New feminism

New feminism is a form of Christian feminism that not only emphasizes the integral complementarity of men and women, rather than the superiority of men over women or women over men, but also advocates for respecting persons from conception to natural death. New feminism is a form of Christian feminism that not only emphasizes the integral complementarity of men and women, rather than the superiority of men over women or women over men, but also advocates for respecting persons from conception to natural death. New feminism, as a form of difference feminism, supports the idea that men and women have different strengths, perspectives, and roles, while advocating for the equal worth and dignity of both sexes. Among its basic concepts are that biological differences are significant and do not compromise sexual equality. New Feminism holds that women should be valued in their role as child bearers, that women are individuals with equal worth as men; and that in social, economic and legal senses they should be equal, while accepting the natural differences between the sexes. The term was originally used in Britain in the 1920s to distinguish new feminists from traditional mainstream suffragist feminism. These women, also referred to as welfare feminists, were particularly concerned with motherhood, like their opposite numbers in Germany at the time, Helene Stöcker and her Bund für Mutterschutz. New feminists campaigned strongly in favour of such measures as family allowances paid directly to mothers. They were also largely supportive of protective legislation in industry. A major proponent of this was Eleanor Rathbone of the suffragist-successor society, the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. New feminists were opposed mainly by young women, especially those in the Six Point Group, particularly Winifred Holtby, Vera Brittain, and Dorothy Evans, who saw this as a retrograde step towards the separate spheres ideology of the 19th century. They were particularly opposed to protective legislation, which they saw as being in practice restrictive legislation, which kept women out of better-paid jobs on the pretext of health and welfare considerations. In recent years, the term has been revived by feminists responding to Pope John Paul II's call for a ''new feminism' which rejects the temptation of imitating models of 'male domination' in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation . . . 'Reconcile people with life''. John Paul II links the new feminism of pro-life, pro-person advocacy to the feminine genius identified in his 1988 apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, or, On the Dignity and Vocation of Women. In section 30 of this letter, John Paul II identified women as having a 'genius that belongs' to them and called on them to use it to restore 'sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance. Women are mothers and caregivers as well as participants in every realm of human endeavor. He describes the 'feminine genius' as including empathy, interpersonal relations, emotive capacity, subjectivity, communication, intuition and personalization. In the controversial section 24 of this letter, John Paul II defends the equality of women and argues that husbands and wives are to be mutually submissive to each other. John Paul II had begun his theologically-based affirmation of integral gender complementarity in his Wednesday audiences between 1979 and 1984, in what is now compiled as the Theology of the Body. In this work, he describes his belief that men and women are formed as complementary human beings for the sake of loving and being loved. John Paul II continued his call for women to become advocates of humanity in his Apostolic Letter to Women prior to the 1995 Beijing Women's conference. Since then, women interested in advocating for the person--along with their male collaborators--have been developing personalist feminism. 'Personalist feminism' was a term first coined by Prudence Allen to describe the feminism called for by John Paul II. Women have also been developing new feminism as a philosophical theory about sexual complementarity. They agree that being the equal to men in their professional and social capacities does not require denying their physical differences as women nor the importance of being a mother whether physically or spiritually. While the Greeks acknowledged the possibility of sex complementarity, systematic developments into this philosophy of the person did not begin until Augustine of Hippo, who recognized the implications of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. The first western philosopher to articulate a complete theory of sex complementarity was Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century Benedictine nun. Her advances were soon buried by the 13th century Aristotelian Revolution, and the lack of higher education for women in the following centuries.