The Study On Historical And Current American Feminism

As an embranchment of the western philosophy—individualism, feminism is resultedfrom the conflict between the patriarchy and the individual trend of the society. The liberalism and the progress of the industrialization changed the structure of the society and lifted the women's status by providing them more opportunities to work out of home; while on the other hand the patriarchy limited women's participation in society. With the spreading of the liberalism and the development of industrialization, men are getting more and more benefits while women are getting more limits, this conflict sharpen the difference between men and women, which cause the rising of feminism.America has witnessed two waves of feminist movement on a massive scale in the history. The first wave was marked by the women's pursuit of political rights. The second wave has emerged since 1960s, it emphasize the liberation of women so that the feminist strived for the equal rights in all fields. The two waves of feminist movement benefited the women a lot for women's life, they got the opportunity to be more educated, have higher wages and choose their jobs freely. But as a force, American women still live at the fringe of American society and are excluded from the government's deciding system. Now the feminist movement focus more on the theory study and the theorist work hard to find the solution to change people's traditional view of men and women. They tried their best to found a society in which men and women are truly equal. As one of the most influencing political philosophy in western world, Feminism is not only the experience but also the orientation of the feminist movement, my paper focus much on the feminist theory which has emerged in the history such as liberalism, radicalism and socialism, in order to understand the development of feminism more clearly.Nowadays, American feminist pay more and more attention to women studies. With feminism developing, especially with the theory "gender system" emerging, feminism has affected the American society a lot and also has a great influence on China women studies.