Compassion fatigue

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fatigue

Compassion fatigue is an evolving concept in the field of traumatology. The term has been used interchangeably with secondary traumatic stress (STS), which is sometimes simply described as the negative cost of caring. Secondary traumatic stress is the term commonly employed in academic literature, although recent assessments have identified certain distinctions between compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress (STS).

Compassion fatigue is a form of traumatic stress resulting from repeated exposure to traumatized individuals or aversive details of traumatic events while working in a helping or protecting profession. This indirect form of trauma exposure differs from experiencing trauma oneself.

Compassion fatigue is considered to be the result of working directly with victims of disasters, trauma, or illness, especially in the health care industry. Individuals working in other helping professions are also at risk for experiencing compassion fatigue. These include child protection workers, veterinarians, clergy, teachers, social workers, palliative care workers, journalists, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, animal welfare workers, public librarians, health unit coordinators, and student affairs professionals. Non-professionals, such as family members and other informal caregivers of people who have a chronic illness, may also experience compassion fatigue. The term was first coined in 1992 by Carla Joinson to describe the negative impact hospital nurses were experiencing as a result of their repeated, daily exposure to patient emergencies.

Symptoms

People who experience compassion fatigue may exhibit a variety of symptoms including, but not limited to, lowered concentration, numbness or feelings of helplessness, irritability, lack of self-satisfaction, withdrawal, aches and pains, exhaustion, anger, or a reduced ability to feel empathy. Those affected may experience an increase in negative coping behaviors such as alcohol and drug usage. Professionals who work in trauma-exposed roles may begin requesting more time off and consider leaving their profession.

Significant symptom overlap exists between compassion fatigue and other manifestations, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One distinguishing factor lies in the origin of these conditions, with PTSD stemming from primary or direct trauma, while compassion fatigue arises from secondary or indirect trauma.

History

Compassion fatigue has been studied by the field of traumatology, with Charles Figley playing a pivotal role by characterizing it as the "cost of caring" experienced by individuals in helping professions. The term was introduced to the literature in 1992 by Carla Joinson to describe the negative impact hospital nurses were experiencing as a result of their repeated, daily exposure to patient emergencies. However, the phrase had been in use as early as 1961, and was popularized in 1985 when Bob Geldof cited it as his reasoning for ending his charity work after Live Aid.

To a certain extent, the term "compassion fatigue" is considered somewhat euphemistic and is used as a substitute for its academic counterpart, secondary traumatic stress.

Compassion fatigue has also been called secondary victimization, secondary traumatic stress, vicarious traumatization, and secondary survivor. Other related conditions are rape-related family crisis and "proximity" effects on female partners of war veterans.

Measuring and assessments

Some of the earliest and most commonly used assessment are Compassion Fatigue Self Test (CFST), Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue Test (CSFT) and Compassion Fatigue Scale—Revised.

The self-assessment ProQOL (or Professional Quality of Life Scale) contains three sub-scales: compassion satisfaction, burnout, compassion fatigue / secondary traumatic stress.

The Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS) assess the frequency of intrusion, avoidance, and arousal symptoms associated with indirect exposure to traumatic events through clinical work with traumatized populations.

Risk factors

Many organizational attributes in the fields where STS is most common contribute to compassion fatigue among the workers, such as in healthcare where a “culture of silence” is normalized by not discussing stressful events, such as deaths in an intensive-care unit, after the event increase rates of CF. Additional contributing organizational factors can result from conditions such as long work hours, short-staffing, workplace incivility, and feelings of dismissal or invalidation by their managers.

Lack of awareness of symptoms and poor training in the risks associated with their trauma-exposed profession results in higher rates of STS.

Traumatization symptom levels usually depend on three criteria: proximity, intensity, and duration. Proximity refers to how close the provider is to the traumatic event, intensity is defined by how extensive and extreme the traumatic event is, and duration refers to how long the provider is involved with the traumatic event.

Compassion fatigue increases in intensity with increased interactions among the needy. Because of this, people living in urban cities are more likely to experience compassion fatigue. People in large cities interact with more people in general, and because of this, they become desensitized towards people's problems. Homeless people often make their way to larger cities. Ordinary people often become indifferent to homelessness when they see it regularly.

Family

Recent studies reveal that the "overall compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction levels were moderate, thus highlighting the potential risk of compassion fatigue for family caregivers", indicating that primary family caregivers of patients could also experience compassion fatigue or STS.

In healthcare professionals

Between 16% and 85% of health care workers in various fields develop compassion fatigue. In one study, 86% of emergency room nurses met the criteria for compassion fatigue. In another study, more than 25% of ambulance paramedics were identified as having severe ranges of post-traumatic symptoms. In addition, 34% of hospice nurses in another study met the criteria for secondary traumatic stress/compassion fatigue.

There is a strong relationship between work-related stress and compassion fatigue which include factors such as: attitude to life, work-related stress, how one works, amount of time working at a single occupation, type of work, and gender all play a role

Compassion fatigue is the emotional and physical distress caused by treating and helping patients that are deeply in need. This can desensitize healthcare professionals to others' needs, causing them to develop a lack of empathy for future patients. There are three important components of Compassion Fatigue: Compassion satisfaction, secondary stress, and burnout. It is important to note that burnout is not the same as Compassion Fatigue; Burnout is the stress and mental exhaustion caused by the inability to cope with the environment and continuous physical and mental demands.

Healthcare professionals experiencing compassion fatigue may find it difficult to continue doing their jobs. While many believe that these diagnoses affect workers who have been practicing in the field the longest, the opposite proves true. Young physicians and nurses are at an increased risk for both burnout and compassion fatigue. A study published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine revealed that medical residents who work overnight shifts or work more than eighty hours a week are at higher risk of developing Compassion Fatigue. Burnout was another major contributor to these professionals who had a higher risk of suffering from Compassion Fatigue. Burnout is a prevalent and critical contemporary problem that can be categorized as suffering from emotional exhaustion, de-personalization, and a low sense of personal accomplishment. They can be exposed to trauma while trying to deal with compassion fatigue, potentially pushing them out of their career field. If they decide to stay, it can negatively affect the therapeutic relationship they have with patients because it depends on forming an empathetic, trusting relationship that could be difficult to make amid compassion fatigue. Because of this, healthcare institutions are placing increased importance on supporting their employee's emotional needs so they can better care for patients.

Studies compiled in 2018 by Zang et al. indicate that the level of education one obtains in the field of healthcare has an effect on levels of burnout, compassion satisfaction, and compassion fatigue. Studies show, it is indicated that those with higher levels of education in their respective field will experience lower rates of burnout and compassion fatigue, while also having increased levels of compassion satisfaction.

Another name and concept directly tied to compassion fatigue is moral injury. Moral injury in the context of healthcare was directly named in the Stat News article by Drs. Wendy Dean and Simon Talbot, entitled "Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They're suffering from moral injury." The article and concept go on to explain that physicians (in the United States) are caught in double and triple and quadruple binds between their obligations of electronic health records, their student loans, the requirements for patient load through the hospital, and procedures performed – all while working towards the goal of trying to provide the best care and healing to patients possible. However, the systemic issues facing physicians often cause deep distress because the patients are suffering despite the physician's best efforts. This concept of moral injury in healthcare is the expansion of the discussion around compassion fatigue and burnout.

