Feminism

#f637a3

Liberal feminism:

• Advocates exposing the patriarchy and the inequality that it creates in order to achieve gender equality.

• Ann Oakley argues that gender is a social construct - in many societies men are socialised to perform the instrumental roles and the women expressive roles

There advocate two approaches:

1) Achieve cultural change - challenge gender stereotypes in order to change prejudiced attitudes to women.

2) Achieve legislative reforms - reproductive rights, equal pay, the right to divorce etc.

Radical feminist Sylvia Walby acknowledges the success of liberal feminism in achieving gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming = the process of including feminist ideas into the key institutions of society and the state including government policy.

Radical feminism:

• There cannot be an accommodation between men and women because men will always dominate and control women

• The personal is political - women’s personal issues (sex, childcare etc) are political issues which require political reform in order to make change

• The patriarchy is universal

• All relationships involve domination of men

• The patriarchy is beneficial for all men

• ALL men oppress ALL women

• consciousness raising - through protests, marches, media etc.

• all heterosexual relationships are oppressive

Sexual politics = the process of dispute of power relationships regarding sex, gender and sexuality specifically within the patriarchy.

• the only way for women to free themselves from men’s control (one of their method’s is by the threat of rape) is political lesbianism

Political lesbianism = the establishing of intimate relationships with women rather than men. - all heterosexual relationships are oppressive.

Shuli Firestone concluded that the root cause of female powerlessness is the responsibilities of pregnancy, childcare and childbirth as these processes disempower women by confining them to the domestic sphere and making them dependent on men.

• patriarchal societies often degrade women by defining their role as the satisfaction of men and their sexual needs. This leads to the objectification of women as they are expected to behave and dress in a way that sexualises them and appeals to the male gaze. Because of this, many radical feminists embrace separatism.

Separatism = the principle of women being separated from men as the only way to achieve liberation.

Germaine Greer advocates matrilocal households.

Matrilocal households = all-female houses.

Marxist Feminism:

• women’s powerlessness is primarily due to capitalism’s need for reproduction of labour which they provide by giving birth and raising children, providing capitalism with its labour force - this is exploitation as it is unpaid labour

Fran Ansley argues that working-class women also perform the role of absorption of anger by assuaging the stress of their husbands by managing their emotions, violence and sexual demands.

• they make the point that when capitalism requires more labour due to change to economic circumstances, they will turn to women and use them as a reserve army of labour - paid less therefore are exploited even more by men

Michelle Barratt argues that an ideology of familism has been created and indoctrinated to make marriage and traditional nuclear families desirable to women. Barratt believes that marriage and the traditional nuclear family is detrimental to women as it they are unequal and exploitative institutions.

Difference feminism and intersectionality theory:

• Critical of other branches of feminism for treating women as a single homogenous group

• female experience is very different depending on social class, ethnicity, sexuality etc

• most feminist theories focus on the experience of white western women therefore claim a false universality

• problem of essentialism - seeing women as all of the same essence

Essentialism = all women have the same essence and share the same experience of oppression

• because of this intersectionality theory has been embraced by many feminists

• mainstream feminism has created a discourse that assumes universal womanhood - an example of differing experiences of oppression is that in the developing world, women are often defined by tradition whereas women in the western world are often defined by the mass media.

Poststructuralist feminism:

• patriarchal control of women is maintained by the male domination of public discourse

• links with post modernism

• no fixed or stable identity - category ‘women’ created through language

• there is a false universality of womanhood

• feminists shouldn’t focus on defining women

• Public discourse = The collective exchange of ideas and debates that impacts public opinion, shapes policy and reflects cultural values within society

Judith Butler argues that the Enlightenment project and science has created a discourse that claims to be based on rational argument and reason, when it actually legitimised the superiority of white, educated, western men - For example, these men have been able to use medical discourse to define menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth as medical issues which have the effect of defining women as weak and problematic.

Intersectional feminism:

Due to the oppression that black individuals face, it intersects with the misogyny that black women are subject to therefore their experience must be represented.

Patriarchy:

• Male dominance in society - politics, economics, family structures

• Gender equality - exclusion of women from social participation

• Reinforcement of masculinity - ‘masculine’ traits held at higher value

Liberal sociologists

Somerville:  

• Principled pragmatism – gradual legislation and attitude changes  

Principled = values  

Pragmatism = realistic  

• Acknowledges positive progress (which she feels some feminists ignore)  

Oakley:

• gender roles are socially constructed

• stereotypes change depending on the culture

• ideas about ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are passed down through socialisation

Radical sociologists:

Greer:

• Women are oppressed by the roles in the family - The wive’s roles is to keep her husband happy / The mother’s role is to look after children, giving up their freedom and work which is undervalued by society / The daughter is more likely to be a victim of abuse

Married men reported higher levels of satisfaction than non-married men while single women reported higher levels of satisfaction than married women.

• Solution = matrifocal families (a type of separatism)

Firestone:

• Patriarchy = the result of female biology and reproductive role - physically vulnerable

• Positive about how technology can liberate women from childbirth

Marxist sociologists:

Benston:

Salary analysts in the US consistently value the unpaid work a wife and a mother does at between $120,000 and $280,000 per year, and some even offer a figure of more than $700,000.

• Capitalism benefits from women’s unpaid labour

• Familial ideology = production of labour

• Women as a reserve army of labour

• Women’s work isn’t seen at the same value

• This is profitable for those who own the means of production - Bourgeoisie

Ansley:

• Wives are the ‘takers of shit’

• Women absorb men’s anger and frustration at the capitalist system e.g. seen in rise in domestic violence during COVID lockdown and during the World Cup

Post-structuralist sociologists:

Butler:

• Gender is a social construct - meaning of ‘woman’ is not definite and can change indefinitely

• Gender performativity - people are conforming to gender conventions and norms when they are claiming to be expressing their own interior reality 

• Feminism should be intersectional - trans women 

  Evaluation