views on feminism essay

Essay on Feminism

500 words essay on feminism.

Feminism is a social and political movement that advocates for the rights of women on the grounds of equality of sexes. It does not deny the biological differences between the sexes but demands equality in opportunities. It covers everything from social and political to economic arenas. In fact, feminist campaigns have been a crucial part of history in women empowerment. The feminist campaigns of the twentieth century made the right to vote, public property, work and education possible. Thus, an essay on feminism will discuss its importance and impact.

Importance of Feminism

Feminism is not just important for women but for every sex, gender, caste, creed and more. It empowers the people and society as a whole. A very common misconception is that only women can be feminists.

It is absolutely wrong but feminism does not just benefit women. It strives for equality of the sexes, not the superiority of women. Feminism takes the gender roles which have been around for many years and tries to deconstruct them.

This allows people to live freely and empower lives without getting tied down by traditional restrictions. In other words, it benefits women as well as men. For instance, while it advocates that women must be free to earn it also advocates that why should men be the sole breadwinner of the family? It tries to give freedom to all.

Most importantly, it is essential for young people to get involved in the feminist movement. This way, we can achieve faster results. It is no less than a dream to live in a world full of equality.

Thus, we must all look at our own cultures and communities for making this dream a reality. We have not yet reached the result but we are on the journey, so we must continue on this mission to achieve successful results.

Impact of Feminism

Feminism has had a life-changing impact on everyone, especially women. If we look at history, we see that it is what gave women the right to vote. It was no small feat but was achieved successfully by women.

Further, if we look at modern feminism, we see how feminism involves in life-altering campaigns. For instance, campaigns that support the abortion of unwanted pregnancy and reproductive rights allow women to have freedom of choice.

Moreover, feminism constantly questions patriarchy and strives to renounce gender roles. It allows men to be whoever they wish to be without getting judged. It is not taboo for men to cry anymore because they must be allowed to express themselves freely.

Similarly, it also helps the LGBTQ community greatly as it advocates for their right too. Feminism gives a place for everyone and it is best to practice intersectional feminism to understand everyone’s struggle.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Feminism

The key message of feminism must be to highlight the choice in bringing personal meaning to feminism. It is to recognize other’s right for doing the same thing. The sad part is that despite feminism being a strong movement, there are still parts of the world where inequality and exploitation of women take places. Thus, we must all try to practice intersectional feminism.

FAQ of Essay on Feminism

Question 1: What are feminist beliefs?

Answer 1: Feminist beliefs are the desire for equality between the sexes. It is the belief that men and women must have equal rights and opportunities. Thus, it covers everything from social and political to economic equality.

Question 2: What started feminism?

Answer 2: The first wave of feminism occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It emerged out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. This wave aimed to open up new doors for women with a focus on suffrage.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

Travelling Essay
Picnic Essay
Our Country Essay
My Parents Essay
Essay on Favourite Personality
Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
Essay on Knowledge is Power
Essay on Gurpurab
Essay on My Favourite Season
Essay on Types of Sports

Download the App

5 Essays About Feminism

On the surface, the definition of feminism is simple. It’s the belief that women should be politically, socially, and economically equal to men. Over the years, the movement expanded from a focus on voting rights to worker rights, reproductive rights, gender roles, and beyond. Modern feminism is moving to a more inclusive and intersectional place. Here are five essays about feminism that tackle topics like trans activism, progress, and privilege:

“Trickle-Down Feminism” – Sarah Jaffe

Feminists celebrate successful women who have seemingly smashed through the glass ceiling, but the reality is that most women are still under it. Even in fast-growing fields where women dominate (retail sales, food service, etc), women make less money than men. In this essay from Dissent Magazine, author Sarah Jaffe argues that when the fastest-growing fields are low-wage, it isn’t a victory for women. At the same time, it does present an opportunity to change the way we value service work. It isn’t enough to focus only on “equal pay for equal work” as that argument mostly focuses on jobs where someone can negotiate their salary. This essay explores how feminism can’t succeed if only the concerns of the wealthiest, most privileged women are prioritized.

Sarah Jaffe writes about organizing, social movements, and the economy with publications like Dissent, the Nation, Jacobin, and others. She is the former labor editor at Alternet.

“What No One Else Will Tell You About Feminism” – Lindy West

Written in Lindy West’s distinct voice, this essay provides a clear, condensed history of feminism’s different “waves.” The first wave focused on the right to vote, which established women as equal citizens. In the second wave, after WWII, women began taking on issues that couldn’t be legally-challenged, like gender roles. As the third wave began, the scope of feminism began to encompass others besides middle-class white women. Women should be allowed to define their womanhood for themselves. West also points out that “waves” may not even exist since history is a continuum. She concludes the essay by declaring if you believe all people are equal, you are a feminist.

Jezebel reprinted this essay with permission from How To Be A Person, The Stranger’s Guide to College by Lindy West, Dan Savage, Christopher Frizelle, and Bethany Jean Clement. Lindy West is an activist, comedian, and writer who focuses on topics like feminism, pop culture, and fat acceptance.

“Toward a Trans* Feminism” – Jack Halberstam

The history of transactivsm and feminism is messy. This essay begins with the author’s personal experience with gender and terms like trans*, which Halberstam prefers. The asterisk serves to “open the meaning,” allowing people to choose their categorization as they see fit. The main body of the essay focuses on the less-known history of feminists and trans* folks. He references essays from the 1970s and other literature that help paint a more complete picture. In current times, the tension between radical feminism and trans* feminism remains, but changes that are good for trans* women are good for everyone.

This essay was adapted from Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability by Jack Halberstam. Halberstam is the Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He is also the author of several books.

“Rebecca Solnit: How Change Happens” – Rebecca Solnit

The world is changing. Rebecca Solnit describes this transformation as an assembly of ideas, visions, values, essays, books, protests, and more. It has many layers involving race, class, gender, power, climate, justice, etc, as well as many voices. This has led to more clarity about injustice. Solnit describes watching the transformation and how progress and “ wokeness ” are part of a historical process. Progress is hard work. Not exclusively about feminism, this essay takes a more intersectional look at how progress as a whole occurs.

“How Change Happens” was adapted from the introduction to Whose Story Is it? Rebecca Solnit is a writer, activist, and historian. She’s the author of over 20 books on art, politics, feminism, and more.

“Bad Feminist” extract – Roxane Gay

People are complicated and imperfect. In this excerpt from her book Bad Feminist: Essays , Roxane Gay explores her contradictions. The opening sentence is, “I am failing as a woman.” She goes on to describe how she wants to be independent, but also to be taken care of. She wants to be strong and in charge, but she also wants to surrender sometimes. For a long time, she denied that she was human and flawed. However, the work it took to deny her humanness is harder than accepting who she is. While Gay might be a “bad feminist,” she is also deeply committed to issues that are important to feminism. This is a must-read essay for any feminists who worry that they aren’t perfect.

Roxane Gay is a professor, speaker, editor, writer, and social commentator. She is the author of Bad Feminist , a New York Times bestseller, Hunger (a memoir), and works of fiction.

15 Great Charities to Donate to in 2024

15 Quotes Exposing Injustice in Society

14 Trusted Charities Helping Civilians in Palestine

The Great Migration: History, Causes and Facts

Social Change 101: Meaning, Examples, Learning Opportunities

Rosa Parks: Biography, Quotes, Impact

Top 20 Issues Women Are Facing Today

Top 20 Issues Children Are Facing Today

15 Root Causes of Climate Change

15 Facts about Rosa Parks

Abolitionist Movement: History, Main Ideas, and Activism Today

The Biggest 15 NGOs in the UK

About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Mapping a global view of feminism

Search online for the terms “feminism” and “global feminism,” and you’ll discover that feminism today comes in a variety of flavors, largely dictated by differences in the causes, concerns and condition of women around the world. Yet, while culture, politics, education and society may differ from one country to another, the commitment to obtain equal rights and freedom of choice for women remains constant among feminists no matter where they are.

In an interview with “Gender News,” noted research scholar Dr. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak discusses her views on global feminism and why “we need to bring the discussion about feminism back to the issue of social justice for women and all other marginalized groups.” Šiljak, who was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has dedicated the past two decades of her career to advocating for women’s rights as a research scholar and human rights activist in non-governmental organizations. Her most recent research at Stanford University focuses on the intersection of leadership, gender and building peace.

GN: Is global feminism really moving forward? Does it mean the same thing in Bosnia-Herzegovina as it does in the U.S.?

ZS: Global feminism is not a special type of feminism, separate from others. It’s the result of the world’s global economy, and enables women from different contexts to be connected and networked, and to learn from one another’s experience. As such, it should not focus exclusively on the predominantly liberal discourse on politics and economy of the West. It needs to be open and sensitive to the problems of women from third-world countries.

Feminism is obviously affected by the social and political realities of our respective societies and cultures. Feminism in the U.S., for example, differs greatly from feminism in a post-war, impoverished and ethically divided region like Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans, which suffer from injustice, oppression, exclusion and ethno-nationalist exploitation. It’s important to distinguish between the concepts of global feminism and what I would call liberal feminism.

While global feminism has improved women’s lives in terms of their rights to education, economic and reproductive rights, and freedom of movement, women outside of liberal societies continue to suffer other forms of oppression like racial, class and religious persecution. Liberal feminism might work for developed, stable Western societies and for women who enjoy economic independence and comfort, but it does not take into account the oppression of marginal groups.

I would say that the main ideas of feminism--a project of social justice and equality--are being betrayed. Some women built careers that benefitted from globalization and the corporate world. They became proponents of the meritocracy in patriarchal neoliberal political and business structures that made women preoccupied with competing in the existing neoliberal political and economic frameworks. Today in the Western world, feminist studies are focused on the themes of identity, sexuality and our bodies, while the key social justice questions remain outside of their horizons.

GN: What makes you optimistic about feminism in your country?

ZS: It’s hard to be an optimist in a country where everything is falling apart due to the ethno-national divisions that resulted from the war between 1992 and 1995. In that context, the women’s movement is fragmented and divided across ethno-national lines.

The good news is that feminism is still alive and vibrant in various forms and resists ethno-national divisions. I think that feminists in Bosnia have done a great job: they provided a “safe space” to survivors of war traumas and torture in shelters and therapy centers; they did an incredible job building peace and reconciliation and re-building communities and relationships. They struggled hard to lay legal foundations for gender equality, anti-discrimination and protection from domestic violence. Women’s groups and organizations became a reference point on the civil scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the strongest voice for equality and justice.

Gender equality can no longer be avoided in any discussion regarding politics, business and even constitutional reforms.

GN: For you, what has been an important turning point for feminism in the last three years?

ZS: Particularly in 2014, feminism became part of the discussion in art, sports, business, politics, fashion, music and world media. Newspapers and broadcast companies brought us stories about celebrities and successful businesswomen and men who supported gender equality and feminism.

It is important to see celebrities like Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Benedict Cumberbatch support feminism, to learn that a woman became chairperson of the United States Federal Reserve for the first time in history, or to celebrate Malala Yousafzai as a Nobel Prize winner. But we have not seen profound changes.

These stories did not help women in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine or Bosnia, or women in Chile or Sudan to get more political and economic stability and prosperity. However, they certainly initiated a discussion about these issues, and reminded all of us that women still face discrimination, gender-based violence, human trafficking and glass ceilings in politics and business.

Recent Articles

“Not a Sprint, but a Relay Race:” Anita Hill’s Politics of Hope

Heroism, intimacy, and beliefs about life and death surface in historic research about drowning

The diverse and precarious world of the “influencer economy”

Yale Divinity School

Reflections

You are here, thinking out loud about feminism.

Each of you is here because you have been formative in my understanding of feminism and commitment to feminist ideals. I want to honor your spirit, hear your voices again, check in, take stock, get clarity. As many of you know, I grew up Roman Catholic, have studied ethics, feminist and liberation theologies, and worked as an activist for sexuality education, LGBT inclusion, and reproductive rights. I’m a wife and a mother. You know me from the classroom, social service programs, or from my church communities.

What I’d like to hear from you tonight are your latest thoughts on our subject. Do you call yourself a feminist? What does that mean to you? How do you see yourself and your work related to feminism today?

“Well, I’m probably the oldest person at this table, so I’ll begin,” says B . “Yes, I proudly call my- self a feminist and have so for over forty years. The consciousness-raising groups that were important to me in the 1970s helped me see I wasn’t the only woman who felt like my college education wasn’t supposed to go to waste just because I got married. I knew I could do all the things men were doing and probably better. From that point on, I have dedicated myself to working for girls’ education so they could join whatever profession they wanted – wear pants, play sports, run a board meeting, start a business – you know what I mean – and to always make sure they are giving back to feminism’s best hopes by making it possible for other girls and women to do this too.”

Waiting politely, but clearly looking for the perfect break in conversation to speak, D responds, “I guess I see things a bit differently. I’m not that much younger than you are, and we have both been professionals in a man’s world, though I am in the academy, not a business office. My feminist and educational journeys coincided. I guess I started out wanting to have all the things men have. But I realized, rather painfully at times, that ‘equal’ doesn’t have to mean ‘the same.’ I have focused my ef forts more on deconstructing gender in order to free women from the oppression they suffer. If we could just get to a place where gender didn’t mat- ter – and race too – then we could imagine a world where justice is possible. We would see each other as God intended – human beings, equally created in God’s image.”

“Why are we always defining ourselves in comparison to men, and which men are we talking about?” says T, setting down her fork. “Men don’t sit around wondering how they aren’t like women or don’t have women’s rights. And the men I know aren’t all that privileged. As a Womanist, I want feminism to mean more than just ‘being like a white man.’ My Womanist vision for feminists is one that helps all men and boys see how sexism hurts them too. It should commit us, in the face of poverty and racism, to do God’s work by standing against oppression in all its forms.”

With a sigh, L admits, “I have to say, Kate, I’m not sure why you invited me. You know I think feminism is pointless. It’s based on this narrow idea of what a woman is or wants. I just got married and I want to be a stay-at-home mom. I don’t want men to become something different. What’s wrong with gender roles if you freely choose them? In our house, my husband makes the money, mows the lawn, and fixes things. That’s what my husband wants to do, and I want to focus on the kids and the house. Somehow that makes me a failure in the eyes of ‘real’ feminists. But it’s not like anyone is forcing me into this choice. Wasn’t feminism supposed to give women more choices and free them to decide for themselves?” says L , reaching for the broken loaf of bread resting in a basket at the middle of the table.

“Ugh, I’m honestly tired of these conversations,” retorts M , setting her glass down. “Women who have racial, economic, and educational privilege still haven’t figured out that their brand of feminism isn’t relevant to most women in the world. Let’s be realistic. Women achieving access and equality with men means only predominately white, First World women getting more education and better jobs, while blacks, Asians, and Latinas are paid to do the household labor, low-paying service jobs, and childcare in the U.S. The global picture is even worse. Those of you who have spoken so far might say, ‘That’s not what I meant or intended.’ But look at the reality. Feminism can’t just be about getting more or erasing who we are as women. It has to be about some of us getting less and seeing our racial, geographic, economic, and political differences clearly.

She continues: “My expression of feminism reflects how my experience of race, culture, citizenship, and economic standing jars white, First World feminism out of a one-size-fits-all model. I am broadening and reclaiming the use of the term feminist, without modifiers, to describe my work. Even though, I get lumped into a term like ‘global south’ or a continental category of African feminist, as if all Africans are the same, or Asians or South Americans for that matter. We come from specific countries with regional and religious differences that are extremely important to shaping our understand ing of feminism. I’m going to concentrate on acting for justice and that’s feminism to me.”

To which J nods and agrees, “Talk about one-size- fits-all. I guess I would say I’m a feminist, but I’d add queer – queer feminist. Seriously, we need to get rid of the categories of women and men altogether: gender is a performance, and sex has more than two categories. Plus, you can alter them, change them, if they don’t fit who you really are. It has been feminist and queer mentors during seminary and in my religious tradition who have taught me to define who I am on my own terms.” Taking a bite, chewing slowly, J concludes, “God made us, but we have to figure out what that means to us individually. For me to express who I know God made me to be, I have to change my appearance, and maybe even my body, to make others see what I feel. I don’t think most feminists have thought enough about what to do if ‘women’ and ‘women’s bodies’ aren’t the tie that binds the movement. I’m here to make sure we do ask that question and work together to find an answer.”

As the quietest one at the table thus far, not a usual situation for me, I guess it is my turn to speak. As you know, I proudly name myself a feminist. I have not always fit neatly into the images created by feminist theories or feminist advocates. Like some of you, as a U.S., white, educated, upper-class woman, I have received privileges from feminist struggles fought before me. As a Christian commit ted to Jesus’ call to social justice, I am constantly challenged by the failures of past and present feminist movements especially as they pertain to racism, colonialism, heterosexism , and poverty. Modifiers to the word feminism help remind us that we have different vantage points that lead to different ex periences . I do believe that language and naming matter. If I say I am a white feminist, it reminds me that my experience of race affects how I experience injustice and inequality. It suggests I have a particular entry point out of which my advocacy for justice begins.

How each of you regards feminism influences what feminism means to me. Your witness challenges me to keep asking questions about the future of feminist movements and theory. In my experience, feminism is a justice-seeking praxis – action and reflection, theory and movements, mutually informing each other. Feminism most often starts with the real-life experience of women, oppressed because an individual, group, or society views them as inferior and then seeks to enforce its ferocity by objectification, control, and domination. We know sexism can take relatively subtle forms, such as l ower salaries for women than men. Or it erupts as domestic and sexual violence in our bedrooms, homes, and churches. Or it persists ruthlessly in a world of poverty, where a woman dies every minute in childbirth because of a lack of health services.

The church is no stranger to gendered and sexual oppression. One of my first moments of feminist awakening was in relation to my faith and church. As a young Roman Catholic school girl, I proudly told my grandmother that this was the year I got to be an altar girl. To which she replied: it’s a shame what’s become of the church. My joy was, to her, dreaded confirmation that the patriarchal sanctity of the church was slowly crumbling. I’m waiting for further decay. Theological truth, ethical analysis, and experiential evidence have yet to convince the Roman Catholic hierarchy that women can be priests as well as altar girls! This is only a minor incident in a long line of theologically justified sexism that keeps our churches from living into the fullness of God’s calling.

Feminism recognizes sexism as an entry point for understanding how oppression and injustice operate. But feminism must go beyond models of equality that value sameness between the sexes above all, especially when the sameness means aiming to be like white, First World, educated men. My hope for feminism, particularly in our churches and denominations, is not that we reach a point where gender, sex, race, religion, and culture no longer matter. They do matter. My hope is that we reach a point where who we are in our unique individual and collective identities matters so fervently that we seek justice because of our differences, not in spite of them or in order to move beyond them.

If feminist movements and theories are to make a lasting contribution to that conversation and vision, then feminism will need each of us around this table to be willing to share a meal, see each other, disagree, and stay a while.

I hope you will come to dinner next week. There are extra chairs. Please feel free to bring someone who is not here.

Kate Ott ’00 M.A.R. is deputy director of the Religious Institute in Westport, CT, an organization that promotes a progressive religious vision of sexual morality, justice, and healing in congregational and public life. A lecturer at YDS and at Drew Theological Seminary, she is co-editor of Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference (Westminster John Knox, 2009). She is also author of Sex and the Seminary: Preparing Ministers for Sexual Health and Justice (2009, Religious Institute) and co-editor of the forthcoming Keeping the Light: Scholarship, Activism, and the Next Generation (2011, Palgrave).

Feminism: Changing the Way Our Society Views Women

Feminism is about changing the way the world perceives the strength of a woman..

Posted May 1, 2018 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

"Teach your daughters to worry less about fitting into glass slippers and more about shattering glass ceilings."—Unknown

I recently returned from a trip to Peru and during my four-week stay, I was fortunate enough to spend time in the local village of Pucamarca which is located in the district of Chinchero outside of Cusco. I spent the morning with a group of Quecha women who made offerings to the land before they began their morning's work which consisted of weaving beautiful textiles by hand.

I inquired about their textile business, their culture, and their life in the village. My mind began to think about all of the strong women I have met all over the world who are disempowered because society does not see them as "strong" as men.

Take, for example, the women in Tanzania, who are undervalued and are forced to stay home to take care of the family, endure female mutilation, and marry into polygamist tribes solely to avoid prostitution. Or the women who are outcast because they are not able to bear children.

While living in Tanzania for a year, I watched the women and girls in my home collect water from the stream every day, go to school, wash the laundry by hand, go to the market, spend hours cooking meals and hold a job. These were some of the strongest women I have ever met, yet they were weak in the eyes of Tanzanian society because they lacked a Y chromosome — and for this, women are not given equal chances as men.

While primary school enrollment among girls and boys is nearly equivalent in Tanzania, less than 20 percent of women age 20-24 have completed secondary school and 20 percent have had no education at all.

The same holds true for other developing countries around the world such as India and Cambodia. While working in India, I witnessed the housegirl undergo reconstructive surgery because she was lit on fire by her husband for disobeying his orders. In the United States, women can make their own choices however we are still fighting for our role in society. Fighting for equal pay and fighting against sexual harassment are just two common battles we are fighting every day in the United States.

Women are expected to give birth, cook, clean, take care of the children, and earn a living. In fact, there are about 85 million mothers in America, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau estimate and about 71 percent of these women are working mothers.

Although the glass ceiling is being raised compared to recent years, it still exists. Today, on average, a woman earns 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns , and women's median annual earnings are $10,086 less than men's, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Regardless of these statistics, we still go to work, take care of our families, clean our homes and continue to fight for equality because we are strong.

How we can close the gender gap

Women have been strong since the point of inception; but only recently has society started to understand their true strength. Society's views are finally changing, little by little.

Yet so many of us are disempowered. We can teach our daughters to be strong and to say "no." We can travel the world and teach women empowerment courses and the importance of staying in school. We can stand at the White House and protest against the gender wage gap and we can stand up for other women who need our help. We can fight against mental health stigma and teach about birth control and safe sex practices. We can learn self-defense and learn how to shoot a gun. We can vote only for those politicians who support women's rights. We can fight harder to enforce tougher rape chargers. We can cook barefoot in the kitchen and earn a six-figure salary. We can fight in the military, climb mountains, run marathons, give birth, and run for president.

We can continue to do all of these things because we are strong and we never give up. However, we have always been strong and we have always been able to be successful, it is our society that has hindered us and is still hindering us.

The only way we can overcome the gender gap in both developing and developed countries is for our societies to start teaching men, from a young age, how valuable and how strong women are.

Men need to overcome their ignorance and chauvinistic ways, but men are not the only culprits. Women are also guilty of allowing this. So many young girls believe beauty is in the man's eyes and that we must marry and have children to be successful in society. So many women use their bodies to be accepted and will go to extreme lengths to obtain this beauty. Women need to stop allowing other women to act like this. We also need to stop competing with each other and start lifting each other up.

"Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength." —G.D. Anderson

Kristen Fuller, M.D., is a physician and a clinical mental health writer for Center For Discovery.

Find a Therapist
Find a Treatment Center
Find a Psychiatrist
Find a Support Group
Find Teletherapy
United States
Brooklyn, NY
Chicago, IL
Houston, TX
Los Angeles, CA
New York, NY
Portland, OR
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Washington, DC
Asperger's
Bipolar Disorder
Chronic Pain
Eating Disorders
Passive Aggression
Personality
Goal Setting
Positive Psychology
Stopping Smoking
Low Sexual Desire
Relationships
Child Development
Therapy Center NEW
Diagnosis Dictionary
Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

Coronavirus Disease 2019
Affective Forecasting
Neuroscience

Essays About Feminism: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts

When writing essays about feminism, there are a lot of aspects you can focus on. We have collected some of the best essay examples with prompts.

Feminism is a socio-political movement that is about fighting for equal rights and opportunities for all genders. While many point its beginnings to the women’s rights movements in the 19th century, when women were liberated and finally allowed to vote, feminist thinking can actually be traced back to as early as the late 14th century with the works of French writer Christine De Pizan , touted the first feminist philosopher.

