Key Concepts

• Sex and gender- sex is the biological differences that exist between men and women. Gender is more conceptual, focusing on the social roles that are ascribed to men and women (often because of the way they appear and their biology). Feminists disagree about whether women’s rights should be based on gender or based on biological sex which is important for understanding differences between postmodernists and some radicals (especially relating to the rights of transgender people).

• Patriarchy- society, the state and the economy are characterised by a pervasive, systemic and institutionalised gender oppression. (In short- there are in-built socio-economic hurdles for women).

• ‘The personal is political’- all relationships between men and women, both in public and in private, are based on power and domination. Historically this has included psychological manipulation, economic domination and physical violence.

  • Some feminists think this idea is highly useful for framing discussions around issues like domestic violence against women.

  • Other feminists think this is a reductionist idea that can create a deep hostility or antipathy towards men (and transgender people) which could be an impediment to achieving equality.

• Equality feminism vs feminisms of difference- equality feminism argues that society should strive for total equality between men and women. Feminists of difference argue that men and women have biological differences that motivate how they act and so treating them as the same is counter-intuitive.

  • Some equality feminists have argued that certain biological differences should be eroded or ignored where possible to destigmatise certain behaviours (e.g. some feminists have argued that although women have periods and men don’t that having period should be destigmatized but that women shouldn’t receive any special treatment in the workplace or in society)

  • Some feminists of difference argue that certain differences cannot be equalised without violating other ideological values (e.g. men don’t have periods but to create equality one could inflict pain on men every month so that this natural inequality is equalised, but this would violate the liberty of men and is antithetical to the feminist belief in individual bodily autonomy). This viewpoint around differences between men and women has resulted in some women arguing for political lesbianism. This is the notion that sexuality is a political choice and that heterosexual men reproduce patriarchy in relationships with women, and therefore than feminists should choose to only have sexual/emotional relationships with women. The most radical of this group, known as lesbian separatists, argue for men to be totally excluded from discussions of feminism in fear of men imposing patriarchal ideas onto feminist conversations.

• Intersectionality- argues that women experience gender oppression different depending on other aspects of their identity (e.g. a working class black woman will experience different oppression to a middle class white woman). As such, how women are perceived by men and wider society shapes the form of oppression they face

  • Links to colourism, classism and anti-lesbian attitudes among certain feminists.

  • Also links to the idea of the ‘male gaze’- the notion that culture/society is shaped around the desires and demands of (heterosexual) men (e.g using naked women in advertising)*.

*This points to the broader distinction between sex-positive and sex-negative feminism. Sex-positive feminists reject the taboo around sex and argue that women who participate in sexual activities for economic gain should not be judged or criminalised. They contend that in a situation where men are willing to give women significant sums of money for having sex or provoctively dancing, the women have reclaimed the power and thus are not being exploited. Sex-negative feminists argue that behaviours like pornography and/or prostitution harm women as men begin to only think of women as sexual objects and may place women in physical harm’s way. As such, these feminists usually resist moves to decriminalise sex work.

Strands of Feminist Thought

• Liberal feminism: Gender equality should be rooted in the rights of individuals. Also a key focus on the rights of women to participate in a free market, own property and control their own financial resources (on an individual level). Classical liberal feminists primarily focus on positive and negative political freedoms, but only positive economic freedoms. More modern liberal feminists discuss the role of tackling the social and economic implications of gender roles rather than the strictly legalistic approach of classical liberals. As such, modern liberal feminists discussed the idea of the government intervening the economy to ensure more socially just outcomes such as through policies like affirmative action.

• Socialist feminism: Gender inequality stems from economic exploitation though a capitalist economic system. Evidence of this would be that stereotypically female dominated work is either financially uncompensated (e.g. homemaking) or less well paid than traditionally male dominated industries (e.g. childcare, teaching, nursing). Some socialist feminists are sex-negative on the grounds that women are being objectified and commodified when they participate in behaviours like pornography and/or prostitution. Other socialist feminists, however, are sex-positive on the grounds that women are already commodified and exploited under capitalism and therefore participating in pornography is not fundamentally different than in other industries.

• Radical feminism: Gender inequality is the biggest problem facing society and failing to address this issue reproduces structures of patriarchy (i.e. policies implemented will perpetuate unaddressed inequalities). Some radical feminists centre their understanding of womanhood biological sex but others reject this (sometimes this position is referred to as ‘biological determinism’). Radical feminists are a diverse political grouping with some being sex-negative, some as sex-positive, some are political lesbians (and lesbian separatists), some are inclusive of transgender people and some are exclusionary towards transgender people.

• Postmodern Feminism- Significant focus on intersectionality and the overlapping of different forms of oppression. Also draws on the idea of the ‘male gaze’- the idea that society is designed around what (heterosexual) men find aesthetically pleasing and/or sexually stimulating (which results in women being reduced to sexual objects rather than human beings). Most postmodern feminists reject the centrality of biological sex as defining womanhood and other postmodernists have become known as postfeminists (a group who reject the need to centre feminist discussions on notions of gender and are more open to the idea of women embracing traditional notions of femininity).