Feminism and Gender Equality: Past Issues and Future Possibilities

Quite simply, feminism is equal rights and opportunities for all genders. Yet, it seems like a radical idea to most. In fact, when the word is mentioned, it is likely to generate a misinformed reaction.1 While feminism is a human rights movement, it still suffers setbacks. Gender inequality has persisted throughout time, cultures, and place. In fact, transcending strict gender boundaries has been a fight throughout history. If we take a glimpse of history and look back at the ancient Egyptians, we may realize how past, and present can mirror each other.

To explore gender equality in its entirety is beyond the scope of this project. Instead, I will focus on questioning how much progress has been made. Woman’s status in Egypt was advanced for any time in history including present day, however, they were still serving a patriarchy system as we do today. There were limitations to these allowances.  The idea of a feminism utopia for ancient Egypt is false, but their persistence to keep equal rights seems true.

This project explores the parallels between ancient Egypt and modern times and asks the question how much progress has been made? Ancient Egypt has been gone for 2000 years, but they can provide us with similar culture, religious, government and language systems. In our own modern infancy, many feel we are post inequality, but we are not. This work represents the past and the present moving in a cycle that connects parallels, and it encourages exploration that can draw important lessons and reveal challenges we still face today.

[1] Toril Moi, “I am not a feminist, but…”: how feminism became the f-word." pmla 121, no. 5 (2006):1736.