Feminism In England - Essay Example

Feminist political activists support such issues as women suffrage, wage equivalency, and have power over reproduction. (O'NEILL, 1969) Feminism is not connected with any specific group, performance, or past occasion. Its foundation is the political understanding that there are rough power arrangements between groups, in conjunction with the faith that something should be done about it. Feminism has been described as a movement with many projects; there is not just one feminist view on everything, so not just one feminist legal theory.

However, arguably feminist legal scholars have certain similar concerns. Although anthropologists suggest that many primitive societies were essentially matriarchal, historical evidence from the Roman era till the present time indicates that must legal systems have treated women in an unequal fashion in comparison with their male components. Feminists believe that until the recent past all writing on the social, political, economic, and other major issues affecting humanity have been done by males, from a male point of view and barring very few exceptions (e.g. J.S.Miller), do not reflect women's role in creating and shaping society.

Male written works have created and perpetuated biases and injustices against womankind. Male's characteristics are take as the norm and female's characteristics as deviation from the norm. Instances can be quoted to show that the prevailing conceptions and applications of law continue to reinforce and perpetuate patriarchal power. Feminism arose to challenge to rectify these wrongs and the ground realities dictate that the struggle should go on. The 19th century English liberals were among the first jurists seriously to question the position of women in society.

For example JS Mill questioned the traditional, to some extent religious view that women were inferior beings destined to obey their husbands. Then, towards the end of the century Marxist writers began also to question the way in which women were treated under the law and economically championing women as the oppressed clans. In Marxist eyes it is the male capitalist who is the villain. Women and workers are the oppressed and exploited victims. Modern writers such as Zaretsky attempted to show that male dominance was as much an evil as capitalist oppression (Dixon, 2001).

Although most of the leaders of feminist movement were women, yet all women are not the supporters of feminism and not all feminists are women. A number of feminists dispute that men should not acquire positions of headship in the movement, but the majority believe or look for the support of men. The issue of Feminism in England has rose to alarming levels and needs to be addressed so that major revolutions by the women can be avoided. Feminism in England is totally different than that in America as it is based the rights of equality of women their fulfillment and their role in the prosperity of England.

The media is playing a major role in influencing the role of women in England. It is portraying women as second class citizens and is