Terms

gender: "Some gender associations are changing as society changes, yet much controversy exists over the extent to which gender roles are simply stereotypes, arbitrary social constructions, or natural innate differences."
"gender is not naturally given but socially constructed.
gendering: ways in which the sociocultural need to ascribe gender to nature influences human views and attitudes
gender relations: Focusing attention on body, class, equality, identity, performance, power, and the workplace
Women Studies: an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics.
Girl Studies: focuses on girls’ lives, interests, and culture—areas which have been under-researched and undertheorized,
feminism: The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
feminist: A person whose beliefs and behavior are based on advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
feminist framework: -
feminization: process of making something more feminine, sometimes by making it less masculine.
femininity: qualities and behaviors judged by a particular culture to be ideally associated with or especially appropriate to women and girls
objectification: Process by which people assign meaning to things, people, places, activities, thereby construction cultural, which guide people's behavior.

Feminist Theories and Terms

NOTE: The writing of this page is not complete... as in: not accurate, not well written, and not cited. Expected completion date is June 11, 2007.

Theories

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First wave feminism

Nineteenth Cand early 20th century movement in the United Kingdom and the United concerned with officially mandated inequalities such as education, employment, the marriage laws, and the plight of intelligent middle-class single women.

Second wave feminism

Began in the 1960s and lasted through the late 1980s. Concerned with de facto (unofficial) inequalities as inextricably linked issues that had to be addressed in tandem. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power. discrimination and oppression.

radical feminism: emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, social dominance of women by men.
Existential Feminism: the woman is not always powerless and does not always need to be dependent in a male-female relationship
Marxist Feminism: moral right and wrong in reference to the corruption of wage labor that is in itself an expression of class distinctions.
postmodern feminism: there is no single cause for women's subordination, and no single approach towards dealing with the issue but the experience begins within language.
post-feminism: argue that feminism is no longer relevant to today's society and that women had grown disenchanted with feminism and now wished to return to domesticity
liberal feminism: equality for women can be achieved through legal means and social reform, and that men as a group need not be challenged. Liberal feminists view male dominance as mere historical accident, and believe that the eradication of institutional bias and the implementation of women's rights will ensure that men and women are treated as equals[1]
eco-feminism: a relationship exists between the oppression of women and the degradation of nature, and explore the intersectionality between sexism, the domination of nature, racism, speciesism, and other characteristics of social inequality.
cultural feminism: fundamental personality and psychological differences between men and women, and that women's differences are not only unique, but superior.
Individualist feminism: seek to celebrate or protect the individual
Standpoint feminism: women's experiences, instead of men's, are the point of departure.

Third wave feminism

a response to perceived failures of second-wave feminism. It was also a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second-wave, such as reproductive rights, global politics, reclaiming derogetory terms, riot girrrl movement, race, class and sexuality, glass ceiling, sexual harassment, maternity leave policies; violence against women, support for motherhood and working mothers; respect for intelligent, the unhealthy standards in the media.

technofeminism: fuses the visionary insights of cyberfeminism with a materialist analysis of the sexual politics of technology.
cyborfeminism: deals with female identity and feminist theory in the domain of 'cyberspace', i.e. computers, the internet and information technology.
socialist feminism: concern for women that transcends politics. Their focus is on people, not profits.