Feminist Theories

Question 1

What did 1970’s feminists ask and exclaim?

Answer 1

how applicable social theories were to women’s lives and that academia was very sexist

Question 2

modernist social theories served men and justified male power. why was modernist social theory male stream and biased?

Answer 2

to protect men’s privileged position in the world and because it was devised by men to support male interests

Question 3

what did Gross and Pateman say about modernist theory?

Answer 3

that it masquerades as neutral and universal, but in actuality only reflects men’s experience.
the acceptance of male stream theory which o=prevents male interests and values as objective and rational provides ideological justification for women’s subordination

Question 4

what is the cloak of universalism?

Answer 4

when theories only represent men’s experiences of the social world but claim to represent everyones

Question 5

what did feminists see false universal theories as the source of?

Answer 5

a lot of gendered assumptions about women and their role in the world

Question 6

what is the public sphere like?

Answer 6

more impersonal, institutions based on rational actions

Question 7

what is the private sphere like?

Answer 7

based on emotional attachments, domestic setting, where women’s position is seen as being

Question 8

for feminists, spheres provided the basis for the idea that…

Answer 8

… men are the rational actors and women acted solely based on emotions. what is read of this is the roles women should play in society and what they are capable of - not capable of being in the public sphere and are seen as irrational

Question 9

feminist believed in social theory the public sphere represented men and the private sphere represented women. why did they believe they?

Answer 9

the public sphere was much more covered in social theory so women’s experience was marginalised since they ignored their role in the private sphere as well as the public sphere e.g. creating the work force

Question 10

give an example of first wave feminists using the spheres to their advantage?

Answer 10

the suffragettes used it to straighten their argument that women had specialist knowledge in the domestic sphere of life so they could better advise policy on things such as education

Question 11

what did Millet say about the public sphere and education?

Answer 11

the public sphere and politics has been seen as the realm of power but power relationships are everywhere in public and in private life.

Question 12

theories not capable of accounting for sexual different contain a false universalism. what is presented as scientific, objective knowledge is actually..

Answer 12

… partial and subjective

Question 13

why is false universalism more than just leaving women out?

Answer 13

because modernist theory has led to women’s role and subordination in the private sphere to appear as natural and thus social theories of modernity have played a huge part in justifying gender inequality

Question 14

explain how feminist thought that knowledge and social theories are related to power and protect a system of unequal power relationships in society relates to postmodern thought

Answer 14

it overlaps with postmodernists idea that social theory is just a body of knowledge no truer than any other but always partial and related to power and protecting the interests of those who came up with it

Question 15

who argues that feminism aimed to expose false universalism with modernist social theory?

Answer 15

Felski

Question 16

who argues the sex-gender distinction and what does it mean?

Answer 16

Oakley argues that being a man or a woman doesn’t lead to roles, qualities or capabilities that are natural and inevitable. gender roles are not biologically determined

Question 17

how did Oakley distinguish between sex and gender?

Answer 17

sex - biological

gender - socially constructed

Question 18

who wrote The Second Sex and said “one is not born a woman, one becomes one”? and what did she argue?

Answer 18

Beauvoir argued women are forced to take up a subordinate position in society.

Question 19

according to Beauvoir, how do women learn to be feminine?

Answer 19

through primary socialisation women learn to take on a gendered identity in order to gain recognition and get on in life. gender is a social construct not a biological fact, we learn to become gendered subjects through interactions with others

Question 20

how does gender identity lead to women’s subordination according to Beauvoir?

Answer 20

because “woman” is always defined as “man’s” inferior, the second or lower sex and there are negative social consequences if women don’t adhere to femininity so women are effectively forced to choose to be feminine

Question 21

how do women learn to present themselves and through what according to Beauvoir?

Answer 21

women learn to present themselves based on ideas about how men and women should be through their bodies and what they wear

Question 22

what is the problem with femininity according to Beauvoir?

Answer 22

that it is defined by men as inferior to men and that women are not free in taking up this subordinate position because they have to choose to do what is appropriate

Question 23

who developed dual systems theory and what do they argue?

Answer 23

radical and marxist feminists 
they argue that there is a need to account for women within class analysis which has ignored and marginalised women

Question 24

what do dual systems feminists argue about capitalism?

Answer 24

that it is limited in its abilities to explore women’s experiences and explain their subordination

Question 25

what doesn’t marxism give an account of or look at?

Answer 25

women’s domestic and reproductive labour, it does’t look at women’s roles as counting as labour. if not in the work force they are not seen as contributing thus aren’t included in the theory.

Question 26

why do we need a concept of patriarchy as well as capitalism?

Answer 26

because male domination of women is built into structures, a system of oppression that works alongside and interacts with capitalism
and because women’s subordination reacts with economics involved in capitalism

Question 27

who argues that feminists should use both concepts patriarchy and capitalism to explain women’s oppression and why?