Today, the definition of feminism has expanded to end discrimination, oppression and stereotyping of all genders from all walks of life. It aims to make radical reforms to eliminate cultural norms and push the legislation of equality-supporting laws.

Because feminism is a widely relevant topic, you may be asked to write an essay about feminism either as a student or a professional. However, it may be difficult to find a starting point given the broad spectrum of areas in which feminism is found relevant.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essays on feminism to provide inspiration:

1. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

2. bad feminist by roxane gay, 3. civic memory, feminist future by lidia yuknavitch, 4. trickle-down feminism by sarah jaffe, 5. emily ratajkowski explores what it means to be hyper feminine by emily ratajkowski , 1. definition of feminism, 2. does feminism still matter in the workplace, 3. would you consider yourself a feminist, 4. historical evolution of feminism, 5. criticisms against feminism, 6. how can we achieve gender equality , 7. who are the feminists in your community and what are they fighting for.

“The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women — of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human.

Solnit starts with amusing narratives of real-life experiences with men who have critiqued her books wrongly. Solnit points out that men’s arrogance and tendency to explain things to women, thinking they know better, have forced women into silence and weakened their credibility even in places where their voices are crucial – such as in the court stand when women testify to being raped. Solnit, thus, emphasizes that the fight against mansplainers is important to the feminist movement. For more, check out these articles about feminism .

“I want to be independent, but I want to be taken care of and have someone to come home to. I have a job I’m pretty good at. I am in charge of things. I am on committees. People respect me and take my counsel. I want to be strong and professional, but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive. Sometimes I feel an overwhelming need to cry at work, so I close my office door and lose it.”

Gay reveals a series of secrets that make her believe she is a “bad feminst.” At first, she had tried to hide her fondness for men, fashion and thuggish rap, among many other things that gave her joy but went against the ideal feminist image etched in the mind of many. Eventually, Gay embraces the “mess of contradictions” that she is, proudly owning the label of a “bad feminist” while she speaks up on issues critical to the feminist movement and debunks myths on the unrealistic standards surrounding the sisterhood.

“There is no photo for what my father did to his daughters. It came into our bodies as a habit of being, a structure of consciousness, a way of life. Maybe it is akin to feeling discovered and conquered and colonized. Maybe the first colonizations are of the bodies of women and children, and from there they extend like the outstretched hand of a man grabbing land. Cultures.”

Yuknavitch highlights her rage against “fathers” both in her personal life and in each political administration that she survived. Yuknavitch described how these fathers and father images try to take control of others’ bodies and lives and crush others’ spirits. In her confrontation and memory of such men, however, Yuknavitch also learned to create art and find her feminist purpose.

“Women may be overrepresented in the growing sectors of the economy, but those sectors pay poverty wages. The public sector job cuts that have been largely responsible for unemployment remaining at or near 8 percent have fallen disproportionately on women (and women of color are hit the hardest). Those good union jobs disappear, and are replaced with a minimum-wage gig at Walmart—and even in retail, women make only 90 percent of what men make.”

Jaffe gives an in-depth view of the gains and impasse in the fight to improve women’s working opportunities. She stresses that women’s breakthroughs in the workplace may not always be a cause for celebration if these do not translate to long-term and more concrete changes for women to be treated better in the workplace. Jaffe encouraged feminists to continue organizing themselves to focus on solutions that can address the continued low wages of women, gender pay gaps and the minimal choice of professions offered to women.

“I often think about this. Why, as a culture, do we insist on separating smart and serious from sexy? Give women the opportunity to be whatever they want and as multifaceted as they can be.”

American model Ratajkowski writes a candid memoir on what it means to be hyper feminine in a society that represses and shames sexuality. She recounts how a misogynistic culture heavily influenced her early adventures on exploring her feminine side, how she took it to her advantage and turned being “sexy” into her strength. Ratajkowski also reveals how she feels about feminism today and women, in general, having their own decision and choices.

Writing Prompts on Essays about Feminism

For more help in picking your next essay topic, check out these seven essay prompts that can get you started:

Feminism is largely believed to be women’s fight against the patriarchy. Could it be a fight against all forms of oppression, discrimination, objectification and stereotyping? Could it be something more? You may even investigate some common myths about feminism. You might be interested in our list of adjectives for strong women .

Essays about Feminism: Does feminism still matter in the workplace?

Now that several women are climbing to the top of corporate ladders, have the right to vote and could get a doctorate, does feminism remain relevant?

Your article can explore the continued challenges of women in the workplace. You may also interview some working women who have faced obstacles toward certain goals due to discrimination and how they overcame the situation.

This would tie in closely to the topic on the definition of feminism. But this topic adds value and a personal touch as you share the reasons and narratives that made you realize you are or are not a feminist.

A common misconception is that only women can be feminists.

The First Wave of feminism started in the 19th century as protests on the streets and evolved into today’s Fourth Wave where technologial tools are leveraged to promote feminist advocacies. Look at each period of feminism and compare their objectives and challenges.

While feminism aims to benefit everybody, the movement has also earned the ire of many. Some people blame feminism for enabling hostility towards men, promiscuity and pornography, among others. You can also touch on the more controversial issue on abortion which feminists fight for with the popularizd slogan “My body, my choice.” You can discuss the law of abortion in your state or your country and what feminist groups have to say about these existing regulations.

Gender equality is pursued in various fields, especially where women have had little representation in the past. One example is the tech industry. Choose one sector you relate closely with and research on how gender equality has advanced in this area. It may be fun to also interview some industry leaders to know what policy frameworks they are implementing, and what will be their strategic direction moving forward.

Everyone surely knows a handful of feminists in their social media networks. Interview some friends and ask about feminist projects they have worked on or are working on. Of course, do not forget to ask about the outcomes or targets of the project and find out who has benefitted from the cause. Are these mothers or young women?

WRITING TIPS: Before you head on to write about feminism, check out our essay writing tips so you can have a struggle-free writing process.

If writing an essay still feels like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

View all posts

Thesis Statement Generator
Online Summarizer
Rewording Tool
Topic Generator
Essay Title Page Maker
Conclusion Writer
Academic Paraphraser
Essay Writing Help
Topic Ideas
Writing Guides
Useful Information

489 Feminism Essay Topics

Women make up half of the world’s population. How did it happen they were oppressed?

We are living in the era of the third wave of feminism, when women fight for equal rights in their professional and personal life. Public figures say that objectification and sexualization of women are not ok. Moreover, governments adopt laws that protect equal rights and possibilities for people of all genders, races, and physical abilities. Yes, it is also about feminism.

In this article, you will find 400+ feminism essay topics for students. Some raise the problems of feminism; others approach its merits. In addition, we have added a brief nuts-and-bolts course on the history and principal aspects of this social movement.

❗ Top 15 Feminism Essay Topics

💻 Feminism Research Topics
📜 History of Feminism Topics
🙋‍♀️ Topics on Feminism Movements

🔥 Famous Feminists Essay Topics

👩‍🎓 Topics on Women’s Rights in the World
👸 Antifeminism Essay Topics

📚 Topics on Feminism in Literature

🔗 references.

Compare and contrast liberal and radical feminism.
The problem of political representation of feminism.
Is Hillary Clinton the most prominent feminist?
How can feministic ideas improve our world?
What is the glass ceiling, and how does it hinder women from reaching top positions?
What can we do to combat domestic violence?
Unpaid domestic work: Voluntary slavery?
Why do women traditionally do social work?
What are the achievements of feminism?
Why is there no unity among the currents of feminism?
Pornographic content should be banned in a civilized society.
Does feminism threaten men?
What is intersectional feminism, and why is it the most comprehensive feminist movement?
Those who are not feminists are sexists.
Why are women the “second gender?”

💻 Feminism Research Topics & Areas

Feminism is the belief in the equality of the sexes in social, economic, and political spheres. This movement originated in the West, but it has become represented worldwide. Throughout human history, women have been confined to domestic labor. Meanwhile, public life has been men’s prerogative. Women were their husband’s property, like a house or a cow. Today this situation has vastly improved, but many problems remain unresolved.

A feminism research paper aims to analyze the existing problems of feminism through the example of famous personalities, literary works, historical events, and so on. Women’s rights essay topics dwell on one of the following issues:

Healthcare & Reproductive Rights of Women

Women should be able to decide whether they want to have children or not or whether they need an abortion or not. External pressure or disapprobation is unacceptable. In many countries, abortions are still illegal. It is a severe problem because the female population attempts abortions without medical assistance in unhygienic conditions.

Economic Rights of Women

Women’s job applications are often rejected because they are expected to become mothers and require maternity leave. Their work is underpaid on a gender basis. They are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions because of the so-called “ glass ceiling .” All these problems limit women’s economic rights.

Women’s Political Rights

Yes, women have voting rights in the majority of the world’s countries. Why isn’t that enough? Because they are still underrepresented in almost all the world’s governments. Only four countries have 50% of female parliamentarians. Laws are approved by men and for men.

Family & Parenting

The British Office for National Statistics has calculated that women spend 78% more time on childcare than men. They also perform most of the unpaid domestic work. Meanwhile, increasingly more mothers are employed or self-employed. It isn’t fair, is it?

Virginity is a myth. Still, women are encouraged to preserve it until a man decides to marry her. Any expression of female sexuality is criticized (or “ slut-shamed “). We live in the 21st century, but old fossilized prejudices persist.

📜 History of Feminism Essay Topics

First wave of feminism & earlier.

Ancient and medieval promoters of feminist ideas.
“Debate about women” in medieval literature and philosophy.
The emergence of feminism as an organized movement.
Enlightenment philosophers’ attitudes towards women.
The legal status of women in Renaissance.
Women’s Liberation Movement Evolution in the US.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s views on women’s rights.
Sociopolitical background of the suffrage movement.
The most prominent suffrage activists.
The Liberation Theme Concerning Women.
“Declaration of sentiments”: key points and drawbacks.
What was special about Sojourner Truth and her famous speech?
The significance of the first feminist convention in Seneca Falls.
The National Woman Suffrage Association: goals and tactics.
The influence of abolitionism on feminism ideas.
Why did some women prefer trade unions to feminism?
Radical feminists’ criticism of the suffrage movement.
The UK suffragists’ approach to gaining voting rights for women.
Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst’s role in the suffrage movement.
The Nineteenth Amendment: the essence and significance.
Infighting in the post-suffrage era.

Second Wave of Feminism Essay Titles

How did second-wave feminism differ from the suffrage movement?
The roots of the second wave of feminism.
John Kennedy’s policies concerning women’s rights.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s contribution to feminism.
Debates on gender equality in the late 1960s.
Feminism activists’ achievements in 1960-1970.
What was the focus of second-wave feminist research?
Why was there no comprehensive feminist ideology?
Anarcho-, individualist, “Amazon,” and separatist feminism: key ideas.
The nature of liberal feminism.
How did liberal and radical feminism differ?
Why was cultural feminism also called “difference” feminism?
Liberal and Postmodernist Theories of Feminism.
What is the difference between liberal and radical feminism?
Black feminists’ challenges and input to the fight for equity.
Sociocultural differences in views on female liberation.
The globalization of feminism: positive and negative aspects.
Taliban’s oppression of Afghani women.
Women in the US Military: World War II.
What were the main concerns of feminists from developing countries?
Why did Third World women criticize Western feminists?
Feminism achievements to the end of the 20th century.

Third Wave of Feminism Research Topics

What was peculiar about the third wave of feminism?
Why did third-wave feminists consider their predecessors’ work unfinished?
Social, political, economic, and cultural premises of third-wave feminism.
How did the information revolution impact feminism?
Third Wave Foundation’s major goals.
Women’s Rights and Changes Over the 20th Century.
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards’ views on feminism.
The impact of second wavers success on third-wave feminism.
New approaches in fighting discrimination, utilized by third-wave feminists.
The influence of the postmodern movement on feminism.
The concept of a gender continuum.
How did sexist symbols turn into female empowerment tools?
What was specific about third-wave feminist art?
Third-wavers’ redefinition of women as powerful and assertive figures.
“Girl power” in pop culture.
How did the Internet impact third-wave feminism?
Sexualized behavior: sexual liberation or oppression in disguise?
Why was third-wave feminism criticized?
The multifaceted nature of third-wave feminism.
Is multivocality a strength or weakness of third-wave feminism?
How did third wavers counter the criticism?

Fourth Wave of Feminism Essay Topics

The premises of fourth-wave feminism.
Feminism’s major goals after 2012.
Peculiarities of fourth-wave feminism.
What behavior is sexual harassment?
Gender Equality at the Heart of Development.
Sexual harassment: different gender-based perspectives.
Social media: a feminist tool.
Can social media deepen discrimination?
Gender discrimination in video games.
Musical Preferences: Race and Gender Influences.
GamerGate’s alleged “men’s rights campaign.”
Sexism in Donald Trump’s speech.
Women’s March: reasons and significance.
Main steps in MeToo’s development.
Tarana Burke’s fight for justice.
Gender Stereotypes of Superheroes.
MeToo’s contribution to women’s rights.
The most impactful MeToo stories.
Harvey Weinstein’s case: outcome’s implications.
Gender Roles in the Context of Religion.
Sexual harassment awareness after MeToo.
MeToo’s influence on Hollywood’s ethics.
Reasons for criticism of MeToo.
Social Change and the Environment.
Are sexual violence discussions necessary?

🙋‍ Argumentative Essay Topics on Feminism Movements

Mainstream feminism topics.

What is the focus of mainstream feminism?
Mainstream feminism predispositions in the 19th century.
The place of politics within mainstream feminism.
What is males’ place in mainstream feminism?
The correlation of mainstream feminism and social liberalism.
The correlation between mainstream feminism and state feminism.
Gender equality in the doctrine of mainstream feminism.
Why sunflower is the symbol of mainstream feminism?
Anthony Gidden’s ideas regarding liberal feminism.
Liberal feminism, according to Catherine Rottenberg.
Mary Wollstonecraft and her vision of liberal feminism.
Liberal feminism through John Stuart Mill’s perspective.
Interdependence of mainstream feminism and political liberalism.
NOW’s activities and mainstream feminism.
LWV’s activities and mainstream liberalism.
LGBT’s place in mainstream liberalism’s doctrine.
Discourse Analysis of the Me Too Movement’s Media Coverage.
Frances Wright’s role in establishing mainstream feminism.
Mainstream feminism and the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
Constitutional Equity Amendment and mainstream feminism.
International Woman Suffrage Alliance’s activities and mainstream feminism.
Mainstream feminism and Gina Krog’s works.
Betty Friedan’s understanding of mainstream feminism.
Gloria Steinem’s theoretical contribution to mainstream feminism.
Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas and the framework of mainstream feminism.
Rebecca Walker and her vision within the scope of mainstream feminism.
NWPC’s activities and mainstream feminism.
WEAL’s activities and mainstream feminism.
Catherine Mackinnon and mainstream feminism’s critique.
“White woman’s burden” and mainstream feminism’s critique.
The roots of mainstream feminism in Europe.

Radical Feminism Essay Titles

Society’s order according to radical feminism.
Sexual objectification and radical feminism.
Gender roles according to radical feminism.
Shulamith Firestone’s ideas regarding the feminist revolution.
Ti-Grace Atkinson’s ideas in Radical feminism.
The vision of radical feminism on patriarchy.
Radical feminism’s impact on the women’s liberation movement.
Radical feminism’s roots in the early 1960s.
Kathie Sarachild’s role in radical feminism movements.
Carol Hanisch’s contribution to radical feminism.
Roxanne Dunbar and her radical feminism.
Naomi Weisstein and her vision of radical feminism.
Judith Brown’s activities in terms of radical feminism.
UCLA Women’s Liberation Front role in radical feminism.
Why have women come to be viewed as the “other?”
Ellen Willis’s ideas regarding radical feminism.
Redstockings’ role in radical feminism.
The feminist’s role in radical feminism.
Differences between The Feminists’ and Restokings’ positions.
The protest against Miss America in 1968.
11-hour sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal headquarters.
Forms of direct action in radical feminism.
Protest of biased coverage of lesbians in 1972.
Lisa Tuttle’s vision of radical feminism.
Catharine MacKinnon’s position regarding pornography.
Peculiarities of radical lesbian feminism.
Recognition of trans women in radical feminism.
Radical feminism in the New Left.
Mary Daly’s vision of radical feminism.
Robin Morgan’s vision of radical feminism.

🎯 Persuasive Women’s Rights Essay Topics

Healthcare and reproductive rights of women.

Is abortion morally acceptable?
Why is the fight for child care not over?
Should government participate in birth control?
Researching of Maternity Care in Haiti.
Government’s moral right to cancel abortions.
Should the government allow abortions?
What are birth control and its meaning?
Abortion rights recently disappeared in the US.
Gender Disparity in Colorectal Cancer Screening.
Why are women’s rights becoming less vital?
Western world’s degradation in women’s rights issue.
Canceling abortion endangers women’s human rights.
Female access to healthcare in developing countries.
Developed countries’ role in improving women’s healthcare.
Media’s contribution to legalizing abortions.
Middle-Aged Women’s Health and Lifestyle Choices.
Female genital mutilation’s moral side.
Feminism’s impact on LGBTQ healthcare rights.
The reproductive rights of women are everyone’s problem.
Abortion rights’ impact on country’s economy.
Protection From Infringement and Discrimination.
Women’s reproductive rights in developing countries.
Abortion rights crisis and the UN’s failure in achieving SDG#4.
UN’s contribution to achieving equal healthcare rights.
IGO’s impact on women’s reproductive rights issue.
Report on the Speech by Gianna Jessen.
Is birth control already at risk?
Why should abortions not be allowed?
Meaning of reproductive justice.
Reproductive rights movement’s role in the country’s development.
Single Mothers, Poverty, and Mental Health Issues.
The reproductive rights movement, as all social movements’ drivers.
Abortion’s relation to healthcare rights.
Healthcare rights’ impact on a country’s economic development.
Political agenda behind abortion cancellation.
Feminism’s role in national healthcare.

Economic Rights, Salaries, and Access to Education for Women

Definition of women’s economic rights.
Female economic rights’ impact on the economy.
Female economic rights and education.
Gender Prevalence in Medical Roles.
Can women do “male jobs”?
Gender inequality in the workplace.
Women’s economic rights movements.
How Wealth Inequality Affects Democracy in America.
Barriers to gender-equal economic rights.
Gender inequality by social classes.
Female economic rights and poverty.
Can equal economic rights solve SDG#1?
Gender-Based Discrimination in the Workplace.
Why is it important to have equal access to education?
How did the gender pay gap appear?
Why does the gender pay gap exist?
Women’s economic rights and industrialization.
Characteristics of Mayo Clinic.
Female economic rights worldwide.
Legal rights of women workers.
Laws that protect women’s economic rights.
Women as leaders in the workplace.
The Future of Women at Work in the Age of Automation.
Why are companies against women workers?
Fertility’s impact on female economic rights.
Quiet revolution’s impact female workforce.
Reasons to monitor occupational dissimilarity index.
Women’s Roles in Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism.
Female economic rights in developing countries.
Democracy and female economic rights.
Gender pay gap as a global problem.
ILO’s role in the fight for equal economic rights?
Politics’ impact on female economic rights.
Health Disparities: Solving the Problem.
Female economic rights movement and the fight against racism.
The best practices in achieving gender-equal economic rights.
Democracy and gender pay gap.
Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value.

Women’s Political Rights Essay Topics

Women’s suffrage movement definition.
Female suffrage movement’s significance.
Causes of gender inequality in politics.
Women’s suffrage movement’s role today.
Female suffrage’s impact on democracy.
Women’s suffrage and economy.
Suffrage movement’s effect on politics in the US.
Do women need the right to vote?
Effects of gender inequality on politics.
Suffrage movement and politics in Britain.
Laws for gender-equal political rights.
The correlation between gender inequality in politics and authoritarianism.
The possible solutions to gender inequality in politics.
The role of IGOs in solving gender inequality in politics.
How has the UN participated in the women’s suffrage movement?
What is women’s role in politics in developing countries?
How can women improve politics in their countries?
What can men do for women’s equal political rights?
Why equal rights to vote are everyone’s problem?
The impact of Antoinette Louisa Brown on women’s suffrage.
The effect of equal rights to education on equal political rights.
Are western policies for equal rights applicable in developing countries?
The importance of equal rights to vote.
How to eliminate the gender pay gap?
Why had women not had equal rights in politics?
Is politics a “male job”?
Benefits of appearance of female leaders in politics.
Who created the women’s suffrage movement?
How does women’s suffrage impact racism?
Women’s suffrage contribution to LGBTQ communities’ equal political rights.

Family and Parenting Research Titles

Female and male roles in a family.
Sexism in families.
Eliminating sexism in families is the best solution to gender inequality.
Why is feminism a pro-family movement?
The Childbirth Process in Women’s Experiences.
The benefits of feminist upbringing.
The causes of sexism in families.
How does feminism help LGBTQ parents?
Why should sexism be legally banned?
Healthcare Resources and Equity in Their Distribution.
The effects of sexism in families.
The influence of sexist customs on society.
Why should every family be feminist?
How can feminism help solve the domestic violence issue?
Government’s role in creating feminist families.
What is feminist family value?
The relation of authoritarian parent-paradigm on politics.
Can feminist families bring democracy?
Teaching feminism at home vs. at school.
Traditional vs. Feminist parenting.
Why should women have the right to be child-free?
The impact of bringing up feminist daughters.
Can feminist parents bring up mentally healthy children?
Does the government have a moral right to endorse feminist values?
The role of media for feminist families.
How does feminism transform parent-child relationships?
Can feminism help families overcome poverty?
The role of feminist families in the economy.
The influence of hierarchal husband-wife relationships on children.
Do IGOs have moral rights to intervene in feminist families?
The movements endorsing feminism in families.
The effect of different views on feminism in parents on children.

Sexuality Essay Ideas

The views of radical feminists on women’s sexuality.
Who are sex-positive feminists, and their values?
Feminism’s impact on sexual orientation.
The role of feminism in sexual identity matters.
Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls.
How does feminism help eliminate sexual violence?
What is harassment, and why are feminists fighting it?
The role of media in women’s sexuality.
Traditional views on women’s sexuality.
How is feminism transforming sexuality?
Domestic Violence and COVID-19 Relation.
What are feminist sex wars?
Why are some feminists against pornography?
What are pro-pornography feminist arguments?
How is feminism protecting the rights of sex workers?
Rights of sex workers in developed vs. developing countries.
Media Promotion of Cosmetic Surgery in Women.
Feminist critique of censorship.
What is behind the issue of sex trafficking?
Children’s rape problem and feminism.
The role of feminism in solving the sex trafficking problem.
The Influence of the Women Image in the Media.
R v. Butler case discussion.
How is pornography enhancing sexual objectification?
How is poverty causing prostitution?
Can feminism eliminate prostitution by solving poverty?
Child Marriage in Egypt and Ways to Stop It.
Pro-sex worker feminists and their beliefs.
What are the perspectives of pro-sex workers?
The consequences of violence against women.
The role of feminism to LGBTQ sex workers.
Why are feminists trying to decriminalize prostitution?
Beauty Standards: “The Body Myth” by Rebecca Johnson.
Prostitution in developed vs. developing countries.
The effect of class and race differences on prostitution.
Short- and long-term impacts on sex workers.

👩‍🎓 Essay Topics on Women’s Rights in the World

Essay topics on feminism in developing countries.

Social taboos and abortion in Nigeria.
Access to sexual healthcare in Asia.
Human Papillomavirus Awareness in Saudi Women.
Sexual health and access to contraception in developing countries.
Coronavirus pandemic’s impact on gender inequalities.
Health and education access for women in Afghanistan.
Female Empowerment in the Islamic States.
Does poverty result in increased sexual violence?
Regulations on gender equality in developing countries.
Unsafe abortion, contraceptive use, and women’s health.
Female genital mutilation in the 21st century.
Practicing female genital mutation in Africa.
Gender Discrimination After the Reemergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Which countries have the highest gender gap?
Forced and child marriages in humanitarian settings.
The Taliban’s view: Is woman a property?
Feminism in Latin America.
Honor killing in Pakistan: 1000 women are killed annually.
Women’s access to healthcare in Somalia.

