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The Feminism Portal

Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern societies are patriarchal—they prioritize the male point of view—and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Originating in late 18th-century Europe, feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, run for public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, receive education, enter into contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to contraception, legal abortions, and social integration; and to protect women and girls from sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical activities for women have also been part of feminist movements.

Many scholars consider feminist campaigns to be a main force behind major historical societal changes for women's rights, particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, gender-neutral language, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property. Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women's rights, some argue for the inclusion of men's liberation within its aims, because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles. Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experiences. Feminist theorists have developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues concerning gender.

Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years, representing different viewpoints and political aims. Traditionally, since the 19th century, first-wave liberal feminism, which sought political and legal equality through reforms within a liberal democratic framework, was contrasted with labour-based proletarian women's movements that over time developed into socialist and Marxist feminism based on class struggle theory. Since the 1960s, both of these traditions are also contrasted with the radical feminism that arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and that calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate patriarchy. Liberal, socialist, and radical feminism are sometimes referred to as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought.

Since the late 20th century, many newer forms of feminism have emerged. Some forms, such as white feminism and gender-critical feminism, have been criticized as taking into account only white, middle class, college-educated, heterosexual, or cisgender perspectives. These criticisms have led to the creation of ethnically specific or multicultural forms of feminism, such as black feminism and intersectional feminism. Some have argued that feminism often promotes misandry and the elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to both men and women. (Full article...)

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But I'm a Cheerleader is a 1999 satirical romantic comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit and written by Brian Wayne Peterson. Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, an apparently happily heterosexual high school cheerleader. However, her friends and family are convinced that she is a homosexual and arrange an intervention, sending her to a residential inpatient reparative therapy camp to cure her lesbianism. At camp, Megan soon realizes that she is indeed a lesbian and, despite the therapy, gradually comes to embrace this fact. The supporting cast features Clea DuVall, Cathy Moriarty, RuPaul, Mink Stole and Bud Cort. But I'm a Cheerleader was Babbit's first feature film. It was inspired by an article about conversion therapy and her childhood familiarity with rehabilitation programs. She used the story of a young woman finding her sexual identity to explore the social construction of gender roles and heteronormativity. The film was not well received by critics who compared it unfavorably to the films of John Waters and criticized the colorful production design. The lead actors were praised for their performances but some of the characters were described as stereotypical.

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Credit: Steven G. Johnson

The "Maid of Orleans", Joan of Arc is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. She helped inspire Charles VII's troops to retake most of his dynasty's former territories, which had been under English and Burgundian dominance during the Hundred Years' War. She later was convicted of heresy (overturned posthumously) and burnt at the stake at the age of nineteen. Pope Benedict XV canonized her on 16 May 1920 and she is now one of the most popular saints of the Catholic Church.

Shown here is a statue of Joan of Arc inside Notre-Dame de Paris, a Gothic cathedral in Paris, where she was beatified in 1909.

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In this month

May 1892 – Publication of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (pictured), a prominent American writer, and utopian feminist who argued for women's economic independence in Women and Economics
16 May 1929 – Birth of Adrienne Rich, award-winning lesbian American poet and feminist
20 May 1806 – Birth of John Stuart Mill, British philosopher whose essay The Subjection of Women argued for the equality of women
21 May 1970 – First Women's studies program established in the United States at San Diego State College after a year of intense consciousness raising, rallies, petitions, and unofficial classes
24 May 1990 – Judi Bari Day, honoring the American ecofeminist and labor leader who worked to protect the redwood forests of Northern California

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What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. Women do not change institutions simply by assimilating into them. We need a feminism that teaches a woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military or corporate hierarchy within which she finds herself. We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.

— Barbara Ehrenreich

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Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist and seamstress whom the United States Congress dubbed the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement". Parks is famous for her refusal in 1955 to obey a bus driver's demand that she give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Her subsequent arrest and trial for this act of civil disobedience ignited the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history, and launched Martin Luther King Jr., one of the organizers of the boycott, to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Her role in American history earned her an iconic status in American culture, and her actions have left an enduring legacy for worldwide civil rights movements.

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that after dying in her daughter's arms in an asylum in 1897, Maria Trubnikova was remembered as the "heart and soul" of feminist activism in Russia?
... that Margareth Rago seeks to establish a methodology for what she calls "feminist science"?

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... that the novels of Jane Austen (pictured) became popular with the public only after the publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869?
... that feminist Jo Freeman was moved from Mississippi by the SCLC in 1966 after the Jackson Daily News published her photo and denounced her as a professional agitator?
... that Anna Borkowska, the mother superior of a Polish convent of Dominican Sisters in World War II, was the first to smuggle in grenades for the Vilnius Jewish ghetto insurgents?

