Second Wave Of Feminism - Public Vs. Private - Personal Politics

The phrase "the personal is political" was popularized by second-wave feminism. The rallying cry's message was that women had suffered in secret as individuals but would no longer do so. 

• The term 'personal' refers to both what one goes through as a female body and what one goes through as a woman in the home and at work. 
• Menstruation, pregnancy, delivery, housekeeping, rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and a slew of other issues were pushed to the forefront of public debate. 
• Feminists broadened our awareness of oppression by politicizing issues that had previously been kept quiet. 
• Women's bodies and homes, not only their social and political lives, have been identified as oppression sites. 
• Feminists deconstruct the often accepted difference between a public and a private existence in this manner. 

The duality of the public and private, when used to represent the difference between the home realm and civil society, relegates women to the private sphere and sends males out into the public. In this instance, the private connotes a sense of belonging to a family. 

• The public sphere encompasses anything that isn't private, such as politics, the military, work, and everything else that isn't part of home life. 
• Because the spheres are mutually exclusive, it's possible that each one is controlled by a distinct set of principles. 

• Second-wave feminism emphasizes that the problem is that women are generally excluded from the public arena, where life-altering choices are made. 

• This keeps problems like spousal and child abuse out of the public eye; the ‘sanctity of the home' shields actors from unwanted interference, but it also shields them from private damages in the home. 
• Alternatives proposed by feminists include validating the home sphere as worthy of public attention or denying the existence of a rigid public-private divide.

 

Some advocate bringing public values into the private sphere, while others advocate the opposite. 

• The distinction between public and private is frequently used to categorize different kinds of activity into production and reproduction. 
• Activity that generates surplus value for the state is referred to as productive activity (the public sphere). 

Reproductive activity produces use-value, or value that may be consumed right away in the household. 

Childbearing and raising, as well as household work and caring for aging parents, are all part of reproduction. 

• Women's reproductive work is not recognized inside the capitalist system, according to Marxist and socialist feminists. 

• They are looking for methods to make the personal political by bringing reproduction into the domain of productive work or by assigning a productive value to reproduction, or by completely erasing the difference between production and reproduction. 

• In addition to the sex/gender dichotomies (masculine/feminine, male/female, man/woman), the public/private divide, and the production/reproduction divide, second wave feminist social theory examined additional dichotomies to determine whether or how they may contribute to women's oppression. 

Dichotomies divide thinking into two groups that are mutually exclusive. 

The issue is that the two groups seldom function on an equal footing; one is seen as inferior or undesirable, while the other is regarded as superior and valuable. 

Furthermore, many feminists have pointed out the negative consequences of dichotomous thinking on women. 

Women are often linked with the subservient, lesser side of the duality. 

• The culture/nature divide is a perfect example of this. 
• Man produces culture via reason and artifice, while woman is linked with nature since her main function is to give birth.
• This contradiction must be broken down through feminist philosophy. It does it in a variety of (and sometimes conflicting) ways. 
• Showing the various ways women contribute to culture is one approach to combat the divide. 

Another argument is that delivery isn't only or even mainly a "natural" process. 

Other perspectives dispute that there is such a clear distinction between culture and nature, or argue that man-made culture isn't worth praising. 

Ecofeminism is perhaps the greatest long-standing challenge to the dichotomy. Ecofeminism and kindred environmental groups reassert the importance of nature in Western thinking.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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Second Wave Of Feminism - Race And Social Status

Identity politics brings up a key question in second-wave feminism: should women be treated differently or the same? 

The problem is really threefold. 

1. First, the equality/difference dichotomy relates to whether women want equality with men or different acknowledgment for their distinct abilities while pursuing equality. 
2. Second, the equality/difference dichotomy refers to the metaphysical issue of women's nature: are all women fundamentally the same or do they vary significantly? 
3. Sex/gender and sisterhood show some of the benefits and drawbacks of equality as sameness; the discussion of identity politics elucidates some of the benefits and drawbacks of concentrating on diversity. 

Despite the fact that there is no feminist consensus on how to address these problems, there is widespread agreement that race, class, sexuality, and disability should all be included in feminist theory. 

Critical race theorists have posed the issue, 

"What is race?" over the last three decades. 

They questioned the notion of race as a natural category in the process. 

• People of the same race, as a natural category, will have at least one trait in common – and are often believed to share several. 
• A natural or inherent inferiority would be one of the hallmarks of a racist culture. 
• For example, early twentieth-century white social scientists looked for a biological explanation for black people's inferiority. 
• Critical race theorists undermined the naturalistic basis for social inferiority by deconstructing the biological grounds for race. 
• Furthermore, rather of being a natural or biological concept, race became a political one. 
• In a racist culture, the political category of race is mainly determined by those in power or those who are favored by the racist system. 
• Anti-black racism, for example, includes acts of violence and unfair stereotyping of black people, as well as the giving of undeserved advantages to white people. 

Feminism may discover similarities between sexism and racism, or it may discover that it participates in or benefits from racism. 

For feminist thought and liberation theory in general, class oppression presents a unique set of challenges. 