C.N.A.s/caregivers

Caregivers for dependent people can also experience compassion fatigue, which can become a cause of abusive behavior in caring professions. It results from the taxing nature of showing compassion for someone whose suffering is continuous and unresolvable. One may still care for the person as required by policy, however, the natural human desire to help them is significantly diminished, causing desensitization and lack of enthusiasm for patient care. This phenomenon also occurs among professionals involved in long-term health care, and for those who have institutionalized family members. These people may develop symptoms of depression, stress, and trauma. Those who are primary care providers for patients with terminal illnesses are at a higher risk of developing these symptoms. In the medical profession, this is often described as "burnout": the more specific terms secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma are also used.

Mental health professionals

Many that work in fields that require great amounts of empathy and compassion are exposed to these stressful experiences in their day-today work activities. These fields mentioned include: social workers, psychologists, oncologists, pediatrics, HIV/AIDs workers, EMS, law enforcement, and of course, and general healthcare workers like nurses, etc. Social workers are one group that can experience compassion fatigue or STS from experiencing a singular trauma or it can be from traumatic experiences building up over the years. This can also occur because of a connection with a client and a shared similar traumatic experience. Overall, healthcare professionals in general are finding that they are burnt out with the price of empathy and compassion, otherwise known as, Compassion Fatigue. Most often describe feelings of “running on empty”. The importance of the contribution of education and recognition cannot be negated in its import  of counter of compassion fatigue. Other evidences support theories that meditation and reflection techniques such as Mindful-Based Stress Reduction Training and Compassion Cultivation Training, along with the support of administrators helps to fight and reduce STS.

Critical care personnel

Critical care personnel have the highest reported rates of burnout, a syndrome associated with progression to compassion fatigue. These providers witness high rates of patient disease and death, leaving them to question whether their work is truly meaningful. Additionally, top-tier providers are expected to know an increasing amount of medical information along with experienced high ethical dilemmas/medical demands. This has created a workload-reward imbalance—or decreased compassion satisfaction. Compassion satisfaction relates to the “positive payment” that comes from caring. With little compassion satisfaction, both critical care physicians and nurses have reported the above examples as leading factors for developing burnout and compassion fatigue. Those caring for people who have experienced trauma can experience a change in how they view the world; they see it more negatively. It can negatively affect the worker's sense of self, safety, and control. In ICU personnel, burnout and compassion fatigue has been associated with decreased quality of care and patient satisfaction, as well as increased medical errors, infection rates, and death rates, making this issue one of concern not only for providers but patients. These outcomes also impact organization finances. According to the Institute of Medicine, preventable adverse drug events or harmful medication errors (associated with compassion fatigue/burnout) occur in 1% to 10% of hospital admissions and account for a $3.5 billion cost.

There are a total of four factors that are used to describe the underlying reasons for burnout, STS, and compassion fatigue: depressive mood, primary traumatic stress symptoms, responses to their patients' trauma, and sleep disturbances.

Those with a better ability to empathize and be compassionate are at a higher risk of developing compassion fatigue. Because of that, healthcare professionals—especially those who work in critical care—who are regularly exposed to death, trauma, high stress environments, long work days, difficult patients, pressure from a patient's family, and conflicts with other staff members- are at higher risk. These exposures increase the risk for developing compassion fatigue and burnout, which often makes it hard for professionals to stay in the healthcare career field. Those who stay in the healthcare field after developing compassion fatigue or burnout are likely to experience a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, unwanted images or thoughts, insomnia, stress, desensitization and irritability. As a result, these healthcare professionals may later develop substance abuse, depression, or commit suicide. A 2018 study that examined differences in compassion fatigue in nurses based on their substance use found significant increases for those who used cigarettes, sleeping pills, energy drinks, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs. Unfortunately, despite recent, targeted efforts being made to reduce burnout, it appears that the problem is increasing. In 2011, a study conducted by the Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being at Mayo Clinic reported that 45% of physicians in the United States had one or more symptoms of burnout. In 2014, that number had increased to 54%.

In student affairs professionals

In response to the changing landscape of post-secondary institutions, sometimes as a result of having a more diverse and marginalized student population, both campus services and the roles of student affairs professionals have evolved. These changes are efforts to manage the increases in traumatic events and crises.

Due to the exposure to student crises and traumatic events, student affairs professionals, as front line workers, are at risk for developing compassion fatigue. Such crises may include sexual violence, suicidal ideation, severe mental health episodes, and hate crimes/discrimination.

Some research shows that almost half of all university staff named psychological distress as a factor contributing to overall occupational stress. This group also demonstrated emotional exhaustion, job dissatisfaction, and intention to quit their jobs within the next year, symptoms associated with compassion fatigue.

Factors contributing to compassion fatigue in student affairs professionals

Student affairs professionals who are more emotionally connected to the students with whom they work and who display an internal locus of control are found to be more likely to develop compassion fatigue as compared to individuals who have an external locus of control and are able to maintain boundaries between themselves and those with whom they work.

In lawyers

Burnout and compassion fatigue can occur in the profession of law; it may occur because of "a discrepancy between expectations and outcomes," or thinking one may have a larger task to achieve than provided resources and support.

Recent research shows that a growing number of attorneys who work with victims of trauma are exhibiting a high rate of compassion fatigue symptoms. In fact, lawyers are four times more likely to suffer from depression than the general public. They also have a higher rate of suicide and substance abuse. Most attorneys, when asked, stated that their formal education lacked adequate training in dealing with trauma. Besides working directly with trauma victims, one of the main reasons attorneys can develop compassion fatigue is because of the demanding case loads, and long hours that are typical to this profession.

In media and journalism

Compassion fatigue also carries sociological connotations, especially when used to analyze behavior in response to media coverage of disasters. Journalism analysts argue that news media have caused widespread compassion fatigue in society by saturating newspapers and news shows with decontextualized images and stories of tragedy and suffering, which would more accurately be described as compassion fade. This, they claim, has caused the public to become desensitized or resistant to helping people who are suffering.

Prevention and mitigation

In an effort to prepare and combat compassion fatigue, many organizations have been implementing compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress prevention training which educate workers on the occupational risk in helping and protecting professions, raise awareness about symptoms, and teach skills such as coping tools to apply before and after stressful situations, working with integrity, and creating a support system that includes individuals and resources that can provide understanding and are sensitive to the risks of compassion fatigue. Workers also learn how to decompress and destress, utilizing self-care, and traumatic stress reduction tools.

Staff education and training

Significant improvements in awareness of compassion fatigue and identification of strategies to handle the different stressors are associated with a reduction in symptoms such as feeling significantly less tense, jittery, or overwhelmed, while having increased feelings of being calm and peaceful.

Leadership and supervisory training

Leaders, managers, and supervisors who possess skills in leading teams exposed to trauma, can mitigate the impact of indirect trauma exposure through such strategies as awareness training, peer support training, applying psychologically safe debriefing methods after potentially traumatizing events, monitoring employee exposure levels, developing incentives, and providing flexibility.

Peer support training

One-on-one peer support can be applied formally or informally after emotionally challenging or stressful events to lessen the risk of developing compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress in team members.

Peer support groups

Peer support groups have led to participants feeling "less alone" and demonstrating increased interest in learning how to support each other. Participating peers reported feeling more supported, performing better, being healthier, and having a greater likelihood of enjoying extended professional careers.

Workplace culture

Having a work culture that supports the physical and emotional health of professionals in trauma-exposed roles is critical. Some cited effective workplace changes include encouraging professionals to take some time off, ensuring that professionals eat during their shift, and promoting self achievements to minimize the likelihood of developing compassion fatigue.