Feminism Essay Topics in Developed Countries

“Broken Rung” and the gender pay gap.
What are the obstacles to reaching gender equality?
Do gender stereotypes result in workplace discrimination?
Increased educational attainment of young women.
Culture: Women With Hijab in Western Countries.
Ending sexual harassment and violence against women.
Is sexual harassment a form of discrimination?
Cracking the glass ceiling: What are the barriers and challenges?
Domestic drama: The impact of sexual violence on women’s health.
Socio-cultural Factors That Affected Sport in Australian Society.
Feminism and the problem of misogyny.
The challenges faced by women in developed counties.
Female participation in the labor market.
Discrimination Against Girls in Canada.
Unequal pay for women in the workplace.
How do developed countries improve women’s rights?
Nations with strong women’s rights.
Women’s employment: Obstacles and challenges.

👸 Antifeminist Essay Topics

Antifeminism: The right to abortion.
Gender differences in suicide.
Manliness in American culture.
Antifeminism view: Men are in crisis.
The threats of society’s feminization.
The meaning of antifeminism across time and cultures.
Antifeminism attracts both men and women.
Gender and Science: Origin, History, and Politics.
Antifeminism: The opposition to women’s equality?
How do religious and cultural norms formulate antifeminism?
Saving masculinity or promoting gender equality?
Traditional gender division of labor: Fair or not?
Are feminist theories of patriarchy exaggerated?
Oppression of men in the 21st century.
Psychological sex differences and biological tendencies.
Does feminism make it harder for men to succeed?
The change of women’s roles: Impact on the family.
How were traditional gender roles challenged in modern culture?
History of antifeminism: The pro-family movement.
Religion and contemporary antifeminism.
Antifeminist on the rights of minorities.
Heterosexual and patriarchal family: Facts behind antifeminism.
Women against feminism in Western countries.
Feminism versus humanism: What is the difference?
Does feminism portray women as victims?
Same-sex marriage: The dispute between feminists and antifeminists.
Male-oriented values of religions and antifeminism.
Does antifeminism threaten the independence of women?
Men’s rights movement: Manosphere.
Does antifeminism refer to extremism?
The fear of being labeled as a feminist.
A Vindication of the Right of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft.
Jane Austen: Criticism of inequitable social rules.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Frankenstein and aborted creations.
Undercutting female stereotypes in Jane Eyre.
“Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body” by Marion.
Oppression of woman’s traditional roles in The Awakening.
Society’s inequitable treatment of women in The Age of Innocence.
Virginia Woolf and her feminism.
Orlando: A Biography. Evolving from man to woman.
Harriet Jacobs’s Experiences as an Enslaved Black Woman.
Feminist criticism: A Room of One’s Own.
Social oppression in Three Guineas by Woolf.
Rape, illegitimacy, and motherhood in The Judge by Rebecca West.
Feminist utopias of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Women’s rights and societal reform views of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Feminist critics in a culture dominated by men.
Black women’s aesthetic in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Alice Walker’s ideas on Feminist women of color.
Female sexuality in Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.
How do feminist novels address race and ethnicity?
Society’s inequitable treatment of women in the Age of Innocence.
Social and emotional pressures in Love Medicine by Erdrich.
Feminist Parenting: The Fight for Equality at Home – Psychology Today
Feminist Parenting: An Introduction – Transformation Central Home
Women’s suffrage – Britannica
Only half of the women in the developing world are in charge of their own bodies – Reuters
Gender Equality for Development – The World Bank
How #MeToo revealed the central rift within feminism today – The Guardian
Feminist Novels and Novelists – Literary Theory and Criticism
Health Care & Reproductive Rights – National Women’s Law Center

Table of Contents
Random Entry
Chronological
Editorial Information
About the SEP
Editorial Board
How to Cite the SEP
Special Characters
Advanced Tools
Support the SEP
PDFs for SEP Friends
Make a Donation
SEPIA for Libraries
Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

Friends PDF Preview
Author and Citation Info
Back to Top

Feminist Perspectives on Argumentation

The noun “argument” and verb “to argue” can describe various things in ordinary language and in different academic disciplines (O’Keefe 1982; Wenzel 1980 [1992]). “Argument” may identify a logical premise-conclusion complex, a speech act, or a dialogical exchange. Arguments may play off other arguments or support each other; smaller arguments can serve as sub-arguments inside larger arguments to which they contribute. Following the practice of Anglophone philosophers, this entry uses the term “argument” only to indicate a premise-conclusion complex that may involve sub-arguments. “Argumentation” also includes the larger context belonging to the activity of “arguing”, understood as the offering of reasons.

Feminist philosophical work on argumentation takes a number of different directions. Some feminists note a general association of arguing with aggression, competition, and masculinity, and they question the necessity of these connections. Also, because many view arguing as a central method of philosophical reasoning, if arguing involves gendered assumptions and standards then that would pose special problems for the discipline. In particular, the goal of winning might get in the way of the other purposes for arguing. So, some feminists ask: Can allegedly “feminine” modes of arguing provide an alternative or supplement to allegedly “masculine” modes? Can overarching epistemological standards account for the benefits of different approaches to arguing? These are some of the prospects for argumentation inside and outside of philosophy that feminists consider.

Some feminists charge, moreover, that the academic study of argumentation—by philosophers and other scholars—has failed to account for the type of reasoning required to provide social justice. Ordinary politeness or even a more robust conception of civility can be inadequate to counteract the influence on argumentation of inequalities based on social identity. What resources can informal logic and interdisciplinary argumentation studies provide to help arguing practices avoid the reinforcement of social injustices? Are informal logic and the study of rhetoric any more helpful than deductive logic? Feminist scholars suggest certain strategies for reasoning and for argument pedagogy, especially looking at ways to address the personal nature that arguing often has.

Other feminists find problems with argumentation standards fairly specific to the discipline of philosophy. It emerges that philosophers often invoke claims about arguments and arguing contrary to accepted argumentation scholarship. Feminists especially note this problem in the way that philosophers employ fallacy labels and how they teach argument in critical thinking courses. Even though argumentation scholarship stands in need of further feminist development, it provides some resources to help philosophy better address social justice concerns.

1.1 Metaphors and norms of masculine aggression

1.2 the adversary paradigm and the discipline of philosophy, 2.1 gendered reasoning, 2.2 caring and coalescent argumentation, 2.3 knowledge and criticism, 2.4 politeness and civility, 3.1 formal logic, 3.2 rhetorical approaches and power differences, 4. credibility and argumentative injustice, 5. the fallacies approach to argument evaluation, 6. critical thinking and argument pedagogy, 7. feminism, the discipline of philosophy, and argumentation scholarship, other internet resources, related entries, 1. arguing to win.

Theories about arguing generally assume that arguers disagree, and sometimes arguing operates as a type of battle among ideas that may be preferred over physical combat among people. Adversarial orientation among people arguing may, however, marginalize women’s patterns of communication and discount social norms of “femininity” (that regularly attach to women and girls but vary across time and culture). The connection between “masculinity” (understood also as a social norm, ideal, or role) and adversarial processes for reasoning may be heightened and even become stylized as a disciplinary method in contemporary Euro-American philosophy (Moulton 1983; Burrow 2010; Rooney 2010; Alcoff 2013). [ 1 ] When reasoners treat arguing as a contest, each aiming to win by defeating the other’s claim, it can become “eristic”, which is to say that the goal of winning takes over from other purposes that arguing serves. In the same way as adversarial reasoning and eristics, other discursive norms can complicate the ways that women may be marginalized and marginalize other groups of people, including men. Little attention has been given in Euro-American philosophy to the gendered dimensions of arguing in other cultures. However, feminists regularly suggest that where adversarial arguing dominates, non-dominant styles of reasoning can provide productive alternatives or complements to it, and this often involves styles gendered as “feminine”.

Some feminist philosophers suggest that an aggressive culture associated with masculinity poorly serves processes of reasoning and hinders the discipline of philosophy insofar as it sidelines, downgrades, and even excludes people’s non-adversarial engagement with each other and with each other’s reasoning. Evidence for this problem emerges in various places, beginning with the prevalence of military and aggressive language to describe philosophical discourse and rational arguing more generally (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Ayim 1988; Cohen 1995).

Janice Moulton (1983) argues that a particular style she calls “the Adversary Method” dominates the discipline of philosophy, and this goes beyond a set of attitudes or styles of interaction to include prioritizing a particular discursive logic. Further evidence for Moulton’s characterization of disciplinary practices in philosophy comes from Phyllis Rooney (2012) and Catherine Hundleby (2010).

The metaphor of argument-as-war provides a central example for George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s landmark book, Metaphors We Live By (1980). War can operate as “structural metaphor” for arguing:

Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument—attack, defense, counterattack, etc.—reflects this. (1980: 4)

Without that structure, Lakoff and Johnson suggest that we could not even recognize a piece of discourse as an argument.

Moulton (1983) observes that prioritizing aggression in the practice of arguing and the association of aggression with certain forms of masculinity is problematic. If people assume that success requires aggression, then discussants must appear aggressive in order to appear competent at arguing. Not only may the assumption be false, but it may entail a distinct disadvantage for women. Cultures that treat aggression as a natural quality in men encourage and advantage men in eristic modes of engagement. When success demands aggression, contributions to an exchange of reasons made in other styles—including those that read as feminine—will not measure up; and they may not even be noticed. At the same time, a woman can seem to be aggressive merely by asserting her own viewpoint or by showing competence in some other fashion. She may tend to stand out in many contexts as behaving inappropriately, even as her actions become acknowledged, because of her feminine social identity (Moulton 1983: 150; Rancer & Stewart 1985; Hample et al. 2005; Kukla 2014; Olberding 2014).

Moulton calls attention to ways in which philosophical approaches to arguing and reasoning in Euro-American culture take on a pronounced adversarial dynamic that reflects aggressive expectations. Her concern about the discipline and about models for argumentation is shared by many feminist philosophers (Ayim 1988; Burrow 2010; Gilbert 1994, 1997; Hundleby 2010, 2013b, Rooney 2003, 2010) and some who are not specifically feminist (Cohen 1995). Maryann Ayim observes that a culture of hostility can be viewed in the militaristic, violent, subjugating, and controlling language used to describe philosophical arguing, especially the metaphor of argument-as-war:

Philosophers tend to value their “sharper” students, whom they may openly praise for their “penetrating” insights. Occasionally they find students of “piercing” intelligence, one or two perhaps with minds like “steel traps”. Philosophers regard such students as important: They require “tough-minded” opponents with whom they can “parry” in the classroom, so they can exhibit to the others what the “thrust” of philosophical argumentation is all about. This “battle of wits” is somewhat risky, however, and a “combatant” must take care always to “have the upper hand”, to “win thumbs down”, to “avoid being hoist by your own petard”. If you find yourself pressed for time at the end of a lecture, with your “back to the wall”, or as it is occasionally even more colorfully expressed, “between a rock and a hard place”, you may have to resort to “strong arm tactics”, to “barbed” comments, to “go for the jugular”, to “cut an opponent’s argument to pieces”, or to “bring out the big guns or heavy artillery”. If caught in the throes of a real dilemma, you many even have to “take the bull by the horns” or rebut the dilemma by advancing a “counter” dilemma. (Ayim 1988: 188)

Martial metaphors and competitive evaluation foster the eristic goal of defeating others and their views (Cohen 1995), even perhaps, Ayim suggests, for instructors in regard to their students. While this attitude may seem obviously inappropriate for instructors to take with students over whom they have authority, the available range of such language suggests a general disciplinary culture that enforces aggression through conflating it with success (Moulton 1983).

Admittedly, aggressive interaction may be comfortable for many women and uncomfortable for some men, and it may be inflected with class and race biases with similarly variable effect. Yet these may be merely exceptions to the “masculine” homosocial culture of hostility that many feminists maintain prevails in philosophical arguing. Rooney argues that culture reinforces male status in the discipline and resonates with narratives of opposition against not just ideas but also against people who present them, especially women (Rooney 2010: 229). Common ideals of masculinity and rationality coincide with the association of aggression with success, power, effectiveness, and vitality; they contrast with emotion, unreason, body, sexuality, instinct, nature, and rhetoric, [ 2 ] all notions that Euro-American cultures regularly associate with femininity.

In the history of Euro-American philosophy, Rooney (2010) observes, masculine reason regularly appears in battle against feminine elements of unreason, a battle that occurs both within the knower and among aspects of thought. “Embattled reason” constantly struggles to subordinate feminine elements of unreason, and the suppression of perceived negative qualities that are gendered as “feminine” provides a central means for achieving the ideals of reason and rationality central to the discipline. That the discipline functions this way can discourage women’s participation. So, Rooney argues

that a full feminist accounting of the general cultural problem with gender, adversariality, and authority must include consideration of philosophy’s history and its lingering effects. (2010: 209, 217–219)

Otherwise the discipline may continue to perpetuate sexist standards of reason from the larger culture and its history.

Daniel Cohen (1995) suggests that antagonistic attitudes may not actually enhance competition and the knowledge it is supposed to serve, and that imposing the goal of agreement can silence rational discourse and undermine the goal of philosophy to further inquiry. The value of information that challenges our own beliefs can always be hard to recognize, a difficulty described as “confirmation bias”, and this problem can be exacerbated when the focus of arguing is winning rather than learning or ascertaining truth (Makau & Marty 2013: 39–40, 167; Linker 2015).

Norms of masculine aggression may help a particular reasoning method to dominate the discipline of philosophy, Janice Moulton argues in an early article (1983). She describes the process of competitive reasoning through deductive refutation—typically by counter-example—as the “Adversary Method”. [ 3 ] According to Moulton, the Method employs opposing views on a topic as tests for each other—the more severe the opposition, the better, and surviving the confrontation grants “objectivity” to a view. Winning at arguing in this fashion depends on defeating competing positions based on faults identified in them. Defeat of the opposite position becomes more decisive when the claims are very specific, as specificity aids deductive refutation.

Philosophy, at least in Moulton’s (1983) context of late twentieth century Anglo-American or “analytic” philosophy, may be so permeated by the combination of adversarial arguing and deductive logic that the Adversary Method operates as a disciplinary “paradigm”. Moulton argues that this “paradigm” for philosophy demands aggressive opposition to other people’s opinions, in the same way that Thomas Kuhn observed that mature scientific disciplines demand adherence to an overarching theory, an ideal, and a practice that together constitute a cultural paradigm. Philosophers’ technique of aiming to falsify each other’s claims reflects Karl Popper’s epistemology but adversarial reasoning in philosophy has taken many different forms and traces back at least to Aristotle. Descartes and Kant shifted the normative focus of the study of logic from dialogue to individual cognition, and the logic of opposition became internalized (Dutilh Novaes 2011, 2015). Yet, arguing as a dialogical form of reasoning retains the oppositional dynamic.

Moulton criticizes how the operation of the Adversary Method as a paradigm can hobble the progress of philosophical reasoning by narrowing the possibilities for discussion. Isolating claims maximizes their vulnerability and prepares them for Adversarial testing, forcing proponents to rely on ad hoc revisions, and prohibiting the systematic reconsiderations that encourage theories to evolve. For instance, ad hoc concessions “for the sake of argument” create common ground for discussion only by restricting the basis for disagreement; and so, Moulton maintains, they slow the development of philosophical thought (1983: 154–155).

Moulton (1983) argues that the narrow discourse of the Adversary Method seriously limits the relevance of philosophy to feminist concerns. She takes the example of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s classic philosophical defense of the moral permissibility of abortion that concedes a great deal (that the fetus is a full-fledged person with a right to life) to show that the right to life does not supersede the right to bodily autonomy. Moulton’s concern is that even though Thomson’s position supports feminist theoretical views, it employs reasoning so remote from the circumstances of pregnancy that it provides no guidance for people seeking to make decisions about actual abortions. Taking the purpose of arguing to be the defeat of a view limits the practical relevance of the argumentative exchange.

Moulton makes a further related point that forcing narrow theories to compete can make philosophy look quite absurd. Moral arguments are directed at egoists and epistemology is offered to skeptics. Debates over the existence of the external world and the existence of God occupy philosophers at the expense of attention to the character of the world we live in or the role of God in our religions. Philosophers rarely question the assumption that there must be a supreme moral principle, Moulton explains, because otherwise there would be little sense to making different theories compete for recognized supremacy (1983: 157–158). Losing sight of other reasons for arguing may have even resulted in the misinterpretation of key figures in the history of philosophy. Moulton suggests that interpreters often miss various purposes for which Socrates argued because they assume that his only goal was refutation (1983: 155–157). The assumption that the Adversary Method drives philosophical progress may distort philosophers’ understanding of the value of their own discipline.

The Adversary Method’s prevalence and constitution of a Kuhnian paradigm may be recognized in Rooney’s observation that philosophers tend to engage each other from a “default skeptical stance”. The skeptical stance challenges the quality of the components of another’s arguments, including the basis for premises, the support premises provide for the conclusion, and the possibility of counterexamples. The skeptical stance operates as a default without consideration of the appropriateness of the challenges for the topic under discussion. Rooney notes in particular,

skeptical argumentative responses that take necessary truths and valid arguments as the ideal poorly serve the variety of arguments and forms of argumentation that important philosophical works have presented and will continue to present. (2012: 321)

Inappropriate standards undermine the general epistemic aims of truth and understanding. They create specific problems for discussion of social justice issues which depends extensively on testimony and therefore on deft employment of the epistemology of testimony and sensitivity to the danger of testimonial injustice (see Section 4 on Credibility and argument interpretation ). The unsuitability of the Adversary Method for discussions of social justice will stall social justice projects, Rooney concludes, including those within the discipline of philosophy.

Hundleby presents as evidence for the paradigmatic operation of the Adversary Method an analysis of critical thinking textbooks in philosophy. Twenty-four textbooks of the thirty examined—four-fifths—revealed in their presentation of fallacies the norms of the Adversary Method: narrow discourse and decisive refutation. Most of these textbooks exhibiting the Adversary Paradigm have authors with no research expertise in argumentation more specific than doctoral training in philosophy, whereas the much smaller number of textbooks (six out of thirty) authored by scholars of argumentation do not show the same signs of the Adversary Method. Given this evidence that argumentation scholarship differently orients argument pedagogy, the prevalence of the Adversary Method in so many other textbooks seems to derive simply from the disciplinary culture of philosophy (Hundleby 2010).

Some empirical educational studies suggest, too, that while students learn a great deal from learning eristic practices of argument, it undermines their progress as learners by emphasizing winning over gaining understanding (Makau & Marty 2013: 13). People—including feminists—Moulton (1983) suggests, might expect more relevant advice from the discipline of philosophy. More practical philosophies addressing mundane problems also may be found outside Euro-American cultures (Olberding 2015).

2. Other Goals for and Styles of Arguing

Feminist philosophical models of arguing aim either to replace or to complement arguing practices and norms defined in terms of a contest between people or reasons. In addition to the goal of defeating an interlocutor or their reasons, arguments can serve many purposes. Explanation and explanatory argument (sometimes considered to be the same thing) already receive attention from argumentation theorists and philosophers of science. Other functions of arguing, such as educating the uninitiated or the undecided and discussing matters with like-minded people, remain neglected by theorists (Goodwin & Innocenti 2019). None of the alternatives need to take over as a new “paradigm”, but exploring various purposes, methods, and styles of arguing may help to scrutinize accepted procedures and purposes (Moulton 1983). Such questioning of methods deters their dogmatic acceptance.

According to Cohen, more important for the role of arguing in philosophy and education than to praise or condemn any particular norms of arguing may be the exploration of multiple approaches. Philosophers and arguers more generally might find means for innovation and constructive questioning in many new models and metaphors. Cohen finds that traffic metaphors seem to work especially well:

We can say that arguments are (i) conversational traffic jams—(ii) gridlock with a lot of honking and little movement; (iii) conversational traffic accidents; (iv) wrong turns, or (v) detours, or (vi) dead ends or (vii) roundabouts on the streets of discourse; or should we have said that they are (viii) short cuts to the truth at the end of the road; maybe (ix) they are long and winding roads to nowhere; or, instead, we can conceive of arguments as (x) intellectual one way roads to their conclusions although maybe they are really (xi) one-lane roads but with two-way traffic. More positively, they can be thought of as a case of (xii) a merging traffic of ideas or even better as (xiii) conceptual roads under construction. (Cohen 1995: 184)

The availability of so many traffic metaphors suggests something appropriate about this analogy. Another option identified by Keith Lloyd (2014) lies in perceptual metaphors, especially regarding what arguers can see. However, visual metaphors have a fraught history in feminist philosophy because ideal vision tends to be associated with abstraction, and to lean on a hierarchy of the senses (Keller & Grontkowski 1983). In any case it is likely that no metaphor or analogy can capture all the shapes that arguments take and the purposes they serve (Cohen 1995: 187).

Metaphors, models, and methods that tend to be “gendered” as feminine may carry connotations of subordination—and so they may seem inferior, yet they may be also especially useful for women and hence powerful for feminists. These approaches can provide a potent basis for generating alternatives to eristic standards and an understanding of the processes that may go alongside or support arguing as a contest. Metaphors and models based on collaboration fit with the work of physical and emotional care that regularly constitutes women’s roles and responsibilities. Yet collaboration also proves quite apt for many other contexts and functions of arguing such as explanation and deliberation. Rooney suggests that because people converse with rather than against each other, and because arguing is a species of conversation, we should speak of arguing with rather than against people and their views (2010: 221). This possibility suggests that the argument-as-war metaphor may not be so overwhelming as to make alternatives unimaginable in the way Lakoff and Johnson suggest (1980: 4). Alternative structures for argument can be found in our ordinary language.

Patterns that might seem to distinguish how women argue may not express deep cognitive differences between the genders. A range of communicative styles including gendered norms of polite discourse that have people constrain their public reasoning may equally serve cognitive functions common to men and women. Gendered roles may even complement each other’s epistemological operation. The most aggressive and disruptive behavior will not endure norms of politeness. However, some feminists consider that politeness can require conformity to structures of social authority that marginalize women, people of color, and others belonging to subordinated social categories.

The gendered associations of different styles of reasoning suggest that a source for alternative models of arguing might be found in what have been seen as “feminine” styles of reasoning. Whether or not women reason differently from men depends on what we count as reasoning (Verbiest 1995), and the evidence from psychology and sociology reveals no significantly gendered differences in the mental processes of inference and cognition (Fine 2010). Yet women’s communication practices often reflect distinct “values of intimacy, connection, inclusion, and problem sharing” (Burrow 2010: 247).

Ayim argues that in order to avoid reinforcing patterns of subordination, we must detect and examine how values and presuppositions play into the ways that we interpret argumentation (1988: 185). Rooney adds that cooperative and collaborative inclinations may involve a tendency to defer, a reluctance to take responsibility for a position, or a lack of confidence in one’s ideas (2010: 213–214). The need to appease those with greater power may explain why an open-ended and tentative quality sometimes distinguishes women’s style of arguing and practices of communication associated with femininity. Sylvia Burrow suggests that women may give others’ interests priority over their own in order to secure cooperation and connection (2010). This may characterize subordinate roles more generally, sometimes extending to marginalized races and ethnicities.

While styles of “femininity” and “masculinity” are neither wholly good nor bad, they both have inherent dangers. A danger for masculinity arises from its association with activity and aggression as apparently natural features of maleness. As a result, these masculine ideals constrain women’s communication, as has often been noted by feminist theorists, while feminine modes tend to be dismissed. Because masculine characteristics also operate as ideals of humanity or personhood (Hundleby 2016), men can over-identify with them and have no motivation to reflect on or problematize their gender identity (Bruner 1996).