• One's social class is often assumed to be the product of one's own efforts (or lack of efforts). 
• This is undoubtedly true for some individuals, but the bulk of us owe our social position to rigid social institutions that allow certain people to progress while preventing others from doing so. 
• Status as a member of a certain social class becomes almost unassailable. 
• Even if a person is able to advance up the social ladder, some signs of lower class position may persist. 
• Vocabularies, preferences, school pedigrees, fashion sense, and other elements of one's public presentation may reveal one's lower-class origins and limit one's potential to rise. 

This example demonstrates that class is more than simply an economic position; it is also a social status or social mark. 

The difficulty for feminists is to comprehend how class influences or influences sexist oppression, as well as what concerns a feminist theory based on class should prioritize. 

The first efforts in second-wave feminism to acknowledge the impact of racism and classism on women's lives provided a kind of building block approach. 

• Each new type of tyranny was piled on top of the previous ones. 
• Occasionally, debates would erupt about which kind of tyranny was the most heinous, or who had it the worse. However, the building block methods are ultimately ineffective. 
• They promote rivalry among people fighting for freedom, as each group uses limited resources and compares its position to that of others. 

Alternative models use the terms "intersections" and "interconnections". 

• Kimberlé Crenshaw's work on intersectional thinking is addressed. 
• Crenshaw demonstrates the limits of thinking in terms of race or gender, as well as the limitations of thinking in terms of building blocks. 
• We can identify some of the elements of oppression that impact women because they are "black women," not simply because they are "black" and "women," by thinking about the intersections of forms of oppression. 

By focusing on the failings of social and political theory and practice rather than race, class, and gender identities, intersectional thought goes beyond the proliferation issue of identity politics.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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Second Wave Of Feminism - Identity Politics

For comprehending both subjectivity and solidarity, some second-wave feminist social and political thought drew on group membership based on shared identity. 

• Identity politics arose in response to a sense of solidarity or sisterhood based on shared experience, as well as a subsequent effort to secure social, legal, intellectual, and economic rights for oppressed peoples. 
• Rather than presuming that all women have the same oppressive experience, feminist proponents of identity politics advocate for the representation of different identities (or oppressive experiences) in society. 
• Identity politics is a broad term for a movement or trend in social and political philosophy. 
• The ‘identity' is a common experience of oppression based on cultural background, linguistic community, assigned identity (that is, other people identifying certain individuals as members of a group), or other oppressive experiences. 
• Because various groups are subjected to different types of oppression, they are likely to establish distinct identities. 
• More precisely, identity politics refers to the fact that there are many distinct types of oppression, each of which results in a particular set of demands. 

As a result, the political system is responsible for recognizing these various groups and their requirements. 

To take the title of Iris Young's 1990 book, a "politics of difference" is a politics capable of practicing acknowledgment, recognizing the variety of identity and experience while also listening to the demands of particular groups. 

• Traditional social and political philosophy is challenged by identity politics because, in order to recognize distinctions between groups, public policy must treat individuals differently. 

• The political community must guarantee that democratic institutions place a high priority on the needs of oppressed peoples in order to overcome long-standing disadvantages and oppressions that have ignored their demands. 
  
  

To put it another way, identity politics promotes a greater understanding of how oppressed group identification has molded people and continues to impede their capacity to participate in and be treated fairly in social life. 

• The consequences of identity politics may be observed very clearly when compared to conventional social and political theories such as social contract theory. 

• The social contract hypothesis implies that rational people are more or less similarly placed, equally gifted, and equally treated. 

Identity politics introduces new and difficult methods of integrating diversity into political theory, as well as recasting equality as a goal rather than an assumption. 

• Furthermore, it believes that due to societal distinctions, individuals must be treated differently. 
• In popular culture, identity politics is often seen as a depiction of variety within politics. 
• When women are elected or appointed to public office, one manifestation of feminism is shown. 
• The assumption is that since the elected person is a woman, she would represent women's interests. 
• The issue is that individuals seldom, if ever, consider themselves to be members of identity-based organizations. 

Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (and the first female leader of the Conservative Party), could be used as an example of bringing women into political positions by a feminist proponent of identity politics. 

• She obviously overcame several long-standing boundaries, and she is often cited as a role model for women in general. 
• 'I owe nothing to Women's Liberation,' Thatcher famously remarked. Her legacy for women is a hotly debated topic. 
• Her sheer existence as Britain's most powerful politician defied stereotypes about women's talents and may have opened opportunities for other female politicians. 
• However, her activity in office is often regarded as detrimental to women's status in society, and she accomplished nothing to promote any women's cause. 
• In fact, this exposes a potentially dangerous aspect of identity politics: assuming that just because one has an identity, one would act on behalf of those who share that identity. 

Indira Gandhi, India's first female Prime Minister, served from 1966 to 1977 and again in 1980 till her murder in 1984. 

• Her time as Prime Minister was contentious for a variety of reasons, but she did act with compassion for India's poor and disadvantaged, including involving women and children in her efforts. 
• Of course, she rejected the term "feminist" on many occasions, but in doing so, she was separating herself from American feminism, which she characterized as a desire for women to imitate men. 

Extreme versions of identity politics believe that putting a woman, an African-American, or any other marginalized person in positions of power will make a difference. 

