Feminist Perspective

Question 1

Liberal feminists

Answer 1

• distinguish between sex and gender, aim to win rights for women through legal reform and cultural change
• successes have been achieved eg voting rights, Equal Pay Act, shared parental leave
• cultural change is also needed to challenge stereotypes

Question 2

Radical feminists

Question 3

Radical feminists

Answer 3

• patriarchy is universal so men are the enemy
• the personal is political, there is domination in the home and relationships, not just in the public sphere of work and politics
• solutions need to be radical

Question 4

Marxist feminists

Answer 4

• root of women’s oppression is capitalism
• Ansley describes women as ‘takers of shit’, absorbing men’s frustrations

Question 5

Dual systems of Feminism

Answer 5

They refer to the dual systems of:
- the economic system and capitalism
- the sex gender system and patriarchy

Question 6

Sylvia Walby

Answer 6

Agrees capitalism and patriarchy are inter-related yet she argues the interests of the 2 are not the same and they collide over the exploitation of female labour:
- capitalism wants women’s cheap labour for its workforce
- patriarchy wants to keep women at home in the domestic sphere
She argues as capitalism is more powerful it wins in the long run and patriarchal society allows women to take up low unskilled work to ensure women are subordinate

Question 7

Feminist methodology

Answer 7

Feminist believe that much of mainstream sociology is ‘malestream’ and has a masculine bias, this is because previous research has been focused on positivist methodology
Abbot et al argue there are 4 ways this has happened:
- more research has been conducted about men than women and it is generalised to all people no matter their gender
- issue I’d concern to women have been neglected; ‘work’ often refers fonpaid work rather than exploring unpaid domestic work
- women are presented in sexist ways
- gender is just added as an existing varia le and not of high importance