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Abstract
The revival of feminism in recent years has demonstrated that many women still remain profoundly disturbed by the nature of relationships between the sexes. The present paper aims to discuss several issues of feminism from the present times, while also keeping in focus the development of the phenomenon since it first appeared. Considering that the rights women demanded back then have been given to them (at least theoretically), the need for feminism nowadays might seem futile. By making references to only a few present events regarding women and their status in society, one will clearly see that feminism deals with serious problems that need to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Keywords: gender, feminism, patriarchy, inequality, rights.
Contemporary society is still characterized by sexual inequality and an ideology of masculine superiority. Masculinity is idealized or accorded preeminence, and thereby becomes more desirable. Institutions still perpetuate female inferiority ("the glass ceiling"), societies are still patriarchal, based on male supremacy. Sexism is still perpetuated although there are more and more psychoanalytic feminists and gender theorists that challenge the sex/gender dichotomy. How was this duality of sex established?
The revival of feminism in recent years has demonstrated that many women still remain profoundly disturbed by the nature of relationships between the sexes.
The main assumption is that sexual inequality is rooted within the social structure itself through the allocation by society of segregated roles for each sex. The very existence of activities and responsibilities maintain an imbalance of powerbetween the sexes. Therefore, it is important to concentrate on the women's movement-building responses to gender inequality but also on the women's 'place' in the society, in other words, on the 'place' and 'role' the society is willing to offer to their women. Does America, for instance, the most democratic country in the world still perceive the polarity of male and female spheres? And if this is the case, are these private and public spheres still segregated when they should be valued equally? Has the status of American women changed since the enactment of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) that was seen as a major victory on the suffrage fight and a major stride in the struggle for sexual equality?
Today, undoubtedly, it seems reasonable to argue that...