They are, without a doubt, right in that the public presence of successful members of oppressed groups empowers oppressed individuals and helps to alter prevailing views. 

When it is thought that one's political convictions are determined by one's identity, there is a problem in the argument. 

• While it is possible that a person's identity influences or even defines the political problems that they pursue in public service, this is not a required relationship. 
• While identity politics has enormous potential for strengthening and representing marginalized people, this does not mean that it will inevitably change the public and political environment in order to relieve or repair injustice. 
• Identity politics has also been chastised for exacerbating the spread of identities. 
• If identity groupings constitute the bedrock of political representation, then relatively sharp distinctions between identities must be established. That is almost difficult to do in practice. 

Individuals may identify with several races since races are not precisely defined. How do they portray themselves in such a situation? 

• Similarly, if women are considered a group, the varied conditions of color, class, sexual orientation, handicap, and gender are ignored or hidden. 
• That obscures what issues ought to be brought to public or political discussion and often entrenches systems of class or race domination while attempting to obtain representation on the basis of sex.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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Second Wave Of Feminism - Sisterhood

The discussion of sex and gender often returns to the potential of collective feminist action. Many political groups strive to create a sense of community among its members. 

The second wave was sparked by Beauvoir's demand for female unity in liberation tactics.

Solidarity, on the other hand, may take various shapes. 

'Sisterhood' is one model. Sisterhood is a concept of female togetherness, or the idea that all women are sisters. 

What, on the other hand, makes women sisters? 

Sisterhood, according to one theory, is based on shared oppressive experiences. Our shared worries, sorrows, and difficulties may be a source of female bonding. 

Take, for example, a typical aircraft trip. 

• Except for a few niceties spoken here and there, the majority of passengers on any given trip have no special connection or link with the other passengers. 
• However, if anything occurs during the flight, this changes. 
• Let's say there's a lot of turbulence, to the point that the trip is unpleasant or scary. 
• For example, imagine the aircraft bursts a tire on takeoff, making it unclear whether it would be able to land safely. 
• Could the passengers become more united as a result of these tough, hazardous, or frightening circumstances? 

The more terrible the circumstances in which individuals are forced to suffer or survive, the more likely they are to reach out to one another in some manner or at least feel linked simply because they have shared an experience. 

Sisterhood is a connection that is comparable to these. 

• Perhaps women have a connection or want to connect with other women because they share the difficulties of being oppressed, being victims of violence, being stereotyped, being excluded, or being oppressed in some other way. 
• Women who work in a workplace where there are obviously sexist behaviors that impact them may commiserate with one another, and this may grow and spread well beyond the office. 

There are many advantages of basing sisterhood on similar oppression experiences. To begin, naming an issue is beneficial. 

• Sexual harassment was not recognized as an issue until women began to share their workplace experiences and emotions of annoyance, frustration, and unhappiness. 
• In reality, sexual harassment was not officially recognized as such until the late 1970s. 
• Women chatting to other women and sharing their stories were crucial in bringing it to the public's attention. 
• Domestic violence, date rape, and gender discrimination all rose to prominence as they moved out of the private lives of individual women and were identified as societal issues. 

Another advantage of the sisterhood approach to female relationships is that when women share experiences of abuse or oppression, they may become more feminist-aware. 

• The feminist movement's consciousness-raising clubs started as small gatherings of women discussing their personal experiences. 
• They soon grew into more structured support systems for other women. 
• The organizations also provided information and educational tools, which were especially useful for assisting women who had been victims of sexual harassment or domestic abuse in navigating the social and legal systems to help them rectify their unfair position. 
• There is also the personal advantage of telling one's tale and understanding that one's experiences of violence or persecution are not unique. 

When women are sisters, they encourage one another and have an underlying understanding. 

• Sisterhood, in other words, entails moral and epistemic ties between women, regardless of whether or not they know one other. 
• The concept is that all women are victims of sexist abuse, marginalization, and exclusion, and that this subjugation brings women together. 
• Sisterhood should imply that sisters help one other when they are in need. 
• Women, on the other hand, do not always or even often react compassionately to other women. 

Women often blame one other for the violence they experience, such as when a woman says to a friend, 

"Why doesn't she simply leave the violent relationship?" 

or 

"If she hadn't dressed like a slut, she wouldn't have been raped." 

Sisterhood is problematic in a variety of other ways as well. 

Not everyone has experienced persecution in the same way. If feminist organization is based on a connection amongst women that is based on a common experience of oppression, then if there is no shared experience of oppression, no bond will develop, and feminist organizing will be paralyzed. 

Furthermore, a woman's sense of oppression may be influenced by a variety of factors. Take, for example, the issue of sexual harassment. 

• A white-collar worker who is sexually harassed at work is likely to have access to attorneys, counselors, and psychiatrists who can help her preserve her self-esteem and fight the injustice. 

• A woman in a low-paying profession that needs minimal training, on the other hand, is likely to be concerned about her job security and may be hesitant to report the harassment. 

• She would also be unlikely to have the financial means to hire attorneys and psychiatrists. 
• If she decided to report her harassment, she would have to depend on her employer's goodwill – which is frequently lacking, or impossible if he is the harasser – and, if the matter went to court, she would almost certainly have to rely on legal aid or pro bono help if she could find it. 