The strategy of transgressing gender by adopting an aggressive masculine mode for arguing can seem useful to women and the temptation may be strongest in “masculine” discourses such as philosophical discussion, or wherever listeners treat an authoritative manner as valuable. Yet, when women adopt masculine discursive styles and adversarial techniques, they can garner criticism for being selfish, cold, and mean, which is criticism that men would not receive (Burrow 2010). Furthermore, such character challenges weaken women’s authority and their ability to participate in argumentation (Burrow 2010; Hundleby 2013a). Even when those challenges are not interpreted as a character fault, the effect may be to present women as merely requesting permission to participate, whereas men are not taken to need permission (Kukla 2014; Olberding 2014). When women decline to offer explanations, they are considered incompetent, whereas the same behavior reads as strength in men. Women’s attempts to defend their authority can easily backfire because the very nature of authority depends on not always having to defend what one says (Hanrahan & Antony 2005).

The consideration that women may have a “different voice” in moral reasoning (Gilligan 1982) gave rise to care ethics as a feminist alternative to traditional accounts of morality. Ayim (1988) suggests that metaphors of nurturing could also replace violent ones describing arguing, especially because arguing can help to foster community (Makau & Marty 2013). Approaches to reasoning that presume interest in the flourishing of other people and that consider the needs of others may be common among girls and women in cultures that press them into practices of motherhood and related caring labor, such as teaching, nursing, and food service.

Attention to the unique audience and the speakers involved in a particular discussion forces consideration of its detailed situation. In one sense, this attention exhibits a bias toward certain sorts of evidence. That bias does not pretend to value-neutrality. Yet, Karen Warren argues that attention to detail provides a feminist sense of “open-mindedness” that enriches feminist reasoning with data in a way that entails a type of impartiality (1988: 38). Reasoners operate from specific locations that cannot be adequately addressed by an epistemology of generic or uniform knowers, as feminist epistemologist Lorraine Code argues (1991). And feminist communications scholars Josina M. Makau and Debian L. Marty note that “taking other people’s perspectives seriously is a basic requirement in peaceful coexistence” (2001: 11; 2013: 51).

Accounting for reasoners’ social situations in the way that Warren and Code advise provides part of the goal for Maureen Linker’s model of “intellectual empathy” (2015). This involves working to understand the history of social inequality and how it affects the reasoning and arguing of ourselves and others. Linker argues that

reason and understanding must be supplemented with emotion and experience so that we can know in the fullest possible sense. (2015: 13)

Attention to specific personal experiences that historically have been ignored provides a feminist standpoint with particular empirical and scientific value, and marks a place where the two general feminist epistemologies of science, feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism, coincide (Intemann 2010).

The same feminist epistemological concerns motivate Michael Gilbert’s model of “coalescent argumentation”, which treats arguing as communication that involves much more than a generic expression of a premise-conclusion complex. In coalescent argumentation, the views of speakers stand in opposition to each other without the people speaking being opposed to each other. Arguers’ orientation to other people requires that they account for their interconnection with those in conversation and how their decisions affect others. In this collaborative model, the defeat neither of ideas nor of an opponent provides the goal; instead the goal is to find mutual ground among people, which requires a broad view of relevant considerations (1994; 1997). The processes of coalescent argumentation demand more information than required simply to find fault with others’ arguments. The premise-conclusion complexes that logicians recognize as arguments become understood in coalescent arguing as standing in for “a position-cluster of attitudes, beliefs, feelings and intuitions” belonging to the arguer (Gilbert 1994: 96, original emphasis). Arguers’ motivations offer a basis for interpretation that provides greater room for recognizing middle ground among people who seem to disagree. Exploring this common territory also suggests ways in which alternative solutions may be developed. By emphasizing how divergent positions involve agreement among the proponents’ views and desires, points of disagreement can be distinguished from points of agreement and minimized. On Gilbert’s model, “one asks not, ‘What can I disagree with?’ but, ‘What must I disagree with?’” (1994: 109).

In light of the general feminist interest in collaborative and coalescent models of argumentation, Tempest M. Henning (2018) warns they may reflect certain cultural assumptions, and presumptions of universal culture. The norms recommended by what she identifies as “non-adversarial feminist argumentation models”, and attributes especially to Ayim, may run contrary to the cultures and needs of U.S. Black women. More generally, argumentation theory tends to prescribe a pleasantness of tone and directness of speech that connotes respect in some cultures but not others (Henning 2021; see Section 2.4 on Politeness and civility ). Some feminist philosophers also value adversarial arguing or even identify personally as adversarial arguers. So, the resistance to forms of adversarial arguing that appears to provide a valuable commonality between some feminist concerns and accepted views in argumentation theory may reflect only the interests of certain white women. It may actually work against the interests of other groups of women and risk reinforcing racial marginalization.

Even feminists with concerns about adversarial reasoning recognize that it promotes criticism that may advance the goal of attaining knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is an important purpose among those that arguing serves and different styles of arguing can serve different purposes. Some efforts to build knowledge may benefit from the adversarial styles and models, especially if arguers can avoid automatically slipping into hostile, “ancillary” modes of aggression (Govier 1999). Arguers may also need to avoid reinforcing other epistemic cultures and subcultures that prioritize men’s interaction with each other (Rooney 2012). So feminists need norms for arguing that support criticism of such androcentric cultures and practices and the development of knowledge about how such systems function.

Non-adversarial models of reasoning such as coalescent argumentation may aid people’s understanding too, especially about others and their positions. Mutual understanding develops from coalescent arguing because it demands finding common ground. The remaining opposition among people and their beliefs constitutes a minimally adversarial orientation that Trudy Govier (1999) and Rooney (2010) argue may be valuable for both the development of arguments and the role of arguing in the processes that generate knowledge. Arguers can aid each other in achieving knowledge, which is the main goal in academic arguing, despite the fact that academics sometimes can be side-tracked by mundane power play.

Because of overarching epistemic purposes, Cohen suggests that the people whose ideas lose in eristic debate thus may benefit the most because they learn the most (1995: 182). People may also share an inquiry (Dutilh Novaes 2015: 598–599), and epistemic benefit may accrue to communities. The discursive practices in which individual scientists work together by testing each other’s claims may exhibit certain characteristics that Helen Longino’s (1990) model of scientific reasoning sees as supporting a form of objectivity. Longino’s account of objectivity addresses feminist concerns with about gender bias in scientific theories and involves both collaborative and adversarial elements.

Such shared epistemic projects among people might be understood as “arguing with” rather than “against” other reasoners (Rooney 2003). Rooney argues that readily available logical terms such as “contradictory” and “contrary” can adequately describe differing opinions without implicating opposition among the people holding divergent views (2003; 2010: 222). Such language may help reasoners move away from both the Adversary Method’s dominance as a Paradigm and eristic arguing that may be otherwise dysfunctional. The negative connotations of “argument” and “arguing” in the English language may be part of the problem. [ 4 ] Related words in other Indo-European languages carry no such implication of verbal fighting (Hitchcock 2017: 449). Avoiding the English-language connotations is part of the reason theorists often speak instead of “argumentation” even though that terminology can be unclear or unnecessarily abstract.

Yet, criticism must be part of feminism, especially to direct it at sexism, and feminists may be no more skilled than anyone else at avoiding the pitfalls of arguing such as its tendency to aggravate conflict. Feminist models of arguing avoid levelling criticism against people and direct it toward the views they hold so as to better serve everyone’s understanding. Feminist models of arguing and some ways of arguing used by feminists and non-feminists alike exhibit a benevolent attentiveness to other arguers in the processes of arguing and yet they may also subject what other people say to extensive criticism and opposition.

According to Govier, the characteristic explicitness of reasoning when people argue enables them to learn from disagreement and doubt (1999). Explicitness also promotes honesty with ourselves and each other and respect for interpersonal differences:

an arguer, in actually or potentially addressing those who differ, is committed to the recognition that people may think differently and that what they think and why they think it matters. (1999: 8, 50)

Feminist criticism often involves anger, an emotion also regularly associated with arguing. Anger can be a distracting or even destructive influence on reasoning and it can signify harmful arrogance (Tanesini 2018). Moira Howes and Catherine Hundleby make a case that arguing can help derive cognitive benefit from anger because arguing encourages reasoners to express and to articulate their reasons (2018). It can reveal aspects of reasoning that otherwise would remain unconscious, a feature of arguing processes that Douglas Walton identifies as the “maieutic effect” (1992).

Styles for communicating and sharing reasons often distinguished as “feminine” also play roles in feminist epistemologies of argumentation: Gilbert assigns a fundamental role in coalescent argumentation to the values of attention to the speaker and seeking agreement, while Linker characterizes empathetic intellectuals as having the skills of cooperation and accepting vulnerability. Feminist ethical goals of accountability to women thus can benefit from the pursuit of knowledge. Not only for feminists but for all reasoners, the ethical value of understanding other people can enhance the standard philosophical treatment of arguments as logical premise-conclusion complexes. Coalescent and intellectually empathic reasoning complement critical analysis once we distinguish criticism from the eristic culture of aggressive fault-finding (Miller 1995).

As a remedy for some of the problems that women and other arguers face, some feminists champion politeness, while others stress that expecting etiquette to address abuses of power belies the realities of women and others who are socially marginalized. Norms of politeness function to minimize conflict and so can hold people in subordinate positions (Mayo 2001). Like “ideal theory” in philosophy (Mills 2005), politeness can exacerbate the oppression it ignores—in this case, discursive marginalization.

Govier argues that the discursive norm of politeness limits the problem of overt interpersonal aggression in arguing (1999). Respect for other people and careful consideration of their views ought to be part of persuasion , including rational persuasion, which scholars often take to be the central or even the sole purpose for arguing (1999: 58–59). On this view, aggressive styles of communication or “ancillary adversariality” can be dismissed as simple rudeness or hostility. These ought not to be tolerated in any context and may not impact much on the beliefs and attitudes of the audience (Govier 1999; Miller 1995).

The main difficulty with this ideal arises because norms of politeness tend to be gendered in ways that undermine women’s authority when people argue, affirming power and status for men but not for women. This dynamic can receive reinforcement when women adopt cooperative strategies that play into norms of “femininity”, according to Burrow (2010) and Hundleby (2013a). Securing cooperation and connection with other people provides the very purpose for politeness. Both “masculine” and “feminine” forms of politeness can reflect this purpose. However, the gendered dynamics of politeness in many cultures may entail that cooperative or collaborative argumentation serves women poorly. It contributes to their subordination and perhaps also the subordination of other people with marginalized social identities. For women, cooperating and connecting with others may entail deferring one’s interests and promoting dialogue through hedging, questioning intonation, and use of tag questions, for example, “You know?” “Right?” “Don’t you think?” These strategies generally imply powerlessness or conflict avoidance. In contrast, masculine norms of polite connection facilitate shared competition and encourage joint autonomy along with regard for each other’s needs (Burrow 2010).

Burrow argues that women often have no easy options for conforming with the etiquette demands that reinforce power differences among speakers. Deferential styles of dialogue are part of most subordinate positions and, for women, other aspects of social rank do not mitigate this much. Therefore, to negotiate politeness and to argue effectively, women need complex strategies tailored to their circumstances (2010).

Henning (2021) observes that what many feminist and not-specifically-feminist argumentation theorists count as rudeness may actually belong to politeness strategies in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). In particular, “signifying” or “signification” within AAVE “utilizes exaggeration, irony, and indirection to partake in coded messages, riddled with insults”. To refuse to participate in signification is rude and politeness demands participation in speech that on the surface suggests disrespect. In some cultures, arguing not only performs pro-social functions, it provides such an important form of sociability that superficial or even insincere arguing may be an essential part of interaction and social bonding (Schiffrin 1984).

Because of the range of conflicting politeness strategies across different communities, it may serve better to seek an alternative to politeness as a norm and that may lie in an inclusive practice and ethic of civility in dialogue. Civility tends to be understood as deeper than politeness, sometimes considered itself to be a virtue or as involving such virtues as respect for other people (Calhoun 2000: 253; Bone et al. 2008; Laverty 2009; Reiheld 2013). Respecting others requires trying to understand them “as they wish to be known and understood” in the cooperative argumentation model developed by Makau and Marty (2013: 69). Others suggest that civil respect be parsed in ethical frameworks, such as deontology or consequentialism, because simple deference to existing social standards may be oppressive in assigning more restrictive practices to certain groups of people. Practices of respect may involve people’s adherence to oppressive social roles, just as they do for politeness, if common practice determines them. Ethically rich interpretations of civility must be shared among interlocutors in order that civility can fulfill its function to regulate disagreement. Such shared norms of civility not only aid the articulation of understandings that prejudiced and oppressive behavior are intolerable, they also aid people’s ability to challenge broader social problems (Calhoun 2000).

Civility may be distinguished from other virtues as “an essentially communicative form of moral conduct”, a display and expression of how one regards others (Calhoun 2000: 260). However, this virtue has limits and incivility can also perform important argumentative functions. Uncivil communication can create space for new forms of meaning and value:

The disruption entailed by incivility provides room for concerted reconstruction of social practices, identities, and spaces. (Mayo 2001: 79)

Uncivil communication and arguing may even be necessary for some social change (Lozano-Reich & Cloud 2009: 223–224). Because certain practices viewed as “civil” may depoliticize disagreement, incivility that highlights these political problems can prove to be as necessary as civility is to democratic decision-making (Mayo 2001). Which moral and political demands justify incivility remains, however, a complicated question that demands analysis of the discursive norms in operation in a particular context for their ability to sustain interpersonal respect.

3. Informal Logic and Argument Interpretation

Feminist philosophical work on argumentation as it emerged in the early 1980s coincides with the rise of informal logic, an approach that encompasses much of contemporary philosophical work done in argumentation theory (Johnson 1996 [2014: 12]). Many feminists and informal logicians share both a resistance to the idealization by some philosophers of formal deductive methods for reasoning and a desire to provide better tools for addressing real world contexts of reasoning and arguing (Govier 1999: 52).

Any interpretation or analysis of an argument omits some aspects of the reasoning involved in the surrounding discourse while it attends to others, and different forms of abstraction suit different purposes (Rooney 2001). Interpretations become problematic for feminists when they leave out salient details that would make possible other interpretations that account for social bias. For instance, interpreting an argument as a deductive inference may not allow for the sorts of analysis of social situation that a standard informal logic interpretation of ad hominem makes possible.

Even informal logicians may assume an equality among arguers that is more ideal than real and that may obstruct political progress. The problems that feminists find with assumed equality may be most visible in accounts of ad hominem arguing. Both feminist (Janack & Adams 1999; Yap 2013, 2015) and not-specifically feminist (Walton 1995) argumentation theorists recognize that appeals to the person may or may not be fallacious. The difference is that while the informal logic analysis informs an audience about the irrelevance of a personal attack, a feminist analysis also maintains that the line of reasoning may still succeed because of unconscious biases such as implicit sexism and racism that feminists find unacceptable. For this reason, feminist critiques of ad hominem arguments require more than logical analysis and also consider the epistemology of testimony (Yap 2013).

Addressing women’s more general concerns about arguing and assessing feminist arguments about women’s marginalization requires a richer and more diverse analysis than a logical analysis of inferences provides. Andrea Nye (1990) suggests ways that the language of logic, including both the artificial language of abstract ideals and the surrounding discourse of logicians, might convey the interests and purposes of people who hold social power. Logical models for argument, especially formal ones, are developed, according to Nye, to prioritize some people’s interests over others and to hide that prioritization by claiming generality and the dominance of such models can lead to systematic misinterpretations of women’s arguments.

Other feminists maintain that abstract interpretation causes trouble only when reasoners mistake it for a uniform authority. The trouble with abstract analysis, Ayim suggests, lies not in the models themselves, but in how people use them (1995: 806). Logical or argumentative ideals that involve abstract models may be partial in representing some people’s preferred inference forms without these models having an intrinsically universalizing character that makes them false. Ayim believes that any such problems in the disciplines of logic result from the practitioners’ failure to be realistic and humble. She says that

It is only when logic is seen as the exclusive avenue to truth and reason that problems arise—not when it is seen as an avenue to truth and reason. (Ayim 1995: 810, emphasis added)

Gilbert suggests that the practical concerns and interdisciplinary considerations of informal logic must be expanded and become more attuned to the specific social situations from which arguments arise (2007). Neglected aspects of argumentation may include the identities of speakers (Code 1991), the power relationships between speakers (Bondy 2010; Linker 2011, 2015; Rooney 2012), the emotions involved (Nye 1990; Gilbert 1994; Linker 2015), the social consequences of argumentation (Code 1991; Rooney 2012), and intersectional identities (Henning 2018, 2021). When feminine speech and writing styles are poorly received and misinterpreted, women will encounter difficulties getting their arguments heard or to taken seriously, let alone recognized as good reasoning. The demand from feminist philosophers to situate argumentative reasoning and to evaluate it in the larger discursive contexts (Burrow 2010; Lang 2010) can be met at least in part by the recent revival of rhetorical accounts of argumentation that address the role of audience (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969]; Perelman 1977 [1982]; Tindale 1999, 2007).

Formal logic employs artificial abstract languages generally understood to address particular types of inference. Formal symbolism is also used to interpret arguments from natural language so as to assess the strength of an argument’s inference, in particular, whether the argument has deductive validity. So, the argument, “It is icy outside and therefore I will not travel today” might fail to be translatable into a deductively valid form, although people easily recognize its good reasoning. (“Missing premises” might be added to make the argument deductive but that requires more than formal interpretation.)

Nye’s work on formal logic, especially Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic (1990), provides the point of departure for many of the initial feminist philosophical discussions of argument and arguing. Nye considers certain historical points when deductive logic’s operation as the default interpretive mechanism for arguments may have had an oppressive influence. Rather than arguing for this interpretation, she adopts a practice of “reading” that includes attention, listening, understanding, and responding (1990, 183), approaches that are traditionally associated with rhetoric (Keith 1993). Her feminist “reading” of episodes in the history of Euro-American logic suggests ways in which abstract logical systems may have helped to justify social dominance at different moments in time. Her “reading” purposefully aims to consider the personal and political desires behind logic that might motivate its prescription of rules for thought (Nye 1990: 9).

Nye begins her study with Parmenides’ logic of “what is”, what exists beyond sensuous existence and human communities. The ensuing silence among the ancient Greeks was broken by Plato who addressed “what is not” through using rational discussion to reveal the existence of differences. For Aristotle, this dialectic involved only men from the upper classes, making the exclusive nature of the logic most explicit. As a result, in Nye’s view, a silence regarding a lot of reasoning surrounds logic. Nye notes that

once rationality is defined as what is not emotional, and emotionality established as the characteristic of women understood as what is only a body, there could be no discussion of institutions of slavery and sexism. (1990: 50)

She traces through medieval formulations of logic ways in which the claims of logic’s universal application may have discouraged criticism of social institutions that authorized those accounts of logic. These institutions include patriarchy in general, sometimes underwritten by God, the Roman Empire, and the Catholic Church.

Logical restriction on what counts as reasoning culminates, on Nye’s reading, when Gottlob Frege moves logic out of human discourse to formulate it in a symbolic language. Frege’s functionalist notation promises to express all forms of truth with the aim, Nye suggests, “that thought will be unified and logical errors in science, mathematics, and philosophy exposed” (1990: 131). Using Frege’s approach, how a concept refers to the world becomes “an objective fact:…one cannot invent its value” (1990: 135). As a result, the institutions that render concepts meaningful, including the social institution of language, stand beyond question, creating a new form of muteness that harkens back to Parmenides. The surrounding silence breaks again when the Vienna Circle adds empirical input in place of the concepts on which the Fregean functions work. Nye indicates that this theoretical development places science above meaningful criticism, and so allows scientific reasoning to be co-opted by authoritarian regimes (1990: 163–171).

As an alternative to logic, Nye suggests building confidence for women and developing new concepts aided by a concrete (natural, not artificial) “women’s language”. Discourse that is for or about women might provide inclusion, bonding, and ways to share power. Women have relied historically on the skills needed for reading:

We have listened and read to survive, we have read to predict the maneuvers of those in power over us, to seduce those who might help us, to pacify bullies, to care for children, to nurse the sick and the wounded. (1990: 184)

The next step lies in developing the language to respond.

Nye’s experiment in avoiding argument falters in two ways observed by feminists and other scholars who have not been convinced by her socio-historical reading. Some cite errors in her historical interpretation (Keith 1993; Weiner 1994). Others find that in Words of Power, Nye does argue, but fails to persuade and so fails to provide the alternative to logic she seeks (Gilbert 1994; Ayim 1995).

Gilbert offers a related but distinct criticism of formal logic for its role in the “Critical-Logical” approach that he characterizes as extracting text from utterances for the purposes of applying a competitive or eristic process to the stylized text (1994). He suggests, like Moulton (1983), that such abstraction serves the competitive functions and standard practice of Euro-American academic philosophy. Because arguing need not adhere to the Critical-Logical model, it remains possible that feminine styles of reasoning may ground effective interpretive practices for arguers. Arguing also may find natural corollaries in other styles of communication and other values that operate within communication.

Reasoners appeal to logic and to other abstract accounts of what other arguers say partly so they might avoid bias as they interpret natural language. Yet such abstract interpretation may favor forms of argument evaluation unsuited to the context of utterance. For instance, if the Critical-Logical model of argument evaluation provides the basis for legal procedures, then it may compromise access to justice for people who are socially marginalized based on gender, race, class, and education. Gilbert echoes Nye’s concern that logical systems can reflect the lingua franca of the ruling class that captures their own interests (1994: 105). Applying it to other contexts risks distorting and disenfranchising other people and their modes of communication.

Nye concedes that a women’s language cannot stand up to the power and authority of logic but believes that perhaps reasoners may gain something different from a replacement for logic. It may be that

her notion of reading teaches that the circumstances in which something is said and the person who says it are relevant considerations. (Tindale 1999: 196)

The appeal of Nye’s “reading” may be that

currently popular theories of reading, unlike traditional logic, highlight rather than diminish the interests, personality, and motives that the reader brings to the task of reading. (Ayim 1995: 807)

Arguers can emphasize the moral goals behind an argument through their emotional language. Likewise, an explanatory purpose for an argument would mean that the speaker offers it up as a truthful description rather than as a subject for debate (Gilbert 1994). Such purposes and values can fall away with the abstraction of a premise-conclusion complex from its context of utterance. When the Critical-Logical model grounds decision-making processes, the authority it carries creates problems for anyone using other styles of reasoning and communication.

Note that Nye is the only feminist philosopher to date suggesting a substitute for arguing and logic. Ayim (1995) and Gilbert (1994) stress that different styles of communication and value-systems can be natural corollaries for each other. Govier (1993) further suggests that the power of universal logic may be indispensable, and that feminist concerns can be addressed through a better understanding of the interpretation and application of logical norms.

Rhetorical studies attend to argument audiences in a way that can help to address feminist concerns about the emotional and gendered aspects of argument (Tindale 1999: 201). They may also help to resolve a dilemma of feminist arguing practice by demonstrating how the advancement of feminist affirmative projects, such as acknowledging the significance of women’s experience, may require adversarial forms of argumentation often associated with masculinity. Communication styles identified as rhetoric create both problematic and constructive aspects of social identity, including feminine identity. Rhetorical analysis of the situational specifics can reveal how communication helps to produce social identities and can suggest ways to address particular power differences among reasoners (Bruner 1996; Palczewski 2016).

M. Lane Bruner argues that some aspects of gender stereotypes make it harder to argue, while other aspects make it easier (1996). Distinguishing the empowering from the disempowering aspects of social identity depends on examining the ways in which “masculine” identity is tied up with ideals of arguing and the ways in which identity politics can counteract the power of dominant identities. Although speakers must suppress each of their unique differences from others in order to communicate explicitly in regard to their own social positions, the resulting feminine and masculine identifications do not become fixed. Because identities are created, they must be maintained and they remain subject to transformation. That flux in identity gives feminists strategic opportunities for developing women’s argumentation and giving credit to it.

Rooney notes that an artificial severing of arguing from narrative and rhetorical practices helps to dissociate arguments from femininity and frustrates feminist practices of philosophical arguing (2010; Le Doeuff 1980 [1989]). Research that attends to rhetoric and its influences may go under the name of “rhetorical studies” (often in English or literature departments) but may also be found in communications studies, psychology, and interdisciplinary fields such as women’s and gender studies or argumentation studies. Rhetorical studies give attention to the perspective of a particular audience and that concern with the audience and the various interests audiences may have challenges the view—especially in the discipline of philosophy—that reasoning and argumentation must be a constant battle. Rooney argues that philosophical practice itself involves rhetoric and narrative through myths, thought experiments, and metaphors. These rhetorical practices make theories more attractive to specific audiences. Philosophers commonly portray reason as in battle against feminine forces which “primarily makes sense to men among men in cultural contexts where sexism or misogyny is a cultural given” (2010: 227).

