First Wave Feminism in Canada



First Wave Feminism in Canada

Introduction

This text aims to show how women's movements have become an important modernizing force in each of the historical phases of modernity. They have re-appropriated reflexively critical discourses, practices and institutional dynamics of modernity, adding alternative meanings and creating new rules and forms of social interactions. Through various forms of collective action, women have played an pivotal role in the generalization of the principles of modernity to additional groups and social spaces.

The history of feminism is a bridge between history women and intellectual history as it focuses, among other, the ideas developed to explain, justify, and sometimes challenge the role of women in society and in history. It is a branch of the history of women since the beginning of this discipline in the late sixties. Although this type historiography is intimately linked to the emergence of the second wave feminism, it was also made ??possible by upheavals that shook the discipline of history at that time. In Canada, the pioneers of the field were anxious to obtain equality between men and women, favored objects studies, such as voting and political participation, which comments highlighted the commitment of public women, while focusing on the oppression they had been able to live. In their quest for equality, they often put a harsh judgment of their predecessors; up to acknowledge the failure of their struggles, in the name of a difference rather than a gender.

Feminism

Feminism is the theory that implies that men and women should be treated equally from all facets of life i.e. politically, economically and socially. The term is most often associated to many different movements over the last two decades that have acted to execute this vision of equality by embracing it in law and throughout the culture. Feminism does not imply a break with the man as a human being but with the idea created through the story that the man is, by definition is superior, and the woman is the other side of the mirror (Stanton, 2004). Feminism is a philosophy that struggles for freedom. In a nutshell, this phenomenon can be described as a way of thinking that encourages gender fairness and equality, based on the principle that women are being deprived at the outset.

History of Feminism

The first woman who used a pen to defend the woman was Christine de Pizan, who wrote; “Letter to the god of love” in the fifteenth century. There are several examples of authors pre- enlightenment advocates for the rights of women, however, are not directly linked to modern feminism. Wollstonecraft criticized women of her day for being complicit in their own subjugation by accepting the roles of "sensual playthings" and then mothers that men expected them to fulfill. They also accepted the fact that they were mostly to be uneducated. Wollstonecraft thinks women's passive acceptance of these roles and of an unequal education undercuts their status as independent "moral" agents, who can exercise their free will ...