Feminism Flashcards

Question

Outline Post modern feminism as a type of feminism

Answer 1

Post-modern feminism is distinct to the three main strands of feminist thought. Post-modern feminists begin with the assumption that the modernist conception of feminism places overt emphasis upon gender differences between women and men whilst ignoring the differences within each gender. Post-modern feminists also claim that gender is largely developed from a discourse that we learn to adopt over time. Gender is therefore neither natural nor innate. Instead, gender is constituted by the way we talk, create images and present ourselves to others. Another key element of post-modern feminism is the claim that patriarchy operates differently due to the social characteristics of women. The nature and extent of patriarchy is therefore different for a middle-class white woman than a poor black-woman. This view is framed within the concept of intersectionality which seeks to examine how biological, social and cultural categorisations interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels. It is a framework which enables us to identify how systemic injustice and inequality exists on a multitude of levels. Given the sheer diversity within feminist thought, it may well be appropriate to use the term feminisms (Coffey, 2004). At the very least, we should be careful to avoid generalisations when considering the ideology of feminism. It is also debatable to what extent feminists speak for women. The American academic Camille Paglia is a particularly forceful opponent of feminism. Paglia believes that feminism has generated a sense of victimhood that does not apply to all women. From a similar angle, Christina Hoff Sommers adds that modern feminist thought often holds an “irrational hostility to men.” She therefore claims that contemporary feminism is overtly radical and therefore disconnected from the lives of everyday women.

Answer 2

1. Sex and domestic economics are hand in hand – for women to survive, they have to depend on their sexuality and body in order to please their husbands. 2. Societal pressure – young girls are compelled to conform in society and prepare for motherhood by playing with toys and wearing clothes that are specifically designed for and marketed to them. Gilman was an American socialist feminist. She experienced post-natal depression and was confined to one room by her husband when she actually needed freedom and stimulation. From this, she developed a critique of society. Women were dependent on their husbands to survive financially, so used sex to please their husbands and continue to be supported. From an early age, girls were encouraged to fulfil a domestic role, which is done through the family structure and the culture of society (such as ‘girls toys’). Therefore, women should achieve economic independence to be free from men, which could be achieved through communal living and changes to marriage laws.

Answer 3

As befits a figure from the first-wave, Gilman begins with the assumption that young girls are forced to conform to their predestined role as mothers. To prevent harmful social conditioning of girls, Gilman believed there should be no difference in the clothes that little children wear or the toys they play with. It was an early form of the politics of sameness, a key theme within the ideology of feminism. In a similar vein, she argued for an equal contribution to the domestic division of labour because the domestic environment is an instrument of patriarchy. Indeed, Gilman noted that women were financially reliant upon their husbands. This uneven power structure meant that wives had to trade sexual favours for the protection offered by their menfolk. Gilman also claimed that female contributions towards civilisation had been halted due to an androcentric culture. Women were the underdeveloped half of humanity and only when the economic dynamics of a relationship were altered could women properly escape the confines of patriarchy. This would enable a release from their domestic duties towards a more economically rewarding life outside of the home. As such, the key towards female emancipation was one of economic independence. Although she was clearly a feminist, Gilman called herself a humanist and is associated with a wide number of causes. For instance, she was a proponent of reform Darwinism (which is based upon the belief that Darwin’s view of evolution was biased towards men as it overlooked the origins of the female brain in society that rationally chooses the best suited mate).

Answer 4

1. Sex versus gender – ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’. 2. ‘Otherness’ – men are perceived as the ‘norm’ and women deviants from this norm. De Beauvoir was a socialist who came to see that class struggle was not enough by itself to improve the position of women. She argued that women were not ‘born’, but ‘made’, meaning that femininity is a cultural construct which is taught to women through socialisation. The roles they were socialised into turned women into slaves, as they were only able to undertake domestic duties and nothing else. In addition, men’s views were seen as the norm, so women’s views, which may differ, are viewed with suspicion and seen as deviant or inferior (the idea of otherness). Women have been socialised to accept this otherness, so saw themselves as inferior to men. However, de Beauvoir did not see the idea of a ‘feminine nature’ as positive (unlike difference feminists), so women should not turn away from the ‘male world’.