Social support

Social support and emotional support can help practitioners maintain a balance in their worldview. Maintaining a diverse network of social support, from colleagues to pets, promotes a positive psychological state and can protect against STS. Some problems with compassion fatigue stem from a lack of fundamental communication skills; counseling and additional support can be beneficial to practitioners struggling with STS.

Therapeutic interventions

Various therapeutic interventions are available to address and alleviate symptoms of compassion fatigue including various forms of psychotherapy such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) which is commonly used to treat trauma, Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), somatic or body-based therapy and group support programs.

Self-care

Stress reduction and anxiety management practices have been shown to be effective in preventing and treating STS. Taking a break from work, participating in breathing exercises, exercising, and other recreational activities all help reduce the stress associated with STS. There is evidence that journaling and meditation can also mediate the effects of STS. Conceptualizing one's own ability with self-integration from a theoretical and practice perspective helps to combat criticized or devalued phase of STS. In addition, establishing clear professional boundaries and accepting the fact that successful outcomes are not always achievable can limit the effects of STS.

Self-compassion

In order to be the best benefit for clients, practitioners must maintain a state of psychological well-being. Unaddressed compassion fatigue may decrease a practitioners ability to effectively help their clients. Some counselors who use self-compassion as part of their self-care regime have had higher instances of psychological functioning. The counselors use of self-compassion may lessen experiences of vicarious trauma that the counselor might experience through hearing clients stories. Self-compassion as a self-care method is beneficial for both clients and counselors.

Mindfulness

Self-awareness as a method of self-care might help to alleviate the impact of vicarious trauma (compassion fatigue). Students who took a 15-week course that emphasized stress reduction techniques and the use of mindfulness in clinical practice had significant improvements in therapeutic relationships and counseling skills.

Scales Used for Assessment	Administration	Measure	Accessible
Professional Quality of Life Measure ProQOL	self-test	compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress	online, available
Compassion Fatigue and/Satisfaction Self Test for Helpers	self-test	compassion fatigue	online, available
Maslach Burnout Inventory	administered	burnout	available for purchase

Compassion fade

Main article: Compassion fade

Compassion fatigue is defined as “the physical and mental exhaustion and emotional withdrawal experienced by those who care for sick or traumatized people over an extended period of time”. Compassion fatigue usually occurs with those whom we know; whether that is because of a personal relationship or professional relationship. Compassion fade is defined as terminology to describe the way in which an individual's compassion and empathy are reduced due to the amount or intricacy of the issue. This also includes when the need and tragedy in of the world goes up and the amount of desire to help goes down (similar to a see-saw). For example, an individual is more likely to donate more money, time, or other types of assistance to a single person suffering, than to disaster aid or when the population suffering is larger. It is a type of cognitive bias that helps people make their decision to help.

Men's studies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_studies

Men's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning men, masculinity, gender, culture, politics and sexuality. It academically examines what it means to be a man in contemporary society.

Origins

Sociologists and psychologists in the Nordic countries such as Norwegians Erik Grønseth and Per Olav Tiller were early pioneers of men's studies as a research field; Grønseth and Tiller's classic study of father absence in sailor families and its impact on children's personality development in the 1950s is often regarded as the starting point of men's studies in the Nordic countries.

In Anglophone countries, men's studies was formed, largely in response to an emerging men's rights movement, and as such, has been taught in academic settings only since the 1970s.

In contrast to the discipline of masculine psychology, men's studies programs and courses often include contemporary discussions of men's rights, feminist theory, queer theory, matriarchy, patriarchy, and more generally, what proponents describe as the social, historical, and cultural influences on the constructions of men. They often discuss the issues surrounding male privilege, seen as evolving into more subtle and covert forms rather than disappearing in the modern era.

It is important to distinguish the specific approach often defined as Critical Studies on Men. This approach was largely developed in the anglophone countries from the early 1980s - especially in the United Kingdom - centred then around the work of Jeff Hearn, David Morgan and colleagues. The influence of the approach has spread globally since then. It is inspired primarily by a range of feminist perspectives (including socialist and radical) and places emphasis on the need for research and practice to explicitly challenge men's and boys' sexism. Although it explores a very broad range of men's practices, it tends to focus especially on issues related to sexuality and/or men's violences. Although originally largely rooted in sociology, it has since engaged with a broad range of other disciplines including social policy, social work, cultural studies, gender studies, education and law. In more recent years, Critical Studies on Men research has made particular use of comparative and/or transnational perspectives. Like Men's Studies and Masculinity Studies more generally, Critical Studies on Men has been critiqued for its failure to adequately focus on the issue of men's relations with children as a key site for the development of men's oppressive masculinity formations - men's relations with women and men's relations with other men being the two sites which are heavily researched by comparison.

Topics

Masculinity

Early men's studies scholars studied social construction of masculinity, which the Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell is best known for.

Connell introduced the concept of hegemonic masculinity, describing it as a practice that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of the common male population and women, and other marginalized ways of being a man. Being pervasive across societies, it results in multiple masculinities, specifically a hierarchy of masculinities, in which some men do not experience the same privilege other men do, because of their other marginalized identities. The concept has attracted several criticisms (see Hegemonic masculinity § Criticisms), which led to Connell (and James Messerschmitt) reformulating areas of hegemonic masculinity. This newer version looks at the power and social dynamics found in the gender hierarchy, the geography of masculinity at local, regional, and global levels, social embodiment, and the dynamics of masculinity, including the complex interlayering of multiple masculinities. Connell emphasizes that masculinity is constantly evolving, meaning the curriculum and research of this field will always change.

Michael Kimmel, an American sociologist and feminist specializing in gender studies, has written about manhood in America. According to Kimmel, masculinity began to be defined and reaffirmed around 19th century America. It involved proving one's masculine worth as well as providing for one's family, and thereby also affected the political arena, workplace, family, and society at large. Kimmel posits that the imbibing of masculinity happens to young boys at home, at school and when watching adults interact. Kimmel described the term 'toxic masculinity' as the male-enacted cultural norms that are harmful to men and society, because they encourage negative behaviors related to dominance, aggression and sexuality.

Eric Anderson, an American sociologist and sexologist specializing in adolescent men's gender and sexualities, has researched and written about the relationship between hegemonic masculinity and homophobia. According to Anderson's empirical research, he found that decreasing homophobia can lead to more inclusive masculinity because hegemonic masculinity has limited men's behavior in fear of being perceived as gay. Kimmel describes this theory as "Inclusive Masculinity Theory".

Cultural expectations

It has been argued that the cultural expectations of boys and men to be tough, stoic, aggressive and unemotional are harmful to men's development because they reduce the range of human emotions being experienced, increase levels of anger and depression and can even result in a shortened life expectancy.

Violence

Research on violence has been a major focus of men's studies. Research focuses on men as both perpetrators and victims of violence, as well as on how to involve men and boys in anti-violence work.

Sexuality

Studying the relation between masculinity and male sexual shame revealed that greater endorsement of traditionally masculine values was associated with increased sexual shame, and which in turn is predictive of depression.

Health

Men's studies scholars have studied aspects of men's health and illness such as premature death and coronary heart disease.

Work and care

Men's studies is notably concerned with challenging gendered arrangements of work and care, and the male breadwinner role, and policies are increasingly targeting men as fathers, as a tool of changing gender relations.

