Equality feminism

Equality feminism is a subset of the overall feminism movement that focuses on the basic similarities between men and women, and whose ultimate goal is the equality of the sexes in all domains. This includes economic and political equality, equal access within the workplace, freedom from oppressive gender stereotyping, and an androgynous worldview.

Feminist theory seeks to promote the legal status of women as equal and undifferentiated from that of men. While equality feminists largely agree that men and women have basic biological differences in anatomy and frame, they argue that on a psychological level, the use of ration or reason is androgynous. For equality feminists, men and women are equal in terms of their ability to reason, achieve goals, and prosper in both the work and home front.

Equality feminism was the dominant version of feminism following Mary Wollstonecraft’s "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792). Wollstonecraft made the case that women’s equality to men manifests itself in education and worker's rights, and further produced a proverbial roadmap in order for future women to follow in terms of activism and feminist theorizing. Since then, active equality feminist include Simone de Beauvoir, the Seneca Falls Convention Leaders, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem.

While equality feminism was the dominant perspective of feminism during the 19th and 20th century, the 1980s and 1990s brought about a new focus in popular feminism on difference feminism, or the essential differences between men and women. In opposition to equality feminism, this view advocates for the celebration of the "feminine" by focusing on traditionally viewed female traits, such as empathy, nurturing, and care. While equality feminists view human nature as essentially androgynous, difference feminists claim that this viewpoint aligns the "good" with male-dominated stereotypes, thus sticking within the patriarchic framework of society.

In both law and in theology women were portrayed as both physically and intellectually inferior. One of the first feminist documents that set the stage for feministic movements occurred when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" in 1792. While this literature was seen as rebellious at the time it echoed the feelings of women throughout France as women’s republican clubs demanded that liberty, equality and fraternity should be applied to both men and women. While this movement gained notoriety it was eventually extinguished by Napoleon Bonaparte’s Code Napoleon that established that the husband had complete control over the family and regressed equality feminism.

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