Feminism: What It Meant, What It Means
I am a feminist. I am a feminist woman. I am a feminist woman who likes to wear make-up, high heels, who shaves, who wears bras, who doesn’t hate men. I am a feminist and many other things.
Some of you might shiver when hearing this word: feminist. You might think it’s not for you – you being a woman or a man. You might think that we don’t need it anymore; women have rights now. Or, if you’re a man, you might simply think you have nothing to do with it - you can’t be feminist by definition, and we don’t want you here anyway. Right?
But how much do you know about feminism, really?
The History
We don’t have an exact date of the birth. We don’t even have a mother or a father for this movement. We know there are a lot of historical figures that have been presented from time to time as feminists ante-litteram. However, we can say, with some certainty, that the final spark was lit by authors like Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges.
Historians divide the history of the movement in different waves. The first wave is the one that goes from the late nineteenth and the early eighteenth century, and it mostly dealt with opening up opportunities for women and suffrage – yes, the suffragette movement that we all have in mind.
The second wave, from the ‘60s through the ‘80s, blended with the anti-war and the anti-racist rights movements of the period. (A fact we seem to forget in our white washed history). It focused mainly on sexuality and reproductive rights – I might be losing some of you at this point, but bear with me.
The confusion started during the third wave. Whilst, until then, the counterattack to feminism was mainly that women had a certain role in society and could not do what men did, in the mid ‘90s the rhetoric shifted and people were now arguing that there was no need for feminism anymore – sound familiar?
Fourth wave and why we still need it
In the 2010’s a need to identify a fourth wave started to rise. The need for intersectionality has always been present since the second wave. First-wave feminism has always been guilty of including white middle-class women only – which is not much of an inclusion – and during recent years this need has been voiced more than ever. We talk about intersectional feminism in the sense that we cannot talk about women issues in today’s society without talking about black people issues, or LGBTQ+ community issues, without talking about ableism, classism and ageism. Or even without talking about men issues.
Along with feminism, there is also another word that is as much as dreaded: the patriarchy. “Let’s smash the patriarchy!”, “You are a son/daughter of patriarchy”, “We live in a patriarchal society”. Since the beginning, feminism wanted to dismantle the patriarchy and build a society on equality, for every human being. What it may not have known at the time is that patriarchy not only deemed women to be inferior to men, but it didn’t benefit men either.
How many times have you been asked to man up? How many people told you that men don’t cry? Have you always been “man enough”? Patriarchy not only wants women to play certain roles, but have unrealistic expectations on men too.
And if you still think feminism is wrong or that it is not needed nowadays, go ask the women you know about their experiences. I bet, even if they don’t identify themselves as feminists, they still can tell you about that time the car vendor kept talking to their partner instead of them – oh, how many of those I’ve read! Or that time a man explained to them their own field of expertise. Or better yet, ask them what they keep in their hands when walking alone in the dark. Or how many times their defence mechanism gets triggered during the day.
Don’t just take my words as true. Ask yourself questions every time you do something, how different would it be if you were a woman. Try to see the world through women’s eyes, for real. Is it the same world you are experiencing? And is your men’s world really that better?
Written by Claudia Filannino
A not-so-recent graduate in Copywriting, Claudia is still finding her way into this world. After a long time unicorn-hunting, she found herself so confident in writing that she started to write short stories about the lives passing her by. Little details are what drive her creativity, big stories are what interest her.