Woman study - Final exam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Woman study - Final exam - Essay Example But this wasn’t the case before. Just like there were discriminations between the black and the white, the poor and the rich, the oppressed and the oppressor, there was also a huge discrimination between Women and Men and their place in society. This discrimination was up to such a level that in some traditional cultures women were considered as nothing but an instrument of exploitation. They were seen as tools for cleaning, cooking, sex, giving birth to children, raising them up, and even worse ‘a punching bag’ in many instances. Women have borne the brunt of it all, violence, oppression, threats, sexual exploitation, and God knows what else. Talk about ‘coming up from the streets’ and a woman would know exactly what that means. After all those years of torment and ill-treatment, women have managed to rise up victorious because of men and women from across the world who spoke in one voice to stop this abuse. Feminists helped shape the future of women to a great extent by handing them the power to do what they felt was right with their life. This changed the era where women were maltreated so that a new era of equality began. There are different feminist theories that have been established and massively supported over an extensive period of time. A lot of other factors including, religion, courts, people, science, the media and even governments for that matter have had a major part to play to implement this change. These have sculpted society in a manner that would benefit everyone and send a fitting reply to few-narrow minded people who still live within their own shadows while they hang their heads low. The appearance of feminists’ theories was not occasional. Eventually, it came as a natural process. People were trying â€Å"to understand the nature, of social life, and hoe to transform inequitable social relationship.† Particular focus of many feminist theorists was the process of creation of sexual hierarchies . The other important focus was providing proper interpretation of these theories as well as explaining the reasons why these theories were created. To come close to the point, feminists tried to question standard social order and to spread their own idea about social life and the main social practices of this life. The other focus was put on the issue of sexual oppression that existed in our society. According to feminists, oppression was an undisputed part of human existence and marked the life of woman during those times. The article by Roberta Hamilton called â€Å"Gendering the Vertical Mosaic: Feminist Perspectives on Canadaian Society† indicates that there is a whole list of â€Å"proliferating and overlapping feminist perspectives regarding the issue of feminist (Shanley, Narayan, 1997). It means that feminist can be approached from different perspective. In this paper I will pay my attention to the following feminist perspectives: (1) liberal feminists, (2) socialis t feminists, (3) radical feminists, (4) lesbian feminists, (5) black feminists, (6) feminists of color. Liberal feminists is closely connected to the individualistic ideology of liberalism. The theory was first initiated by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97). Mary is the author of the document titled A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. The author of this theory was promoting the idea of â€Å"liberty, equality, and fraternity† (Chapter One. Feminist Theories, p.14). Mary Wollstonecraft’s theory was based on the idea that â€Å"women, like men, are rational being with the potential to be fully responsible for their own lives. (Chapter One. Feminist Theories, p.14) This statement clearly showed Mary Wollstonecraft’s social position. Mary was willing to see women as equal to men. The other import