{"id":307,"date":"2024-07-26T15:19:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T15:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/?p=307"},"modified":"2024-07-26T15:19:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T15:19:03","slug":"opinion-feminism-is-a-social-construct-that-fails-to-acknowledge-all-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Feminism is a social construct that fails to acknowledge all women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Women in society have been fighting for their freedom for centuries, and the feminist movement has long been a source for their liberation. The movement was created to fight for the rights of oppressed women with the ultimate goal of finally being seen as equals to the men in society. But as time progressed, many groups were excluded from the benefits of the social movement. At the top of the list is women of color, trans women, and others living in low-income areas. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the turn of the 20th century, women were deemed inferior to men. Men were stronger, appeared to be smarter, and were great decision-makers. In contrast, society viewed women as the weaker link of the two. They were too weak, too naive, and much too emotional to make any sound judgment in the eyes of their male counterparts. Consequently, girls at this time were given little to no opportunities to succeed as individuals and were essentially meant to court men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were married off as young adults with the expectations of bearing children and\u00a0taking care of\u00a0household duties while their husbands worked. For some, this was enough, though others desired equality. They disliked not having the ability to vote, receive an education, or even have a career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When feminism first emerged in the early 20th century, the social and political movement aided women in becoming more prominent citizens by providing them with the rights they lacked for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although feminism today has changed immensely since the 1900s, many people, like myself, feel as though the movement was not and will never be meant for all women. When the feminist organization\u00a0first\u00a0began, it was made to benefit one specific group \u2013 white middle and upper-class women. Women who were of a lower class were completely disregarded. Unfortunately, the 20th century did not discard classism within the feminist community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistically, individuals\u00a0who are\u00a0of a higher class are more likely to succeed than people of a lower class. This is very prominent in feminism. When asked about feminism, most members don’t advocate for economic issues, and gravitate to specific\u00a0issues\u00a0such as abortion. They fail to acknowledge the class division that makes one class of women more successful than most. One main issue women fought against was the wage gap between women and men.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo courtesy of Pexels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A great number of\u00a0women in professional environments were displeased with the fact that they were getting paid less than the men, despite doing the same job. They fought against this and managed to advance to some extent.\u00a0However, what good is the termination of the wage gap if all women\u00a0do not\u00a0benefit from it?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of lower-class women are unable to afford a college education\u00a0and\u00a0receive\u00a0a professional occupation.\u00a0According to the Center for American Progress, of the 38.1 million people living in poverty, 21.4 are women as of 2018. This concludes that the majority of women did not benefit from the closing of the payment gap, as many of them are still suffering from the effects of capitalism. With most women avoiding the obvious matter at hand, feminism will never work for\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0women.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feminism itself is a very controversial topic amongst women and men all around the world. The controversy did not get any simpler when the question of which groups should and should not be represented in the feminist movement was at hand. For instance, members of the LGBTQ community. While some believe that transgender women should be included in the movement, others believe that it is unethical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transgender women, and trans people in general, struggle with being accepted in certain settings. Transphobic members of society will make it known that they do not view transgender people as the gender they would like to be addressed. This is where the controversy stems from in feminism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large number of feminists do not view trans women as real women and therefore do not believe that they should be included in a movement created specifically for women.\u00a0 This ultimately leads to the rights of trans women not being acknowledged. Feminism is\u00a0a very powerful\u00a0movement that\u00a0has the ability to\u00a0change numerous injustices in the system, though most feminist participants choose\u00a0to not\u00a0show their support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, legislators are pushing for laws to be passed that would exclude transgender individuals, specifically women. An exemplification of this would be the \u201cWomen’s Bill of Rights\u201d, a proposed legislation named by Republicans. This is a bill that would, fortunately, benefit women in various ways, however, it purposely excludes transgender women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This bill includes a legal definition of the words \u201cmen\u201d and \u201cwomen\u201d which will classify a person based on one’s reproductive organ, as said by NBC News. This law poses a potential threat to trans women, as it is also being considered by several states. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo courtesy of Pexels<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If passed, transgender women will officially be seen as unequal to cishet women. If transgender women are unable to be seen as equals to women who were biologically born female, the entire purpose of the feminist movement will be defeated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feminism has not only excluded groups such as lower class and transgender women, but the movement has also failed to include women of color. As previously mentioned, feminism was first created to fight for the rights of white, cisgender, and middle-class white women. Black women and other women of color were not recognized in this movement due to racism. They were forced to fight for their\u00a0own\u00a0basic human rights alone. And their struggle to be represented in the feminism movement was another barrier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After many successful social reforms, women of color gained more rights. However, they still rarely benefited from feminism. The movement never focused on the well-being of women of color and circled in more on the prosperity of white women. During COVID-19, a large sum of women were laid off, both white and women of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2021 study at New America<\/a> revealed that the unemployment rate among Black and Latinx women was 1.5-1.6 times greater than their white counterparts. This problem went unnoticed by the general public, and the feminist organization failed to fight for the rights of their peers. Women of color felt so left out of the feminist movement that they created their\u00a0own\u00a0organization, known as the Womanism movement. This continued division leaves more opportunities for injustices to occur for women of color within the feminism movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While feminism began as a social and political movement intended to fight for the rights of one ideal group, white middle-class women benefit from their ideal circumstances and fight against issues that only affect them directly. That leaves other groups to fend for themselves. It’s clear that feminism is a concept that was never for and never will be for all women, but rather just for who society deems fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women in society have been fighting for their freedom for centuries, and the feminist movement has long been a source for their liberation. The movement was created to fight for the rights of oppressed women with the ultimate goal of finally being seen as equals to the men in society. But as time progressed, many<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icampwcu.org\/digitaljournalism\/2024\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}