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Mapping the History of Feminism

Mapping the History of Feminism. Feminist Studies 60 Women of Color: Race, Class, Ethnicity. Professor Oscar F. Gil-Garcia. First Wave Feminism & Anti-Slavery. First Wave Feminism. Women’s Convention of 1848 stated the belief of its framers in the equality of men and women

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Mapping the History of Feminism

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  1. Mapping the History of Feminism Feminist Studies 60Women of Color: Race, Class, Ethnicity Professor Oscar F. Gil-Garcia

  2. First Wave Feminism & Anti-Slavery

  3. First Wave Feminism • Women’s Convention of 1848 • stated the belief of its framers in the equality of men and women • demanded for women education • the liberty of entering all trades and professions • the right to appear in public • the right to "work with men in any good cause,“ • Women’s suffrage .

  4. Sojourner Truth • "I have ploughed, I have planted and gathered into barns and no one could head me -- and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man -when I could get it -- and bear de lash as well, and ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern and seen most of dem sold off into slavery, and when I cried out in my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me; and ain't I a woman? • "Den dat man oberdar, he say women can't have as much right as men 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?" (Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled the crowd as did those deep wonderful tones as she stood with outstretched arms and eyes of fire.) "Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothin' to do with him!"

  5. Resolution Condemning Southern Disenfranchisement of African Americans • Resolved, that the women who are trying to lift themselves out of the class of the disfranchised, the class of the insane and criminal, express their sympathy with the black men and women who are fighting the same battle and recognize that it is as unjust and as undemocratic to disfranchise human beings on the ground of color as on the ground of sex.

  6. Shortcomings of the First Wave • lacked a sustained critique of private (read female) and public (read male) and how each reinforced gender hierarchy • lacked a sustained critique of labor inequality • lacked an intersectional analysis of race and gender

  7. Public & Private • What constitutes the public and the private? • Sexuality and procreation are viewed as constitutive of the private sphere • Biology (sex) is naturalized to link women with procreative labor • The association of women to procreation naturalizes women as sex objects and as mothers.

  8. Second Wave Feminism

  9. Production and Reproduction • Production – participation of labor in waged work. • Proletariat (waged workers) vs. Bourgeoisie (owners of means of production) • Reproduction – the biological, social, and cultural reproduction of human life.

  10. Marxist Feminism • Capitalism requires the reproduction of surplus (profit) and accomplishes this in a variety of ways • Artificial creation of a “reserve army of labor” • Use of “labor-saving” technological innovations • Decrease of wages

  11. Patriarchy & Capital • The proletariat in male dominated occupations along with capitalists reinforce gender segmentation in the labor market • Reinforces traditional family structures

  12. What about race? • Key Women’s Organizations: • National Organization for Women (NOW) • New York Radical Women • Redstockings • Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH) • Women’s Liberation Union (WLU)

  13. Nationalism or Feminism? • Anti-colonial and nationalist movements critiqued racial inequality but reinforced traditional gender roles. • Mainstream feminism critiqued gender oppression, but largely ignored race.

  14. Autonomous black women organizations • Black Women’s Liberation Committee • Third World Women’s Alliance • Black Women Enraged • Black Women Organizing for Action • National Black Feminist Organization

  15. Third Wave Feminism

  16. The Figurative Mother-Daughter in Distinguishing Generational Feminist Waves • Centers on the nuclear heteronormative family. • Creates a generational division

  17. Death & Rebirth Narrative • framing feminism under a “Death & Rebirth” narrative has its drawbacks: • Presumes that women’s movements are in decline • Used as “proof of mass rejection and failure of feminism • Signifies the “success” of feminism and the arrival of a “post-feminist” era

  18. Weaknesses of Astride’s Analysis • Third wave feminists succumbed to generational model. • “By depicting second wave feminism as primarily white and racist…enables third-wave feminists to position themselves as superior to the feminists of the past.” (p. 33) • “Third wave feminism as more about textual and cultural production…than large-scale social justice movement.” (p. 34)

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