History of Feminist Movement - Essay Example

Political Movement Rosen (2000) has given a detailed account of the history of the women’s movement in her book titled, The World Split Open: How the Modern Womens Movement Changed America. While there are many other interesting developments listed in the book the decline of feminism is perhaps the most interesting. This is because there are several internal and external causes which can be used as the reasons for why the movement declined. Their comparative importance and the impact these internal and external causes had on the speed as well as the nature of the decline can be debated but it is certain that all the causes contributed towards the decline. Of these, the conservative agenda is perhaps the most serious cause since the Republican governments in the early 80s did not agree with the liberal values which were supported by the feminist movement. In fact, the government was quite vary of the political and social agendas which the feminist movement in general and the women’s movement in particular held within America. Rosen (2000) herself reports that she found her name in FBI files as a possible female guerrilla working to subvert the efforts of the government. The idea that feminists were political rabble-rousers only served to damage the image of the movement even in the eyes of those who would support their agenda. Rosen (2000) notes that even though the women of the time had strong passions and wanted to gain more from what the political process had to offer them, the politics of the time and the political parties refused to take them seriously. However, this is not the only reason since she also notes that fragmentation within the feminist lobby itself weakened the movement and she considers it to be a mistake which prevented women from seeking out political opportunities that would have brought many of their rights to them much earlier. In essence, this can be considered an internal factor which caused the movement to lose wind since infighting and differences of opinions voiced by the women made people think that the movement itself was unsure of what it wanted. While some focused on the idea of equality, others demanded rights that were perhaps too forward looking for the time and difficult to push through with a hostile government. Although Rosen (2000) does not stop admiring the movement for all that was gained by it, she notes that internal causes are also to blame for the lack of will showed by feminism in the 80s. The one external cause which bears most of her wrath and is given direct blame for reducing the abilities and drive of the feminist movement is the role played by the media. Even though women had started entering the workforce in greater numbers by the 70s, the media image of the woman in general and the feminist political worker in particular remained quite negative. Instead of portraying feminists as individuals who were fighting for what was right, feminists were portrayed as seeking things that were irrational and completely against the dominant culture that was supported by the media (Rosen, 2000). A lot of the material in the book is devoted to how the media stereotyped feminists and showed that women were acting as victims who were seeking redress rather than modernists who sought to improve society. The media also showed that the movement was limited to white, middle-class and upper-class women and did not include individuals from the lower classes or from different races. The Chicano, the Latino and even the African American elements of the movement were largely ignored as the movement itself was ridiculed for being exclusive rather than inclusive (Rosen, 2000). In fact even the idea of bra burning, which became a staple image of anti-feminism, was essentially a tool used by the media to increase the circulation of some newspapers. Serious academic examination of the movement largely stayed away from such ideals but the social support that the movement had from the people was quickly eroded. Interestingly, while the feminist workers were focused on removing ideas such as the beauty myth and the notion of being mindless consumers in society, the media suggested that feminism was built on the foundations of having a lifestyle devoted to selfish interests and the consumption of material goods (Rosen, 2000). Thus the opinions of society itself were guided towards feminism as a menace where women were demanding to have everything and also wanting to do everything. This woman became the superwoman who was supposed to be greedy enough to take whatever she could get without giving anything back to the society she existed in. in fact, the symbol of the superwoman was used by the media to blame the apparent lack of values that was sending the culture towards materialism and thus feminism and the women’s movement took the blame for what was essentially the creation of the consumer culture. The situation came to a point where young women themselves did not consider feminism to be the representation of their ideals and sought to distance themselves from the media given image. While the young women in the 80s had sexual freedom, the ability to choose any career they wanted as well as the chance of getting married and having children, they did not consider that they owed a debt to feminists of the past and did not realize that these were the very basic demands of human rights rather than the rights that were sought by the women’s movement. In conclusion, it becomes easy to say that the women’s movement lost a lot due to the internal factors such as dissent within the ranks and infighting over the objectives but perhaps the external factors were the greater threat. The mindset of political bodies and conservative government institutions, coupled with the way feminists were portrayed in the media went a long way towards harming the movement and had these elements not been there, the history of the movement and the present state of women’s issues today might have been very different from what they are. Works Cited Rosen, R. 2000, The World Split Open: How the Modern Womens Movement Changed America, Viking Read More