosophy helps in bringing the power over all the social areas. Women are given power and equal opportunities as their counterpart men. This is a positive point as it is outlined by the author of the book. For example, women are now included in the leadership of social groups. Therefore, this shows that the initiative of the campaign has helped women to be part of the society and improved equality of roles between men and women in he society. Weaknesses of Feminism Although there are strengths of the initiatives, the same has its own weaknesses. The first is that the initiative is proven to be radical. To support this, the initiative is always campaigning on the girl child. This puts boy child in risk because there is less concern on the boy child. This may have a negative outcome in the future as a boy child will lack a place in the society. The initiative has to take a look on the issue of gender equality but not just on women issues. The second weakness of the initiative is that it lacks gender equality in the society. I wonder who is for men in the society. This will bring ultimate change in the behavior of men. This will, to my observation and understanding of the book, lead to another initiative calling for powering men. This issue should be looked at to solve a future problem. 2 His paper has a double approach on the persuasiveness of feminism. It finds persuasive in that it is good to have gender equality. This is because each gender group has their contribution in societal development. The paper also finds it not convincing as the look of things, it is evident that there will end another problem of masculine. Feminism in Western Tradition The term feminism as is described means advocacy of women rights in the society. The term has been in wide usage as from 1800s till the date. It was launched to fight for equalities of women in the society. As it has been noted, the western countries tradition had ignored the women plight. This is what led to the campaign. Women are known to be sexually harassed in the western tradition before the initiative. Other issues on female plight in the western are lack of political, social, cultural and economic issues. All these issues led to feminism which has impacts on the western tradition now. Today, the western tradition has been hanged by feminism. Political wise, women are now a day in the first line to context for political seats. This has integrated women to be part of the society. Women are given a chance to prove themselves against the western tradition that they have the power to lead. This will base a good baseline for the topic to be integrated with women studies. It has proven the society that women have powers and are able to lead the society. It has proved to the western tradition that the power to lead political is not only sublimed to men. The topic should be reviewed in women studies so that to open up minds of the society. Although feminism has tried to do this, there is a lot to be done in the society to improve the plight of women. This will be done by integrating and including the topic on women studies. 3 On the side of social and cultural powers, traditionally the western tradition had deprived women of this. This is what led to feminism. Feminism has proved that women are equally capable as men. It is good for this topic to be included in the women studies as it will play an important role on opening up minds of society. Furthermore, economically women are capable. Before feminism, women were not allowed to own properties or control economy. Feminism has changed this issue. This is why the topic on women plight should be included for women course studies because it will open up minds of the society and well compare the western tradition before feminism and how the situation is right now. Arguments for and against Celibacy Celibacy is a social aspect of an individual chooses to stay without sex or being married. It is usually associated with religion reasons. The term is specific to those who are unmarried with a result of taking a sacred vow, religion reasons or renunciation act. 4 Argument for Celibacy The first point why celibacy is good is when a couple is having bad sex. Celibacy helps this kind of a couple to make things a fresh. Celibacy is a way or refreshing things when partners notice that they have been having bad sex. Non satisfaction in sex of married people will lead to casual sex. This is why it is good to start try celibacy to try and make things fresher. The second reason celibacy is important is that sex is sometime boring. Having sex is pleasure. Unfortunately, this pleasure may reduce and sex becomes boring. If the sex is no longer enjoying, the participants get bored and the last result is celibacy. Thirdly, relation problem leads to celibacy. It is better to stay without sex rather than engage with casual sex. When relationship gets sour, it is advisable to remain single and stay without sex. This, of course, will reduce chances of engaging oneself with casual sex. The couples may remain at celibate as they try to solve their problem. A forth reason why celibacy is good is that it is a way of inducing moral life of a person. The celibacy of nuns, brothers, and priests in the religion is to help them not to indulge sexual contact. Young or unmarried people may choose to remain without sex. This will paint their life as a moral life. There is that the notion in the society that those who were abstaining are moral and of good character. Lack of partner is another reason why celibacy is good. If a man or a lady lacks a specific partner, it is good that the individual adopt celibacy. Celibacy will help someone to reduce chances of having casual sex with various lovers. With the sexually transmitted diseases, celibacy seems to be a good option. It is good to remain without sex rather than risk one’s life with STDs. Many have chosen not to gamble with their life by adopting the celibacy. Casual sex will expose one into risk of contracting STDs like aids. This is why celibacy is the best option. Even though protection like condom is being used, it is not 100 percent protected and it is better to live without sex. Celibacy also allows the priest’s first priority to be in church. A man of God would not be more engaged in the family issues. He will always be devoted to serving the church. Argument against Celibacy The first argument is that it is unnatural for men to live without sex. Men find it hard to live without sex. Advocating for celibacy is turning men into animals. It is good to live men control their pleasures rather than force them to adopt a celibate life as it is some religion. Married clergy men will form good healthy priestly candidates. This will solve the problem of shortage of priests in the church. It is Godly to marry. Man and woman were created and given a role of procreation. Therefore, this can only be done through marriage and sexual intercourse with the opposite sex partner. Thirdly, married priests will relate well on issues of marriages. There is no way an unmarried priest can solve a marriage chaos. It is good for the priest be married so that he can well be conversant with marriage issues. Identities Development of Lesbian Lesbianism is the sexual act between female couples. It is an act that involves two female satisfying each other sexually. The two female are called lesbians. They are females who experiences