Answer 5

Simone de Beauvoir was known as the ﬁrst existential feminist. The existentialist philosophical movement, founded by Kirkegaard in the nineteenth century, took hold among French intellectuals in the 1950s, notably Jean- Paul Sartre (de Beauvoir’s lover) and Albert Camus. Existentialism set the freedom of the individual against the constrictions placed on him or her by the moral and religious world around them and exhorted them to struggle against such restrictions by imposing their own will upon life. Failing to impose one’s own will is known as ‘bad faith’, but succeeding is known as ‘authenticity’. For de Beauvoir, for too long women had lived their lives in bad faith, imposed upon them by men. She also developed the idea of women as the ‘Other’ (with a capital ‘O’). The idea of otherness was that men have characterised women as different, but different in a way of their (men’s) choosing, not the choosing of women themselves. De Beauvoir famously declared that ‘women are made, not born’. The problem is that they are made by men. In her best known work, The Second Sex, de Beauvoir rejects the notion that girls are born with any nurturing instinct; rather, she asserts that they learn it from their parents and from their schooling. In existential terms, therefore, their freedom to choose their own way of life is removed almost from birth. The roles that women play have been determined for them by men. Her solution to the plight of women was twofold. First, women must be granted the opportunity to make as many choices as men, to be able to escape from the drudgery of housework and their role in marriage as a kind of sex slave. This will be achieved largely through education, economic freedom, state-funded child care, legalised abortion and widespread contraception. But de Beauvoir also asserted that women must liberate themselves. They must seek sexual liberation and freedom from the strictures of the nuclear family. De Beauvoir was an inﬂuence on all feminists who came after her, but especially on Friedan. While de Beauvoir used history and philosophy to conﬁrm her theories, Friedan used speciﬁc research. However, despite their different methodology both women came to very similar conclusions.

Answer 6

1. Family – undoing the traditional family was the key to true sexual revolution. 2. Portrayal of women in art and literature –patriarchal culture produced writers and literary works that were degrading to women. Millett is an American radical feminist who argued in Sexual Politics (1970) that female oppression was political and cultural. Removing the traditional family structure would be the surest way to liberate women from patriarchy, as the family structure mirrored the patriarchal society. This is because the man dominates the family- traditionally, the wife was seen as part of the husband’s property, and the wife had no possessions of her own so was dependent on the man. Masculine authority is taught from childhood and reinforced through culture. Millett also argued that women are degraded in art and literature (an effect of the patriarchy), never having autonomy and being used as commodities for the gratification of men. This included the portrayal of romantic love, which needed to be overthrown in a sexual revolution.

Answer 7

In ‘Sexual Politics,’ Millett offers a critique of patriarchy within Western literature. In her words, sex-based oppression is both political and cultural. To substantiate her position, Millett identified the role of both sexism and heterosexism within modern novelists. The portrayal of women (particularly lesbian women) was therefore largely degrading. Millett concludes that patriarchy demands a revolution in the domestic division of labour with radical alterations towards personal and family lifestyles. As a solution, she advocates undoing the traditional family unit. For her, this holds the path towards true sexual revolution. This line of argument was prevalent amongst many other second-wave feminists such as Germaine Greer (who once predicted that “women will [only] be free when they have a positive definition of female sexuality”) and contemporary writers like Nikki Gemmell (author of ‘The Bride stripped bare’). As something of a spokesperson for second-wave feminism, Millett has been politically active in terms of campaigns to end the oppression of women. Millett has also raised awareness of how females who experience sexual, physical and emotional abuse face a set of power dynamics. That said, her concerns have gone beyond feminism with a consideration of human rights, anti-psychiatry and civil rights. She has also been active in several feminist campaigns such as the pressure group NOW and Radicalesbians. This is a somewhat unusual combination in that both organisations pursue different strategies in terms of securing the objectives of the feminist movement. The former is located within the liberal feminist traditional whereas the latter offers a more radical and exclusive approach. On a final note, Kate Millett also claims that “patriarchy's greatest psychological weapon is ... its universality and longevity.” Millett fully recognised the ability of patriarchy to reinvent itself from one generation to the next. Each distinct wave of feminism has broken down barriers that hold women back only to find that more exist. In a modern setting, sexism may be less overt than the past but there is still a considerable amount of covert sexism and misogyny that blight women’s lives.