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The following are images from various feminism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Ida B. Wells (from History of feminism)
Image 2Lucy Stone (from History of feminism)
Image 3Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (from History of feminism)
Image 4Florence Nightingale (from History of feminism)
Image 5Board of directors of "Jam'iat e nesvan e vatan-khah", a women's rights association in Tehran (1923–1933) (from History of feminism)
Image 6The vandalized Concepción Feminist Mural in Spain, which was vandalized on International Women's Day 2021. (from International Women's Day)
Image 7Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney (from International Women's Day)
Image 8Sylvia Pankhurst (from History of feminism)
Image 9Simone de Beauvoir (from History of feminism)
Image 10A veil-burning ceremony in Andijan on International Women's Day in 1927. (from International Women's Day)
Image 11Margaret Sanger (from History of feminism)
Image 12Betty Friedan 1960 (from History of feminism)
Image 13The Nineteenth Amendment (from History of feminism)
Image 14Nellie McClung (from History of feminism)
Image 15Marie Stopes (from History of feminism)
Image 16María Elena Oddone holding a banner, on International Women's Day in 1984 in Argentina. The banner says "No to motherhood, yes to pleasure". (from International Women's Day)
Image 17Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910 (from International Women's Day)
Image 18An Antimonumenta, installed in Mexico City on International Women's Day 2019, as photographed the day after. The circle part says "In Mexico 9 women are murdered daily" and the cross part says "Not one more!" On the opposite side, the Antimonumenta reads "We demand a national gender alert", and in the central part "No + Femicides". (from International Women's Day)
Image 19Matilda Joslyn Gage (from History of feminism)
Image 20
  Official holiday
  Holiday for women
  Non-official holiday
(from International Women's Day)
Image 21Frances Cobbe (from History of feminism)
Image 22Irena Krzywicka (from History of feminism)
Image 23Cover of WSPU's The Suffragette, April 25, 1913 (after Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, 1830) (from History of feminism)
Image 24Wealthy Chinese women with bound feet (Beijing, 1900). Foot binding was a symbol of women's oppression during the reform movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. (from History of feminism)
Image 25Bessie Rayner Parkes (from History of feminism)
Image 26John Neal (from History of feminism)
Image 27Camilla Collett (from History of feminism)
Image 28bell hooks (from History of feminism)
Image 29Suffrage parade in New York, May 6, 1912 (from History of feminism)
Image 30Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 31Women on the street celebrating International Women's Day in Cameroon (from International Women's Day)
Image 32Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from History of feminism)
Image 33Huda Shaarawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union (from History of feminism)
Image 34Catharine MacKinnon (from History of feminism)
Image 35First edition print of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (from History of feminism)
Image 368M 2020 in Spain (from International Women's Day)
Image 37Author and scholar Helen Kendrick Johnson opposed women's suffrage. (from History of feminism)
Image 38Germaine Greer in June 1972 (from History of feminism)
Image 39Christine de Pizan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. (from History of feminism)
Image 40Yellow mimosa is the symbol of IWD in Italy as well as in Russia, Ukraine and many other ex-Soviet Union republics (from International Women's Day)
Image 41Emily Davison (from History of feminism)
Image 428M 2018 in Pamplona (from International Women's Day)

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Feminism}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.

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Alice Manfield - Guide Alice, Mt Buffalo, c1900-30, SLV
Alice Park - Records of the National Woman's Party
Alice Paul (1915) by Harris & Ewing
Angela Davis in a half-length portrait by Bernard Gotfryd - crop
Anne Dallas Dudley LOC
Avril de Sainte-Croix - Restored, cropped
Bertha Lutz 1925
Cabinet Card of Sojourner Truth - Collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Convicts Lunatics and Women! Have No Vote for Parliament, ca. 1907-1918
Dr. Caroline Spencer 275029v
Ethel Smyth
Frances Benjamin Johnston, Self-Portrait (as "New Woman"), 1896
Fredrikke Mørck
George Charles Beresford - Virginia Woolf in 1902 - Restoration
Henrietta Rodman from the George Grantham Bain Collection
Henry Mayer, The Awakening, 1915 Cornell CUL PJM 1176 01 - Restoration
Hester Jeffrey
Hubertine Auclert 1910
Iris Calderhead
Joy Young Rogers outside the White House
Lucretia Mott, signed photo, by F. Gutekunst
Mabel Vernon, c. 1917, by Edmonston, Washington, D.C.
Marguerite Durand 1910 - Restoration
Marie Stopes in her laboratory, 1904 - Restoration
Mary Garrity - Ida B. Wells-Barnett - Google Art Project - restoration crop
Millicent Fawcett
Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict by Edmonston, Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Lillian Ascough, chairman of the Connecticut branch of the Woman's Party
Mrs. Pauline Adams 147002v
Portrett av Gina Krog (6276081582) - Restoration
Poster by Anna Soós Korànyi for the Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
Ray Strachey restored
Sojourner Truth, 1870 (cropped, restored)
Victoria Claflin Woodhull by Mathew Brady - Oval Portrait
Voltairine de Cleyre (Age 35)
We Can Do It! NARA 535413 - Restoration 2