Organizations

The American Men's Studies Association (AMSA) traces the roots of an organized field of men's studies to the early 1980s and the work of scholars involved in an anti-sexist organization called the Men's Studies Task Group (MSTG) of the National Organization for Changing Men (NOCM) which included Martin Acker, Shepherd Bliss, Harry Brod, Sam Femiano, Martin Fiebert, and Michael Messner. However, men's studies classes also pre-date NOCM, and a small number were taught in various colleges across the United States throughout the 1970s. Conferences such as the Men and Masculinity conferences sparked the creation of newsletters and journals, such as the Men's Studies Newsletter (and its successor, Men's Studies Review), pertaining to the growing field of men's studies. These became prime resources for those interested in the field, providing news, bibliographies, and firsthand experiences. Following the newsletters and journals came the Men's Studies Press, thus moving the academic field of masculinity studies to books.

When NOCM changed its name to the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS), the MSTG became the Men's Studies Association (MSA). The MSA was an explicitly pro-feminist group, and those who felt this was too constraining split away several years later to form the American Men's Studies Association (AMSA), although the NOMAS would not let AMSA become its own self-governing entity, which led to clashes in ideologies between the two groups.

Journals

The men and masculinities field includes at least eight focused journals: Culture, Society, and Masculinities, Journal of Men's Studies, Masculinities and Social Change, Masculinities: A Journal of Identity and Culture, Men and Masculinities, New Male Studies, NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, and Psychology of Men & Masculinity.

Feminist criticism

The field of men's studies has received criticism due to its separative nature from the rest of gender studies.

Some feminists view men's studies only as taking away potential limited funding dedicated for women's studies. Timothy Laurie and Anna Hickey-Moody insist that "[any] atomisation of masculinity studies as distinct from gender studies, feminist inquiry or queer studies must be understood as provisional and hazardous rather than as the result of absolute differences in the phenomena being investigated or expertise required". Some feminists also argue that many gender and race studies were created to discuss the oppression that these race/genders experience. Since men are the primary oppressor of these, men's studies shouldn't be included within "oppression" studies because it "risks leveling structure of power by granting men's studies an equal and complementary place to women's studies". In 1989 Joyce E. Canaan and Christine Griffin described their suspicions of The New Men's Studies (TNMS), saying "Is it a coincidence that TNMS is being constructed in the present context as a source of potential research, publishing deals, and (even more) jobs for the already-well-paid boys holding prestigious positions?" Researchers in transgender studies, including Jack Halberstam, have also questioned the relationship between male biology and gender identity within masculinity studies.

Men's studies scholars have responded to this by explaining the importance of men's studies. Harry Brod, an American sociologist, explains that the importance of men's studies is that prior to the emergence of the discipline, feminists had been looking at the generalization of men, whereas this discipline focuses on the "study of masculinities and male experiences as specific and varying social-historical-cultural formations." Connell adds that by having a field for masculinity studies it may help "identify men's interest in change".

Men's liberation movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_liberation_movement

 The men's liberation movement is a social movement critical of the restraints which society imposes on men. Men's liberation activists are generally sympathetic to feminist standpoints.

The men's liberation movement is not to be confused with different movements such as the men's rights movement in which some argue that modern feminism has gone too far and additional attention should be placed on men's rights. The men's liberation movement stresses the negative aspects of "traditional" masculinity, whereas the men's rights movement is largely about perceived unequal or unfair treatment of men by modern institutions because of, or in spite of, those traits ubiquitous to traditional masculinity. The men's liberation movement additionally aims to liberate men from stereotypes and attitudes that prevent them from expressing their emotions in a healthy manner.

History

The men's liberation movement, as recognized by feminists and gender scholars, developed mostly among heterosexual, middle-class men in Britain and North America as a response to the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s, including the growth of the feminist movement, counterculture, women's and gay liberation movements, and the sexual revolution. Jack Sawyer published an article titled "On Male Liberation" in Liberation journal in the autumn of 1970, in which he discussed the negative effects of stereotypes of male sex roles. 1971 saw the birth of men's discussion groups across the United States, as well as the formation by Warren Farrell of the National Task Force on the Masculine Mystique within the National Organization for Women. Robert Lewis and Joseph Pleck sourced the birth of the movement to the publication of five books on the subject in late 1974 and early 1975, which was followed by a surge of publications targeted to both lay and more academic audiences.

The movement led to the formation of conferences, consciousness raising groups, men's centers, and other resources across the United States. The male liberation movement as a single self-conscious liberal feminist movement dissolved during the late 1970s. By the early 1980s, members of the male liberation movement had fully split into two entities. The members who had placed greater emphasis on the 'cost of male gender roles to men' than the 'cost of male gender roles to women' had formed the men's rights movement focusing on issues faced by men. The members who saw sexism exclusively as a system of men oppressing women rejected the language of sex roles and created pro-feminist men's organizations focused primarily on addressing sexual violence against women.

Race

Racial differences have existed within the men's liberation movement which, despite its best efforts of inclusion, such divisions have on occasion been problematic. Some feminist scholars in political opposition to the movement have argued that racism within American society has emasculated non-white men. For example, black men are perceived to lack control over their innate sexual aggression. Within this ideological framework black men are presented as hyper-sexual to an animalistic degree and are compared to animals, predators and beasts because of this. East Asian Americans, however, have been portrayed as unattractive and less masculine.

Gay liberation

Second-wave pro-feminism paid increased attention to issues of sexuality, particularly the relationship between homosexual men and hegemonic masculinity. This shift led to more cooperation between the men's liberation and gay liberation movements. In part this cooperation arose because masculinity was then understood to be a social construction, and as a response to the universalization of "men" seen in previous men's movements.

Organizations

California Men's Gatherings

The California Men's Gatherings (CMG) was created in 1978 by men in the anti-sexist men's movement. Author Margo Adair, who attended the twelfth gathering in 1987, wrote that she found the atmosphere strangely different than anything she had previously experienced. After thinking about it, she realized it was the first time she had ever felt completely safe among a large group of men, with few other women. She also noticed that everyone was accepted, and affection among participants was displayed openly.

CMG organizes three retreats annually, focused on men's issues. Currently, most of the men attending California Men's Gatherings are gay or bisexual.

r/MensLib

MensLib is an online forum on the social media site Reddit. It is a pro-feminist community and was created as a healthy and safe space for discussion on how traditional gender roles and masculinity hurts men.

National Organization for Men Against Sexism

Main article: National Organization for Men Against Sexism

The National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) is a pro-feminist, gay affirmative men's organization which also enhances men's lives that began in the 1970s. The 1991 NOMAS national conference was about building multicultural communities.

Radical Faeries

Main article: Radical Faeries

The Radical Faeries were organized in California in 1979 by gay activists wanting to create an alternative to being assimilated into mainstream men's culture.

Activities

• College men's centers
• Men's support groups
• Public advocacy and law reform

Women's liberation movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement

The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great change (political, intellectual, cultural) throughout the world. The WLM branch of radical feminism, based in contemporary philosophy, comprised women of racially and culturally diverse backgrounds who proposed that economic, psychological, and social freedom were necessary for women to progress from being second-class citizens in their societies.

Towards achieving the equality of women, the WLM questioned the cultural and legal validity of patriarchy and the practical validity of the social and sexual hierarchies used to control and limit the legal and physical independence of women in society. Women's liberationists proposed that sexism—legalized formal and informal sex-based discrimination predicated on the existence of the social construction of gender—was the principal political problem with the power dynamics of their societies.

