Women's Rights Movement: The Feminist Movement In America

The Feminist Movements For many hundreds of years, women had fought to gain social justice while seeking for a fair role in the society. Since the history had recorded, women had always been depicted as inferior race or even property; especially when comparing with the strong male, female was never consider as equal human being but a symbol of minority. With no voice and position, women were simply been excluded from the society and communication. They faced discrimination in work place, oppression under traditional image and even degradation in home. In general, women were destined to take care of all the domestic works while the men were responsible to work outside and support the whole family. Gradually, as the pressure accumulated, women

The first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls in 1848 when 200 women and 40 men met together for the cause of gender equality. The goal of the convention is to outline women’s grievance and to lay the foundation for women’s right movement that followed. Under the convention, a set of 12 resolutions was formed, which called for fair treatment for women under laws and equal voting rights. Leading by feminists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the delegates make their claim that being part of American citizens, women should not be limited by their roles as mothers and wives. Thus in the language of the founding fathers, they wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal." (Declaration of Sentiment and Resolutions), which resulted in the draft of Declaration of Sentiments. The result of the convention not only did signify the cause of the feminists for more opportunity but also prompt the issue of gender inequality to gain national attention. To be more specific, it marked the first step in progress when the men and women all start to think, and came up with new questions. Significantly, the Seneca Falls had served as the catalyst that pushed the feminist movement in following years. After the convention took place, women began to engage more in public and social events. With the goal of equal political rights,

Begin in the early 1990s, the final wave of feminist movement seek for challenges that turned back upon the second-wave to question whether the second-wave movements are unilaterally favorable to the women. While the previous two waves focused on political and social priorities, the third-wave movement stressed on the rejection of any kind of standardized distinction. In this phase, the women broke the boundaries by destabilized the notions of feminism. “Reality is conceived not so much in terms of fixed structures and power relations, but in terms of performance within contingencies” (The Three Waves of Feminism). In this phase, the feminist put the defining and female beauty as subject with urging women to take diverse role in social and political aspect. Eager to eliminate the gender distinctiveness, many women struggled to negotiate and question the identity that the men had imposed on them through active works in academic and other fields. The third-wave movement is marked by the feature of concentrating more on opportunities and less on sexism. For instance, in 1996, the United States v. Virginia decision ruled that all male Virginia Military School has to admit women for the public funding. This decision marked the closing gap between women and men by the means of lawful execution, it also successfully brought parallel education for women and create educational diversity as a