Imagine that your friend read some information about Bohdan Khmelnytskyi yesterday, discuss it with him.

Outstanding women in the world

The ideal of feminism

1. It will be interesting for you to know much about the problem of feminism in the world. Read the text and discuss it.

The doctrine that women collectively constituted a class of society, historically oppressed and deserving of emancipation, was a product of late - 18th -century preoccupations with the rights “of man and the citizen”

Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft launched a tradition, recognizable in feminism today, in two works, both published in 1792; DE GOUGES' DECLARATION DES DROITS DE LA FEMME ET DE LA GITOYENNE and WOLLSTONECRAFT'S VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. Both authors had to struggle to earn their living; both lives ended tragically. De Gouges was guillotined in 1793 for defending the King of France; Wollstonecraft died in childbirth in 1797. Both rejected the entire previous tradition of female championship, which eulogized women for their virtues. Instead, they admitted their vices and blamed male oppression.

Their view was uninfluential at first. Gradually, however, in the 19^th and 20^l centuries, men found a use for feminism as a justification for reincorporating woman into the labor market and so exploiting their productivity more effectively. When feminism became fashionable in the 1960s, it was after two world wars had demonstrated the need and efficacy of contributions by women in realms formerly reserved of privileged for men. The French writer Simone de Beauvoir launched the new feminism on day in 1946, when, she said, “I began to reflect about myself and it struck me with a sort of surprise that the first thing I had to say was, “I am a woman”.

Feminism clamed to be able to force men to change the rules in women's favour”. At least they succeeded in persuading women to try to make the most of social changes and opportunities that would have occurred anyway. Some critics bemoaned the unintended effects: by competing with men, women gave up some traditional deference and much informal power; by joining the workforce they added another level of exploitation to their roles as homemakers and mothers, with consequent stress and overwork. Some women, who wanted to remain at home and dedicate themselves to their husbands and children, found themselves doubly disadvantaged: exploited by men and pilloried by “sisters”. Society still needs to strike the right balance: liberating all women to lead the lives they want, without having to comfort to roles devised for them by intellectuals of either sex.

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with man”