• It's difficult to strategize for feminist action when people's experiences of oppression are so diverse. 

• It becomes even more complex when we consider how much feminist thought and action comes from bourgeois and upper-class women and men. 

• Some feminists may be unaware of the complexities of issues that women face regardless of their social status or ethnicity. 

Another significant issue with sisterhood is that it emphasizes victimization. 

• Clearly, recognizing and identifying an issue that others are experiencing is critical. 
• The first sensation of increasing awareness is empowering for many women. 
• However, concentrating on the many ways in which women are abused may be exhausting and debilitating. 

Sisterhood will never be able to change the social and political structures that produce victimization if it focuses only on how women are victims together. 

Women must go beyond victimhood in order to recognize and act on the numerous qualities they possess for the greater benefit of everyone.

 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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Second Wave Of Feminism - Gender Vs Sex

Many feminist theorists see Beauvoir's words as establishing a sex-gender difference. From the 1960s until the late 1990s, this difference was widely used in feminist thought, and it is still relevant in certain situations. 

The biological categories that are assumed to be natural, given, or apparent are referred to as ‘sex.' 'Gender,' on the other hand, denotes social classifications. 

While the terms "male" and "female" refer to biological sexes that are differentiated by their reproductive functions, "masculine" and "feminine" refer to culturally distinct social categories that vary over time and include a broad range of traits and roles. 

Take, for example, the subject of body image. 

• What is considered feminine in one culture may be very different from what is considered feminine in another society at the same time. 
• Within any particular culture, social expectations or cultural mores regarding haircuts, clothes, comportment, and even typical breast and hip sizes of women appear to vary significantly. 

• These are gender characteristics that are the consequence of societal norms or socially created expectations of femininity. 
• This sex/gender difference has many ramifications for comprehending women's subjugation. 

• To begin with, when gender is seen as a social construct, much of women's oppression is viewed as a product of society rather than being rooted in the character of women. In some ways, this gives the issue a new lease of life. 

If societal practices define woman in such a manner that individual women are unable to exercise self-determination or pursue freely chosen initiatives, altering gender social conceptions may be a solution.

 

• Feminist attempts to alter uneven social connections would be fruitless if women are inherently inferior to males. If, on the other hand, any inferiority stems from perceptions or varying gender roles, feminists fighting for societal change may genuinely achieve gender equality. 

• Second, feminists may imagine political unity among women because of gender as a social construct. The premise is that through discussing similar oppressive experiences or gender norms, women can find common ground and band together for political action. 

Consciousness-raising groups were widely utilized during the second wave to capitalize on the revelations concerning gender social construction. In the following section on sisterhood, I go through this specific social and political feminist approach. 

Gender as a social construct means that a woman may be a woman but not a ‘woman,' and a man might be a man but not a ‘man.' 

• Biological men and females may choose to acquire feminine gender features, whereas biological females could choose to adopt masculine gender traits. 
• A person may even choose to combine features from both genders. 

• Recognizing gender's pliability, if it is a social construct, implies allowing for a wide range of gender characteristics to be combined. 
• However, some feminists dispute the tight separation of sex and gender. 

• Perhaps biology is socially produced in a variety of ways as well. 

Even Beauvoir, like Friedrich Engels before her, recognized the physical consequences of social activity. 

Perhaps the idea that men and women have distinct muscular-skeletal systems is a consequence of societal conditioning that is reinforced through breeding and handed down from generation to generation. 

• Women, for example, are often considered to be physically weaker than males. 
• If biology, like gender traits, is a social construct, then women's physical weakness may be attributed to a long history of insufficient physical exercise. 

• Genetics and natural selection have virtually eliminated the muscular groups. 
• Intersex persons, who are born with ambiguous genitalia or more than one XX or XY chromosome, may be regarded as evidence that there are more than two sexes. 

• The socially created dichotomy between biological man and female obscures intersexuality. 

A related question is if there is something fundamental about being a ‘woman.' 

Some postmodern feminists argue that the term "women" does not exist since there is no universal trait or experience shared by all women. 

• To put it another way, they contend that the term does not relate to a metaphysical category since it lacks a defining characteristic. 
• Because it rejects their significance - they don't refer to anybody – such a stance may be helpful in confronting sexist notions of women. 

• However, many feminists are concerned that the rejection of the category of "woman" eliminates the potential of a group that might wield political power for constructive social change. 
• Between stating that women do not exist and arguing that gender is still an appropriate category for defining a social construct, there is definitely some middle ground here. 

• For example, some feminists believe that "woman" is and will continue to be a useful term as long as there are political grounds for it. 

When certain individuals are targeted for exclusion, marginalization, or violence based on sex or gender categories, whether those categories are perceived, natural, or socially created, terms like "woman," "gender," and, of course, "feminist" are still useful.

 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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Second Wave Of Feminism - THE SECOND SEX?

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) is the lady most often recognized with ushering in the second wave of feminism. 

