Feminism

Key concepts:

• Conflict theory that suggests patriarchal oppression of women in society

• Sociology is malestream- male thinkers focusing on issues of men

• Evolved over time to deal with contemporary issues and intersectionality of women’s experiences

Waves of Feminism:

• First Wave- Political quality- Wollstonecraft, Martineau, Suffragettes, Suffragists

• Second Wave- Social and economic equality- Oakley, De Beauvoir, women’s liberation movement

• Third Wave- Intersectionality, focusing on the rights of those ignored by second-wave feminism

• Fourth Wave- Empowerment of women, digital feminism

Liberal Feminism:

• Tackle inequality by utilising existing systems- legal reform

• Legal changes have impacted many aspects of women’s lives- education, family, work, stratification

• Despite notable successes, inequality still exists and has evolved to take a newer form that liberal feminism continues to challenge

Marxist Feminism:

• Women are exploited by both capitalism and men

  • Benston ‘reserve army of labour’

  • Ansley- Women absorb men’s frustrations

  • Delphy and Leonard- Women exploited through domestic labour

• Men control the workforce and women’s part in the workforce

• Inequality in the workplace, but changes have occurred with the feminisation of the workplace

Radical Feminism:

• Patriarchy is present in all aspects of society; recent changes are superficial and token gestures

• Female separatism and female supremacists are extreme variations

• Millet- Women controlled physically, psychologically and ideologically by men

• Ignored progress and intersections between women’s lives

Feminist methodology:

• Critical of malestream research and rejected traditional research methodologies that are objective and scientific

• Oakley introduced feminist interviewing that sought out a rapport with respondents and a two-way dialogue between researcher and respondent

• Intervention in respondents’ lives, offering advice and guidance and engaging them in discussion about findings

Evaluations:

• Feminism aims to tackle inequality but global inequalities between women remain

• The intersectional nature of women’s experiences leads to criticism that feminism focuses more on Western women’s desires rather than the basic needs of women in the developing world

• Can be argued to have a fragmented nature with disagreements from within the movement- subjective judgements

Contributions of Feminism:

• Introduced a greater understanding of gender differences in society and increased knowledge of women in comparison to malestream sociology

• Evolves to tackle contemporary issues, including forms of postmodern feminism and arguments centred on specific social contexts

• Created legal changes that have improved educational outcomes, employment opportunities and reproductive rights of women