Feminism

What do Liberal Feminists call for?

• Laws and policies (e.g. against sex discrimination in employment/education)

• Cultural change (e.g. beliefs women are less rational/more dominated by emotion used to legitimate exclusion from decision making + confinement to domestic sphere)

How do Liberal Feminists (Oakley) distinguish between sex and gender?

• Sex- biological differences (e.g. reproductive role, hormonal/physical differences)

• Gender- culturally constructed differences between ‘masculine’ + ‘feminine’ roles/assigned identities

• Sex differences fixed, cultural differences fluctuate (e.g. female bus drivers in Britain but women banned from driving in Saudi Arabia)

How can Liberal Feminism be seen to be optimistic?

believe that:

• Changes in socialisation/culture gradually leading to more rational attitudes to gender + overcoming ignorance/prejudice

• Political action to introduce anti-discriminatory laws and policies is steadily bringing about progress to fairer society

How to Liberal Feminists challenge Functionalism?

men/women equally capable of performing roles in public/private spheres, trad gender roles prevent men/women leading fulfilling lives

According to Liberal Feminists, how will women’s emancipation also benefit men?

ending gender division of labour allows them to express ‘feminine’ side that current stereotypes force them to suppress

How can Liberal Feminists be criticised?

• over-optimism, ignore dee-seated structures that cause women’s oppression (e.g. capitalism, patriarchy)

• Walby: no explanation for overall structure of gender inequality

• Marxist/Radical Feminist: fail to recognise underlying causes of women’s subordination, naive to believe changes to law/attitudes will bring equality, far-reaching revolutionary change needed

What key claims do Radical Feminists make?

• Patriarchy is universal

• Patriarchy is primary form of inequality/conflict, men = enemy

• All men oppress women as benefit from patriarchy (e.g. unpaid domestic labour, sexual services)

What does Firestone say about the origins of gender inequality?

origins of patriarchy lie in womens biological capacity to care for infants, become dependent on males

What do Radical Feminists mean by ‘personal as political’?

All relationships involve power, and are political when one person dominates another, men dominate women through personal relationships = sexual politics

What does Brownmiller say about the fear of rape?

it acts as a deterrent to all women going out alone at night

How does malestream sociology define sexuality?

natural biological urge

What does Rich say about sexuality?

men force women into narrow + unsatisfying ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, portrayed in porn as passive sex objects to satisfy men’s desires

How do Radical Feminists suggest we bring about change?

• Separatism

• Political lesbianism

• Consciousness raising

What is separatism?

living apart from men, creating culture of female independence

What does Greer argue for?

creation of matrilocal households as alt to heterosexual family

What is consciousness-raising?

sharing exp in womens only consciousness-raising groups, women see that other women face same problems = collective action (e.g. ‘Slutwalk’ marches, #MeToo)

What is political lesbianism?

heterosexual relationships = ‘sleeping with enemy’, lesbianism is only non-oppressive form of sexuality

How can Radical Feminists be criticised?

• Marxists: class= primary form of inequality, capitalism= main cause of women’s oppression

• No explanation of differing forms of female subordination across societies

• Assumes all women in same position (ignores class/ethnic/etc differences, e.g. m/c women might have more in common with m/c men than w/c women)

• Pollert: patriarchy= circular argument, male violence explained as patriarchy but patriarchy is maintained by male violence

• Somerville: heterosexual attraction = unlikely nuclear family replaced by single-sex households

• Liberal Feminists: patriarchy already in decline, womens position improved greatly due to social reforms/changing attitudes

• Neglects womens violence against men + DV in lesbian relationships

What function does women’s subordination in the nuclear family perform for capitalism?

• Cheap, exploitable labour

• Reserve army of labour

• Reproduce labour force

• Absorb anger otherwise directed at capitalism

What does Marxist Feminist Ansley describe women as?

‘takers of shit’

What does Marxist Feminist Barrett say about the ideology of familism?

nuclear family presented as natural/normal, family = only source of fulfilment (e.g. motherhood, intimacy, sexual satisfaction), ideology keeps women subordinated

How can Marxist Feminism be criticised?

• Fails to explain women’s subordination in non-capitalist societies

• doesn’t explain why women do domestic labour instead of men

• Hartmann: Marxism = ‘sex-blind’

• Insufficient emphasis placed on how men oppress women + benefit from unpaid labour

What two types of Feminism do Dual-systems Feminists derive ideas from?

• Marxist Feminism

• Radical Feminism

What does dual-systems theorist Hartmann say about capitalism and patriarchy?

intertwined = ‘patriarchal capitalism’, patriarchy is universal but takes specific form in capitalist societies

How do women’s positions in the domestic and public spheres reinforce eachother?

domestic work limits availability for paid work, lack of work opps drives women into marriage + economic dependence on man

What does Walby say about capitalism and the patriarchy?

• inter-related but don’t always have same interests

• e.g. capitalism wants cheap female labour but patriarchy wants women subordinated in domestic sphere

What is the strategy of segregation adopted by the patriarchy due to being overpowered by capitalism?

women allowed into capitalist sphere of paid work but only in low status ‘women’s’ jobs

How does Pollert criticise dual-systems Feminists?

patriarchy is not a system, merely a descriptive word for range of practices (e.g. male violence + control of women’s labour’

How do Difference Feminists criticise other Feminists?

• Feminism claims ‘false universality’, e.g. by seeing family as source of oppression, white Feminists neglect black women’s experience of racial oppression, family = source of resistance

• Liberal/Marxist/Radical Feminists are ‘essentialist’, fail to acknowledge diversity of women + experiences

How do Difference Feminists criticise Western Feminism?

Western Feminist pre-occupation with sexuality is irrelevant to women in poorer countries where accessing clean water and healthcare are more pressing issues

What are discourses, according to Poststructuralist Feminists?

ways of seeing/thinking/speaking about something, discourses compete (e.g. religion, science, medicine, arts)

Who is the key Poststructuralist Feminist?

Butler

How can a discourse give power over those it defines?

e.g. by defining childbirth as medical condition + healthy women as patients, medical discourse empowers doctors and disempowers women

How does Postructuralist Feminist Butler criticise the Enlightenment project?

simply form of power/knowledge to legitimate domination by Western, white, m/c males, ‘universal ideas’ exclude women and other oppressed groups

What does Butler say about white, Western, m/c Feminists?

aim to dominate movement, falsely claim to represent ‘universal womanhood’

Why do Poststructuralists not believe in a universal definition of ‘womanhood’?

e.g. womanhood in Saudi Arabia is constituted by Islamic discourse, womanhood in West constituted by discourses of advertising + media

Why does Butler say Poststructuralism offers advantages for Feminism?

• enables Feminists to de-construct different discourses to reveal how they women (e.g. medicalisation of childbirth)

• recognises + legitimates diversity of womens lives + struggles, rather than prioritising some + excluding others

How can Poststructuralist Feminism be evaluated?

• Walby: important similarities between women- all faced with patriarchy (e.g. greater risk of low pay, DV + sexual assault)

• celebrating difference could divide women + weaken Feminist movement

• Segal: abandons notions of real, objective social structures (e.g. equality of wealth/income)