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Feminism - A Very Short Introduction pdf

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 							‘I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism
  is’, the writer Rebecca
West remarked, sardonically, in 1913. ‘I only
  know that people call me a feminist whenever I express
sentiments
  that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.’ The word was
  a comparatively new
one when she wrote; it had only appeared in
  English – from the French – in the 1890s.
Interestingly, the earliest
  examples of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary carried
  negative
meanings. In 1895 the Athenaeum sneeringly referred to a
  piece about a woman whose ‘coquetting with the
doctrines of
  feminism’ are traced with real humour. ‘In Germany feminism is
  openly
socialistic’, the Daily Chronicle shuddered in 1908, and went
  on to dismiss out of hand
‘suffragists, suffragettes and all the other
  phases in the crescendo of feminism’.
  In those
years, some writers used an alternative term –
  ‘womanism’ – with the same hostility.
One long-forgotten writer
  was roused to angry sneers in his memoirs when he recalled
  meeting an
intellectual woman living in Paris (she comes across,
  despite his prejudices, as lively and interesting) whose
writings
  reflected ‘the strong-minded womanism of the nineteenth century’.
  Curiously, one of
the sharpest attacks on the word ‘feminism’ came
  from Virginia Woolf, whose A Room of One’s
Own is such an
  effective and engaging plea for women. In Three Guineas, written in
  1938 in the shadow of
fascism and of approaching war, and
  probably nervous about any ‘-ism’, she rejects the word out of
hand.
  No one word can capture the force ‘which in the nineteenth century
  opposed itself to the force
of the fathers’, she insists, continuing:
  Those nineteenth century women were in fact the advance guard
of
  your own movement. They were fighting the tyranny of the
  patriarchal state as you are fighting the
tyranny of the Fascist state.
  They were called, to their resentment, feminists, she claims (she is
 
historically inaccurate – the word was unknown in the previous
  century), and she goes on to insist that we
must
  destroy an old word, a vicious and corrupt word that has done much
  harm in its day. The word
‘feminist’ is the word indicated. That
  word, according to the dictionary, means ‘one who
champions the
  rights of women.’ Since the only right, the right to earn a living has
  been won, the
word no longer has a meaning. And a word without a
  meaning is a dead word, a corrupt word.
  But though
Virginia Woolf’s ‘right to earn a living’ was, and
  remains, central to feminism, getting on
for a century after she
  wrote it is clear that its attainment by no means solved all
  women’s
problems. Women’s work – despite the much-publicized
  earnings of some high-fliers in the business
world – remains lower
  paid; or, in the case of housework, not paid at all. When Woolf
  was writing
in the 1920s, feminists had hardly begun to articulate,
  let alone address, women’s special problems:
issues to do with
  childbirth and child-rearing, or the strain on women who had to
  combine housework and/or
childcare with work outside the
  home.
  Over the centuries, and in many different countries, women have
  spoken out for their sex, and articulated, in different ways, their
  complaints, their needs, and their hopes.
As this is a Very Short
  Introduction, I have concentrated on feminism in one country,
  England, and have
tried to explore its development through time.
  While women in other countries have had different experiences
and
  definitions, in England, right up until the 1960s at least, the word
  ‘feminist’ was
usually pejorative. Very few women, however deeply
  engaged in fighting for women’s rights, would have
described
  themselves as ‘feminists’. When women began to organize again in
  the 1960s and
1970s, the movement called itself Women’s
  Liberation (borrowing the term from black, Third World, and
  student movements). This was often shortened, sometimes
  affectionately, sometimes in a derogatory way, to
‘women’s lib’. But
  those years also saw the word ‘feminism’ being brought back
into
  general use, and its meaning was extended. Though there was still a
  justified concern that civil and
legal equality had not been fully
  achieved, the new movement tended to concentrate on problems
  specific to
women in their reproductive and social roles. In those
  years, too, feminists in Britain made an attempt, at
least, to reach
  out across national boundaries and discover what they had – or did
  not have
– in common with feminists abroad.
  But how often, still, do we hear women anxiously asserting
‘I’m not
  a feminist but . . . ’ as they go on to make claims that depend upon,
  and
would be impossible without, a feminist groundwork? The
  American feminist Estelle Freedman argues that right from
its
  origins, the word has carried negative connotations; that
  surprisingly few politically engaged women
have styled themselves
  feminists. In the 1990s some feminists in England and the United
  States identified
and warned against a ‘backlash’ against feminism
  and its undoubted achievements. Juliet Mitchell and
Ann Oakley,
  for example, called their third collection of essays Who’s Afraid of
  Feminism?, with a
cartoon of a big bad wolf on the original jacket
  cover. They argued that