Women's History Month: Women Studies

The concept of feminism is not universal and has many forms (e.g., liberal, radical, womanism) and definitions. However, there are three characteristics that are shared by most, if not all, forms of feminism. First is the recognition that women are treated differently than men, and are in the subordinate role in society. Second, feminists view gender and gender roles as socially constructed (and thus capable of change) and as differentially valued within society. Third, feminism holds that women can be autonomous and self-reliant. The main goal of feminism is gender equality.

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Feminism is an established movement that seeks the liberation of women from sexist oppression. It opposes, therefore, any ideology, institution, philosophy, movement, or people seeking to discriminate against women.

from Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender
Feminist theories provide an important foundation for feminist scholarship, research, pedagogy, therapy, and activism. A multitude of feminist theories exist.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
Race has been a crucial issue for feminism since its organizational and theoretical beginnings, given the interlocking of race and sex-based oppressions.

FEMINIST ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARGUE that the domination of women by men reflects and reinforces the domination of the environment by society, and that the two are understood to be linked; patriarchal gender relations in society correspond to androcentric environmental ethics.

From The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis
Of the varieties of feminism that flowered in the twentieth century only one developed close links to Freudian psychoanalysis and contributed to its core theory: Lacanian feminism.

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Feminist art was not regarded as a movement per se but a revolutionary strategy intended to challenge received assessments of modernism, formal values, and stylistic hierarchies.

From Encyclopedia of American Literature
Feminist literary criticism examines, interprets, and seeks to redress the marginalization of women through a critical response to literature, within the larger context of a male-dominated literary establishment. Feminist literary criticism also challenges, and aims to correct, broader assumptions and prejudices about female behavior, both within and without the realm of literature.

From Encyclopedia of Nursing Research
Feminist research methodology has traditionally centered on women and their experiences from a sociopolitical context. The use of feminist principles guides the researcher in exploration of gender interaction with various social factors, thus defining the relationships and situations.

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
In general terms, feminist social theory is concerned to understand and explain the subordinate position of women in society by reference to gender differences and specifically in terms of a theory of patriarchy.

From Global Dictionary of Theology
Feminist theology is an approach to constructing theological doctrine whereby the experience of women, whether described in terms of oppression or the positive aspects of a woman's world, plays a particular and significant role in shaping theology. In that sense, it is an advocacy of women, an effort to have women's voices included as an equal partner with male voices in theological reflection, which historically has not been the case.

From Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements
Lesbian-feminism is both a philosophy and political movement that links women's oppression to the institutions of patriarchy and heterosexuality.

From Feminist Philosophies A-Z
Friedrich Engels’ The Origin of the Family (1884/1972), a fundamental text in Marxist feminism, argued that the move to private property included a shift from matriarchy to patriarchy and was the initiating point for women’s subordination and oppression.

From Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements
Radical feminism goes beyond the liberal feminist fight against sexism in society.

From Feminist Philosophies A-Z
Transnational feminism emerged from postcolonial feminism and Third-World feminism and is part of decolonisation.

Domestic violence, or intimate partner violence, is defined as a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors, including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks as well as economic coercion that adults or adolescents use against their intimate partners.

The notion of gender can be understood to be referring to the cultural assumptions and practices that govern the social construction of men, women and their social relations.

From Encyclopedia of Social Problems
Women, on average, make less than men, a differential commonly known as the wage gap. Although significant changes in the status of women in society occurred since the phenomenon was identified, the gap still persists in the 21st century. Currently, women earn about 77 cents for a man’s dollar.

Gender roles are the set of expectations a society has about males and females. These expectations are multifaceted and include specifications about appearance, personality traits, emotions, interests, abilities, and occupations.

Human trafficking refers to the trading of human beings for the purpose of forced labor and/or sexual exploitation. It involves acts of transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving a person through a use of force or coercion, and it is recognized by the United Nations (UN) as a crime against humanity.

From The American Heritage (R) Dictionary
Misogyny has its roots in the Greek miso-, meaning hatred, and gyne-, meaning woman; it means the hatred or mistrust of women.

A recent United Nations report suggests that, on average, over 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape are reported each year worldwide, while the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that nearly 200,000 incidents of rape or sexual assault occurred in 2005 in the United States alone.

This term is used to describe those social processes and social structures that demonstrate a prejudice towards the interests of one sex rather than another.

From The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality
Sex trafficking is one of the exploitations given within the transnational crime of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a movement of persons across nation‐state borders or regions by means of fraud or force for the purpose of slavery, sexual exploitation, servitude, or forced labor. Sex trafficking remains a sensitive topic, and the scale of the problem is still debated since victims of sex trafficking are hidden within different forms of sexual services: prostitution, pornography, and/or domestic service.

Sexual discrimination involves treating someone differently, usually less favourably, because of his or her gender.

Sexual harassment, in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes.

The concept of women's rights has evolved and expanded as it has been informed by the global activism of women's movements.