Today many sociologists and psychologists discuss the phenomenon that contemporary women express more and more masculine features when men are inclined to act atypically to their gender role and appear to have some feminine features.
Is it the tendency affected by the peculiarities of the development of modern society or the result of the movement for equal positions of men and women in it? Equal social positions of men and women are the intense intrinsic desire of the feminists in the 19th century.
It is the fact that men always were considered as the dominated class because of their social status and rights, and those women who followed the active social position were inclined to lead the struggle for their civil and legal rights. It was the first wave of feminism when equal civil positions, rights, and freedoms were discussed as the way to the total social equality.
Contemporary feminists pay more attention to the role of women in society because the problem of equal rights is solved, but in general, the positions of men and women did not change.
Christina Hoff Sommers belongs to the contemporary wave of feminists whose approach to the main issues of the movement is rather controversial. She accentuates the fact that today the principles proclaimed by the equity feminists are not current because the equality in civil and legal rights was achieved, but the major social structure is still based on the peculiarities of distributing the gender roles between men and women (Sommers, 2008a; Sommers, 2008b).
At the end of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton emphasized the necessity to struggle for equal civil rights and for acquiring equal education and labor opportunities (Stanton, 2008a; Stanton, 2008b). The problem of rational education for women was also discussed by Wollstonecraft who made accents on the position of women in society and the necessity to give them adequate education (Wollstonecraft, 2008).
However, could these alternations in the principles of the legal and civil sectors change the situation of men and women’s inequality? It is important that Virginia Woolf among the possible solutions to the problem of men and women’s inequality determines only the issue of sharing the labor (Woolf, 2008).
Was it enough to speak about equal rights and positions? Developing the problem further, Kate Chopin focused on the oppressive character of marriages for women, their dependence, and sufferings from the men’s domination (Chopin, n.d.). The issues emphasized by Chopin can be discussed as the closest ones to the modern situation because of their connection with the problem of gender.
Thus, it is possible to state that the equity feminists of the 19th – 20th centuries created a great platform for achieving the goals of their movement (Rauchut, 2008). Today women have the opportunity to vote, to get the education which they want, to take the career positions of their dream, to be independent in having property and income. However, the issues accentuated by Kate Chopin were not fully addressed.
A woman in modern society is still considered as a wife and mother, but not as the equal partner for a man. Therefore, if a woman wants, she could reach the career tops, but there are no many men who are ready to share her households while she is working. The modern society functions according to the principles provided by the distribution of gender roles.
Nevertheless, definite changes in the process can be observed, but they do not respond to the feminists’ intentions. In her works, Sommers focuses on the fact that each sex can be considered as unique and there is no necessity to interchange some characteristics and gender roles because the boys with the features of girls and the girls with the features of boys are unnatural (Sommers, 2008a).
Determining the key issues for modern feminists, in her article, Shalit discusses the problem of modesty as reflective for the situation of shifting the standards (Shalit, 2008). Why should modesty be discussed as the feature which is characteristic only for women? The author’s position is close to the strict feminists who try to achieve equality in all the spheres. Nevertheless, is it really important for a modern woman?
From this point, Sommers’s position can be discussed as the most argumentative one. And if it is necessary to concentrate on the contemporary feminist who continues the traditions of Stanton and Wollstonecraft, the figure of Paula Kamen is appropriate for this role. Thus, Kamen states that the major aims of the women today are to approve their equal rights and have the reason for self-respect and dignity as an equal partner of a man (Kamen, 2008).
Modern feminists’ movement is divided into equity feminism and gender feminism. If the equity feminism has a lot of similar features with the first wave of feminism of the 19th century, the gender feminism is more typical for the contemporary social situation where the borders between the genders are one of the most controversial questions.
References
Chopin, K. (n.d.). The story of an hour.
Kamen, P. (2008). Feminist Fatale. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 413-423). USA: Belleview University Press.
Rauchut, E. A. (2008). American vision and values. USA: Belleview University Press.
Shalit, W. (2008). Modesty Revisited. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 431-434). USA: Belleview University Press.
Sommers, C.H. (2008a). The War against Boys. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 445-454). USA: Belleview University Press.
Sommers, C.H. (2008b). Who Stole Feminism. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 454-458). USA: Belleview University Press.
Stanton, E. C. (2008a). Declaration of sentiments. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 411-413). USA: Belleview University Press.
Stanton, E. C. (2008b). Eighty years and more. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 423-434). USA: Belleview University Press.
Wollstonecraft, M. (2008). A vindication of the rights of woman. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 399-411). USA: Belleview University Press.
Woolf, V. (2008). Professions for women. In K. C. Mason & E. A. Rauchut (Eds.), Kirkpatrick signature series reader (pp. 442-445). USA: Belleview University Press.