Answer 8

1. Capitalism – women are forced to sell their labour to survive and use their labour to support their family under the capitalist system. 2. The family – not just an instrument for disciplining and subjecting women to capitalism but a place where men took refuge from alienation under a capitalist economy. Rowbotham is a socialist feminist who argued that women’s oppression was the result of economic and cultural factors. She criticised the concept of marriage, arguing that it turned women into serfs, similar to a feudal system. In addition, the way to improve the position of women was to radically change the ‘cultural conditioning’ of humanity, for instance by overthrowing capitalism and changing views on child-rearing and the workplace. Women are disadvantaged by capitalism as they have to sell their labour, but also use labour to support the family which underpins capitalism. In addition, men are able to dominate their wives, which provides them with a relief from the alienation of working in a capitalist economy.

Answer 9

Rowbotham also claims that the political left needs to consider the oppression of women in cultural as well as economic terms. The preoccupation with economic determinism ignores the role played by cultural forces in the oppression of women. She also contends that historians have a duty to act as a force for social change. Rowbotham argues that capitalism systematically oppresses both the working class and women. Female members of the proletariat thereby face a ‘double whammy’ as they are forced to sell their labour to survive and are forced to use their labour to support their husband and children. Within a capitalist system, the family unit serves as an instrument of control over women to facilitate the production and reproduction of men’s labour. She also notes that the origins of sexism predate capitalism, and that the institution of marriage closely resembles a feudalist structure. With regard to her position along the political spectrum, Rowbotham implicitly rejects the liberal feminist argument that the women’s movement is best served via a constructive engagement with the conventional political process. According to Rowbotham, only revolutionary socialist movements have secured social gains for women. She also rejects the radical feminist view that men have no role to play within the quest for female emancipation. Women and men should stand together against the oppression caused by capitalism, a mindset that places her firmly within the second-wave of feminism. The link between capitalism and sexism is so intimate that the only way to destroy them is a fundamental change in the cultural conditioning of humanity in relation to issues such as child-rearing and the world of work. Finally, she argues that women’s liberation requires a “revolution within a revolution” because sexism is just as entrenched within left-wing men as it is amongst men on the right of the political spectrum. For instance, she notes that once a revolution is over women are often relegated to a traditional role of caregiver and housewife.

Answer 10

1. Women of colour –cultural concerns of women of colour brought into the mainstream feminist movement. 2. Intersectionality – the mainstream feminist movement had focused mostly on the plight of white, college-educated, middle/upper-class women who had no stake in the concerns of women of colour. hooks used a pseudonym (her grandmother) and lower-case letters to empower her to fight against oppression, without the ego associated with names. She wished to bring the concerns of black women into the mainstream feminist movement, which had previously focused on issues of interest to white, educated, middle-class women. Women of colour had been doubly disadvantaged by their race and gender, and had been torn between supporting feminism (ignoring race) and the civil rights movement (ignoring gender). Therefore, there is a need to recognise the differences women of colour experienced in their treatment, and that there should be solidarity between gender, races, and classes.