In general, the WLM proposed socio-economic change from the political left, rejected the idea that piecemeal equality, within and according to social class, would eliminate sexual discrimination against women, and fostered the tenets of humanism, especially the respect for human rights of all people. In the decades during which the women's liberation movement flourished, liberationists successfully changed how women were perceived in their cultures, redefined the socio-economic and the political roles of women in society, and transformed mainstream society.

Background

The wave theory of social development holds that intense periods of social activity are followed by periods of remission, in which the activists involved intensely in mobilization are systematically marginalized and isolated. After the intense period fighting for women's suffrage, the common interest which had united international feminists left the women's movement without a single focus upon which all could agree. Ideological differences between radicals and moderates, led to a split and a period of deradicalization, with the largest group of women's activists spearheading movements to educate women on their new responsibilities as voters. Organizations like the African National Congress Women's League, the Irish Housewives Association, the League of Women Voters, the Townswomen's Guilds and the Women's Institutes supported women and tried to educate them on how to use their new rights to incorporate themselves into the established political system. Still other organizations, involved in the mass movement of women into the workforce during World War I and World War II and their subsequent exit at the end of the war with concerted official efforts to return to family life, turned their efforts to labor issues. The World YWCA and Zonta International, were leaders in these efforts, mobilizing women to gather information on the situation of working women and organize assistance programs. Increasingly, radical organizations, like the American National Women's Party, were marginalized by media which denounced feminism and its proponents as "severe neurotics responsible for the problems of" society. Those who were still attached to the radical themes of equality were typically unmarried, employed, socially and economically advantaged and seemed to the larger society to be deviant.

In countries throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and South America, efforts to decolonize and replace authoritarian regimes, which largely began in the 1950s and stretched through the 1980s, initially saw the state overtaking the role of radical feminists. For example, in Egypt, the 1956 Constitution eliminated gender barriers to labor, political access, and education through provisions for gender equality. Women in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries had worked for an end to dictatorships in their countries. As those governments turned to socialist policies, the state aimed to eliminate gender inequality through state action. As ideology in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean shifted left, women in newly independent and still colonized countries saw a common goal in opposing imperialism. They focused their efforts to address gendered power imbalances in their quest for respect of human rights and nationalist goals. This worldwide movement towards decolonization and the realignment of international politics into Cold War camps after the end of World War II, usurped the drive for women's enfranchisement, as universal suffrage and nationhood became the goal for activists. A Pan-African awareness and global recognition of blackness as a unifying point for struggle, led to a recognition by numerous marginalized groups that there was potential to politicize their oppression.

In their attempt to influence these newly independent countries to align with the United States, in the polarized Cold War climate, racism in U.S. policy became a stumbling block to the foreign policy objective to become the dominant superpower. Black leaders were aware of the favorable climate for securing change and pushed forward the Civil Rights Movement to address racial inequalities. They sought to eliminate the damage of oppression, using liberation theory and a movement which sought to create societal transformation in the way people thought about others by infusing the disenfranchised with political power to change the power structures. The Black Power movement and global student movements protested the apparent double standards of the age and the authoritarian nature of social institutions. From Czechoslovakia to Mexico, in diverse locations like Germany, France, Italy, and Japan, among others, students protested the civil, economic and political inequalities, as well as involvement in the Vietnam War. Many of the activists participating in these causes would go on to participate in the feminist movement.

Socially, the baby boom experienced after the Second World War, the relative worldwide economic growth in the post-war years, the expansion of the television industry sparking improved communications, as well as access to higher education for both women and men led to an awareness of the social problems women faced and the need for a cultural change. At the time, women were economically dependent on men and neither the concept of patriarchy nor a coherent theory about the power relationships between men and women in society existed. If they worked, positions available to women were typically in light manufacturing or agricultural work and a limited segment of positions in the service industries, such as bookkeeping, domestic labor, nursing, secretarial and clerical work, retail sales, or school teaching. They were expected to work for lower wages than men and upon marriage, terminate their employment. Women were unable to obtain bank accounts or credit, making renting housing impossible, without a man's consent. In many countries they were not allowed to go into public spaces without a male chaperone.

Married women from Commonwealth countries and thus with a common law legal code were legally bound to have sex with their husbands upon demand. At the time, marital rape was not a concept in common law, as it was legally considered that women had given consent to regular intercourse upon marrying. The state and church placed enormous pressure on young women to retain their virginity. Introduction of the birth control pill gave many men a sense that as women could not get pregnant, they could not say no to intercourse. Though by the 1960s the pill was widely available, prescription was tightly controlled and in many countries, dissemination of information about birth control was illegal. Even after the pill was legalized, contraception remained banned in numerous countries, like Ireland where condoms were banned and the pill could only be prescribed to control menstrual cycles. The Catholic Church issued the encyclical Humanae vitae in 1968, reiterating the ban on artificial contraception. Abortion often required the consent of a spouse, or approval by a board, as in Canada, wherein the decisions often revolved around whether pregnancy posed a threat to the woman's health or life.

As women became more educated and joined the workforce, their home responsibilities remained largely unchanged. Though families increasingly depended on dual incomes, women carried most of the responsibility for domestic work and care of children. There had long been recognized by society in general of the inequalities in civil, socio-economic, and political agency between women and men. However, the women's liberation movement was the first time that the idea of challenging sexism gained wide acceptance. Literature on sex, such as the Kinsey Reports, and the development and distribution of the birth control pill, created a climate wherein women began to question the authority others wielded over their decisions regarding their bodies and their morality. Many of the women who participated in the movement, were aligned with leftist politics and after 1960, with the development of Cold War polarization, took their inspiration from Maoist theory. Slogans such as "workers of the world unite" turned into "women of the world unite" and key features like consciousness-raising and egalitarian consensus-based policies "were inspired by similar techniques used in China".

Into this backdrop of world events, Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex in 1949, which was translated into English in 1952. In the book, de Beauvoir put forward the idea that equality did not require women be masculine to become empowered. With her famous statement, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman", she laid the groundwork for the concept of gender as a social construct, as opposed to a biological trait. The same year, Margaret Mead published Male and Female, which though it analyzed primitive societies of New Guinea, showed that gendered activities varied between cultures and that biology had no role in defining which tasks were performed by men or women. By 1965, de Beauvoir and Mead's works had been translated into Danish and became widely influential with feminists. Kurahashi Yumiko published her debut Partei in 1960, which critically examined the student movement. The work started a trend in Japan of feminist works which challenged the opportunities available to women and mocked conventional power dynamics in Japanese society. In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, voicing the discontent felt by American women.

Aims

As the women's suffrage movement emerged from the abolition movement, the women's liberation movement grew out of the struggle for civil rights. Though challenging patriarchy and the anti-patriarchal message of the women's liberation movement was considered radical, it was not the only, nor the first, radical movement in the early period of second-wave feminism. Rather than simply desiring legal equality, those participating in the movement believed that the moral and social climate which perceived women as second-class citizens needed to change. Though most groups operated independently—there were no national umbrella organizations—there were unifying philosophies of women participating in the movement. Challenging patriarchy and the hierarchical organization of society which defined women as subordinate in both public and private spheres, liberationists believed that women should be free to define their own individual identity as part of human society.

