Reflection on Global Feminism

On the heels of the Civil Rights movement, many oppressed groups rallied and marched and tried to change society. Women were one of those oppressed groups, only the term they were labeled with in the 1970s and since, is “feminist.” In the 1970s, that word became synonymous with women who hate men and wanted to undermine soiety as people understood it. Femininsts were really just people—men and women--who demanded that women have the same rights and privileges in all sectors of society as men have. However, whatever dirt anti-feminists could sling at people who wanted equality, they did. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote, We should All be Feminists, says, “The word feminist is heavy with baggage, negative baggage” (Adichie 18). Because feminists who demanded equality threatened the status quo so badly, people came to hate “feminists.” They still liked women, but they did not like those who wanted to change society for the better. Perhaps because of that new type of oppression, where women who just wanted equality were treated like there was something wrong with them, feminism faded for several decades. Recently, it seems to have come roaring back, and it has been somewhat successful, although there is still a fear that if equality is granted, the world will change too dramatically for some. For others, the change cannot come soon enough. Through other developments of the past few decades, feminism is having its day once again; however, if the constant pressure for equality does not remain applied, feminism could fade once more.

One reason feminism has returned to the consciousness of not just the United States, but people around the world is because of information technology. Because of the internet, women all over the world can learn that there are other women in other places fighting for the same things they want. They can help each other and support each other even though they are not even on the same continent in some cases. Maura Reilly of Feminist Studies says, “Global Feminisms explored the significant similarities as well as the contextual differences among women across and within cultures, races, classes, religions, sexualities, and so forth. Using a curatorial strategy that placed these diverse and similar works in dialogue, these ‘common differences,’ which are context-dependent, complex, and fluid, are underscored, generating fresh approaches to feminist artistic production in a transnational age” (Reilly 156). Feminism has found ways to spread and a unity among feminists around the world. Globalization, also possible because of the internet, has also helped because it has allowed women to get jobs and make money to support their families. This gave many women in developing nations around the world some control over their lives and that empowered them.

This new wave of feminism looks different though. It focuses more on reducing violence, control over women’s own bodies, and equal pay for equal work. Women are finding their political voices also. Hilary Charlesworth of the journal, Ethics, says, “Feminist internationalism has encountered considerable controversy and resistance from various quarters. A major source of antipathy is from states (whether ‘liberal’ or ‘religious’) which regard recourse to international standards with respect to women as illegitimate because they may challenge national culture, traditions, policies, and laws” (Charlesworth 64). Some of those voices are more radical than others such as the Russian anarchist band called Pussy Riot that blatantly and boldly performed an act that they knew would get them arrested, but allowed that to happen to draw worldwide attention to the oppressive politics of Russia. This type of bold confrontational style is taking what people hated so much about feminism in the late twentieth century and putting it back in the face of world in twenty-first century fashion. The day after a man who bragged about grabbing women’s private parts was inaugurated as president of the United States, thousands of women marched through Washington D.C., throughout the United States and around the world—many of them wearing knitted or crocheted “pussy hats” on their heads. While that method of confrontational politics was less radical than Pussy Riot’s method, it still took the cause and put it in the face of the media and anti-feminists everywhere.

Of course, most feminists are not marching or rallying everyday. Feminists around the world are fighting the steady fight for women to have rights that Western women take for granted. International feminists have too many other things to do like getting the right to work, let alone demanding they be paid equally to their male counterparts. Western feminists demand that workplaces be free from men who might decide to grab their p