• Beauvoir was a prominent thinker of the twentieth century, and her book The Second Sex (1949) was a groundbreaking examination of women's cultural beliefs, social norms, and living circumstances. 
• She asks, "What is a woman?" using existentialism, a philosophical philosophy prominent in France in the twentieth century. 
• In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), Beauvoir offers an explanation of existential ethics, which she utilizes as a technique in The Second Sex. 

Freedom is the most important virtue, and every endeavor that a person does should embrace freedom in some manner, allowing greater freedom for oneself and others. 

• Another way to look about it is that through behaving in the world, each individual makes himself or herself. 
• When a person behaves in a manner that restricts freedom, he or she begins to resemble an object rather than a person. 
• For example, if a person decides to be a housewife and then allows that position to dictate her choices to the point that she no longer behaves as a free creature, she has effectively walled off her freedom. 
• Of fact, in certain cases, the social environment may be the first to stifle freedom. 

Beauvoir highlighted the many ways in which women's circumstances limit their capacity to act freely. 

• Women's oppression differs from other kinds of oppression, such as racism or classism, in that it seems to have no historical origins - women have always been oppressed. 
• Women live and work in solitude when their societal responsibilities compel them to be spouses and mothers. 
• This eliminates at least some of the options for solidarity. 
• Because women live in separate homes, there is no solidarity of job interest, and there is no solidarity of location (as in ghettos) for the same reason. 
• Women typically have more in common with their socioeconomic class's males than with other women. 
• This makes collaborative emancipation attempts much more difficult. Beauvoir's goal in The Second Sex is to promote women's freedom, but she demonstrates that this is a difficult task. 

The book is divided into two sections, the first of which investigates why women are oppressed. 

She searches for a solution in all of the areas that others have mentioned — historical materialism, biology, and psychoanalysis – but none of them really answers the issue correctly or fully. 

• Instead, she claims, women's whole position is oppressive: a slew of variables collide to produce the unique scenarios in which each woman finds herself. The book's second section details the circumstances of women. 
• Beauvoir also dispels misconceptions about women, parenting, feminine sexuality, and other elements of women's life. 
• She looks back in time to examine how women have been treated and what efforts have been done to liberate women from oppressive situations. 
• She also provides a literature review to demonstrate how symbolic depictions of women become more than just representations; they become benchmarks by which actual women are judged. 

According to Beauvoir, woman is characterized as "other." 

• Because they are both identical to and distinct from males, men are the One or the norm, while women are the Other. 
• Women, like men, are free human beings who are also subject to nature. That is to say, humans are natural creatures with bodies that are often unexpected or uncontrolled. 
• Men dread nature because they want to be free and establish their own meaning in the world; as a means to control it, they make woman the embodiment of nature via myth and tradition. 

To keep women oppressed, males construct the religion of the "feminine" or the "feminine mystery." 

• Women are taught how to be women, i.e. passive, object-like, free creatures who have been misled into thinking that they are bound to certain "natural" roles that limit their freedom. 
• As a result, a young woman is taught to think that her destiny is to be a wife and mother, and that she would be happy in these duties. 
• Her independence, or her capacity to act on it, has been curtailed. 

To further describe women's position, Beauvoir used the ideas of "immanence" and "transcendence." 

• Immanence is a state of stagnation in which monotonous tasks are constantly repeated (like dishes that once washed will get dirty and need to be washed again). 
• Transcendence is extending its reach into the future via initiatives that promote liberty (like a profession that continually opens new possibilities). 
• Despite the fact that every human being is both immanent and transcendent, and must engage in both types of activities, certain social practices may seem to trap one in immanence, preventing one from achieving transcendence. 

In every instance of tyranny, this is what occurs. 

• Men inhabit the realm of transcendence inasmuch as they labor on important tasks that extend into the future, while women are relegated to the field of immanence due to oppression. 
• The beginning of the monthly flow, according to Beauvoir, serves as a reminder to the girl of her immanence. 
• Menstruation serves as a monthly reminder of her relationship with her body as a servant to the species via reproduction. 

This, among other things, distinguishes women as being more ‘natural' or susceptible to the vagaries of their bodies than males. 

• Beauvoir also claims that women are culpable in their own enslavement, arguing that women absorb the male gaze and gender roles expectations. 
• Women judge themselves and one another based on socially created and changeable attractiveness, behavior, activity, and sexuality norms. 
• According to social myth, the ‘eternal feminine' is the imagined essence of femininity that all women are expected to posses. 
• Of course, being an existentialist, she thinks that such an essence does not exist. 
• Women and men, on the other hand, accept the myths as fact and judge one other severely for failing to live up to them. 

The famous statement by Simone de Beauvoir, "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman," serves as a focal point for The Second Sex. 

• It represents a transition from her depiction of traditional myths to an examination of women's issues. 
• She claims that each woman will be in a position that is unique to her because of her childhood experiences, her connection with her own sexuality, the social environment in which she finds herself, and cultural marital traditions or expectations. 
• Although boys and girls seem to have similar levels of freedom in infancy, by adolescence, females have realized both that they are free and that their oppression makes exercising that freedom virtually difficult. 

According to Beauvoir, this is what creates the adolescent crisis. 