Rhetorical studies of speakers, audiences, their purposes, and their social contexts were revived in twentieth century argumentation theory by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958 [1969]). Perelman, writing on his own, advocates that instead of appealing to “the rational” as a standard for argumentation, scholars should consider a “reasonable” person in terms of the standards of a particular community (1977 [1982]).

The discipline of rhetorical studies typically takes persuasion to be the goal of arguing. Some feminists resist this assumption. Concern that persuasion may be intrinsically an act of domination of one person over another and even an act of violence (Gearhart 1979) led feminist rhetoricians to develop an alternative in “invitational rhetoric” that makes understanding the goal of arguing (Foss & Griffin 1995; Bone et al. 2008). This approach resonates with rhetoric’s Aristotelian history, Christopher Tindale observes, which does not involve intentions to change another person that some feminists consider violent, because Aristotle conceives change as an internal process. On Tindale’s model of “rhetorical argumentation”,

the audience, when persuaded, is persuaded by its own deliberations, after reflection on reasoning that it has understood in its own terms and may even have had a hand in completing. (1999: 191)

However, at the same time, invitational rhetoric demands a civility that may presume social equality (Lozano-Reich & Cloud 2009) and thus it faces the same problems as politeness (addressed in Section 2 ).

Linker suggests that reasoning across power differences can be aided by speakers employing a process of “intellectual empathy”; other people’s claims, especially if these people are relatively disadvantaged, can help reflect on one’s own interpretive assumptions in order to move past unreflective bias (2011; 2015). Relatedly, an attitude of playfulness may facilitate consideration of another’s perspective, that is, “travelling” to the person’s “world” as described by Maria Lugones (1987). Perhaps this attitude will help philosophers appreciate the viewpoints presented in feminist epistemology (Lang 2010). However, Mariana Ortega (2006) warns that the radical potential of playfulness demands a deep engagement with work by women of color. Superficial citation of women of color by white feminists only replicates oppressive gatekeeping in philosophical argumentation.

Assuming the goal of arguing to be persuasion invokes a limited context and one that poses problems for some feminists, especially regarding power differences among speakers. Nevertheless, rhetorical analysis offers many resources for feminist analysis because its attention to the audience provides valuable details about the situations in which people argue. As we will see next, recent work in philosophy concerning credibility and developing the concept of “argumentative injustice” articulates persistent concerns for feminists about arguing, as does both regular and feminist philosophical scholarship about fallacies and critical thinking education.

Credibility granted to speakers and their testimony affects processes of arguing and may adhere to social categories following lines of gender and other axes of oppression (Govier 1993). Miranda Fricker (2007) describes the case of testimonial injustice, which is a species of epistemic injustice, and identifies when a listener gives diminished credibility or epistemic authority to a speaker based on that speaker’s social identity. Patrick Bondy (2010) defines analogous “argumentative injustice” as consisting in a related harm done to the processes of arguing when people wrongly assess an arguer’s credibility. We can underestimate or overestimate an arguer’s credibility by using social stereotypes to assess it (2010). Bondy explains that both overestimation and underestimation can result from viewing testifiers through social stereotypes—typically men’s credibility becomes overestimated whereas women’s becomes underestimated. Additionally, testimony from people with social identities different from our own may be difficult to accept simply because their experiences contrast with our own and those experiences with which we identify. This second problem when considered as a fallacy goes by the name of “provincialism” (Kahane & Cavender 2001) and is sometimes attributed to the psychology of in-group bias (Brewer 1979; Rudman & Goodman 2004). Whether due to stereotypes or to in-group bias, being discounted as a participant in discussion amounts to an epistemic injustice that Christopher Hookway (2010) describes as “participant injustice”.

Bondy argues that an underestimated testifier loses at least some capacity for critical engagement with other people. This capacity might progressively deteriorate, or the person might internalize its diminished form. Underestimating a testifier undermines the rationality of arguing processes with the result that the audience tends to lose potentially valuable information and insight. On the other hand, an overestimated testifier also can fail to gain valuable information from others, derailing the argumentative exchange by preventing the success of the better line of reasoning. After the particular discussion, the overestimated person can come to be viewed as beyond scrutiny, thus losing (at least on occasion) the benefits of engaging in discursive argumentation. By contrast, Fricker’s original conception of testimonial injustice accounts for the harmful effects on knowers only when their testimony is underestimated, and she argues that epistemic injustice does not accrue from overestimating credibility.

The solution to argumentative injustice might be simply for the listener to take care to treat arguers on their own terms. This would avoid viewing people in terms of group membership, a practice that leaves reasoners vulnerable to stereotype-thinking (Govier 1993, 1999). However, sometimes people’s social identities are relevant to the credibility of what they say, when, for instance, it concerns their personal experience of discrimination. Also, social stereotypes influence our thinking unconsciously, in a way that earns the label “implicit bias”. This bias differs from in-group bias but works alongside it, sometimes reinforcing it and sometimes conflicting with it. As a result, women often hold prejudices against other women (and even themselves) just as men do, and people of color may hold unconscious biases against their own ethnicity. When such bias persists despite conscious beliefs to the contrary, psychologists describe it as “aversive bias” (Greenwald & Banaji 1995; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek 2004; Kay & Zanna 2009).

Implicit social biases work like other cognitive biases, such as those that encourage us to generalize from small samples and personal experience and can affect many of our best intentions in reasoning and argumentation. Insofar as these biases undermine our ability to manage our own confidence, they frustrate the virtue of intellectual humility that otherwise might offset adversarial inclinations and momentum when people argue (Kidd 2016; Aberdein 2016). Ian James Kidd considers ways in which arguing can foster humility, and suggests that ideally, arguing

is also a route to other intellectual and ethical goods such as truth, knowledge, and enlightenment, as the ancient philosophers maintained. (2016: 399)

The challenge remains to bridge the real and the ideal.

Bondy argues that because social bias may be inevitable in people’s perception of speakers’ credibility, we need to counteract it actively. He recommends that we adopt a general attitude of “metadistrust” in which we exercise skepticism about our credibility judgments regarding testimony from people belonging to marginalized social groups.

Alternatively, we might try “intellectual empathy” based on mutual compassion, which is the approach that Linker develops. She argues that compassion must involve consciousness of how oppression operates through specific intersecting social matrices, including social privileges that can be very difficult to recognize. Such intersectional intellectual empathy may especially help us realize that it is our own biases or limited experiences that lead us to dismiss others’ testimony by interpreting them as whining, complaining, or “playing the gender (or race, etc.) card” (Linker 2011, 2015).

Achieving epistemic justice when we argue requires some sort of accounting for the identities of arguers, and might include appeal to the “epistemic privilege” described in feminist standpoint epistemology. Some standpoint theorists maintain that epistemic privilege can accrue to people who oppose oppression. Their engagement with the lives of oppressed people and their resistance to the oppression structuring those lives provides a unique and valuable awareness of the social structures of power. Thus a “feminist standpoint” and those who achieve it may gain epistemic advantage from fighting the oppressed condition of women’s lives. Although it is not necessary to be a woman to achieve this standpoint and its advantage, women themselves may most easily achieve it (Harding 1991; Intemann 2010).

One way that arguers might try to address the effects of social position on arguing is through meta-debate—a background argument may address arguers’ biases operating in the central discussion (Kotzee 2010). However, Linker (2014) argues that regardless of what the meta-debate yields, the person with social privilege will continue to benefit from debates that are adversarial. Arguers have difficulty recognizing when their biases reflect their own social privilege at any level of debate because social identity frequently affects testimonial authority unconsciously.

Linker suggests that we treat epistemic privilege as a form of expertise about arguing. This allows feminists and other anti-oppression advocates to set the bounds for ending inquiry (2014). Such advocates operate as the authority and determine the place where explanation stops (Hanrahan & Antony 2005). Rooney argues that this kind of expertise should be accorded to women philosophers whose lived experience tends to ground their feminist philosophy. Arguers should recognize expertise in situations

where A ’s minority status relative to B (with respect to some locally salient status or power differential) makes it likely that A has insights and understandings relating to P that are less available to B . (2012: 322)

Rooney says that speaking from personal experience becomes important for arguing because of the “hermeneutical injustices” (Fricker 2007) facing women. Hermeneutical injustice, according to Fricker, means that women’s experiences may not receive adequate consideration because the language to describe them is underdeveloped. Men may therefore have trouble recognizing evidence that women provide, and they

are not in the same position as women to confidently assert whether they find it plausible or not because they do not have access to the evidence in the way women are likely to have. (Rooney 2012: 328)

Argumentation theory has a tradition of taking fallacies as an operational concept for identifying problems with arguments. The types of deficiency identified as fallacies emerge from disparate points in the history of philosophy, and, as Charles Hamblin (1970) first recognized, the fallacies approach to argument evaluation tends to lack consensus regarding what constitutes a fallacy. Further, many theorists find that “fallacy” fails as both an analytic category (Massey 1995) and a pedagogical tool (Hitchcock 1995), and yet the scholarly controversy has not put a stop to the regular use of fallacies for evaluating arguments and for teaching reasoning. Feminists share the ambivalence of other philosophers regarding fallacies, adding their own criticisms and developments, but a specific controversy emerges in regard to the adversarial nature of fallacies.

Some feminists decry the inadequacy of traditional fallacies for addressing problems women face in argument exchanges (Al Tamimi 2011) and others point out how some philosophers use fallacy labels to dismiss and silence feminist philosophers. [ 5 ] In particular, when feminist philosophers employ arguments concerning the history of philosophy, they have been charged with committing the genetic fallacy (e.g., Levin 1988). That fallacy results from taking the significance of a claim or theory to depend on its origin and history—its genesis—and thereby dismissing that view without attention to its current meaning and context. Feminist philosophers consider how the fact that mostly men developed certain theories, including many philosophical theories, may undermine the justification for applying these theories to women. In doing so, feminists also attend to how those theories currently operate.

The difficulty some philosophers have in recognizing the sophistication of feminist historical criticism regarding philosophical theories may be due, first, to feminist use of certain theories that were the target for philosophers who developed the category “genetic fallacy”. Margaret Crouch explains that the concept of the genetic fallacy was developed only in the early twentieth century by some philosophers in the analytic tradition with the explicit intention of discounting the scientific status of Marxist and Freudian accounts. Given that Marxist and Freudian accounts from the continental European tradition have influenced a good deal of feminist theory, Crouch argues that it is unsurprising that feminist analysis might seem at first glance to commit the genetic fallacy (1991; 1993).

Moreover, Crouch argues, employing the label of “genetic fallacy” against feminist criticisms of the historically masculine sources for popular views in the discipline of philosophy relies on a misunderstanding of what constitutes a fallacy at a point where reasonable consensus has emerged: not every instance of a pattern of reasoning associated with a fallacy label—here genetic appeals—constitutes that fallacy; there may be exceptions and even highly reasonable practices that employ the same pattern. So, some appeals to personal characteristics are relevant and do not commit the ad hominem fallacy and some appeals to authority are perfectly reasonable and not cases of the ad verecundiam fallacy (Walton 1995). Scholarship on the genetic fallacy likewise recognizes that the way a theory developed historically only sometimes affects the value of the reasoning now supporting it. In particular, Crouch explains that the genesis of a claim affects its justification when testimony provides its only support, or when a claim involves the speaker as a subject, and whenever the source of information has an objective connection supporting the statement’s truth or falsity (1991; 1993).

The charge that feminist epistemology commits the genetic fallacy in asking such questions about the origins of the canon not only depends on a misunderstanding of that fallacy, the criticism itself also commits the fallacy of begging the question. Critics of some feminist philosophy make the epistemological assumption that the origins of a belief are irrelevant to its justification, which is the very claim that these feminists reject (see Crouch 1991). For instance, standpoint theorists argue that women’s material situation affects and can advantage the types of understanding that women and feminists have (Harding 1991). Critics of feminist epistemology cannot simply assume that the use of a certain type of premise makes a line of reasoning unjustified.

This kind of exchange between feminists and their critics—one that involves each party accusing the other of committing fallacies—illustrates how arguers may use fallacy labels to characterize their disagreements. Some feminists advocate fallacy analysis as a contextualized form of epistemology (Janack & Adams 1999) and some suggest the development of new fallacy labels to help address feminist epistemological concerns. Code suggests a counterpart for ad hominem be known as ad feminam to address how listeners and audiences discount women’s testimony (1995: 58–82). Also, androcentrism, the assumption of a masculine standard, can be named as a typical problem arising in argumentation by using the fallacies approach. More generally, Hundleby (2016) argues that assuming the desirability of stereotypic qualities of people who tend to be systematically granted social authority, such as men and white people, may be identified as the “status quo fallacy”. Better education about fallacies in argumentation may help to address the implicit bias that can underlie the “status quo fallacy”. The proposal of new fallacy labels, for example, ad stuprum or the appeal to sex (Anger & Hundleby 2016), is by no means unique to feminism, but it offers special power for social justice projects in providing language to account for socially marginalized experience, thus addressing hermeneutical injustices.

Proficiency with the fallacies approach can be empowering even though any claim that a fallacy has been committed makes disagreement explicit and that involves an adversarial quality which can make it difficult for socially marginalized people to use. It entails at least a minimal level of adversariality of the sort described by Govier (1999): “minimal adversariality” is opposition to another person’s view but not to the person. The involvement of even this minimal level of adversariality may make the fallacies approach a form of argument analysis difficult for members of subordinated classes to employ in contexts where socialization and norms of politeness discourage subordinates from expressing dissent (Rooney 2003). Yet, some individual women find success in adversarial engagement, some take pleasure in the heightened opposition of debate, and adversarial conversation is key to some women’s culture and identity (Schiffrin 1984; Henning 2018, 2021). Moreover, opposition is necessary for feminist resistance, struggle, and change. In these ways, women, feminists, and others with related liberatory projects can find unique resources in the adversariality of the fallacies approach.

Fallacies remain a popular way to teach reasoning, as does argument analysis more generally. Both play central roles in the content of Canadian, US, and UK post-secondary education as part of the set of skills regularly taught under the name “critical thinking” in philosophy departments. Education allows cultures of reasoning to reinforce and reproduce themselves and these cultures affect the prospects for feminist transformation of the larger society. Educational institutions have authority and grant authority to systems of thought and to individuals and in this way critical thinking education provides opportunities for conformity or for social transformation, starting at the level of individual reasoning and interpersonal discourse. In many ways, the ideal and practice of critical thinking serves social progress but in other ways it needs reform.

The way that argument education works its way from the academy into ordinary reasoning practices may be rather indirect and slow but academic philosophy is not merely one discourse among others and it has a central role in validating or authorizing other discourses (Alcoff 1993), especially in the epistemological assumptions conveyed through critical thinking pedagogy. Courses in critical thinking became stock components of the undergraduate curriculum during the late twentieth century and so the standards for reasoning implicit in “critical thinking” as an educational goal for students directly impact on countless students every year. Critical thinking operates as a specifically Western practice and ideal that provides alternatives to patterns of reasoning that enforce male dominance in various cultures, Western culture included (Norris 1995). The appeals to individual rationality and independent reasoning in the critical thinking curriculum contrast with appeals to tradition and with prioritizing community and personal relationships.

Systems of thinking, such as theories or logics, and speech acts, such as arguments, can hold authority that is not attached to a specific speaker or type of speaker, even though people may be paradigmatic holders of authority. The authority of social institutions, especially in their claims to be objective, Code argues (1995: 21, 181), may be likewise justified or not justified. Granting the justification of depersonalized authorities that include institutions of postsecondary education becomes second nature in a technological society, while those who lack social status and expertise have heightened dependence on the authority of expertise. This authority actually lies in the hands of people who have social privilege and yet people who are socially marginalized have a serious stake in the institutions that develop knowledge, from the legal system and the media to the pedagogy of argumentation in the form of “critical thinking” education (Hundleby 2013b).

Hundleby makes a case that critical thinking courses provided by philosophy departments currently tend to reinforce disciplinary biases because they invoke an authority that lacks the monitoring and evaluation that justifies authority (Hanrahan & Antony 2005). The typical way that textbooks present fallacies exhibits ignorance of the current informal logic scholarship, which would provide the appropriate source of expertise. There are few textbooks written by scholars who have published even one article in argumentation or logic and these same textbooks written by non-specialists are most likely to evince the Adversary Method described by Moulton (1983). The unreflective nature of dependence on that Method suggests that it remains authoritative—as well as “paradigmatic”—in philosophy (Hundleby 2010).

Gilbert argues that critical thinking education ought to affirm a range of considerations that do not enter into traditional logic (Gilbert 1994: 111). Contemporary philosophical theorizing tends to treat arguments as premise-conclusion complexes, merely as “products” of the discourse that generates them (Wenzel 1980 [1992]), without considering the processes that give rise to them. The focus on premise-conclusion complexes obscures factors relevant to the feminist goal of preventing harm (Lang 2010) and such a lack of appropriate “rhetorical spaces” or conceptual frameworks in philosophy impedes the education of people about the problems that women face (Code 1995). The standard Euro-American philosophical practices of the Adversary Paradigm or the Critical-Logical model sideline important aspects of arguing that indicate the significance and cogency of feminist claims about things like the social identities of arguers. Argument has a testimonial dimension, as Audrey Yap explains (2013; 2015). Consciousness of such situational aspects of reasoning and philosophical argumentation facilitates the appreciation of feminist perspectives. It also provides for more rigorous analysis and more thoroughly critical thinking.

Bucking the large trend of textbooks that fail to reflect the argumentation scholarship, Linker (2015) follows in a minor tradition of textbooks by expert authors that also advance scholarly theorizing about argumentation (e.g., Govier 1985; Johnson & Blair 1977; Makau & Marty 2001, 2013). Her Intellectual Empathy aims to provide reasoners with skills for understanding how social inequalities affect people’s lives and how those structures are maintained. The first three skills involved in “intellectual empathy” are: (i) understanding the invisibility of privilege; (ii) knowing that social identity is intersectional; [ 6 ] and (iii) using models of cooperative reasoning. Linker argues that social identity lies at the center of what Quine calls the “web of belief”, [ 7 ] which is to say it is deeply connected with many of a person’s beliefs; and for Linker that involves it in their self-esteem. The personal stake people have in their social identities means that discussion that engages our identities can be emotionally fraught. We “take it personally”. When people are arguing about aspects of social identity, they often fall into feelings of blame or guilt. Linker suggests that reasoners can find alternatives to such destructive responses by consideration of the complexities of everyone’s individual situation regarding social privilege. Attending to the specificities of each other’s perspectives allows us to better understand each other and set up reasoners for more cooperative and less adversarial arguing (Linker 2015: 98).

According to Linker, intellectual empathy also requires that when encountering a view that seems biased or stereotypical reasoners (iv) apply a principle of conditional trust, treating the person holding the view as reasonable and well-intentioned. This assumption allows us better to learn about the real reasons the person holds the view, and generally improves the audience’s ability to gather and share evidence (2015: 156–158).

Finally, Linker advises (v) recognizing our mutual vulnerability to bias and stereotype, while at the same time allowing ourselves to be responsive and accommodating to new information. This demands courage and strength. Linker’s five skills thus provide a way to address the testimonial dimensions of arguing with special attention to their operation when people argue from very different social locations. This vision of critical thinking steps forward in addressing feminist concerns with the cultures and practices of argumentation.

In conclusion, as we see especially in the discussions of fallacies and argument pedagogy as well as in the dominance of the Adversary Method, feminist philosophical work on argumentation reveals a need for philosophers to attend to argumentation scholarship. Outdated or unscholarly conceptions of how different modes and styles of arguing serve the advancement of knowledge can undermine the value of philosophical reasoning and specifically how philosophers respond to feminist philosophy. Yet, the work by interdisciplinary argumentation scholars and feminist philosophers to explore these tensions receives little uptake in the discipline of philosophy.

Among the feminist topics in argumentation scholarship that remain in need of philosophical attention are: the range and complexity of values that arguing can serve, including social justice, social bonding, dispute resolution, and knowledge; and more thorough representations of arguing practices that account for how discursive norms code power and privilege, such as through politeness and testimonial authority. Feminist research on these topics will be important for scholarship on argumentation and also for the discipline of philosophy, given the centrality of arguing to its practice. Interdisciplinary vantage points on argumentation provide resources useful for feminist purposes and promise a broader perspective that might unify different feminist concerns; at the same time, other disciplines can face their own challenges from a feminist perspective, as rhetorical studies does for taking persuasion to provide the only purpose for arguing.

Feminist concerns about argumentation pull in different directions and create a great deal of room for further research. Feminists regularly oppose practices and theories central to the discipline of philosophy and some such form of opposition is intrinsic to feminist work. Yet feminists criticize overemphasis on the opposition that occurs in the default adoption of adversarial styles of reasoning in philosophy and in the assumption that arguers must oppose each other or that they must have contrary beliefs. Appeals to politeness do not provide the easy resolution to these concerns that some argumentation theorists often presume. In addition, although some of the worst tendencies in argumentation scholarship may be passed on generation to generation in critical thinking classes taught by philosophers, these classes have potential to create progress toward social justice. Let us note that, overall, feminist perspectives on argumentation challenge broad social and epistemological norms as well as attend to the ways the norms play out in the culture of critical thinking, academic philosophy, and other accepted standards for shared reasoning.

