Feminism

Feminism is a social and political movement that asserts women’s and men’s equality. To achieve this equality, it advocates for expanding women’s rights and freedoms, especially in the political, social, economic, cultural, and civil spheres. It also demands improved legal and social conditions for women, their emancipation, and changing socio-cultural behaviour patterns that lead to their discrimination.

Some of the main fights of feminism throughout history include women’s right to citizenship and their recognition as political subjects; to education; to property; to access equal opportunities in terms of employment; financial autonomy; and political participation, among others. Also included: women’s right to health and sexual and reproductive rights, and the right to a life free from violence due to gender.

In the words of feminist Victoria Sau, feminism is ‘a social and political movement that formally began at the end of the 18th century—without its official name—and that implies women becoming aware as a group or collective of the oppression, domination, and exploitation of which they have been the object by men, at the centre of patriarchy in the different phases of the production model. This leads them to mobilize in favour of the liberation of their sex, with all of the societal transformations that this entails’ (Sau, 2000).

The terms feminisms or feminist movements are also used to reflect the diversity of approaches and waves within this social movement. Some include radical feminism, gender critical feminism, difference feminisms, decolonial feminism, or intersectional feminism.