One of the reasons that women who supported the movement chose not to create a single approach to addressing the problem of women being treated as second-class citizens was that they did not want to foster an idea that anyone was an expert or that any one group or idea could address all of the societal problems women faced. They also wanted women, whose voices had been silenced to be able to express their own views on solutions. Rejecting authority and espousing participatory democracy as well as direct action, they promoted a wide agenda including civil rights, eliminating objectification of women, ethnic empowerment, granting women reproductive rights, increasing opportunities for women in the workplace, peace, and redefining familial roles, as well as gay and lesbian liberation. A dilemma faced by movement members was how they could challenge the definition of femininity without compromising the principles of feminism.

Women's historical participation in the world was virtually unknown, even to trained historians. Women's roles in historic events were not covered in academic texts and not taught in schools. Even the fact that women had been denied the vote was something few university students were aware of in the era. To understand the wider implications of women's experiences, WLM groups launched women's studies programs introducing feminist history, sociology and psychology to higher education and adult education curricula to counter gender biases in teaching these subjects. Writing women back into history became extremely important in the period with attention to the differences of experiences based on class, ethnic background, race and sexual orientation. The courses became widespread by the end of the decade in Britain, Canada, and the United States, and were also introduced in such places as Italy and Norway.

Thousands of adherents joined the movement which began in the United States and spread to Canada and Mexico. In Europe, movements developed in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Wales. The liberationist movement also was active in Australia, Fiji, Guam, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Key components of the movement were consciousness-raising sessions aimed at politicizing personal issues, small group and limited organizational structure and a focus on changing societal perception rather than reforming legislation. For example, liberationists did not support reforming family codes to allow abortion, instead, they believed that neither medical professionals nor the state should have the power to limit women's complete control of their own bodies. They favored abolishing laws which limited women's rights over their reproduction, believing such control was an individual right, not subject to moralistic majority views. Most liberationists banned the participation of men in their organizations. Though often depicted in media as a sign of "man-hating", the separation was a focused attempt to eliminate defining women via their relationship to men. Since women's inequality within their employment, family and society were commonly experienced by all women, separation meant unity of purpose to evaluate their second-class status.

Development

North America

Main article: Women's liberation movement in North America

The women's liberation movement featured political activities such as a march demanding legal equality for women in the United States (26 August 1970)

In Canada and the United States, the movement developed out of the Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War sentiment toward the Vietnam War, the Native Rights Movement and the New Left student movement of the 1960s. Between 1965 and 1966, papers presented at meetings of the Students for a Democratic Society and articles published in journals, such as the Canadian Random began advocating for women to embark on a path of self-discovery free from male scrutiny. In 1967, the first Women's Liberation organizations formed in major cities like Berkeley, Boston, Chicago, New York City and Toronto. Quickly organizations spread across both countries. In Mexico, the first group of liberationists formed in 1970, inspired by the student movement and US women's liberationists.

Organizations were loosely organized, without a hierarchical power structure and favored all-women participation to eliminate defining women or their autonomy by their association with men. Groups featured consciousness-raising discussions on a wide variety of issues, the importance of having freedom to make choices, and the importance of changing societal attitudes and perceptions of women's roles. Canadian women's lib groups typically incorporated a class-based component into their theory of oppression which was mostly missing from US liberation theory,  which focused almost exclusively on sexism and a belief that women's oppression stemmed from their gender and not as a result of their economic or social class. In Quebec, women's and Quebec's autonomy were entwined issues with women struggling for the right to serve as jurors.

Advocating public self-expression by participating in protests and sit-ins, liberationists demonstrated against discriminatory hiring and wage practices in Canada, while in the US liberationists protested the Miss America Beauty Pageant for objectifying women. In both countries women's liberation groups were involved protesting their legislators for abortion rights for women. In Mexico liberationists protested at the Monument to the Mother on Mother's Day to challenge the idea that all women were destined to be mothers. Challenging gender definitions and the sexual relationship to power drew lesbians into the movement in both the United States and Canada. Because liberationists believed that sisterhood was a uniting component to women's oppression, lesbians were not seen as a threat to other women. Another important aspect for North American women was developing spaces for women to meet with other women, offer counseling and referral services, provide access to feminist materials, and establish women's shelters for women who were in abusive relationships.

Increasingly mainstream media portrayed liberationists as man-haters or deranged outcasts. To gain legitimacy for the recognition of sexual discrimination, the media discourse on women's issues was increasingly shaped by the liberal feminist's reformist aims. As liberationists were marginalized, they increasingly became involved in single focus issues, such as violence against women. By the mid-1970s, the women's liberation movement had been effective in changing the worldwide perception of women, bringing sexism to light and moving reformists far to the left in their policy aims for women, but in the haste to distance themselves from the more radical elements, liberal feminists attempted to erase their success and rebrand the movement as the Women's Movement.

Asia

Main article: Women's liberation movement in Asia

By the 1970s, the movement had spread to Asia with women's liberation organizations forming in Japan in 1970. The Yom Kippur War raised awareness of the subordinate status of Israeli women, fostering the growth of the WLM. In India, 1974 was a pivotal year when activists from the Navnirman Movement against corruption and the economic crisis, encouraged women to organize direct actions to challenge traditional leadership. In 1975, liberationist ideas in South Korea were introduced by Lee Hyo-jae a professor at Ewha Woman's University after she had read western texts on the movement which were first translated into Korean in 1973. Similarly, Hsiu-lien Annette Lu, who had completed her graduate courses in the United States, brought liberationist ideas to Taiwan, when she returned and began publishing in the mid-1970s.

In Singapore and other Asian countries, conscious effort was made to distinguish their movement from decadent, "free sex" Western feminist ideals, while simultaneously addressing issues that were experienced worldwide by women. In India, the struggle for women's autonomy was rarely separated from the struggle against the caste system and in Israel, though their movement more closely resembled the WLM in the US and Europe, the oppression of Palestinian women was a focal area. In Japan, the movement focused on freeing women from societal perceptions of limitations because of their sex, rather than on a stand for equality. In South Korea, women workers' concerns merged with liberationist ideas within the broader fight against dictatorship, whereas in Taiwan, theories of respect for women and eliminating double standards were promoted by weaving in Confucianist philosophy.

Europe

Main article: Women's liberation movement in Europe

In Europe, the women's liberation movement started in the late 1960s and continued through the 1980s. Inspired by events in North America and triggered by the growing presence of women in the labor market, the movement soon gained momentum in Britain and the Scandinavian countries. Though influenced by leftist politics, liberationists in general were resistant to any political order which ignored women entirely or relegated their issues to the sidelines. Women's liberation groups in Europe were distinguished from other feminist activists by their focus on women's rights to control their own bodies and sexuality, as well as their direct actions aimed at provoking the public and making society aware of the issues faced by women.

There were robust women's liberation movements in Western European countries, including developments in Greece, Portugal and Spain, which in the period were emerging from dictatorships. Many different types of actions were held throughout Europe. To increase public awareness of the problems of equal pay, liberationists in Denmark staged a bus sit-in, where they demanded lower fares than male passengers to demonstrate their wage gap. Swedish members of Grupp 8 heckled politicians at campaign rallies, demanding to know why women were only allowed part-time jobs and thus were ineligible for pensions. To address the objectification of women, Belgian liberationists protested at beauty pageants, Dolle Minas in the Netherlands and Nyfeministene of Norway invaded male-only bars, Irish Women United demonstrated against male-only bathing at Forty Foot promontory and Portuguese women dressed as a bride, a housewife and a sex symbol, marching in Eduardo VII Park.