• The dissatisfaction of not being able to act on one's independence may last throughout adulthood, or a woman may accept the responsibilities that have been assigned to her. 
• Individual and societal transformations are equally involved in liberation. 
• Woman must view herself as a subject, not an object, like a man. 
• She must accept her independence and participate in initiatives that promote it. 

Women, on the other hand, must view themselves as a social group. 

Failure to do so aids in the perpetuation of oppression; women must see the unity in shared oppressive conditions, in other words, they must identify the mystification of the eternal feminine. 

(1)Women must go to work; 

(2) women must study and engage in intellectual activity; 

(3) women must express their sexuality in freedom; and 

(4) women must struggle to change society into a socialist society and seek economic fairness, according to Beauvoir. 

Beauvoir paved the path for women all over the globe to realize the social and political significance of personal experience by articulating the many ways in which women feel the limits of femininity in vivid detail. 

• Because she had the guts to make women's social, family, physical, political, and cultural experiences public, her book ushered in a new era of feminist action. 
• Even sixty years after the publication of The Second Sex, she wrote about topics that had previously been forbidden, and she talked with a clarity and honesty about women's bodies and sexuality that many people still find startling. 
• Although some may dispute whether women are still the "Other" that Beauvoir portrays, reading Beauvoir's study of women's position may provide us with important insights into the form and substance of oppression. 
• ‘Like the universe itself, representation of the world is the product of men; they depict it from their own point of view, which they mistake for ultimate truth.' 
• The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir (1949) Similarly, Betty Friedan (1921–2006) is credited for reviving the feminist movement in the United States with her very important book The Feminine Mystique (1963). 

Friedan discovered what she referred to as a "problem without a name." 

The overall melancholy that many middle-class women felt in their households typified this issue. 

• They had been taught to think that being a wife and mother would bring them happiness, but instead, they frequently felt sad, lonely, or unsatisfied. 
• Friedan started her research for this book by surveying her Smith College class of 1942, an all-college women's in the United States. 
• Despite the fact that her sample group was very restricted, the issues she covered in her book sparked a movement: many women learned they weren't alone in their feelings of dissatisfaction with family life and being dismissed by society. 
• Friedan believed that women should work outside the home. She claimed that the issue was caused by the suffocating life of a housewife, rather than some hidden feminine illness that could only be discovered via psychoanalysis.
• She advocated for a new perspective on family and a new social life for women. 

 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Feminism and Activism here.

Climate Change Politics And Diplomacy Outstripped By Geophysics

Global warming is a deceptively backhanded problem in which thermal inertia produces consequences half a century or more after we cause it by burning fossil fuels. 

Our political and diplomatic discussions are triggered by outcomes. 

Political inertia, combined with thermal inertia, offers a challenge to the human species and the planet we govern: design a new energy future before sheer necessity—the hot wind in our faces—compels action. 

Global warming is hazardous because it is a stealthy, slow-moving catastrophe that requires us to recognize a fact decades in the future with a past-tense system of private, legal, and diplomatic response. 

• Two scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California–San Diego published research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in September 2008 that showed that even if greenhouse gas emissions were completely eliminated by 2005, the world's average temperature would still rise by 2.4°C (4.3°F) by the end of the twenty-first century. 
• The latest carbon dioxide statistics and study, according to Richard Moss, vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, indicate that “we're already locked into greater heat than we thought” (Eilperin 2008; Ramanathan and Feng 2008). 
• These estimates have been around for more than a decade. These have been wasted years in terms of global diplomatic reform. 

A second key factor that affects climate change, in addition to thermal inertia, is feedback, which includes albedo (light reflectivity).

• In the summer, when the sun shines at the top of the globe, melting Arctic ice reveals open ocean. 
• Because dark ocean water absorbs more heat than lighter ice and snow, it heats up and melts faster. 
• Meanwhile, permafrost on land surrounding the Arctic Circle melts, releasing even more carbon dioxide and methane, hastening the natural process that feeds on itself. 
• When you add the trigger of rising human emissions to these natural processes, the situation becomes much worse. 

Climate change is a cumulative phenomenon. 

Many of the feedbacks that contribute to increasing temperatures tend to speed up with time, reinforcing each other. 

• For example, increasing human-caused emissions cause permafrost to thaw, releasing even more carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Melting ice darkens surfaces, allowing more heat to be absorbed. 
• Meanwhile, rising seas are soaking coastal soil, destroying crops, and polluting fresh water sources in low-lying island countries like the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands' foreign minister, Tony deBrum, stated, "The groundwater that sustains our food crops is being flooded with salt." ‘The green is becoming brown,' says the narrator. (Davenport et al., 2014). 
• “Runaway growth in the emission of green house gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, raising the risk of ‘severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts' over the next decades,” wrote Justin Gillis in The New York Times (2014, August 26). 

Diplomats and climate scientists gather every year in an attempt to arrange a global pact to halt the rise in greenhousegas emissions, despite a growing chorus of warnings that the results will be too little, too late. 

