Feminism

Feminism

The term "feminism" is only a recent theory although the roots go back much further. Marie de France was the first ever feminist who used poems to express her opinion. In the fifth century there was a french writer called Christine de Pisan who is considered the first ever "feminist" who would write about her opinion on men and the appearance of women. A key event for feminism is in 1787 where british translator and journalist joined a radical circle of intellectuals to get her opinion out there. Another key event was in 1854 were Barbara Leigh Smith drew together a group calling themselves the "feminists" as they campaigned to change laws. This then led to the outbreak of "feminism" as more and more people would become feminists. This created the womens rights campaign in the 1960s which ensured discriminatory laws for women.

The popularity in feminism then led onto people having other theories that relate to feminism such as "the male gaze" (1975) by Laura Mulvey. This idea represents how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women look at other women. For example a man might think Scarlett Johansson is attractive and seductive, she might also think that she is attractive but other women may think she represents weakness to women and they are a piece of material, women may also think this as they could be jealous of her.

Here we see beth ditto naked on the cover of nme. This is used to represent feminism and show the impact feminism has. Because this cover shows a more unattractive naked woman it makes feminists unconfortable as it suggest that there is no such thing as feminism and instead shows how it really is just how woman may be jelous. Also this cover shows how women dont have to be attractive to be on the cover of a magazine. Feminists would also support this because it has made males against this and not buy it.