Reacting on two killings of women in the streets, on 1 March 1977 women in West Berlin started demonstrating at night – later to be repeated as Walpurgis Night every year on May Day eve. Women in England, Scotland and Wales took up the idea of Reclaim the Night marches to challenge the notion that women's behavior caused the violence perpetrated against them. Spanish liberationists from the Colectivo Feminista Pelvis (Pelvis Feminist Collective), Grup per l'Alliberament de la Dona (Group for Women's Liberation) and Mujeres Independientes (Independent Women) carried funeral wreaths through the streets of Mallorca calling for an end to sexual abuse and a judicial system which allowed men to use alcohol or passion as mitigating factors for sexual violence. In Iceland, women virtually shut down the country; when spurred by liberationists, 90% of them took Women's Day Off and refused to participate in household duties or work, instead of attending a protest rally.

In almost all Western European countries liberationists fought for elimination of barriers to free and unrestricted access to contraception and abortion. In Austria, to advocate for the abolition of section 144 of their criminal code, activists used street theater performance. Prominent French activists declared their criminal actions signing the Manifesto of the 343, admitting to having had abortions, as did German activists who signed the Manifesto of the 374. Irish activists took the train and crossed into Northern Ireland to secure prohibited contraception devices and upon their return flouted authorities bypassing the contraband to the public. In the UK, an uneasy alliance formed between liberationists, the National Abortion Campaign and trade unionists to fight a series of bills designed to restrict abortion rights. In Italy, 50,000 women marched through the streets of Rome demanding their right to control their own bodies, but as was typically the result throughout Europe, compromise reform to existing law was passed by the government, limiting the decision by gestation or requiring preliminary medical authorization.

Throughout the period, publishing was crucial for disseminating the theory and ideas of liberation and other feminist schools of thought. Initially many activists relied on translations of material from the US,  but increasingly the focus was on producing country-specific editions, or local journals to allow activists to adapt the movement slogan the "personal is political" to reflect their own experiences. Journals and newspapers founded by liberationists included Belgium's Le Petit livre rouge des femmes (The Little Red Book of Women), France's Le torchon brûle [fr] (Waging the Battle), Greece's Gia tin Apeleftherosi ton Gynaikon (For the Liberation of Women), Italy's Sottosopra (Upside Down), the Scottish The Tayside Women's Liberation Newsletter or the British Spare Rib, among many others. In the UK, a news service called the Women's Information and Referral Service (WIRES) distributed news of WLM groups throughout the nation.

In West Germany a book distribution run by lesbians snowballed feminist knowledge from 1974 on. Two feminist monthlies - Courage and EMMA - spread the new ideas. The women's camp on Femø organized by the Red Stocking Movement (Denmark) facilitated international exchange too. In 1974 this gathering in the sun gave birth to the first International Tribunal on Crimes against Women held in Brussels 1976.

Books like Die Klosterschule (The Convent School, 1968) by Barbara Frischmuth, which evaluated patriarchy in the parochial schools of Austria, The Female Eunuch (Paladin, 1970) by Germaine Greer and The Descent of Woman (1972) by Welsh author and feminist Elaine Morgan, brought women into the movement who thought that their lives differed from those of women in large urban settings where the movement originated. Other influential publications included the British edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves (1971) edited by Angela Phillips and Jill Rakusen; Frauenhandbuch Nr. 1: Abtreibung und Verhütungsmittel (Women's Guide # 1: Abortion and Contraceptives, 1971) produced in Germany by Helke Sander and Verena Stefan and Skylla sig själv (Self-blame, 1976) by Swede Maria-Pia Boëthius, which evaluated rape culture applied analysis and solutions to local areas. In some cases, books themselves became the focus of liberationists' protests over censorship, as in the case of the Norwegian demonstration at the publishing house Aschehoug, which was forced to publish a translation of the Swedish text Frihet, jämlikhet och systerskap [sv] (Freedom, Equality and Sisterhood, 1970), or the international outcry which resulted from the ban and arrest of Portuguese authors Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Isabel Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa over their book Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters, 1972).

As the idea of women's freedom gained mainstream approval, governments and more reformist minded women's groups adopted liberationists' ideas and began incorporating them into compromise solutions. By the early 1980s, most activists in the Women's Liberation Movements in Europe moved on to other single focus causes or transitioned into organizations which were political.

Oceania

Main article: Women's liberation movement in Oceania

Spreading from the United States and Britain, the women's liberation movement reached Oceania in 1969. The first organizations were formed in Sydney in 1969, and by 1970 had reached Adelaide and Melbourne, as well as Wellington and Auckland. The following year, organizations were formed at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and in Guam. As in the US and other places where the movement flourished, small consciousness-raising groups with a limited organizational structure were the norm and the focus was on changing societal perception rather than legislation.

Involved in public protests, liberationists demonstrated at beauty pageants to protest women's objectification, and invaded male-only pubs. In Australia they ran petition drives and protests in favor of legalizing abortion and in Auckland led a funeral procession through Albert Park to demonstrate lack of progress on issues which were of concern to women. Liberationists developed multiple publications such as Broadsheet, Liberaction, MeJane, The Circle and Women's Liberation Newsletter to address issues and concerns;. They founded women's shelters and women's centers for meetings and child care services, which were open to all women, be they socialists, lesbians, indigenous women, students, workers or homemakers. The diversity of adherents fractured the movement by the early 1980s, as groups began focusing on specific interests rather than solely on sexism.

Surveillance

The FBI kept records on numerous participants in the WLM as well as spying on them and infiltrating their organizations. Roberta Sapler, a participant in the movement between 1968 and 1973 in Pittsburgh, wrote an article regarding her attempts to obtain the FBI file kept on her during the period. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police spied upon liberationists in Canada, as did the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation surveil WLM groups and participants in Australia. In Germany, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) kept tabs on activists participating in women's center activities. Having lived in a communal housing project or been affiliated with youth movements made liberationists targets and their meeting places were searched and materials were confiscated.

Legacy

The women's liberation movement created a global awareness of patriarchy and sexism. By bringing matters that had long been considered private issues into the public view and linking those issues to deepen understanding about how systemic suppression of women's rights in society are interrelated, liberationists made innovative contributions to feminist theory. Desiring to know about women's historic contributions but often being thwarted in their search due to centuries of censoring and blocking of women's intellectual work, liberationists brought the study of power relationships, including those of sex and diversity, into the social sciences. They launched women's studies programs and publishing houses to ensure that a more culturally comprehensive history of the complex nature of society was developed.

In an effort to distance themselves from the politics and ideas of women in the liberation movement, as well as the personal politics which emerged, many second-wave feminists distanced themselves from the early movement. Meaghan Morris, an Australian scholar of popular culture stated that later feminists could not associate themselves with the ideas and politics of the period and maintain their respect. And yet, liberationists succeeded in pushing the dominant liberal feminists far to the left of their original aims and forced them to include goals that address sexual discrimination. Jean Curthoys argued that in the rush to distance themselves from liberationists, unconscious amnesia rewrote the history of their movement, and failed to grasp the achievement that, without a religious connotation, the movement created an "ethic of the irreducible value of human beings." Phrases that were used in the movement, like "consciousness-raising" and "male chauvinism", became keywords associated with the movement.

