feminism Flashcards
(9 cards)
liberal feminism
Concerned with human and civil rights and freedom of the individual
All humans should have equal rights
Reformism - progress towards equal rights can be achieved by gradual reforms / piecemeal changes
Laws and policies - believe they can create gender equality
Cultural change - traditional prejudices and stereotypes serve as a barrier to equality
Sex and gender
Ann oakley distinguishes between sex - biological differences betwen males and females; and gender - culturally constrcuted differences between masculine and femininity.
Changes in socialisation and culture gradually leading to more rational attitudes to gender
Political action to introduce anti-discriminatory laws and policies steadily bringing about progress
Challenges functionalist ideas of gender roles
give 2 ao3 of liberal feminism
Walby - they offer no explanation for the overall structure of gender inequality, ignoring possibility of deep seated structure causing women’s oppression
Marxist and radical feminists argue that liberal feminists fail to recognise underlying causes of oppression.
Radical feminists
Patriarchy is universal - male domination of women exist in all known societies
Firestone - origins of patriarchy lie in women’s biological capacity to bear and care for children
Patriarchy is the primary and most fundamental form of inequality and conflict.
Patriarchal oppression is direct and personal
Sexual politics - men dominate women through personal relationships. Patriarchal power is exercised through sexual / physical violence.
Patriarchy constructs sexuality to satisfy men’s needs
Rich - continue to force women into a narrow and unsatisfying compulsory heterosexualty
Separatism - given that men’s oppression of women is exercised through intimate domestic and sexual relationships, radical feminists argue that women should live independently than men. Greer - argues creation of all female / matrilocal households
Consciousness raising - sharing experiences in women only consciousness raising groups, women come to see that other women face the same problems - slutwalk marches
Political lesbianism - heterosexual relationships are inevitably oppressive as they involve sleeping with the enemy
give one criticism of radical feminism
pollert - concept of patriarchy is of little value because it involves circular argument.
marxist feminism
Women’s subordination in capitalist society results from their primary role as unpaid homemaker
Subordination, performs a number of important features
Women are a cheap source of exploitable labour
Reserve army of labour
Reproduce labour force
Women absorb anger - fran ansley - takers of shit
Barrett - we must give more emphasis to women’s consciousness and motivation. While she believes that the overthrow of capitalism is necessary, she argues it is not sufficient, we must overthrow familism that underpins conventional family and unequal division of labour.
Mitchell - ideas about femininity are so deeply implanted in women’s unconscious minds that they are very difficult to dislodge.
give two criticims of marxist feminism
Fails to explain women’s subordination in non-capitalist societies - ethnocentrism
Unpaid domestic labour doesn’t explain why it is women and not men who perform it. Hartmann argues that it is because marxism is sex blind.
difference feminism
Feminism has claimed a false universality
Essentialism - idea that all women share the same fundamental essence
Fail to reflect diversity of experiences
Poststructuralist feminism
Butler and poststructuralism is concerned with discourses and power and knowledge
Discourses - way of seeing, thinking, speaking about something
Enlightenment ideals were simply a form of power / knowledge that legitimised domination of western, white, MC males
While m/c western women who dominate feminist movements have falsely claimed to represent universal womanhood
Butler argues that poststructuralism allows feminists to deconstruct discourses to reveal how they subordinate women.
Walby - there are differences among women but she argues that there are also important similarities - all faced with patriarchy
Segal - abandons any notion of real, objective social structures.
dual systems feminism
Hartmann - capitalism and patriarchy are two intertwined systems that form patriarchal capitalism
Walby - capitalism are patriarchy are inter-related but collide over exploitation of female labour
Link with marxist feminism