Aberdein, Andrew, 2016, “Virtue Argumentation and Bias”, in Bondy and Benacquista 2016: archive 113. [ Aberdein 2016 available online ].
Al Tamimi, Khameiel, 2011, “A Gendered Analysis of the Role of Authority in Argumentation”, in Frank Zenker (ed.), Argumentation: Cognition and Community: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA 9) , 8–21 May 2011, Windsor, Ontario, archive 5. [ Al Tamimi 2011 available online ]
Alcoff, Linda Martin, 1993, “How is Epistemology Political?” in Roger S. Gottlieb (ed.), Radical Philosophy: Tradition, Counter-tradition, Politics , Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, pp. 65–85.
–––, 2013, “Philosophy’s Civil Wars”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association , 87: 16–43.
Alston, Kal, 1995, “Begging the Question: Is Critical Thinking Biased?”, Educational Theory , 45(2): 225–233. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1995.00225.x
Anger, Beverley and Catherine Hundleby, 2016, “ Ad Stuprum : The Appeal to Sex” in Bondy and Benacquista 2016: archive 104. [ Anger and Hundleby 2016 available online ]
Ayim, Maryann, 1988, “Violence and Domination as Metaphors in Academic Discourse”, in Trudy Govier (ed.), Selected Issues in Logic and Communication , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, pp. 184–195.
–––, 1991, “Dominance and Affiliation: Paradigms in Conflict”, Informal Logic , 13(2): 79–88. doi:10.22329/il.v13i2.2557
–––, 1995, “Passing through the Needle’s Eye: Can a Feminist Teach Logic?”, Argumentation , 9(5): 801–820. doi:10.1007/BF00744759
Bailin, Sharon, 1995, “Is Critical Thinking Biased? Clarifications and Implications”, Educational Theory , 45(2): 191–197. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1995.00191.x
Bell, Macalester, 2013, Hard Feelings: The Moral Psychology of Contempt , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794140.001.0001
Bondy, Patrick, 2010, “Argumentative Injustice”, Informal Logic , 30(3): 263–278. doi:10.22329/il.v30i3.3034
Bondy, Patrick and Laura Benacquista (eds.), 2016, Argumentation, Objectivity and Bias: Proceedings of the 11 th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA 11) , 18–21 May 2016, Windsor, Ontario. [ Bondy and Benacquista 2016 available online ]
Bone, Jennifer Emerling, Cindy L. Griffin, and T. M. Linda Scholz, 2008, “Beyond Traditional Conceptualizations of Rhetoric: Invitational Rhetoric and a Move Toward Civility”, Western Journal of Communication , 72(4): 434–462. doi:10.1080/10570310802446098
Brewer, Marilynn B., 1979, “In-Group Bias in the Minimal Intergroup Situation: A Cognitive-Motivational Analysis”, Psychological Bulletin , 86(2): 307–324. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.86.2.307
Brown, Penelope, 1976, “Women and Politeness: A New Perspective on Language and Society”, Reviews in Anthropology , 3(3): 240–249. doi:10.1080/00988157.1976.9977235
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511813085
Bruner, M. Lane, 1996, “Producing Identities: Gender Problematization and Feminist Argumentation”, Argumentation and Advocacy , 32(4): 185–198. doi:10.1080/00028533.1996.11977994
Burrow, Sylvia, 2010, “Verbal Sparring and Apologetic Points: Politeness in Gendered Argumentation Contexts”, Informal Logic , 30(3): 235–262. doi:10.22329/il.v30i3.3033
Calhoun, Cheshire, 2000, “The Virtue of Civility”, Philosophy & Public Affairs , 29(3): 251–275. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2000.00251.x
Ciurria, Michelle and Khameiel Altamimi, 2014, “ Argumentum ad Verecundiam : New Gender-Based Criteria for Appeals to Authority”, Argumentation , 28(4): 437–452. doi:10.1007/s10503-014-9328-0
Code, Lorraine, 1991, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
–––, 1995, Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations , New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203724132
–––, 2006, Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195159438.001.0001
Cohen, Daniel H., 1995, “Argument Is War...and War Is Hell: Philosophy, Education, and Metaphors for Argumentation”, Informal Logic , 17(2): 177–188. doi:10.22329/il.v17i2.2406
Crouch, Margaret A., 1991, “Feminist Philosophy and the Genetic Fallacy”, Hypatia , 6(2): 104–117. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1991.tb01395.x
–––, 1993, “A ‘Limited’ Defense of the Genetic Fallacy”, Metaphilosophy , 24(3): 227–240. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9973.1993.tb00900.x
Dutilh Novaes, Catarina, 2011, “The Historical and Philosophical Origins of Normativism”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 34(5): 253–254. doi:10.1017/S0140525X11000124
–––, 2015, “A Dialogical, Multi-Agent Account of the Normativity of Logic: A Dialogical, Multi-Agent Account of the Normativity of Logic”, Dialectica , 69(4): 587–609. doi:10.1111/1746-8361.12118
Fine, Cordelia, 2010, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference , New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Foss, Sonja K. and Cindy L. Griffin, 1995, “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric”, Communication Monographs , 62(1): 2–18. doi:10.1080/03637759509376345
Fricker, Miranda, 2007, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001
Gearhart, Sally Miller, 1979, “The Womanization of Rhetoric”, Women’s Studies International Quarterly , 2(2): 195–201. doi:10.1016/S0148-0685(79)91809-8
Gilbert, Michael A., 1994, “Feminism, Argumentation and Coalescence”, Informal Logic , 16(2): 95–113. doi:10.22329/il.v16i2.2444
–––, 1997, Coalescent Argumentation , Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
–––, 2007, “Informal Logic and Intersectionality”, in Reason Reclaimed: Essays in Honour of J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson , Hans V. Hansen and Robert C. Pinto (eds.), Newport News, VA: Vale Press, pp. 229–241.
Gilligan, Carol, 1982, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goodwin, Jean and Beth Innocenti, 2019, “The Pragmatic Force of Making an Argument”, Topoi , 38(4): 669–680. doi:10.1007/s11245-019-09643-8
Govier, Trudy, 1985, A Practical Study of Argument , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
–––, 1993, “When Logic Meets Politics: Testimony, Distrust, and Rhetorical Disadvantage”, Informal Logic , 15(2): 93–104. doi:10.22329/il.v15i2.2476
–––, 1999, The Philosophy of Argument , Newport News, VA: Vale Press.
Greenwald, Anthony G. and Mahzarin R. Banaji, 1995, “Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes, Self-Esteem, and Stereotypes”, Psychological Review , 102(1): 4–27. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.102.1.4
Hamblin, Charles L., 1970, Fallacies , London: Methuen.
Hample, Dale, Marceline Thompson-Hayes, Kelly Wallenfelsz, Paul Wallenfelsz, and Christiana Knapp, 2005, “Face-to-Face Arguing Is an Emotional Experience: Triangulating Methodologies and Early Findings”, Argumentation and Advocacy , 42(2): 74–93. doi:10.1080/00028533.2005.11821643
Hanrahan, Rebecca and Louise Antony, 2005, “Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority”, Hypatia , 20(4): 59–79. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2005.tb00536.x
Hansen, Hans V. and Robert C. Pinto (eds.), Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings , College Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
Harding, Sandra, 1991, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Harding, Sandra and Merrill B. Hintikka (eds.), 1983, Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (Synthese Library 161), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi:10.1007/0-306-48017-4
Henning, Tempest, 2018, “Bringing Wreck”, Symposion , 5(2): 197–211. doi:10.5840/symposion20185216
–––, 2021, “‘I Said What I Said’: Black Women and Argumentative Politeness Norms”, Informal Logic 41(1).
Hitchcock, David, 1995, “Do the Fallacies Have a Place in the Teaching of Reasoning Skills or Critical Thinking?” in Hansen and Pinto 1995: 319–227.
–––, 2017, “Informal Logic and the Concept of Argument”, in On Reasoning and Argument: Essays in Informal Logic and on Critical Thinking , by David Hitchcock, (Argumentation Library 30), Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 447–475. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-53562-3_29
Hookway, Christopher, 2010, “Some Varieties of Epistemic Injustice: Reflections on Fricker”, Episteme , 7(2): 151–163. doi:10.3366/epi.2010.0005
Howes, Moira and Catherine Hundleby, 2018, “The Epistemology of Anger in Argumentation”, Symposion , 5(2): 229–254. doi:10.5840/symposion20185218
Hundleby, Catherine, 2010, “The Authority of the Fallacies Approach to Argument Evaluation”, Informal Logic , 30(3): 279–308. doi:10.22329/il.v30i3.3035
–––, 2013a, “Aggression, Politeness, and Abstract Adversaries”, Informal Logic , 33(2): 238–262. doi:10.22329/il.v33i2.3895
–––, 2013b, “Critical Thinking and the Adversary Paradigm”, Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy (The American Philosophical Association), 13(1): 2–8. [ Hundleby 2013b available online ]
–––, 2016, “The Status Quo Fallacy: Implicit Bias and Fallacies of Argumentation”, in Implicit Bias and Philosophy: Volume 1, Metaphysics and Epistemology , Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 238–264.
Intemann, Kristen, 2010, “25 Years of Feminist Empiricism and Standpoint Theory: Where Are We Now?”, Hypatia , 25(4): 778–796. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2010.01138.x
Janack, Marianne and John Charles Adams, 1999, “Feminist Epistemologies, Rhetorical Traditions and the Ad Hominem”, in Christine M. Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe (eds.), The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric , Calgary: University of Calgary Press, pp. 213–224.
Johnson, Ralph H., 1996 [2014], The Rise of Informal Logic: Essays on Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Reasoning, and Politics , four chapters co-authored by J. Anthony Blair, edited by John Hoaglund, Newport, VA: Vale Press. Reprint, 2014, with minor typographical changes, (Windsor Studies in Argumentation, 2), Windsor, Ontario: University of Windsor Digital Press. doi:10.22329/wsia.02.2014
Johnson, Ralph H. and J. Anthony Blair, 1977, Logical Self-Defense , Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
Jost, John T., Mahzarin R. Banaji, and Brian A. Nosek, 2004, “A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious Bolstering of the Status Quo”, Political Psychology , 25(6): 881–919. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2004.00402.x
Kahane, Howard and Nancy Cavender, 2001, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric , ninth edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Kay, Aaron C. and Mark P. Zanna, 2009, “A Contextual Analysis of the System Justification Motive and Its Societal Consequences”, in Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification , John T. Jost, Aaron C. Kay, and Hulda Thorisdottir (eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 158–182. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320916.003.007
Keith, William, 1993, “Review of Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic , by Andrea Nye”, Quarterly Journal of Speech , 79(2): 263–265.
Keller, Evelyn Fox and Christine R. Grontkowski, 1983, “The Mind’s Eye”, in Harding and Hintikka 2004: 207–224. doi:10.1007/0-306-48017-4_12
Kidd, Ian James, 2016, “Intellectual Humility, Confidence, and Argumentation”, Topoi , 35(2): 395–402. doi:10.1007/s11245-015-9324-5
Kotzee, Ben, 2010, “Poisoning the Well and Epistemic Privilege”, Argumentation , 24(3): 265–281. doi:10.1007/s10503-010-9181-8
Kukla, Rebecca, 2014, “Performative Force, Convention, and Discursive Injustice”, Hypatia , 29(2): 440–457. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2012.01316.x
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson, 1980, Metaphors We Live By , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laverty, Megan, 2009, “Civility, Tact, and the Joy of Communication”, in Philosophy of Education 2009 , Philosophy of Education Society, pp. 228–237. [ Laverty 2009 available online ]
Lang, James C., 2010, “Feminist Epistemologies of Situated Knowledges: Implications for Rhetorical Argumentation”, Informal Logic , 30(3): 309–334. doi:10.22329/il.v30i3.3036
Le Doeuff, Michèle, 1980 [1989], Recherches sur l’imaginaire philosophique , Paris: Payot. Translated as The Philosophical Imaginary , Colin Gordon (trans.), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
Levin, Margarita, 1988, “Caring New World: Feminism and Science”, The American Scholar , 57(1): 100–106.
Linker, Maureen, 2011, “Do Squirrels Eat Hamburgers?: Intellectual Empathy as a Remedy for Residual Prejudice”, Informal Logic , 31(2): 110–138. doi:10.22329/il.v31i2.3063
–––, 2014, “Epistemic Privilege and Expertise in the Context of Meta-Debate”, Argumentation , 28(1): 67–84. doi:10.1007/s10503-013-9299-6
–––, 2015, Intellectual Empathy: Critical Thinking for Social Justice , Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Lloyd, Keith, 2014, “Feminist Challenges to ‘Academic Writing’ Writ Large: Changing the Argumentative Metaphor from War to Perception to Address the Problem of Argument Culture”, Intertexts , 18(1): 29–46. doi:10.1353/itx.2014.0004
Longino, Helen E., 1990, Science as Social Knowledge , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lozano-Reich, Nina M. and Dana L. Cloud, 2009, “The Uncivil Tongue: Invitational Rhetoric and the Problem of Inequality”, Western Journal of Communication , 73(2): 220–226. doi:10.1080/10570310902856105
Lugones, María, 1987, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception”, Hypatia , 2(2): 3–19. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1987.tb01062.x
Makau, Josina M. and Debian L. Marty, 2001, Cooperative Argumentation: A Model for Deliberative Community , Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
–––, 2013, Dialogue and Deliberation , Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Massey, Gerald J., 1995, “The Fallacy behind Fallacies”, in Hansen and Pinto 1995: 159–171.
Mayo, Cris, 2001, “Civility and its Discontents: Sexuality, Race, and the Lure of Beautiful Manners”, in Philosophy of Education 2001 , Philosophy of Education Society, pp. 78–87. [ Mayo 2001 available online ]
Miller, Kathleen, 1995, “A Feminist Defense of the Critical-Logical Model”, Informal Logic , 17(3): 337–346. doi:10.22329/il.v17i3.2422
Mills, Charles W., 2005, “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology”, Hypatia , 20(3): 165–183. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2005.tb00493.x
Moulton, Janice, 1983, “A Paradigm of Philosophy: The Adversary Method”, in Harding and Hintikka 1983: 149–164. doi:10.1007/0-306-48017-4_9
Norris, Stephen P., 1995, “Sustaining and Responding to Charges of Bias in Critical Thinking”, Educational Theory , 45(2): 199–211. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1995.00199.x
Nye, Andrea, 1990, Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic , New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780367854447
O’Keefe, Daniel J., 1982, “The Concepts of Argument and Arguing”, in Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research , J. Robert Cox and Charles Arthur Willard (eds.), Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, pp. 3–23.
Olberding, Amy, 2014, “Subclinical Bias, Manners, and Moral Harm”, Hypatia , 29(2): 287–302. doi:10.1111/hypa.12026
–––, 2015, “It’s Not Them, It’s You: A Case Study Concerning the Exclusion of Non-Western Philosophy”, Comparative Philosophy , 6(2): 14–34. doi:10.31979/2151-6014(2015).060205
Orr, Deborah, 1989, “Just the Facts Ma’am: Informal Logic, Gender and Pedagogy”, Informal Logic , 11(1): 1–10. doi:10.22329/il.v11i1.2613
Ortega, Mariana, 2006, “Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant: White Feminism and Women of Color”, Hypatia , 21(3): 56–74. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2006.tb01113.x
Palczewski, Catherine Helen, 2016, “Feminisms and Argumentation”, in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies , Nancy A Naples (ed.-in-chief), Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss030
Perelman, Chaim, 1977 [1982], L’Empire rhétorique: rhétorique et argumentation , Paris: J. Vrin. Translated as The Realm of Rhetoric , William Kluback (trans.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.
Perelman, Chaim and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1958 [1969], Traité de l’argumentation: la nouvelle rhétorique , Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Translated as The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation , John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (trans.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969.
Quine, Willard van Orman, 1960, Word and Object , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Quine, Willard van Orman and Joseph S. Ullian, 1970, The Web of Belief , New York: Random House. Second edition, 1978
Rancer, Andrew S. and Kathi J. Dierks-Stewart, 1985, “The Influence of Sex and Sex-role Orientation on Trait Argumentativeness”, Journal of Personality Assessment , 49(1): 69–70.
Reiheld, Alison, 2013, “Asking Too Much? Civility vs. Pluralism”, Philosophical Topics , 41(2): 59–78. doi:10.5840/philtopics201341215
Rooney, Phyllis, 2001, “Gender and Moral Reasoning Revisited: Reengaging Feminist Psychology”, in Feminists Doing Ethics , Peggy DesAutels and Joanne Waugh (eds), Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 153–166.
–––, 2003, “Feminism and Argumentation: A Response to Govier”, in J. Anthony Blair, Ralph H. Johnson, Hans V. Hansen, and Christopher W. Tindale (eds.), Informal Logic at 25: Proceedings of the 5 th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA 5) , pp. 14–17 May 2003, archive 77. [ Rooney 2003 available online ]
–––, 2010, “Philosophy, Adversarial Argumentation, and Embattled Reason”, Informal Logic , 30(3): 203–234. doi:10.22329/il.v30i3.3032
–––, 2012, “When Philosophical Argumentation Impedes Social and Political Progress: When Philosophical Argumentation Impedes Progress”, Journal of Social Philosophy , 43(3): 317–333. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2012.01568.x
Rowland, Robert C., 1995, “In Defense of Rational Argument: A Pragmatic Justification of Argumentation Theory and Response to Postmodern Critique”, Philosophy and Rhetoric , 28(4): 350–364.
Rudman, Laurie A. and Stephanie A. Goodwin, 2004, “Gender Differences in Automatic In-Group Bias: Why Do Women Like Women More Than Men Like Men?”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 87(4): 494–509. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.4.494
Schiffrin, Deborah, 1984, “Jewish Argument as Sociability”, Language in Society , 13(3): 311–335. doi:10.1017/S0047404500010526
Tanesini, Alessandra, 2018, “Arrogance, Anger and Debate”, Symposion , 5(2): 213–227. doi:10.5840/symposion20185217
Tindale, Christopher W., 1999, Acts of Arguing: A Rhetorical Model of Argument , Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
–––, 2007, “Constrained Maneuvering: Rhetoric as a Rational Enterprise”, Argumentation , 20(4): 447–466. doi:10.1007/s10503-007-9026-2
Verbiest, Agnes, 1995, “Woman and the Gift of Reason”, Argumentation , 9(5): 821–836. doi:10.1007/BF00744760
Walton, Douglas N., 1992, The Place of Emotion in Argument , College Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
–––, 1995, A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy , Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Warren, Karen J., 1988, “Critical Thinking and Feminism”, Informal Logic , 10(1): 31–44. doi:10.22329/il.v10i1.2636
Weiner, Joan, 1994, “Review: Words of Power. A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic by Andrea Nye”, The Journal of Symbolic Logic , 59(2): 678–681. doi:10.2307/2275421
Wenzel, Joseph W., 1980 [1992], “Perspectives on Argument”, Proceedings of the Summer Conference on Argumentation (Alta, Utah, July 26–29, 1979) , Jack Rhodes and Sara Newell (eds.), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association, pp. 112–133. Reprinted in Reading in Argumentation , William L. Benoit, Dale Hample, and Pamela Benoit (eds.), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992, pp. 121–143.
Yap, Audrey, 2013, “Ad Hominem Fallacies, Bias, and Testimony”, Argumentation , 27(2): 97–109. doi:10.1007/s10503-011-9260-5
–––, 2015, “Ad Hominem Fallacies and Epistemic Credibility”, in Argument Types and Fallacies in Legal Argumentation , Thomas Bustamante and Christian Dahlman (eds.), (Law and Philosophy Library 112), Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 19–35. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-16148-8_2

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Aberdein, Andrew, 2019–, Virtues and Arguments; A Bibliography , Regularly updated.
Alcoff, Linda Martín, 2013, “ What’s Wrong with Philosophy? ”, The New York Times Opinionator , 3 September 2013.
Blair, J. Anthony, Christopher W. Tindale, and Katharina Stevens (eds.), Informal Logic: Reasoning and Argumentation in Theory and Practice , online open journal, ISSN 0824-2577.
Cohen, Daniel H., 2013, “ For Argument’s Sake ”, TED Talk (August 2013).
Janack, Marianne, (n.d.), “ Feminist Epistemology ”, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Linker, Maureen, (n.d.), Intellectual Empathy: Critical Thinking for Social Justice (Facebook page)
Palczewski, Catherine H., (n.d.), Suffrage Postcard Archive , Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.
The Implicit Association Test provides recent research evidence of implicit bias. The portal allows you to take classic versions of the test, e.g., regarding race and gender, or participate in new studies. The significance of the test has been subject to some controversy explored at The Brains Blog .
“Open for Debate”, Blog at Cardiff University about public debate including the problem of arrogant and aggressive behaviors.
Proceedings of conferences organized by the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA) .
The American Philosophical Association Studies on Feminism and Philosophy .

[Please contact the author with additional suggestions.]

Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

Info about mirror sites

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

More results...

Proud recipient of the following awards:

The Perspective on Feminism: Is it still relevant today?

the perspective on feminism: is it still relevant today?

* Updated 2023

Gender inequality has been a big issue throughout us history. while feminism was always seen as a growing movement, it has certainly grown increasingly vocal over the last decade, in response to the trump presidential victory in 2016, the #metoo movement taking off in 2017, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsberg’s death in 2020 and the supreme court overturning roe v. wade in 2022. that being said, there is also some resistance toward the feminism movement in society. although fighting for an important and just cause, at times, feminists have been perceived by some as overly aggressive. the question arises as to whether gender-based inequality in america is as rampant as is often portrayed. to what extent is feminism still relevant, or does it need to change to take the cause forward, here are three arguments for feminism and three against it:, arguing for feminism:.

Body-shaming, while very real for men, is a rampant issue for women

Women are more likely to be affected by an eating disorder than men. The fashion and entertainment industries – and social media – have long contributed to the objectification of women. This is reflected in society, where female celebrities are body-shamed for not having what’s considered the ideal body type (and this also includes men !). It’s gotten so normalized that there are endless articles about celebrities “ fighting back .” However, their replies do not cancel out the negative cultural messages to young and older women. Even being too thin breeds criticism and skinny shaming , as some have learned.

Women still face unequal treatment in the workplace

While some women have managed to break the glass ceiling, they are few and far between. For example, the Fortune 500 list of companies released in 2022 included just 44 companies with female CEOs – yet this was considered a record number. Also, in addition to getting paid less ( 82 cents for every dollar a man earns), women are still often given – and expected to do – menial tasks in the workplace. In office meetings as well as in online meetings , women are discouraged from voicing their opinions and are listened to less than men are. In fact, women employees were experiencing condescension from their male coworkers so much that a new term was coined for it: mansplaining . Apparently, women get mansplained to six times a week . With such a negative, sexist office culture, we can’t claim to have a society that treats women equally.

Violence against women is still a huge issue

Every 9 seconds , a woman in the U.S. is beaten or assaulted. One in three women has been the victim of severe violence by their intimate partner. Also, one in five women will be raped at some point in their lives. Global campaigns like the #MeToo Movement and Time’s Up have brought more attention to the issue of sexual assault, especially in the workplace, but it’s not enough to stop the violence; many women still don’t get the help that they need due to lack of funding. While the trials and convictions of Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly brought much-needed awareness, justice and condemnation about systematic sexual assault, women still don’t always feel safe to come forward (especially not after Cosby’s conviction was overturned ). Feminism can contribute to efforts to make society even more aware of violence against women.

Arguing against Feminism:

More women than men go to college and graduate from high school

According to the Pew Research Center , more American women enroll and graduate from college than their male counterparts. Additionally, according to the U.S. Department of Education, high school graduation rates are in girls’ favor as well. Having a better education as well as a degree are key factors in obtaining well-paid and stable jobs. Good jobs, which allow for richer lives, tend to require better job experiences and degrees. If these trends continue, the average woman will have far more career opportunities and therefore a higher standard of living than the average man. It seems that it’s better to focus time and energy on female empowerment through education than through any feminism movement itself.

Some efforts hurt the feminist cause by being perceived as ‘anti-man’

When Dr. Matt Taylor gave an interview about the progress of the Rosetta space probe, he attracted a wave of feminist criticism for his shirt, which depicted semi-clad women. Taylor ended up tearfully apologizing in a video . Some responded by claiming that a scientist being brought to tears over a t-shirt design is perhaps not the best way to fight for women’s rights. Similar mixed emotions were raised as a result of the crack of “Manspreading,” the practice of sitting with one’s legs spread apart. Seen as a display of male posturing and ego, journalists and bloggers attacked it as a patriarchal issue. Many argue that when feminists fixate on men’s poor behavior, especially when unintentional, it hurts the feminist movement and distracts from tackling more fundamental issues.

Is Feminism focusing on the right topics that are most in need of attention?

India’s horrendous female infanticide rate , the fact that 28% of Niger’s girls are forced into marriage before the age of 15, or that female genital mutilation is still globally widespread are all critical issues that require movements to fight in their name. Not to mention that human trafficking is still prominent, throughout Europe and even in America . If the feminist effort being made in the West went into more pressing female-oppression issues also in other countries, perhaps an actual life-saving and -changing difference could be made, which would more easily unite the nation around the “feminist” flag.

The Bottom Line: Issues like workplace inequality, sexual harassment and body-shaming show that we are not beyond the need for feminism, but the movement shouldn’t come at the price of hurting men. Where do you stand on feminism? Would you call yourself a feminist?

OWN PERSPECTIVE

Is the Body Positive Movement as Positive as it suggests?

Does it represent a societal mental shift or just another calculated fad?

Is There Life Outside Earth?

Are we alone in this vast, expansive universe?

The perspective on divorce

Is it the best way to end marital strife or does it just lead to more strain and life dissatisfaction?

Should women compete against men in sports?

Would it change the nature of professional sports for good or for bad?

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: plain evil or a necessary evil?

In August 1945, two Japanese cities became synonymous with nuclear destruction and the human aptitude for it.

Is There Life After Death?

Do people live on only in memory and spirit or is there some kind of afterlife?

Is Monogamy Natural?

Are humans able to live their whole life with a single partner?

Cats or Dogs: Who Makes a Better Companion?

Are you a cat person or a dog person? Not sure? Here are some points to help you decide.

Does Nicki Minaj Empower or Objectify women?

My only motto in my life is don't lose - N. Minaj

Should Holocaust Education in Schools Be Mandatory?

Are young students mature enough to benefit from the life lessons of the Holocaust?