• As temperatures rise and raging weather becomes a staple of daily headlines, diplomats and climate scientists gather every year in an attempt to arrange a global pact to stall the rise in greenhousegas emissions amid a rising chorus of warnings that the results will be too little, too late.
• By 2015, global diplomacy's attempts to deal with climate change and its impact on everyday weather had fallen behind. 
• As wind and solar expanded throughout the globe (Germany, the world's fourth biggest economy, drew one-third of its power from renewable sources by 2016), a renewable energy infrastructure emerged, but it was too sluggish to keep up with the increase in temperatures. 

The fundamental issue is: can mankind alter its energy paradigm fast enough to prevent irreversible environmental damage? 

• While James Hansen believes the 2°C goal is overly ambitious, some experts believe it will never be met due to the global momentum of greenhouse gas emissions. 
• In Nature, David Victor (a professor at the University of California–San Diego) and Charles Kennel (of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography) stated, "The objective is essentially unattainable" (Kolbert 2015, 30). To meet the target, global greenhouse gas emissions would have to decrease to almost zero in the second half of the twenty-first century. 
• Even if all diplomatic recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions made in 2015 were implemented, global warming by the end of the twenty-first century would be restricted to 6.3°F, compared to 8.1°F if emissions remained at current levels (“Climate Scoreboard” 2015). 

If all countries fulfilled their commitments, global emissions would begin to decline within a decade or two, but only slowly and insufficiently to prevent thermal inertia from increasing temperatures, melting glaciers across the globe, raising sea levels, and wreaking havoc on flora and wildlife. 

• Countries' commitments made before the global climate conference in Paris at the end of 2015 were "a significant step forward, but not enough—not even close," according to John D. Sterman, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Gillis and Sengupta 2015). 
• In 2014, the US and China signed their first-ever agreement, which included a joint statement that the US will reduce emissions by up to 28% by 2025 and China's emissions would peak by 2030. 
• The government of India, the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2014, does not anticipate emissions to peak until at least 2040. 

As carbon dioxide and methane levels continue to increase, every action to decrease emissions is “on speculation”—in the future. And as long as these levels increase, humanity will lose the fight against global warming.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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The Political System Is Behind The Times

Nearly all of President Barack Obama's measures in the United States were done without the approval or permission of a Republican-controlled Congress, where climate change denial (and unwillingness to accept fundamental geophysical truths) has become a political litmus test. 

Obama's measures include a June 2014 directive from the Environmental Protection Agency requiring significant emissions reductions from coal-fired power facilities. Former US Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson (a Republican) linked the climate catastrophe to the 2008 financial crisis: 

• We are accumulating excesses (debt in 2008, greenhouse gas emissions that are trapping heat now). 

• The policies of our administration are faulty (incentivizing us to borrow too much to finance homes then, and encouraging the overuse of carbon based fuels now). 

• Our specialists (first financial experts, now climate scientists) attempt to make sense of what they observe and predict potential futures. And the enormous dangers have the potential to be disastrous (to a globalized economy then, and the global climate now). 

• We barely averted an economic disaster at the last minute by using government intervention to save a failing banking system. 

• Climate change, on the other hand, is a more intractable issue. We are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which will stay there for millennia, heating up the planet. 

• That means the choices we're making today—to stay on a nearly carbon-dependent path—are locking us into long-term repercussions we won't be able to alter, but only adjust to, at great expense. 

• It is estimated that protecting New York City against rising oceans and storm surges would cost at least $20 billion in the short term, and much more in the long run. And that's only one of the coast's cities. 2014 (Paulson) 

The Prince of Wales, who also believed that the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930s would be overshadowed by ecological concerns, particularly climate change, echoed Paulson's view. 

• “This [the financial crisis] we can solve pretty easily,” Prince Charles said as he accepted an honorary degree from the London Business School. 

• But there is another systemic risk that, in my opinion, is far more serious in the long run: the threat of increasing and accumulating environmental collapse, with its devastating consequences not only for us as a species, but also for the countless others who shape this planet alongside us and on whom we rely for our survival. 

• Our blind resolve to disregard the realities and go on as normal, I believe, is increasing the danger of a collapse that will be much more spectacular and difficult to recover from than anything we have seen in recent years. (2011, Prince of Wales) 

• In 2014, Paulson collaborated on an economic study of climate change costs called Risky Business with Michael R. Bloomberg (former New York City mayor and investment company owner) and Tom Steyer (retired hedge fund manager). 

• They support a carbon price and the phase-out of fossil-fuel subsidies. “The greatest lag is in the political system,” said Princeton University geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer. 

• He believes that the severity of the danger has been debated for the last two decades, and that another 20 years may pass before a global diplomatic response is in place. 

• In the meanwhile, the window of opportunity for feedbacks to take control is shrinking. “We can't afford to take a wait-and-see approach,” Oppenheimer added. “The most pressing issue is when will we commit to [limiting global warming to] 2 [degrees Celsius].” 

There isn't a whole lot of headroom left. We'd best go to work.” According to Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the present pace "isn't going to accomplish it" (Kerr 2007).

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Consequences of Climate Change

 

Given current emissions, scientists predict that ice would melt much quicker than previously anticipated. 

The scientists were taken aback when their model predicted that half of Antarctica's (and, by extension, the world's) ice would melt within 1,000 years, causing sea levels to rise at a rate of a foot per decade for centuries, a rate that "would almost certainly throw human society into chaos, forcing a rapid retreat from the world's coastal cities." 

