Feminism

1. Feminism By Victoria Harding

2. What is Feminism? • “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute” – Rebecca West • In academia, feminism is a: • Classroom pedagogy • Research methodology • Rhetoric • Social critique • “Feminism is a political movement designed to alleviate the patriarchal oppression of women” (Heilker 97). http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/200408800-001/Photographers-Choice-RF “Male and Female Figures on Scale”

3. Feminism as Pedagogy • Emphasizes personal voice, shared authority, and collaboration • Similar to expressive writing; both place emphasis on personal experience and voice • Fights against patriarchal forces that seek to silence women • Conveys the idea that the female voice is lost in male society, and that the teacher must work to aid in its recovery • Must firmly confront misconceptions of gender and sexuality http://hawksdesign.net/test/images/EBEVE.JPG

4. Feminism as Research Methodology • Studies male and female ways of composing and knowing • “To become self-consciously aware of what [women’s] experience in the world has been and how this experience is related to the politics of gender” – Elizabeth Flynn (98) • Indentifies male-dominated interests and integrates the female perspective • Utilizes women’s powers of subversion, mediation and negotiation in the form of writing to infiltrate and revolutionize academia • Hybridizes personal experience and detached argument to produce a uniquely female research and writing style

5. Feminism as Rhetoric • Studies sexist language issues and linguistic gender differences • Promotes women speakers and their speech • Cultivates reason, eloquence, strategy, collaboration, and empowerment • Examines the impact of print, visual media, and advertising on the lives of women http://inspirationoflyric.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/feminism31.jpg

6. Harmful Advertising http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/gwss1001/dggangrape.jpg http://thegenderblenderblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/abc.jpg http://www.kitmeout.com/img_assets/dandg_knives.jpg

7. Feminism as Social Critique • Works to transform previously unbalanced relationships between men and women in society and in the family and home life • Supports an increase in female presence in professional fields and the public in general • Has caused changes in attitudes not just towards females, but also towards other minority groups of varying race, religion and ethnicity • Fights violence against women by promoting education and social awareness among both genders; women must learn self-defense, men must learn to recognize the sexist mentalities ingrained by society

8. Feminism in the Words of Writers • “Does feminist mean a large unpleasant person who’ll shout at you, or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it’s the latter, so I sign up” – Margaret Atwood • “If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don’t blame the women’s movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based” – Betty Friedan • “Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority” – Mary Wollstonecraft • “Any woman whose I.Q. hovers above her body temperature must be a feminist” – Rita Mae Brown

9. Works Cited • Amos, Tori. “Real Men.” Strange Little Girls. Atlantic, 2001. • Heilker, Paul, and Peter Vandenberg, eds. Keywords in Composition Studies. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1996. http://www.the-vibe.co.uk/a2964fg873mzh/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/feminism.jpg