Answer 11

The first thing to note about bell hooks is the absence of capital letters! bell hooks was the pen name for the feminist author and activist born Gloria Watkins, and the nom de plume derived from her maternal great-grandmother whom she greatly admired. Her work focused upon the intersectionality of race, capitalism and gender. Intersectionality seeks to identify a system of oppression that moves beyond our traditional understanding of oppression. Intersectionality focuses upon how various biological, social, religious and cultural factors interact on multiple levels. This enables us to recognise the multidimensional basis of injustice within society. According to bell hooks, systems of oppression have the ability to perpetuate themselves over time. In her book entitled ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ bell hooks considered the historical impact of sexism and racism on black women and the devaluation of black womanhood. She identified the role played by the media and within education in the construction of a white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy. Her work therefore provides an insight that is otherwise lacking amongst liberal feminists with its white, middle-class and college-educated bias. Several feminists have praised bell hooks for providing the best solution to the problem of defining an ideology as eclectic and diverse as feminism. For her, feminism was “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression.” More importantly, the solution to the problems facing women (especially black women) within society is a form of communion and community. She argued that the loving communities can overcome inequalities of race, class and gender.

Answer 12

The concept of otherness derives from the pioneering work of the second-wave feminist Simone de Beauvoir. Otherness seeks to examine how majority and minority identities are constructed. Otherness claims that the representation of different social groups is controlled by those who hold a greater level of political power. Whilst identities are often thought to be natural and innate, de Beauvoir claims that this is not true. Instead, the identity of females is constructed by men to serve their own interests. Women are thereby presented as the other sex. This sense of otherness is a highly effective form of patriarchal rule and a major obstacle towards female emancipation. In her succinct words, “he is the subject, he is the absolute – she is the other.” To combat the problem, Simone de Beauvoir prescribed a socialist system built upon gender equality and liberation from the inherent exploitation of the capitalist system. In addressing the question ‘What is a woman?’ she claimed that there is no eternal feminine or essence that defines a woman. Women are not born, they are made. Patriarchy imposes limitations upon women, and once told they are inferior, women are made to feel inferior throughout their entire lives. In contrast, non-exploitative work within a socialist system would liberate both men and women and generate a sense of solidarity among all people. It is for such insights that Simone de Beauvoir remains the most important theorist within socialist feminism and one of the most prominent feminists of the second-wave.

Answer 13

* Radical feminists reject the liberal feminist agenda on the ground that it fails to understand the true nature of patriarchy liberal feminists see patriarchy in terms of the historical dominance of men in society. This, says the liberal, explains the oppression of women; it is merely a characteristic of society rather than a fundamental explanation of how society works for women. Radical feminists provide a number of patriarchy all of which suggest that it lies deep in human consciousness. So deep that there is a need for a dramatic and revolutionary change in such patriarchal consciousness. Mere legal, political and cultural reform will not make a significant difference therefore * Liberal counter this by arguing that radical feminists are imposing their own views on female consciousness which seeks to restrict their freedom of choice. As long as there is a framework of legal and political equality, women should be free to adopt their own aspirations, say liberas. In particular, liberals criticise radicals on the grounds that they do not recognise that there is a private sphere where women should be free to choose their own status and consciousness. Radicals, say the liberals, are imposing forms of consciousness on women by breaking down the barrier between the public and private sphere * Socialist feminists argue that liberals and radicals have de-emphasized the importance of economic factors in the oppression of women. For them, the inferior, exploited status of women in economic life is the true source of their oppression. Patriarchy has economic origins, they insitis, and under modern capitalism this has identified * Radical feminists take issue with socialists, especially Marxists for stressing economic factors excessively. The patriarchal domination of society may have economic elements, but the truth is much more complex. Patriarchy is cultural and psychological, not just economic. By over-stressing economics, radical feminists argue, socialists fail to recognise that there is till a great deal of patriarchy in socialist societies * There is tension between different feminists and equality feminists. The difference feminists say that seeking equality is a recognition that male characteristics are superior. The feminism of difference denies male superiority and seeks a different road to liberated consciousness by treating sex differences and celebrating the superior qualities of women

Feminism Flashcards

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