• To put it simply, if we burn it all, we melt it all, according to Winkelmann, a researcher at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Gillis 2015, September 12). 

• London, Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, Sydney, Rome, Tokyo, Miami, New York City, Boston, New Orleans, Houston, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Venice, Buenos Aires, Beijing, and Washington, D.C. are just a few of the coastal cities that may be flooded. 

• Caldeira said, “This is mankind as a geologic force.” “We [humans] aren't having a subtle impact on the climate system; we're hammering it with a hammer” (Gillis 2015, September 12). 

• An average global temperature increase of around 20°F would cause ice melting, with more at higher latitudes and interior regions and less in the tropics and near shorelines. 

• According to Justin Gillis of The New York Times, “vast sections of the Earth will certainly become too hot and humid for human habitation, causing food production to fail, and driving much of the planet's plant and animal life to extinction” (Gillis 2015, September 12). 

• “The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States,” scientists reported in 2014. 

• “Water is becoming scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains are increasing in wet regions, heat waves are becoming more common and severe, wildfires are becoming more severe, and forests are dying under attack from heat-loving insects” (Gillis 2014, May 6). 

• “Summers are longer and hotter, and prolonged spells of exceptional heat persist longer than any living American has ever experienced,” according to the National Climate Assessment released by the United States Global Change Research Program. 

• Winters are usually milder and shorter. Rain falls in torrential downpours. People are noticing differences in the duration and intensity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that flourish in their gardens, and the types of birds they observe in their communities in any given month.” Richard B. Alley, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the report's drafting but saw a late copy, said, "Yes, climate change is already here."

•  “However, the expenses thus far are still modest when compared to what will be standard practice by the end of the century” (Gillis 2014, May 6). 2016 was by far the warmest year on record, marking the third year in a row of record temperatures. 

• The only places with colder-than-average temperatures in 2015 were the seas off Greenland and Antarctica, where fast melting ice was cascading into the oceans, cooling the air above. 

• The margin of error for the new record was astounding—0.23°F (0.23°C) (according to NASA) and 0.29°F (0.16°C) (according to NASA) (as measured by NOAA). 

• New global highs and lows are often recorded in tenths of degrees. A powerful El Nio had a role, but so did long-term global warming driven by human greenhouse gas emissions. 

• Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, stated, “The entire hole system is persistently warming” (Gillis 2016). 2016 continued 2015's hot trend, with the largest deviation from the average of any month on record. 

• The Arctic saw the most extremes, with some places exceeding 6°C (13°F) over the 1951–1980 average. 

• The Arctic as a whole was 4.0°C (7.2°F) warmer than it was over the same time period. Global warming is more than just a matter of temperature rises. 

• Warming temperatures alter the hydrological cycle's behavior, increasing the severity of storms as well as the frequency and intensity of droughts and deluges. 

• Because warming also increases evaporation, a warmer atmosphere may retain more moisture, enhancing the explosive nature of precipitation. 

• As a consequence, drought and flooding may occur at the same time in different parts of the country—or even alternate in the same location. 

• Changes in precipitation patterns may vary dramatically over time and location, according to theory and an increasing number of daily weather reports. 

• Temperatures appeared to be shifting faster than the hydrological cycle. Such shifts will be uneven, episodic, and often unpleasant. 

One of the most startling results of the National Climate Assessment was the increasing frequency of heavy rainfall. 

For decades, scientists have predicted that more water would evaporate from a rising ocean surface, and that the warmer atmosphere will be able to retain the extra vapor, which will subsequently fall as rain or snow. 

Even the most seasoned specialists were taken aback by the severity of the impact. 

• The National Climate Assessment concluded that “the eastern half of the [United States] is getting greater precipitation in general,” according to Justin Gillis of The New York Times on May 6, 2014. And the percentage of precipitation dropping in extremely heavy rain episodes has increased by 71 percent in the Northeast, 37 percent in the Midwest, and 27 percent in the South during the last half-century.” Such developments are taking place all across the globe. 

• In the summer of 2010, for example, floods ravaged Pakistan, but an exceedingly unusual downpour flooded the town of Leh in Ladakh, India, which is located in one of the world's driest deserts. The hamlet is located in a high-altitude desert that is shielded from the majority of precipitation by neighboring mountains. 

• In August, the average rainfall is 15 millimeters, or a fraction of an inch. However, a half-hour downpour on August 6, 2010, washed most of the town away, killing 150 people and left hundreds more missing. The storm was so powerful, yet so remote, that it missed a meteorological station in the valley and remained unnoticed. 

• In 2013, significant sections of Nashville, Tennessee, were flooded by almost 20 inches of rain, while parts of Colorado got a year's worth of rain in a single week. As much as two feet of rain fell in as little as 24 hours in parts of the Florida panhandle. 

• At the same time, sand dunes erupted over most of the Navajo reservation in New Mexico and Arizona, which is normally dry, as precipitation dropped from meager to virtually none—except for a brief but intense rainfall. Early in October 2015, parts of South Carolina got two feet of rain in three days. In some parts of southern Texas, 20 inches of rain poured two weeks ago.

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