The Perspective on Animal Testing

When, if ever, is it justified?

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Post-Feminism: An Essay

Post-Feminism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 25, 2017 • ( 2 )

It must first be stated that there is no agreement about how postfeminism can be defined and consequently definitions essentially contradict each other in what they say about the term. At its most straightforward, the prefix ‘post’ in this context appears to mean ‘going beyond’ or ‘superseding’: it could therefore be seen as a confident announcement that feminism has achieved its key aims and that there is full equality for all women and a blurring of the boundaries between traditional ascriptions of gender. Given that a brief scrutiny of our current social formation does not support this view, we might, however, imagine that a post-feminist position is one formulated due to dissatisfaction with existing feminist politics and is to be located in an entirely new area or set of propositions altogether. Part of this dissatisfaction might be an awareness that even in its heyday, second wave feminism did not achieve its aim of speaking to the majority of women.

Either of these definitions seems possible and the notion of superseding or going beyond has been widely utilised in popular culture, and to some extent in academic discourse. Given that ‘feminism’ remains within the term post-feminism, albeit problematised by the prefix of ‘post’, this illustrates that ‘feminism is portrayed as a territory over which various women have to fight to gain their ground; it has become so unwieldy as a term that it threatens to implode under the weight of its own contradictions’ ( Whelehan 2000 : 78). The ‘post’ is not the end of feminism : actually feminism is constantly to be picked over only to be rapidly set aside again or dismissed as old hat. For Myra Macdonald , ‘post-feminism takes the sting out of feminism’ ( 1995 : 100); it removes the politics and claims the territory of self-empowerment.

There are some more complex and challenging definitions of the term and according to writers such as Sopia Phoca who co-produced an introductory guide to it, ‘post-feminism is considered as a different manifestation of feminism – not as being anti-feminist’ (quoted in Ashby 1999: 34) and as being associated with the development of post-Lacanian psychoanalysis , French feminism and post-structuralist theory , suggesting perhaps a permanent fracturation between second wave-style personal politics and ‘high’ theory. Ann Brooks (1997), however, would argue that it is not a question of depoliticising feminism, but of marking a conceptual shift between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ – from a model based on equality, to debates around the revivified and theorised concept of difference. For Brooks the term ‘post-feminism’ ‘is now understood as a useful conceptual frame of reference encompassing the intersection of feminism with a number of other anti-foundational movements including postmodernism, post-structuralism and post-colonialism’ ( Brooks 1997 : 1).

Other critics would argue that the ‘post’ prefix added to modernism , structuralism or colonialism seems to unproblematically connote the ‘going beyond’ both spatially and chronologically that has occurred in modern theory; yet Brooks asserts that post-feminism used in this theoretical context signifies feminism ’s maturity. She reflects that rather than ‘post’ meaning going beyond or breaking with, in these contexts it means ‘a process of ongoing transformation and change’ (Brooks 1997: 1). Other kinds of ‘rebranding’ for feminism of course include the use of ‘third wave’ feminism where again the prefix is used to imply key shifts in the meaning of ‘feminism’ itself and in this theoretically-informed definition of post-feminism there might be seen to be common ground between third wave and post-feminism, although third wavers would certainly reject any suggestion that feminism is over. Brooks herself acknowledges the way post-feminism is associated with a negative portrayal of feminism in the mass media – particularly in the way the rhetoric of post-feminism is summoned in the backlash against feminism (see also Faludi 1992 ).

One of the reasons it is argued that the move to post-feminism is essential is because of the influence of postmodern thinking which refuses the ‘grand narrative’ of gender difference, so that it becomes increasingly impossible to lay claim to the identity ‘woman’, because of the impact of ‘difference’ theories and the contestation of knowledges about how ‘woman’ is constructed. Ann Brooks ’s version of post-feminism puts ‘woman’ under erasure; of course one could argue that this denies any political agency to a feminist who cannot lay claim to that identity, ‘modernist’ as it is, suggesting as it does a retreat to the self and ultimately the individualist framing of identity so favoured by enlightenment liberalism. The category ‘woman’, no matter how unsatisfactory as a means to summon up the wealth and diversity of women’s experiences and identities, allows at least a space to lay claim to a wealth of shared experiences (gendered pay differentials, the impact of sexual violence, the relationship of nation to gender for instance) which permits a collective oppositional response to injustices against women.

For critics who are still happy to call themselves ‘feminist’ without any prefixes, such a model of feminism does not readily allow for an acknowledgement of some highly productive shifts in feminism since the 1970s. Feminist politics has not remained static, and many of the central issues, so radical in the 1970s, are now accepted as part of mainstream politics. As Sylvia Walby notes, ‘Who would now call someone who believes in equal pay feminist? Yet before 1975 this was not law and was controversial’ ( 1997 : 163). Rene Denfeld , in her critique of second wave feminism, The New Victorians , bears this out when she points out that while the next generation has problems with the epithet ‘feminist’, they have no problem supporting the principles of equal pay and educational opportunities (Denfeld 1995: 4). For Denfeld this change from broad support of feminism to scepticism and alienation is a response to a change in the terms of second wave feminism itself: ‘It has become bogged down in an extremist moral and spiritual crusade that has little to do with women’s lives. It has climbed out on a limb of academic theory that is all but inaccessible to the uninitiated . . . feminism has become as confining as what it pretends to combat’ (Denfeld 1995: 5). Denfeld is pointing to widely aired anxieties that feminism has become just one more arcane theory – stemming from what she perceives to be a majority of cultural feminist writers creating and delivering women’s studies curricula in American universities, containing an alleged anti-male agenda. It is as if she actually doesn’t want to dismiss feminism but rather to take it ‘back’ from whoever she feels has stolen it. The irony is that ‘post-feminism’ from both Phoca and Wright’s and Brooks’s perspective is in many ways just such another ‘inaccessible’ theory for the uninitiated.

Tania Modleski is more concerned that while ‘woman’ is being put under erasure in the debates about difference, conceptual shifts such as the ‘men in feminism’ debate (a debate about whether men should call themselves feminists or be feminist critics independently of women) might make women disappear from feminism altogether. Talking about one particular anthology of ‘male feminist’ criticism she observes that ‘[i]n an unusually strong post-feminist irony, the final essay of this volume which banishes women from its list of contributors is a complaint about the way heterosexual men have become invisible within feminism!’ ( Modleski, 1991: 12). Modleski’s dissection of post-feminism in the critical sphere in many ways anticipates Susan Faludi ’s arguments in Backlash where it is the appropriation of the language of feminism which is seen to be used against itself in popular culture. Modleski’s combination of questioning theory and using examples of popular film, television and news, suggests that this appropriation goes much deeper and, she would argue, drives us straight back to male-centred discourse and critical authority.

There is still the accusation that second wave feminism failed to cede the hegemony of white middle-class heterosexual women to other groups of women, and there is clearly some truth in this claim. But nonetheless it is clear that many feminists (particularly at the level of grassroots politics) did acknowledge the common links between different sites of oppression; and the growth in political and critical perspectives by women of colour, working-class women and lesbians suggests that for them the struggle is not over. One can think of key voices in black American feminism, such as bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins who emphatically lay claim to ‘feminism’ as a term which still has political resonance, and this suggests that not all proponents of feminist discourse are ready yet to cede the ground to post-feminism, but would rather address the gaps, in the belief that there might be some consensus about what feminism can do.

Source: Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies Jane Pilcher and Imelda Whelehan Sage Publications, 2004.

FURTHER READING Ann Brooks (1997) gives a fairly comprehensive account of what ‘postfeminism’ means in a theoretical context; for those still struggling with French feminism, post-structuralism and Lacan. Phoca and Wright (1999) offer a crisp and concise account, liberally using illustrations and graphic narrative. Modleski (1991) and Faludi (1992) offer challenges which provide illuminating comparison.

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

School Education /

✍️Essay on Feminism for Students: Samples 150, 250 Words

Updated on
Nov 2, 2023

In a society, men and women should be considered equal in every aspect. This thought is advocated by a social and political movement i.e. feminism . The word feminism was coined by the French Philosopher Charles Fourier in 1837. He was known for his strong belief in equal rights for women as men in every sector, be it the right to vote, right to work, right to decide, right to participate in public life, right to own property, etc. Feminism advocates the rights of women with respect to the equality of gender . There are different types of feminism i.e. liberal, radical, Marxist, cultural, and eco-feminism. Stay tuned and have a look at the following sample essay on feminism!

Also Read: Popular Struggles and Movements

Essay on Feminism 150 Words

India is a land of diversity of which 52.2% are women as per an estimate for the year 2023. This doesn’t mean that every woman is getting basic fundamental rights in society. We should not neglect the rights of women and treat them as a weaker sex. Women are equally strong and capable as men. To advocate this thought a movement called Feminism came into existence in 1837. Feminism is a movement that advocates the equality of women in social, political, and economic areas.

India is up eight notches in #WorldEconomicForum ’s annual gender ranking. And Iceland is #1 for women, again, for the 14th year in a row. @namitabhandare ’s newsletter, #HTMindtheGap looks at why. Plus the week’s other gender stories https://t.co/9Fen6TaEnb Subscribe here… pic.twitter.com/r6XfFMINO0 — Hindustan Times (@htTweets) June 25, 2023

Traditionally, women were believed to stay at home and there were severe restrictions imposed on them. They were not allowed to go out, study, work, vote, own property, etc. However, with the passage of time, people are becoming aware of the objective of feminism. Any person who supports feminism and is a proponent of equal human rights for women is considered a feminist.

Feminism is a challenge to the patriarchal systems existing in society. Despite this strong movement burning in high flames to burn the orthodox and dominant culture, there are still some parts of the world that are facing gender inequality. So, it is our duty to make a world free of any discrimination.

Essay on Feminism 250 Words

Talking about feminism in a broader sense, then, it is not restricted only to women. It refers to the equality of every sex or gender. Some people feel offended by the concept of feminism as they take it in the wrong way. There is a misconception that only women are feminists. But this is not the case. Feminists can be anyone who supports the noble cause of supporting the concept of providing equal rights to women.

Feminism is not restricted to single-sex i.e. women, but it advocates for every person irrespective of caste, creed, colour, sex, or gender. As an individual, it is our duty to help every person achieve equal status in society and eradicate any kind of gender discrimination .

Equality helps people to live freely without any traditional restrictions. At present, the Government of India is also contributing to providing equal rights to the female sector through various Government schemes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Pradhan Mantri Mahila Shakti Kendra, One Stop Center, and many more.

Apart from these Government policies, campaigns like reproductive rights or abortion of unwanted pregnancy also give women the right to choose and lead their life without any external authority of a male.

Feminism has also supported the LGBTIQA+ community so that people belonging to this community could come out and reveal their identity without any shame. The concept of feminism also helped them to ask for equal rights as men and women. Thus, it could be concluded that feminism is for all genders and a true feminist will support every person to achieve equal rights and hold a respectable position in society.

Check Out: Women Equality Day

Kajal Thareja

Hi, I am Kajal, a pharmacy graduate, currently pursuing management and is an experienced content writer. I have 2-years of writing experience in Ed-tech (digital marketing) company. I am passionate towards writing blogs and am on the path of discovering true potential professionally in the field of content marketing. I am engaged in writing creative content for students which is simple yet creative and engaging and leaves an impact on the reader's mind.

Connect With Us

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

Essay Database >
Essay Examples >
Essays Topics >
Essay on Feminism

Essay On Views On Feminism

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Feminism , Women , Children , Gender Equality , Equality , Democracy , Civil Rights , Women's Rights

Published: 02/04/2020

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

According to most dictionary definitions, Feminism is the view that women are inherently equal to men and deserve equal rights and opportunities. However, it does not mean that women are identical to men. The simplest way to understand this definition of feminism is to realize its implied purpose of examining in what ways and why women do not have equal rights and opportunities as men. Some people see feminism as an idea that divides the sexes and promotes female over male interests. Many people shy away from the term, saying they prefer to be referred to as “humanists” because no one is excluded with that term and it presents all people as equal. However, feminism is not necessarily a divider; instead, it is a subset of humanism that explores the female experience in particular. When it comes to basic rights such as equal pay, voting, the hiring process for jobs, feminism explores the reasons why women have been unable to attain equality with men even though there is no reason why this inequality should exist. While feminists fight for equality in human rights, it is done from the perspective that there is a unique female experience pertaining to these rights. Feminism may directly explore the ways that women are not identical to men in its effort to assist women in gaining equal rights to men. For instance, the fact that women can have children and men cannot is a likely factor in the equal pay problem in which women earn less per dollar than do men. The traditional family is seen as a man who is the breadwinner and a mother who cares for this children. In reality, families are much more complicated than that, but it is this traditional view that is in part responsible for the reason why women do not receive equal pay to men. Feminism exists to demonstrate that despite these differences, women still deserve equal pay to men, or other rights that men enjoy and women do not. Feminism is not trying to do the impossible, such as promote equality by making men and women technically identical, such as making sure both can give birth to children, have the same gender-related body parts, etc. Equality does not mean being identical; no matter the gender, people have a variety of talents, weaknesses, and other qualities that make them unique. However, each person, regardless of gender, deserves to enjoy basic human rights and equality. That is the point of feminism.

Works Cited

Brinkerhoff, Noel and Wallechinsky, David. Missouri Library Blocks Access to Websites about Wicca, Native American Religion. AllGov, 5 Jan. 2012. Web. Gross, Grant. Clinton Says Internet Censorship Harmful to Governments. PCWorld (15 Feb. 2011). Web.

Cite this page

Share with friends using:

Removal Request

Finished papers: 544

This paper is created by writer with

ID 278714530

If you want your paper to be:

Well-researched, fact-checked, and accurate

Original, fresh, based on current data

Eloquently written and immaculately formatted

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

Get your papers done by pros!

Other Pages

Recruit select and induct staff essay, religious involvement course work examples, analyze essay examples, family first essay examples, operational considerations for restaurants research paper examples, china and vietnam history course work example, good of mice and men essay example, free essay on post dramatic stress disorder, good example of junk food must be avoided at all costs argumentative essay, classification and functions of lasers essay sample, free rice essay sample, social group being a student athlete creative writings examples, example of is the tragic hero central to the tragic plots of oedipus rex and death of a salesman essay, free research paper about edward snowden a hero or traitor, identity in america essay samples, acquainted with the night by robert frost essay sample, example of leftist politics in latin america essay, free political science essay example, good research paper about environmental scan paper, good the great alaska earthquake of 1964 report example, example of argumentative essay on writing proficiency, sample essay on principles, recommendations essay example, example of essay on one mistake does not have to rule a person 039 s entire life joyce meyer, creative writing on marketing strategy for porsche, arthrology essays, shorewood essays, gale essays, bloody essays, lord henry wotton essays, predictive medicine essays, iowa state university essays, hydrostatic essays, susan glaspell research papers, john marshall research papers, goldwater research papers, chateau research papers, neon research papers, affinity research papers, tent research papers, settler research papers.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Feminist Film Theory: An Introductory Reading List

Evolving from the analysis of representations of women in film, feminist film theory asks questions about identity, sexuality, and the politics of spectatorship.

Director Julie Dash poses for the movie "Daughters of the Dust," circa 1991

Not unlike the emergence of feminist theory and criticism in the domains of art and literature, the women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s sparked a focused interrogation of images of women in film and of women’s participation in film production. The 1970s witnessed the authorship of massively influential texts by writers such as Claire Johnston, Molly Haskell, and Laura Mulvey in the United Kingdom and the United States, and psychoanalysis was a reigning method of inquiry, though Marxism and semiotics also informed the field.

Feminist film theory has provoked debates about the representations of female bodies, sexuality, and femininity on screen while posing questions concerning identity, desire, and the politics of spectatorship, among other topics. Crucially, an increasing amount of attention has been paid by theorists to intersectionality, as scholars investigate the presence and absence of marginalized and oppressed film subjects and producers. This reading list surveys a dozen articles, presented chronologically, as a starting point for readers interested in the lines of inquiry that have fueled the field over the last fifty years.

Laura Mulvey, “ Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema ,” Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 6–18.

To put it most simply, Mulvey’s 1975 essay is nothing short of iconic. A cornerstone of psychoanalytic feminist film theory, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” describes the ways in which women are displayed on screen for the pleasure of the male spectator. Many of the essays listed below engage explicitly with Mulvey’s essay and the notion of the male gaze, illustrating what Corrin Columpar (2002, see below) describes as a “near compulsive return” to this pioneering work. But even Mulvey herself would later push back on some of her most provocative claims , including her positioning of the spectator as male, as well as her omission of female protagonists.

“ Feminism and Film: Critical Approaches ,” Camera Obscura 1, no. 1 (1976): 3–10.

Established in 1976, Camera Obscura was (and remains) a groundbreaking venue for feminist film studies. This introductory essay to the first issue contextualizes the necessity of such a journal in a scholarly and cultural environment in which there is a true “need” for the feminist study of film. Camera Obscura was, in part, an American response to the wave of British contributions to the field, often published in the journal Screen (the home of Mulvey’s essay). The editors spend much of this essay unpacking the camera obscura, an image projection device, as a metaphor for feminist film theory, as it functions as a symbol of contradiction that “emphasizes the points of convergence of ideology and representation, of ideology as representation.”

Weekly Newsletter

Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.

Michelle Criton, Julia Lesage, Judith Mayne, B. Ruby Rich, and Anna Marie Taylor, “ Women and Film: A Discussion of Feminist Aesthetics ,” New German Critique no. 13 (1978): 83–107.

What makes film an enticing object of study for feminists in the first place? As Criton et al. attest, the answers lie in the social rather than individual or private dimensions of film as well as in its accessibility and synthesis of “art, life, politics, sex, etc.” The conversation featured here provides a glimpse into contemporary conversations about the work of Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey and psychoanalysis as a shaping force of early feminist film theory. Additionally, they consider how a feminist filmmaking aesthetic can reveal and critique the ideologies that underpin the oppression of women.

Judith Mayne, “ Feminist Film Theory and Criticism ,” Signs 11, no. 1 (1985): 81–100.

Acknowledging the profound impact of “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mayne surveys the development of feminist film theory, including both its historical contexts and its fixations upon psychoanalysis and the notions of spectacle and the gaze. Mayne outlines how contradiction—variously construed—is “ the central issue in feminist film theory and criticism” (emphasis added). Additionally, the author calls into question the historiography of women’s cinema, noting the “risk of romanticizing women’s exclusion from the actual production of films.” She urges scholars to, certainly, continue the necessary exploration of forgotten and understudied female filmmakers but to also open up the conception of women’s cinema to include not just the work of female directors but also their peripheral roles as critics and audience members.

Jane Gaines, “ White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory ,” Cultural Critique , no. 4 (1986): 59–79.

What, Gaines asks, are the limitations of feminist theory’s early fixation on gender at the expense of nuanced understandings of race, class, and sexuality? While feminist theory may, in its earliest years, have opened up possibilities for interrogating the gendered politics of spectatorship, it was largely exclusionary of diverse perspectives, including, as Gaines notes, lesbians and women of color. In doing so, “feminist theory has helped to reinforce white middle-class [normative] values, and to the extent that it works to keep women from seeing other structures of oppression, it functions ideologically.” Through an analysis of the 1975 film Mahogany and informed by black feminist theorists and writers such as bell hooks, Mayne argues that psychoanalysis ultimately results in erroneous readings of films about race.

Noël Carroll, “ The Image of Women in Film: A Defense of a Paradigm ,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48, no. 4 (1990): 349–60.

Carroll theorizes why psychoanalysis was so attractive to feminists in the 1970s and 1980s: by providing a theoretical framework, he argues, psychoanalysis was a means to “incorporate” and “organize” the “scattered insights of the image of women in film approach.” Taking issue with Mulvey’s perspective on voyeurism, Carroll positions the image approach, or the study of the image of women in film—in this case with an emphasis on theories of emotion— as a “rival research program” to psychoanalysis. He argues that paradigm scenarios, or cases in which emotions are learned behavioral responses, influence spectatorship and how audiences respond emotionally to women on screen.

Karen Hollinger, “ Theorizing Mainstream Female Spectatorship: The Case of the Popular Lesbian Film ,” Cinema Journal 37, no. 2 (1998): 3–17.

Hollinger surveys theoretical responses to lesbian subjectivity and the female spectatorship of popular lesbian film narratives. She articulates the subversive power of the lesbian look as a challenge to Mulvey’s notion of the male gaze, asserting its potential to empower female spectators as agents of desire.

Corinn Columpar, “ The Gaze As Theoretical Touchstone: The Intersection of Film Studies, Feminist Theory, and Postcolonial Theory ,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 30, no. 1/2 (2002): 25–44.

The male gaze is not, as Columpar articulates, the sole tool “in the contemporary feminist film critic’s box”: so are the ethnographic and colonial gazes, brought to film theory from postcolonial studies. Columpar reiterates that the early fixation upon gender and the male gaze “failed to account for other key determinants of social power and position.” Interdisciplinary perspectives, such as those informed by postcolonial theory, are better equipped to unpack “issues of racial and national difference and acknowledge the role that race and ethnicity play in looking relations.”

Janell Hobson, “ Viewing in the Dark: Toward a Black Feminist Approach to Film ,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 30, no. 1/2 (2002): 45–59.

Hobson illuminates the absence and/or disembodied presence of Black female bodies in Hollywood cinema. She argues that the invisibility of Black women’s bodies on screen was a defense mechanism against the disruption of “whites as beautiful, as the norm.” By turning away from the gaze and toward the sound of Black women’s disembodied voices in speech and song, viewers are better equipped to recognize how their voices are “used in mainstream cinema by way of supporting and defining the normalized (white) male body,” therefore “ensur[ing] the identity of white masculinity.”

E. Ann Kaplan, “ Global Feminisms and the State of Feminist Film Theory ,” Signs 30, no. 1 (2004): 1236–48.

Kaplan reflects on her trajectory as a pioneering feminist film theorist, illuminating her shift from cinema’s depictions of the “oppressions of white Western women” to the study of trauma in global and indigenous cinema. Importantly, she notes that in her earlier research, she failed to “confront the really tough questions of my own positionality.” In doing so, she invites readers to consider the ethics of witnessing and white, Western feminist participation in the development of multicultural approaches.

Jane M. Gaines, “ Film History and the Two Presents of Feminist Film Theory ,” Cinema Journal 44, no. 1 (2004): 113–19.

It may come as a surprise to many that, internationally speaking, women were indeed undertaking various forms of creative labor in the world of film production during the silent era, including screenwriting, producing, directing, etc. The question, then, is not just “why these women were forgotten” but also “why we forgot them.” Gaines considers the “historical turn” in feminist film studies, arguing that scholars must be mindful of how they narrativize and rewrite the rediscovered facts of women’s work in cinema.

Sangita Gopal, “ Feminism and the Big Picture: Conversations ,” Cinema Journal 57, no. 2 (2018): 131–36.

In this fascinating article, Gopal synthesizes responses to a series of questions posed to film scholars regarding feminist theory, praxis, and pedagogy, as well as feminism as “an unfinished project” and feminist media studies as a “boundless” field. Where theory is concerned, Gopal usefully highlights Lingzhen Wang’s and Priya Jaikumar’s suggestions for more explicitly linking and situating feminist media studies within “the big picture.” Notably, Jaikumar ponders the possibilities of feminism creating a framework such that “it is not possible to ask a question if it is absent of a politics.”

Support JSTOR Daily! Join our new membership program on Patreon today.

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

Get Our Newsletter

The Taj Mahal Today

Fencer, Violinist, Composer: The Life of Joseph Bologne

Support JSTOR Daily

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Case Against Contemporary Feminism

By Jia Tolentino

We have misinterpreted the old adage that the personal is political Jessa Crispin writes—inflecting our personal desires...