romantic love or attraction sexually toward another female. For many years, women have not gotten the freedom of having homosexuality as it has been the case for men. However, lesbianism has not faced harsh environment. In fact, the society has regarded lesbianism as harmless. Never the less, lesbianism has been an act in 19th century and was described to be practiced by those women that lack knowledge on women gender role. The sexologist described the couple as mentally ill. 5 With the second wave of feminism in 20th century, the discussion of lesbianism sparkled in the west especially United States and Britain. This led to some women accepting to be labeled as lesbians or bisexual. Others refused the label arguing that this is tinting their names. The society takes those women involving themselves romantically towards other women as women who challenge feminine gender role. Development of Lesbianism Identities The first model of homosexuality was first published by Cass. She managed to write about six-stage model on the study of the development of homosexuality. Her publication was on the psychological approach of the homosexuals. Her first stage is identity confusion. This stage is characterized by the individuals self-awareness that this act of homosexuality has a connection toward one self’s behavior, feelings and thoughts. An individual in this stage realizes that she is a lesbian. If an individual does not pass good counseling, she goes into the second stage. The second stage of lesbianism development is Identity comparison stage. The individual here realizes the difference between her and others. This stage is typically handling social alienation. The victim becomes aware that she is different and eventually changes to be homosexual and in this case as a lesbian. 6 The second stage is what leads to the third stage which is Identity Tolerance. The person feels a sense of loneliness. Here, the critical factor is an emotional quality of contacts with other lesbians. If this stage is not alleviated, the individual heads to greater commitments in lesbianism. The third stage of lesbian identity is known as Identity Acceptance and is characterized by further contacts with other lesbians that lead to the person viewing lesbianism as more positive in her life. The person sees others sexual culture being inferior to the lesbianism. The fifth is the stage of Identity Pride stage which is the stage that the individual fully accept to be lesbian. The person makes her decision well aware of the rejection of lesbianism in the society. At this stage the person engages herself into homosexuality with fear of being rejected by the society. She fears no one as she takes this to be her life. She sees heterosexuals being inferior to homosexuality. At this stage, it becomes more complicated to for an individual to leave homosexuality. She seems to be glued to the habit such that it even becomes hard for professional counselors to get the victim back to normal life of heterosexuality. The sixth stage of lesbianism is Identity Synthesis. This is reached when the individual integrates the act of homosexuality with her other important identity. Lesbians will see at this stage that being a homosexual is not a sole identity but as among her important identities. The person increases her contacts with other homosexuals. To her at this stage, lesbianism is good than being a heterosexual. Birth Control Methods and its Arguments This section will get into a look on birth control. It will explain birth control in terms of its debates within and about birth control. The section will also briefly look through the reproductive choice movement and reproductive health. Birth control as described is the method of controlling birth. It is a method of controlling pregnancy and timing pregnancy. It is also referred to as contraception or fertility control. In some cultures and religion, birth control is not moral as they are said to be ungodly. It involves one or combination of two or more actions sexual practice that is used to control occurrence of pregnancy. It can be through cultural practices or medication. Birth control has three routes of the practices. One of them is the use of contraception or surgical injection. Contraception involves prevention of fertilization of an ovum after sexual intercourse. Contra-gestion involves malfunctioning of implantation of the fertilized eggs. Surgical method is the medically aborting a developing embryo. Modern Birth Control Methods Use of condoms is the preferred modern method where the man is prevented from ejaculating into the woman private organs. The types involve male condoms or female condoms. The other modern method of preventing pregnancy occurrence is through the use of contraceptive spills. These are spills that are used either to prevent fertilization or to prevent implantation. Birth control can also be done through surgical method. This is an expensive method but the most effective one. The man is done surgical cut and removed the sperm duct. This means that’s there is no way of sperm movement from the testis to the penis. The other surgical method is blockage of fallopian tube to prevent movement of an ovum from the ovary. This can be done by use of a diaphragm. Traditional Birth Control methods Coitus interrupts or withdrawal traditional method involves the man withdrawing his organ from the woman organs when the former approaches ejaculation. The other traditional method is through celibacy or assistance from sex. This will reduce chances of pregnancy as the only natural way of pregnancy is through coitus. Birth control has faced some challenges with the challengers having their own reasons. The first reason is that contraception is against human rights. They argue that this is one method of abortion. The second argument is that it will encourage immorality. The argument to support this point is that many people will find it easier to engage in sex. The last thing most of the young unmarried people fear is pregnancy. With contraception, they will find it fearless because they got a solution to their worry. It is also ungodly. This argument is based on the bible that human kinds are for procreation. With birth control, man has gone into an extra mile of being against God. 7 All the above arguments are true. However, interceptive has its advantages too. One of the advantages is that is a way of controlling population. High population diminishes economic growth. The government advocate for population control through the use of birth control. Secondly, birth control helps to maintain our health. Women go through complication operation when giving birth. Some even go further into a surgical operation. The later can be advised by a medical practitioner to control birth. This will help the individual maintain good health. In addition to that, birth control is a method of family planning. Family planning is important in a family. The parents are not supposed to give birth to a large number of children that they are unable to support. The paper takes birth control to be the most appropriate practice in a society. It has many advantages than disadvantages. Therefore, this paper advocates birth control to be put into practice. BIBIOGRAPHY Fletcher, Joyce K. "Castrating the Female Advantage Feminist Standpoint Research and Management Science." Journal of Management Inquiry 3, no. 1, 1994. Read More