Week 13

I am a feminist.  I was raised by strong, outspoken women.  But none of them would ever call themselves feminists because to them feminism means hating men and not bathing and refusing to wear make up and having an overall aggressive and defensive demeanor.  While they themselves hold feminist values and ideals, they are in the seemingly large group of people who misclassify the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s as feminism.  

Feminism is the belief that all sexes deserve equal rights and treatment.  In 1960s America the feminist movement was a second wave of the equal rights agenda of the nineteenth century feminists.  Led by predominately white middle-class women as in the previous century, feminism in 1960s America sought equal opportunities and treatment in employment and education.  The women’s liberation movement emerged out of this feminism.

Women’s liberation focused on the patriarchy as a force dominating and oppressing women.  Liberation meant becoming aware of this oppression and making an effort to throw it off.  They were very direct in their tactics.  They discarded and burned “instruments of oppression” such as bras, girdles, tweezers, and high-heels.  They threw stink bombs into the Miss American pageant in 1968 and crowned a sheep as their Miss America.  While their beliefs were well intentioned and not off base, their tactics were somewhat violent and ineffective in moving the general public.

The widespread misconception that my own family has about feminism is a huge problem facing feminism today.  While a lot of feminists today hold the same beliefs as the women’s liberationists did, many of them do not use the same tactics as a way of getting their message across.  Feminists today are typically less violent in their protests and tend not to attack other women for their own choices.  I think that feminism today has evolved and become much more inclusive and open to the wide of array of experiences that each individual woman has.  So it is upsetting to me when people get so caught up in the old view of feminism as violent and extreme and hateful as people viewed it in the 1960s.  A lot of people need to open their minds and look at feminism for what it truly is: compassionate, loving, and beautiful.

Week Twelve

I never would have thought to look at the early 20^th century Communist movements as related to the French Revolution.  However, they share some similar features.  They both arose out of the idea that new and better worlds could be built by human actions and human ideas.  They both sought a society in the modern and new future instead of the nostalgic and traditional past.  In the French Revolution and the Communist Revolutions the peasants, who had little to no money, overthrew the wealthy aristocrats.  However the Communist Revolutions differed from the French in that they were led by highly organized parties and each person involved shared the belief in Marxist ideology (1038-1039). 

In Russia, the Communist Revolution grew out of World War I.  The Russian people especially those in the lower classes suffered greatly during the war.  As a result they became restless, actively opposing the tsar, and eventually forcing him to abdicate the throne in February of 1917.  This opened the doors to social upheaval: vast numbers of soldiers deserted the military, workers organized and seized control of factories, and peasants took landlords estates and redistributed the land among themselves.  Non-Russian nationalities demanded independence.  Social unrest in conjunction with a weak provisional government opened the door for a new, organized group to take control of Russia (1039).

The organization that succeeded was the Bolsheviks, a small socialist party.  Led by the charismatic Lenin, the group believed that Russia was not only ready for a socialist revolution, but would spark similar revolutions all over Europe.  The Bolsheviks promised to bring an end to the war, give land to the peasants, grant workers control of factories, and guaranteed independence to non-Russian nationalities.  Based on the reception of these promises, the Bolsheviks rose to power in October of 1917.  They still faced resistance from Russian tsarists, landlords, unaffiliated socialists, as well as external troops from capitalist nations who wanted to crush communism.  In the process of these civil wars, the Bolsheviks regimented the economy, took grain from peasants, and crushed rebellions with bloody force.  Claiming to defend Russia from imperialists, they recruited many lower-class men into their Red Army.  While they were met with opposition and became more authoritarian, the Bolsheviks gained full control of Russia in 1921 and established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1040-1041).