It’s the same with feminism as it is with women in general: there are always, seemingly, infinite ways to fail. On the one hand, feminism has never been more widely proclaimed or marketable than it is now. On the other hand, its last ten years of mainstream prominence and acceptability culminated in the election of President Donald Trump. (The Times published an essay at the end of December under the headline “ Feminism Lost. Now What? ”) Since November 9th, the two main arguments against contemporary feminism have emerged in near-exact opposition to each other: either feminism has become too strict an ideology or it has softened to the point of uselessness. On one side, there is, for instance, Kellyanne Conway, who, in her apparent dislike of words that denote principles, has labelled herself a “post-feminist.” Among those on the other side is the writer Jessa Crispin, who believes that the push to make feminism universally palatable has negated the meaning of the ideology writ large.

Crispin has written a new book-length polemic on the subject, called “Why I Am Not a Feminist,” in which she offers definitions of feminism that are considerably more barbed than the earnest, cheeky slogans that have become de rigueur—“The future is female,” for example, as Hillary Clinton declared in her first video statement since the election, or “Girls just want to have fun-damental rights,” or “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” The dissidence at the root of these catchphrases has been obscured by their ubiquity on tote bags and T-shirts, and for Crispin the decline of feminism is visible in how easy the label is to claim. Feminism, she tells us, has become a self-serving brand popularized by C.E.O.s and beauty companies, a “fight to allow women to participate equally in the oppression of the powerless and the poor.” It’s a “narcissistic reflexive thought process: I define myself as feminist and so everything I do is a feminist act.” It’s an “attack dog posing as a kitten,” and—in what might be Crispin’s most biting entry—a “decade-long conversation about which television show is a good television show and which television show is a bad show.”

Crispin is the founder of Bookslut , a literary Web site that she started, in 2002, when she was a full-time employee at Planned Parenthood, in Austin, Texas. (She was ahead of the word-reclamation curve that culminated in the Slutwalk marches, which were first held in 2011.) After accumulating a modest but enthusiastic following, Crispin closed down Bookslut in 2016, with minimal ceremony. “I didn’t want to become a professional,” she told Vulture, adding, “I just don’t find American literature interesting. I find MFA culture terrible. Everyone is super-cheerful because they’re trying to sell you something, and I find it really repulsive.” Crispin is happy to take the contrarian stance, particularly within spheres that lend themselves to suppressive positivity. The point of “Why I Am Not a Feminist” isn’t really that Crispin is not a feminist; it’s that she has no interest in being a part of a club that has opened its doors and lost sight of its politics—a club that would, if she weren’t so busy disavowing it, invite Kellyanne Conway in.

The effect of the catchy title stands regardless. Crispin’s argument is bracing, and a rare counterbalance; where feminism is concerned, broad acceptability is almost always framed as an unquestioned good. “Somewhere along the way toward female liberation, it was decided that the most effective method was for feminism to become universal,” Crispin writes. And the people who decided this “forgot that for something to be universally accepted, it must become as banal, as non-threatening and ineffective as possible.” Another, and perhaps less fatalistic, way of framing the matter: feminism is a political argument of such obvious reason and power that it has been co-opted as an aesthetic and transformed into merchandise by a series of influential profiteers.

Crispin notes, accurately, that feminism’s history has been marked by a “small number of radical, heavily invested women who did the hard work of dragging women’s position forward, usually through shocking acts and words,” and that the “majority of women benefited from the work of these few, while often quickly trying to disassociate themselves from them.” Reading that second line, I immediately thought of an irksome scene in Megyn Kelly’s memoir , in which Kelly tells Sheryl Sandberg that she’s not a feminist, and Sandberg—whose entire feminist initiative is based on making the movement palatable to people like Kelly, and whose awkward accommodation of the Trump Administration should surprise no one—“passed no judgment” on Kelly’s distaste for the term. Crispin mostly focusses on younger and newer feminists, castigating them as selfish and timid, afraid of the second wave. They make Andrea Dworkin into a scapegoat, she writes; they “distance themselves from the bra-burning, hairy-armpitted bogeywomen.”

Here, and in some other places where Crispin’s argument requires her to take a precise measure of contemporary feminism, she—or this book’s production schedule—can’t quite account for the complexity of the times. From 2014 to 2016, I worked as an editor at Jezebel, a site that, when it was founded, in 2007, helped to define online feminism—and served ever afterward as a somewhat abstracted target for women who criticized contemporary feminism from the left. These critics didn’t usually recognize how quickly the center is always moving, and Crispin has the same problem. Much of what she denounces—“outrage culture,” empowerment marketing , the stranglehold that white women have on the public conversation—has already been critiqued at length by the young feminist mainstream. Her imagined Dworkin-hating dilettante, discussing the politics of bikini waxing and “giving blow jobs like it’s missionary work,” has long been passé. It’s far more common these days for young feminists to adopt a radical veneer. Lena Dunham’s newsletter sells “ Dismantle the Patriarchy ” patches; last fall, a Dior runway show included a T-shirt reading, “We Should All Be Feminists.” (The shirt is not yet on sale in the United States; it reportedly costs five hundred and fifty euros in France .) The inside threat to feminism in 2017 is less a disavowal of radical ideas than an empty co-option of radical appearances—a superficial, market-based alignment that is more likely to make a woman feel good and righteous than lead her to the political action that feminism is meant to spur.

The most vital strain of thought in “Why I Am Not a Feminist” is Crispin’s unforgiving indictment of individualism and capitalism, value systems that she argues have severely warped feminism, encouraging women to think of the movement only insofar as it leads to individual gains. We have misinterpreted the old adage that the personal is political, she writes—inflecting our personal desires and decisions with political righteousness while neatly avoiding political accountability. We may understand that “the corporations we work for poison the earth, fleece the poor, make the super rich more rich, but hey. Fuck it,” Crispin writes. “We like our apartments, we can subscribe to both Netflix and Hulu, the health insurance covers my SSRI prescription, and the white noise machine I just bought helps me sleep at night.”

That this line of argument seems like a plausible next step for contemporary feminism reflects the recent and rapid leftward turn of liberal politics. Socialism and anti-capitalism, as foils to Donald Trump’s me-first ideology, have taken an accelerated path into the mainstream. “Why I Am Not a Feminist” comes at a time when some portion of liberal women in America might be ready for a major shift—inclined, suddenly, toward a belief system that does not hallow the “markers of success in patriarchal capitalism . . . money and power,” as Crispin puts it. There is, it seems, a growing hunger for a feminism concerned more with the lives of low-income women than with the number of female C.E.O.s.

The opposing view—that feminism is not just broadly compatible with capitalism but actually served by it—has certainly enjoyed its share of prominence. This is the message that has been passed down by the vast majority of self-styled feminist role models over the past ten years: that feminism is what you call it when an individual woman gets enough money to do whatever she wants. Crispin is ruthless in dissecting this brand of feminism. It means simply buying one’s way out of oppression and then perpetuating it, she argues; it embraces the patriarchal model of happiness, which depends on “having someone else subject to your will.” Women, exploited for centuries, have grown subconsciously eager to exploit others, Crispin believes. “Once we are a part of the system and benefiting from it on the same level that men are, we won’t care, as a group, about whose turn it is to get hurt.”

A question of audience tugs at “Why I Am Not a Feminist.” It seemed, at points, as though anyone who understands the terms of Crispin’s argument would already agree with her. I also wondered how the book might land if Hillary Clinton had won—if the insufficiently radical feminism Crispin rails against had triumphed rather than absorbed a staggering blow. Instead, her book arrives at a useful and perhaps unexpected cultural inflection point: a time when political accommodation appears fruitless, and when, as Amanda Hess noted in the _Times Magazine _this week, many middle-class white women have marched in closer proximity to far-left ideas than perhaps they ever would have guessed. Exhortations to “transform culture, not just respond to it” are what many of us want to hear.

Of course, this being a polemic, there’s not much space given to how , exactly, the total disengagement with our individualist and capitalist society might be achieved. “Burn it down”—another nascent feminist slogan—is generally received as an abstract, metaphorical directive. The final chapter of Crispin’s book, titled “Where We Go From Here,” is four pages. In an earlier section of “Why I Am Not a Feminist,” Crispin rails against feminist flippancy toward men, writing, “It is always easier to find your sense of value by demeaning another’s value. It is easier to define yourself as ‘not that,’ rather than do an actual accounting of your own qualities and put them on the scale.” I agree.

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The Radical Possibility of the Women’s March

By Ariel Levy

By Kyle Chayka

The Ex-N.Y.P.D. Official Trying to Tame New York’s Trash

By Eric Lach

Islamic Feminism: What You Need To Know (Essay in 1900 words)

Islam and feminism are heavily discussed topics, especially with the current social conditions that are affecting a diverse amount of people all over the world. The two words put together might seem like an oxymoron, however, the more one looks into it, the more the movement and its importance makes sense. One might ask how Islamic feminism differs from the western movement of feminism, and the answer is that it looks to extend the ideas of gender equality by showing the people of the Islamic faith that feminism or gender equality is not a western concept but actually propagated by their own religion. Islamic feminism is feminism that accepts Islamic doctrine through text and canonical traditions, rather than feminism created out of Muslim culture. At its core, uniquely Muslim feminism is based on the Quranic concept of human equality and is concerned with applying this theology to daily life. Moreover, it aims to show people that Islam doesn’t want their women to suffer, it doesn’t believe men are inherently superior to women.While serious concerns such as domestic violence are hotly debated, the essential topic of what equality involves and how it is communicated is usually disregarded.

In Islam, metaphorization is a common practice; it is the process of interpreting the Quran’s phrases and due to this, it plays a big part in the religion and helps them understand what it requires from its believers. The issue that has led to the rise of Islamic feminist women in the Middle East is that select women have started to believe that the interpretations of the law by hadiths are not always right or flawed. Carla Powers who is a Middle East Correspondent studied the Quran with an Islamic scholar and learned how the Quran in actuality does not advocate the oppression of women and that it contains a history of a major amount of forgotten female figures. Islam says that, before Him, men and women are equal. Based on the Quran, women are also granted inheritance, fundamental rights such as marriage, social and property rights, and mainly are allowed to reject proposals and instigate divorce. Even forming a prenuptial agreement before marriage for safety that is widely acceptable in American societies is also something that’s supported by the Quran. In the early period of Islam, as many today are, women were practitioners and property owners. Although it is well known that women of the Islamic religion have more difficulties compared to women from the western culture, it should be noted that this is solely due to the function of generations of patriarchy intertwined with the governmental institutions and laws and does not originate from the Islamic values. Muhammad himself often repeats importance of taking care of wives and daughters. He mentions how “you have rights over your women and your women have rights over you.”

Several exceptionally strong and intelligent women-headed this feminist movement in Islam. One of them is Asma Lamrabet, a well-known Moroccan feminist, who was forced to retire recently because of her support for women who wanted an equal share of a man’s property. Inheritance laws are a major problem in Islam based countries. They have been picking up steam in several countries and Ms. Lambert is one of the activists trying to overthrow patriarchy in relation to these laws. She explains that the main reason why patriarchy is still prevalent is due to the fact that they are not allowed to have authority over religious texts. This causes them to divert the verses of the Quran to be more from a man’s point of view which is the originating cause of deep inequality. The women who are fighting for authority over religious texts demand that women’s readings of religious texts should be accepted and that women should be allowed to have religious authorities. When Habib Bourguiba, president of Tunisia, raised the issue of inheritance and inequality in 1974, it was considered blasphemous and was forced to backtrack. Even though the laws of Islamic countries are obtained from the Quran’s verses, the domination of men causes the discrimination between men and women and their laws. Men continue to receive double the amount of shares women get. Even distant male relatives can override wives or sisters, so women are usually left with no financial independence.

Asma Lambert defends a progressive, contextual interpretation of the Quran. She does not assert, as do Islamists, that Islam already grants women full equality. She claims that it might if centuries of misogynist interpretation by male historians were removed. Her rejection of behaviors like polygamy, uneven access to divorce, and a husband’s dominance over his wife demonstrates that these practices have no textual basis in the Quran. She claims that while reading what the text means, the historical context must be considered. Islamic feminists understand the inequities that Muslim women suffer today under Islamic law, and in most regions of the Muslim world, they refer to family law or personal status law. According to Suad Joseph, family law has become “a symbol for feminist resistance” throughout the Islamic world. Islamic feminists, on the other hand, do not advocate for the repeal of Islamic law in terms of personal status; rather, they say that the solution to women’s empowerment lies in a reinterpretation of Islamic principles.

The primary argument of Islamic feminists is that the Quran upholds the principle of equality and justice for all human beings, but patriarchal attitudes, rituals, and practices have distorted women’s and men’s equality in today’s Muslim societies. Muslim feminists did not come up with this idea. Islamic groups, including those in Sudan, backed it as well. Hasan al-Turabi published Women between Religion Teachings and Society Customs in 1973, advocating a revision of women’s rights under Islamic jurisprudence –fiqh. In it, he stated that many components of Islamic law were implemented in order to accommodate Sharia to traditional norms. Male Islamic attorneys view the rules that give men control in a liberal and expansive way, while reading the rules that limit women literally and severely. As a result, women’s basic rights and the basics of justice, as defined in the Sharia, have been abandoned in Muslim culture.

Turabi says that women played an important role in public life throughout the Prophet’s lifetime, and they were instrumental in the election of the third Caliph. Women were only later denied their rightful place in public life, but history had strayed from the ideal.

Nonetheless, Islamic feminism can be seen in a variety of settings. As a result, many people talk about Islamic feminisms or Islamic feminism in its various forms. Some, especially Islamic feminists, have contended that it has become too wide to characterize local women’s action and too politically loaded. Which bases its reinterpretations of the Quran and perceives the idea of patriarchy as flawed in relation to the islamic values and belief in god. Islamic feminists are employing the concept of ijtihad to create Quranic interpretations that highlight the Quran’s gender-egalitarian urge. These new interpretations therefore serve as the foundation for pursuing gender equality in Islamic law in today’s Muslim governments. The project encapsulates the concept of an Islam free of patriarchy, in which women have equal legal and social rights to males. In her book Quran and Women: Re-reading the Sacred Texts, Amina Wadud, an African-American scholar, advocates for female equality and female empowerment, specifically in relation to sanctity, or taqwa. According to Riffat Hassan, a single Arabic word can have a variety of meanings. However, because the interpreters were all men, the readings were skewed toward men. Take, for example, Surah an-nisa 4:34, which is always mentioned when the subject of equality arises. The word qawwamun is used by the Quran to describe the man in this verse. It has been translated to the term ‘male guardian,’ which indirectly gave men the power to undermine and control women in all aspects of society. But Hassan believes that the word might simply just mean breadwinner, so this explains how the verses were so distorted and so misread that it gave men an immense amount of control over the lives of women. The efforts made to produce new interpretations of Islam take time and necessitate a great deal of specialized knowledge, both in Arabic and in Islamic law. Although every Muslim has the freedom to interpret the Quran in theory, it is not accessible to everyone on a local level for a variety of reasons, including the political environment, exposure to Islamic feminist literature, financing, time, and resources. Reinterpreting a source material may also elicit a lot of vociferous criticism, especially in circumstances when Salafist actors are prominent.

As Ziba Mir-Hosseini points out, the interpretation of Islam that is represented in modern state laws is largely determined by the power balance between those players whose view of Islamic law is literal and restrictive of women’s equal rights. She refers to them as “traditionalists.” And there are many who believe there is no conflict between Islam and women’s equality as defined by international human rights accords. It also largely is determined based on women’s political affairs and their abilities with consideration to all discourses. According to her, Islamic law reform is not simply a theological or religious issue, but also a very political one. When campaigning for legislative reform to improve the position of women, Islamic feminists and other self-declared feminists and activists are sometimes accused of doing the errands of the West. As a result, they are accused of compromising religious and cultural ideals as well as posing a threat to society’s order.

This isn’t to say that Islam doesn’t have a role in national debates over women’s rights and legal change, whether from the standpoint of Islamists or women activists. On the contrary, most current discussions of the muslim based family laws and their reforms are direvtly framed through the lens of their religion, which again shows how the movement differs from the western movement. However, the most typical technique for Islamic law reform in national contexts is to choose use existing interpretations, including minority views and lesser-known hadiths, rather than inventing new or feminist readings of the Quran and the Sunna in their entirety. People part of the Islamic feminist movement have alreay made an immense amount of progress pushing for women to be part of all aspects of the society and to have equal amount of rights as men do. In Saudi Arabia, women were able to fight for their right to vote and women in 2015. Their push for driving without a male guardian also was a huge win for the movement in 2018. Around the same time the National Parliament of Syria contained 12% of women officials, which is definitely a huge change from the generations of domination of men in the government. Overall, the movement has gained international attention, aiding muslim women to attain the independece and equality that they deserve.

Badran, M. (2005). Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s: Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 1 (1), 6-28. Retrieved July 29, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40326847
Seedat, F. (2013). Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 29 (2), 25-45. doi:10.2979/jfemistudreli.29.2.25
Grami, A. (2013). Islamic Feminism: A new feminist movement or a strategy by women for acquiring rights? Contemporary Arab Affairs, 6 (1), 102-113. Retrieved July 29, 2021, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/48600673
Gashtili, P. (2013). Is an “Islamic Feminism” Possible?: Gender Politics in the Contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran. Philosophical Topics, 41 (2), 121-140. Retrieved July 29, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43932739
Orr, T. (2020). Gender Justice in Islam. Middlesex University.
Tonnessen, L. (2014). Islamic Feminism. Retrieved from https://www.cmi.no/publications/file/5289-islamic-feminism-a-public-lecture-by.pdf

Neha is currently pursuing a degree in Sociology paired with International Relations and Media Studies. She aspires for a global career as an academic researcher and advocate of humanitarian action. She is deeply passionate about human rights and social justice, and she profoundly researches socio-economics, politics, and public policy to better understand the society and its institutions. One of her biggest accomplishments would be starting a free school in her backyard for kids with no access to education during the pandemic.

IMAGES

Feminist Essay
(PDF) Waves of Feminism
Women's Rights Essay
Feminism Is a Major Influential Movement Within Sociology Today
Assignment Feminism
Essay on Feminism

VIDEO

New book highlights the intersection of food and feminism
JustPearlyThings STRIKES AGAIN! (CRINGE)
controversial views on feminism!
What is Feminism Anyways?
Feminism with different points of views
Old School Feminism vs Today's Feminism

COMMENTS

Essay On Feminism in English for Students
500 Words Essay On Feminism. Feminism is a social and political movement that advocates for the rights of women on the grounds of equality of sexes. It does not deny the biological differences between the sexes but demands equality in opportunities. It covers everything from social and political to economic arenas.
Feminism Essay: Impact and Importance of Feminism in 500+ Words
Read this complete Essay on Feminism to know and write about the various nuances of Feminism. Download the complete Feminism Essay PDF. Feminism Essay: History of Feminism. In the 21st century, the stereotype women face in society is a concern for debate. However, the outburst of equality for women can be traced back to the late nineteenth century.
5 Essays About Feminism
5 Essays About Feminism. On the surface, the definition of feminism is simple. It's the belief that women should be politically, socially, and economically equal to men. Over the years, the movement expanded from a focus on voting rights to worker rights, reproductive rights, gender roles, and beyond. Modern feminism is moving to a more ...
Feminism
Feminism, the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. Although largely originating in the West, feminism is manifested worldwide and is represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women's rights and interests. Learn more about feminism.
Mapping a global view of feminism
Mapping a global view of feminism. July 15, 2015. Search online for the terms "feminism" and "global feminism," and you'll discover that feminism today comes in a variety of flavors, largely dictated by differences in the causes, concerns and condition of women around the world. Yet, while culture, politics, education and society may ...
Feminism: An Essay
Feminism: An Essay By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 27, 2016 • ( 6). Feminism as a movement gained potential in the twentieth century, marking the culmination of two centuries' struggle for cultural roles and socio-political rights — a struggle which first found its expression in Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The movement gained increasing prominence ...
Thinking Out Loud About Feminism
Feminism most often starts with the real-life experience of women, oppressed because an individual, group, or society views them as inferior and then seeks to enforce its ferocity by objectification, control, and domination. We know sexism can take relatively subtle forms, such as lower salaries for women than men.
Feminist Perspectives on Power
2. Power as Resource: Liberal Feminist Approaches. Those who conceptualize power as a resource understand it as a positive social good that is currently unequally distributed. For feminists who understand power in this way, the goal is to redistribute this resource so that women will have power equal to men.
Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender
The main feminist motivation for making this distinction was to counter biological determinism or the view that biology is destiny. A typical example of a biological determinist view is that of Geddes and Thompson who, in 1889, argued that social, psychological and behavioural traits were caused by metabolic state. ... Feminist Essays on Reason ...
Feminist Perspectives on Human Rights
The second half of the essay looks the feminist debates with regards to women's human rights in three issue areas or contexts: globalization, democratization, and culture. The essay concludes with a discussion of the current challenges with regards to data collection in measuring the achievement of women's human rights. ... In her view, the ...
Feminism: Changing the Way Our Society Views Women
Today, on average, a woman earns 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns, and women's median annual earnings are $10,086 less than men's, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Regardless ...
Essays About Feminism: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts
Yuknavitch described how these fathers and father images try to take control of others' bodies and lives and crush others' spirits. In her confrontation and memory of such men, however, Yuknavitch also learned to create art and find her feminist purpose. 4. Trickle-Down Feminism by Sarah Jaffe.
489 Feminism Essay Topics: Women's Rights & Gender Equality
Feminism is the belief in the equality of the sexes in social, economic, and political spheres. This movement originated in the West, but it has become represented worldwide. Throughout human history, women have been confined to domestic labor. Meanwhile, public life has been men's prerogative.
Feminist Perspectives on Argumentation
Feminist Perspectives on Argumentation. First published Thu Feb 18, 2021. The noun "argument" and verb "to argue" can describe various things in ordinary language and in different academic disciplines (O'Keefe 1982; Wenzel 1980 [1992]). "Argument" may identify a logical premise-conclusion complex, a speech act, or a dialogical ...
The Perspective on Feminism: Is it still relevant today?
Arguing against Feminism: More women than men go to college and graduate from high school. According to the Pew Research Center, more American women enroll and graduate from college than their male counterparts.Additionally, according to the U.S. Department of Education, high school graduation rates are in girls' favor as well. Having a better education as well as a degree are key factors in ...
Post-Feminism: An Essay
The 'post' is not the end of feminism: actually feminism is constantly to be picked over only to be rapidly set aside again or dismissed as old hat. For Myra Macdonald, 'post-feminism takes the sting out of feminism' ( 1995: 100); it removes the politics and claims the territory of self-empowerment. There are some more complex and ...
Essay on Feminism for Students: Samples 150, 250 Words
Women are equally strong and capable as men. To advocate this thought a movement called Feminism came into existence in 1837. Feminism is a movement that advocates the equality of women in social, political, and economic areas. India is up eight notches in #WorldEconomicForum 's annual gender ranking. And Iceland is #1 for women, again, for ...
Views On Feminism Essay
Published: 02/04/2020. ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS. According to most dictionary definitions, Feminism is the view that women are inherently equal to men and deserve equal rights and opportunities. However, it does not mean that women are identical to men. The simplest way to understand this definition of feminism is to realize its implied purpose of ...
Patricia Hill Collins' Views On Feminism
Patricia Hill Collins outlined America Black Feminism through the expression in music, fiction, poetry, and oral history. She continuously saw and pointed out three themes. The oppressions are interconnected greatly through the different points. Black women create alternative world views for self-definition and self determination.
Feminist Film Theory: An Introductory Reading List
This introductory essay to the first issue contextualizes the necessity of such a journal in a scholarly and cultural environment in which there is a true "need" for the feminist study of film. Camera Obscura was, in part, an American response to the wave of British contributions to the field, often published in the journal Screen (the home ...
The Case Against Contemporary Feminism
The Case Against Contemporary Feminism. By Jia Tolentino. February 8, 2017. We have misinterpreted the old adage that the personal is political, Jessa Crispin writes—inflecting our personal ...
Islamic Feminism: What You Need To Know (Essay in 1900 words)
Islamic Feminism: What You Need To Know (Essay in 1900 words) August 5, 2021 by Neha Ankam. Islam and feminism are heavily discussed topics, especially with the current social conditions that are affecting a diverse amount of people all over the world. The two words put together might seem like an oxymoron, however, the more one looks into it ...