Download E-books Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters PDF

Bushy legs! Lesbians! ) It’s additionally the main misrepresented, for my part. whilst humans take into consideration Nineteen Seventies feminism, they believe Gloria Steinem and burning bras. Steinem used to be genuine, braburning was once no longer. The mainstream, popularized women’s flow again within the day began of a wish to get out of the house. girls felt trapped by way of the ’50s-housewife version set prior to them, which laid out a lifestyles that pretty well entailed getting excited merely approximately ovens and youngsters and bringing your guy a drink while he bought domestic from paintings. Woohoo! Betty Friedan’s the female Mystique took on “the challenge that had no identify” (women being in poor health and bored with being maids). three Friedan used to be additionally a founding member of NOW, which was once created in 1966. The organization’s unique assertion of goal, written via Friedan, declared that “the time has come for a brand new move towards actual equality for all ladies in the United States, and towards an absolutely equivalent partnership of the sexes. ”4 The assertion additionally fascinated by the problems that second-wave feminism is so much recognized for: ladies operating outdoors the house, the salary hole, intercourse discrimination, women’s illustration within the govt, and combating conventional notions of motherhood and marriage. evidently, we’re nonetheless battling a few of these battles (okay, all of them), yet orgs like NOW did a hell of much for girls on those concerns. yet (there’s continually a yet) what isn’t a part of NOW’s celebrated accomplishments is the opposite aspect of the organization’s past—and, through proxy, that of the mainstream moment wave. After its inception, NOW used to be accused of being homophobic and in later years used to be criticized as talking basically to matters that affected middle-class white ladies. Afraid to be stereotyped as “man-haters,” NOW distanced themselves from lesbian concerns within the overdue Nineteen Sixties. Friedan even referred to as lesbians a “lavender threat” to the bigger women’s move. The lesbians are coming! The lesbians are coming! It’s basically a similar nonsense that the suffragettes pulled—afraid that the novel concept of black humans getting votes or lesbians defining feminism might kill the mainstream-friendliness of the circulation. Pshaw. feedback of NOW as being a middle-class white women’s organization—along with the second-wave stream as a whole—isn’t precisely a brand new pattern. in the end, a lot of the circulate used to be in response to the concept ladies could be operating outdoors the house. yet low-income girls and ladies of colour had already been operating outdoors (and within) the home—they needed to! a few cool stuff that got here out of the second one wave: Ms. journal used to be based by way of Gloria Steinem and run by way of Robin Morgan and Marcia Ann Gillespie (among others);5 Roe v. Wade used to be determined, and girls received the perfect to get abortions;6 name VII of the Civil Rights Act was once handed, making employment discrimination unlawful at the foundation of intercourse, as was once name IX, which banned discrimination in education;7 Angela Davis (yes, simply her—she rocks);8 Susan Brownmiller wrote opposed to Our Will concerning the tradition of rape; feminists fought for elevated knowledge of violence opposed to women;9 Alice Walker coined the time period “womanist” (“a black feminist or feminist of colour.