User:PursuitOfAnA2016/sandbox

Colonial and Postcolonial Race Influence

In the U.S., where Western culture flourishes most, it has a majority Caucasian population of 77.4% as of the 2014 U.S. census. They have also been the majority of the population since the 16^th century. The Caucasians have had their role in the colonialism of the country since their ancestors settlement of Plymouth Colony in 1620. Although they ruled majority of the U.S. since their settlement, it was only the men who did the colonizing of it. The woman were not allowed to have the freedoms and rights that men had at the time. It was not until the victory of World War I that the Roaring Twenties emerged and gave woman a chance for independence. It is also the reason that first-wave feminist were able to protest. Their first major accomplishment was the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Some of the women that led the first-wave feminist movement were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Susan, Elizabeth, and many other feminist fought for the equality of rights for both woman and African Americans; however, their accomplishments only benefited the white middle-class woman . Even through second and third-wave feminism the majority of equality achieved from feminism and other movements still benefit most of the white population. The lack of acknowledgement and acceptance of white privilege is a main contributor to the inequality of rights in the U.S. In the book “Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines,” Stephanie M. Wildman states, “The notion of privilege . . . has not been recognized in legal language and doctrine. This failure to acknowledge privilege, to make it visible in legal doctrine, creates a serious gap in legal reasoning, rendering law unable to address issues of systemic unfairness.” White privilege, oppression, and exploitation in the U.S. and Western influenced countries are main contributors to the formation of other feminist movements such as black feminism, Islamic feminism, and many other movements.

Relationship to Third World Feminism

Even though schools and jobs are made for the advancement of women in developing countries such as Kenya, acts of feminism is seen as a form of radicalism. Third World women also lack the economic support that Western cultured women have. Author Chilla Bulbeck challenges woman of developing nations to learn about Western cultured women instead of judging them in her article "Reorienting Western Feminism." The feminist in developing nations also have very large groups that help woman who are discriminated and restricted from resources such as Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW was ratified by the United Nations in 1979 which helped educate many woman socially and politically. Since the organizations ratification, Muslim woman have mainly benefited and have protested many laws. Such as the decriminalization of rape through marriage which was protested in 2012 by Jordanian woman. Third World feminist, Nanjala Nyabola, stated, "All feminism has so far proven itself better at identifying oppression than in identifying freedom – and it is in this gap that the debates arise," in her article "Uniting Global Feminism."