Influential publications

• Barreno, Maria Isabel; Horta, Maria Teresa; Velho da Costa, Maria (1975). The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters. Translated by Land, Helen R. (1st English ed.). Garden City, New York: Doubleday. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-385-01853-1. Original publication (1972) Novas Cartas Portuguesas (in Portuguese) Lisbon, Portugal Estudios Cor.
• Benston, Margaret (September 1969). "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation" (PDF). Monthly Review. 21 (4): 13. doi:10.14452/MR-021-04-1969-08_2. ISSN 0027-0520. S2CID 144727738.
• Boëthius, Maria-Pia (1976). Skylla sig sjalv: en bok om våldtäkt [Self-blame: A book of rape] (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Liber Förlag. OCLC 480560113.
• Brownmiller, Susan (1975). Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-22062-4.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre (1973). Witches, Midwives & Nurses: A History of Women Healers. Old Westbury, New York: Feminist Press. ISBN 9780912670133.
• Firestone, Shulamith (1972). The Dialectic of Sex (PDF) (revised ed.). New York, New York: Bantam Books. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 February 2018.
• Firestone, Shulamith; Koedt, Anne, eds. (1968). Notes From the First Year. New York, New York: New York Radical Women. OCLC 28655057. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
• Greer, Germaine (1970). The Female Eunuch. London, England: MacGibbon & Kee. ISBN 978-0-261-63208-0.
• Hägg, Maud; Werkmäster, Barbro (1972). Frihet, jämlikhet, systerskap: en handbok för kvinnor [Freedom, Equality and Sisterhood: A handbook for women] (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Författarförlaget. ISBN 978-9-170-54075-2.
• Johnston, Jill (1973). Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-21433-3.
• Koedt, Anne (1968). The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm. Adelaide, South Australia: Women's Liberation Movement of Adelaide. OCLC 741539766. In 1970 editions were released in London and Boston.
• Kool-Smit, J. E. (1967). "Het onbehagen bij de vrouw" [The Discontent of Women] (PDF). De Gids (in Dutch) (9–10): 267–281. ISSN 0016-9730. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 April 2018.
• Mainardi, Pat (1970). The Politics of Housework. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Free Press. OCLC 41038147.
• Millett, Kate (1970). Sexual politics. New York, New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-29270-4.
• Mitchell, Juliet (1971). Woman's Estate. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-021425-3.
• Morgan, Elaine (1972). The Descent of Woman. London, England: Souvenir Press. ISBN 978-0-285-62063-6.
• Morgan, Robin (1970). Sisterhood Is Powerful : An Anthology of Writings from Women's Liberation Movement. New York, New York: Random House. ISBN 9780394705392. OCLC 606144056.
• Rich, Adrienne (1976). Of Woman Born: Motherhood as experience and institution. New York, New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-11365-5.
• Sarachild, Kathie (1970). "A Program for Feminist 'Consciousness Raising'". Notes from the Second Year: Women's Liberation. New York, New York: Radical Feminism: 78–80. OCLC 70702435. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
• Sarachild, Kathie (1973). "Consciousness Raising: A Radical Weapon" (PDF). Feminist Revolution. New York, New York: Redstockings: 144–150. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
• Vinder, K. (pseud.) (1975). Kvinde kend din krop: En håndbog [Woman know your body: A handbook] (in Danish). Copenhagen, Denmark: Tiderne Skifter. ISBN 978-8-779-736-252.

Criticism

The philosophy practiced by liberationists assumed a global sisterhood of support working to eliminate inequality without acknowledging that women were not united; other factors, such as age, class, ethnicity, and opportunity (or lack thereof) created spheres wherein women's interests diverged, and some women felt underrepresented by the WLM. While many women gained an awareness of how sexism permeated their lives, they did not become radicalized and were uninterested in overthrowing society. They made changes in their lives to address their individual needs and social arrangements, but were unwilling to take action on issues that might threaten their socio-economic status. Liberationist theory also failed to recognize a fundamental difference in fighting oppression. Combating sexism had an internal component, whereby one could change the basic power structures within family units and personal spheres to eliminate the inequality. Class struggle and the fight against racism are solely external challenges, requiring public action to eradicate inequality.

There was criticism of the movement not only from factions within the movement itself, but from outsiders, like Hugh Hefner, Playboy founder, who launched a campaign to expose all the "highly irrational, emotional, kookie trends" of feminism in an effort to tear apart feminist ideas that were "unalterably opposed to the romantic boy-girl society" promoted by his magazine. "Women's libbers" were widely characterized as "man-haters" who viewed men as enemies, advocated for all-women societies, and encouraged women to leave their families behind. Semanticist Nat Kolodney argued that while women were oppressed by social structures and rarely served in tyrannical roles over the male population as a whole, men, in general, were not oppressors of women either. Instead, social constructs and the difficulty of removing systems which had long served their purpose exploited both men and women. Women's liberationists acknowledged that patriarchy affects both men and women, with the former receiving many privileges from it, but focused on the impact of systemic sexism and misogyny on women throughout the world.

To many women activists in the American Indian Movement, black Civil Rights Movement, Chicana Movement, as well as Asians and other minorities, the activities of the primarily white, middle-class women in the women's liberation movement were focused specifically on sex-based violence and the social construction of gender as a tool of sex-based oppression. By evaluating all economic, socio-cultural, and political issues through the lens of sexism without pairing it with racism and classism, liberationists often poorly represented women of color in their analyses. While women of color recognized that sexism was an issue, some did not see how it could be separated from the issue of race or class, which compounds to impact their access to education, health care, housing, jobs, legal justice, and the poverty and violence which permeates their lives. For women who did not speak English, or spoke it as a second language, sexism had little to do with the ability to protect herself or utilize existing systems. The focus on personal freedom was another divergence between white women and women of color. Some did not see the intrinsic connection between the liberation of women and the liberation of men that was advocated for by the Women's Liberation Movement and felt that feminists did not care about the inequalities suffered by men; they felt that the liberation of women without the liberation of men from policies that keep men of color from obtaining jobs and limit their civil rights, further preventing them from being able to protect their families, neither improved humanity as a whole nor improved the plight experienced by families. Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, expressed that the best way black women could help themselves was to help their men gain equality.

Regarding the "sex-positive" sect that broke away from the women's liberation movement, extending personal freedom to sexual freedom, the meaning of being free to have relations with whoever one wanted, was lost on black women who had been sexually assaulted and raped with impunity for centuries or Native Women who were routinely sterilized. Their issues were not about limiting their families but having the freedom to form families. It had very little meaning in the traditional Chicana culture wherein women were required to be virgins until marriage and remain naïve in her marriage. Though invited to participate within the Women's Liberation Movement, many women of color cautioned against the single focus on sexism, finding it to be an incomplete analysis without the consideration of racism. Likewise, though many lesbians saw commonalities with Women's Liberation through the goals of eponymous liberation from sex-based oppression, which included fighting against homophobia, others believed that the focus was too narrow to confront the issues they faced. Differences in the understanding of gender and how it relates to and informs sex-based oppression and systemic sexism called attention to differences in issues. For example, many liberationists rejected the performance of femininity as positive behavior, which meant that white lesbians who actively chose to perform femininity had to decide between their desire to be feminine-presenting and their rejection of sexual objectification. Jackie Anderson, an activist, and philosopher observed that in the black lesbian community being able to dress up made them feel confident because, during the workweek, black women had to conform to dress codes imposed upon them. This was and continues to be a sentiment held by most women, who tend to believe that the feeling of confidence derived from performing femininity as dictated by the sexist status quo is the same as empowerment.