Yesterday I watched this speech by Christina Hoff Sommers that went into a little more of the history of the women's movement, not the modern women's movement, but a little before that. She included summaries of Hannah Moore and Francis Willard. Although, as we call it in historic reenacting terms, the "original cast" did not call themselves any type of feminists (as the word did not exist), Sommers divides the different types of female thought into egalitarian feminism and maternal feminism.
Egalitarian feminism is the feminism we see, for the most part, today, which is why so many women do not want to be associated with the word. Maternal feminism has been nearly silenced on a broad scale, yet this more conservative, family-loving approach, is much more agreeable to most women (and men) throughout the world. Sommers argues that maternal feminists in the past actually made much more progress overall than egalitarian feminists, and we need to bring back this more conservative approach rather than the extreme approach.
Sommers also brands her own type of feminism, freedom feminism, which brings in the best parts of both maternal and egalitarian feminism; although, this speech does not go into specific details.
The thing that I appreciated about Sommers' talk was the idea that most women appreciate the maternal side of things; it's something women can take pride in. In fact, she shares, even in Sweden where they've tried to de-gender everything and make an equal playing field for men and women, women still choose to have children and want to be with them by choosing to work part time.
This was definitely worth a watch if you're into this kind of thing.