Answer 27

Walby

since both are important to the structuring of gender relations

Question 28

what does Walby say about her 6 sites of patriarchy?

Answer 28

that patriarchy happens in multiple sites, operating and producing domination

Question 29

what are Walby’s 6 sites of patriarchy?

Answer 29

1) the household - unequal division of labour
2) paid work - paid less, different jobs
3) state - policies favour men
4) male violence - generalised fear in society
5) sexuality - compulsory heterosexuality, men dominate through sex
6) culture - oppressive stereotyped and objectified representations of women in the media which is circulated round society

Question 30

what does Walby say about a shift in the nature of patriarchy?

Answer 30

a shift from private to public areas. patriarchy now relies on public institutions to maintain male privileges. males position is now secured by women’s position in the work place

Question 31

not all feminists adhere to theories of patriarchy. feminism can be….

Answer 31

… a critique or defense of modernity

Question 32

why do some claim feminism makes the same mistakes as modernist theories?

Answer 32

because it claims to represent all women and that as women we have lots of similarities so all women’s oppression can be explained by patriarchy. so it claims a false universalism when there are important differences between women which theories of patriarchy gloss over.

Question 33

some feminists believe feminism is inevitably post modern since …

Answer 33

… both emphasise culture and discourses structure or influence everyday life. postmodernists believe the world is structured by discourse and meaning and there is no world out there but language constructs reality since it lets us create a sense of the world and ourselves and the world can only be known in this way and through representations

Question 34

what does Beauvoir argue about language and cultural discourse?

Answer 34

Beauvoir argues it is basically a cultural discourse about how women should be in society that shapes them into feminine objects. language is important in how we define men and women and through this discourse we become defined as types of people

Question 35

both feminists and postmodernists doubt modernists claims to knowledge and argue it is subjective. postmodernists argue knowledge is…

Answer 35

.. contextual and knowledge about the world is relative and structured through subject experiences. so there is no one truth just different perspectives

Question 36

feminists and postmodernists both argue that bodies of knowledge aren’t neutral but are linked to…

Answer 36

… power relationships

Question 37

what does Barrett argue?

Answer 37

that postmodernists claim that no social theory is any more true than any other since they are all socially constructed

Question 38

feminists argue that what it means to be male or female is socially constructed and there is no core essence of what it means to be a woman…

Answer 38

… we have to deconstruct what it means to be human into men and women and then further deconstruct these categories. postmodernist are similar in arguing there is no essential core self or core identity.

Question 39

postmodernists argue that identity is consumed through language and….

Answer 39

..these categories (man, woman, lesbian, etc) have an embedded hierarchal relationship

Question 40

who argues feminism is necessarily postmodern?

Answer 40

Flax

Question 41

Butler argues that identities aren’t fixed and gender identity is not who you are but what you so we can perform gender differently if we choose, why does she disagree that femininity is inevitable?

Answer 41

she argues none of the rules of femininity are determined since we choose what we do. she argues we should create gender trouble by choosing to perform in differently than expected.

Question 42

what do Brah and Phoenix say about intersectionality? and what example do they give?

Answer 42

intersectionality can show feminism doesn’t work as an all-encompassing theory. for example, Sojourner Truth, a black woman born into slavery argued that feminism claimed a false universality in that it didn’t reflect black women and their dual experience of being both black and a woman. she protested against mainstream feminism “aint i a woman” demanding feminism should represent all women’s experiences

Question 43

who says that feminism and postmodernism are an unhappy marriage?

Answer 43

Hartsock

Question 44

what does Benhabib argue about postmodernism and feminism?

Answer 44

they can’t form an alliance since it would mean deconstructing important feminist achievements

Question 45

why, according to critical theory feminists can’t feminism afford to be postmodern?

Answer 45

because feminists disagree with looking to culture to explain everything and argue that we can’t reduce everything to culture and that it is still important to analyse structures.

Question 46

why are grand narratives like patriarchy still useful?

Answer 46

because there are material forces and structures outside of women’s experience and subordination is not all about culture, it is grounded in particular social contexts.

Question 47

what does Jackson argue that render postmodernism and feminism incompatible?

Answer 47

we still need to analyse social and material dimensions of gender

Question 48

why are the political implications of postmodernism unattractive for feminists?

Answer 48

since the key aim of feminism is to transform society but this cannot be done if we cannot even talk about women as a category or any structural forms of domination.

Question 49

who argues that feminists have modernists aims and postmodernism is politically disabling for them?

Answer 49

Nicolson

Question 50

feminism has principles that postmodernism wouldn’t accept such as..

Answer 50

.. the need for a movement which needs to come up with bodies of social theory that can make progress, but postmodernism won’t allow this

Question 51

what does McRobbie argue against feminism and postmodernism forming an alliance?

Answer 51

feminists defend some characteristics of modernist social thought against postmodernism. there is a need for all-encompassing theories so they believe one true theory can exist.