FEMINISM

Definition

• Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal and social rights for women.
• Seeks to establish equal opportunities in:
• Education
• Employment
• Feminism focuses on women’s rights but also highlights the injustices that women have to face in the society.
• A feminist advocates or supports the right and equality of women.

Definition

• Feminist movements campaign for women’s right to:
• Vote
• Hold office
• Work
• Earn fair wages (or equal pay)
• Own property
• Education
• Equal rights in marriage
• Maternity leave

Origin

• Relatively modern term – first used in 1871 in a French medical text to describe sexual organs of men which stopped developing.
• Term picked up by Alexandre Dumas fils, a French writer, who used it to describe women behaving in a masculine way.
• Feminist thought existed before the term was coined:
• Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
• Declaration of Sentiments
• These movements claimed the principles of liberty and equality for women.

Development

• The National Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
• The 1840s saw women’s suffrage movement in the US and the UK.
• In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft had published “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”.
• Also in the late 1700s,Olympe De Gouges and Theroigne De Mericourt were fighting for the extension of the rights promised by the French Revolution to women.

Development

• “Feminism” or “feminist” first appeared in France and the Netherlands in 1872, Great Britain in the 1890s and 1910 in USA.
• The UK Daily News introduced “feminist” to the English language.

LIBERAL FEMINISM

Main Arguments

• Liberal feminists champion legal and political equality with men; equality means equal access to the public realm.
• The focus of liberal feminism is to reform existing structures so that power is shared across gender lines.
• Liberal feminism focuses on providing opportunities of women and including them in traditionally male-dominated areas – idea of inclusion.
• Changes need to be done in institutions and laws which has resulted in keeping women confined to domestic roles with no opportunities.
• Another goal is creating a “just and compassionate society in which freedom flourishes”.
• Equality in education, right to vote, employment, wage rate, etc.
• Gender-blind approach to feminism i.e. women need to be given rights, it doesn’t matter what men do.

Origins

• Liberal Feminism began in the 18^th century and has continued through to the present day.
• First wave and second wave of feminism was heavily influenced by liberal feminism.
• Called the “mother of feminism”.
• The movement started gaining traction after the works of Mary Wollstonecraft especially in 1792.

Important Contributors

• Marry Wollstonecraft
• A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) which argued for equality.
• She urged women to become autonomous decision-makers.
• Women should not be reduced to the ‘toy of man’. Rather, she is an ‘end in herself’ his rattle.
• John Stuart Mill
• Mill argued that natural differences between men and women can’t be seen until they are equal in the social spheres.
• He says that we simply don't know what women are capable of, because we have never let them try – one cannot make an authoritative statement without evidence.
• He compared the domination of men over women to slavery in his essay, “The Subjection of Women”.
• His ideas focused on utilitarianism; nothing should be wrong completely. We need to focus on what gives most benefit even if those are rights of women.
• Harriet Taylor Mill, his wife, also contributed by writing “Enfranchisement of Women” (1851).

Important Contributors

• Betty Friedman
• Published the “Feminine Mystique” in 1963 (after WWII).
• It identified the problem with no name i.e. women facing boredom due to no participation in the public sphere.
• She pointed out women were not able to pursue personal development due to political laws made against them.
• Founder of National Organization for Women (NOW) which worked for ending gender discrimination and legalization of abortion.

Important Events

• Seneca Falls Convention (1848), New York
• Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
• Declaration of Sentiments was produced.

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Achievements

• Equal Pay Act signed in 1963 by President Kennedy – same job, same wage.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 promised no sexual discrimination in employment.
• Educational Amendment of 1972 barring discrimination in educational programs.
• In 1973, Roe v. Wade decision was passed by US Supreme Court which legalized abortion.

Critiques

• In 1972, Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) of the Constitution of US could not pass.
• Reason, freedom and autonomy are not as good as they sound. They come with a lot of responsibilities. In feminist Politics and Human Nature Alison Jaggar formulated a powerful critique of liberal feminism.
• Liberal feminism mainly focused on the interests of white, middle-class, heterosexual women.
• The feminine mystique addresses white, middle-class, heterosexual women.

RADICAL FEMINISM

Main Arguments

• Radical feminists “insist that the sex/gender system is the fundamental cause of women's oppression.“
• Radical feminists want a new system altogether; no matter how much you reform the current system, it won’t be enough.
• Radical feminists seek to challenge patriarchy existing in social norms and institutions.
• Root cause of oppression 🡪 PATRIARCHY as opposed to legal standings or class conflicts.
• Patriarchy: a universal system in which men dominate women.

Main Arguments

• They believe that eliminating patriarchy will liberate everyone from an unjust society.
• Radical feminists reject the view that women’s subordination is linked with biological inferiority.
• Radical lesbians also existed who supported lesbianism to escape from the institution of heterosexuality, which they viewed as violent and oppressive.
• “Personal is political”
• “The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house” (Lorde)

Main Arguments

• Goals:
• Expanding reproductive rights.
• Right to make those choices freely without pressure from individual men.
• Changing the organizational sex culture e.g. breaking down traditional gender roles reevaluating societal concepts of femininity masculinity
• Need to fight against the “glass ceiling” – lack of opportunities due to gender.
• Women-centric approach to solving issues.
• Establish Conscious Raising Groups against male oppression.
• Two types of Radical Feminism according to Rosemarie Tong:
• Radical Libertarian Feminism
• Radical Cultural Feminism

Types

Origins

• Also known as “Women’s Liberation Movement”
• Started in the second wave feminism and grew out of the protests against the Vietnam War and New Left me who treated women as subordinates (make coffee, etc.).
• Many women withdrew from the New Left and formed their own organizations such as:
• New York Radical Women (NYRW)
• Redstockings
• Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH)

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Important Contributors

• Shulamith Firestone
• “Seize the means of reproduction” in Dialectic of Sex
• Feminist revision of the materialistic theory of history offered by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
• Kate Millett
• Wrote the book Sexual Politics (1970) which focused on the male-female sex relationship
• Male control of public and private spheres must be eliminated if women are to be liberated. To eliminate male control, men and women have to eliminate gender.
• Need to create a new society in which men and women are equals at every level of existence.

Important Events

• In 1968, they protested against the Miss America pageant.
• In 1970, they also staged a sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal.

Achievements

• In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives
• In 2008, Sarah Palin became the first woman nominated for Vice President.

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Critique

• During the early years, radical feminists were criticized for emphasizing sex-based discrimination at the expense of race and class-based discrimination.
• According to Ellen Willis’s 1984 essay “Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism”, radical feminists were accused of being ‘Bourgeois’, ‘antileft’ or even ‘apolitical’.
• Radical feminism was criticized because it tended to be white and middle-class.
• Ellen Willis also criticized radical feminism’s inability to integrate a feminist perspective with an overall radical politics.
• Utopian concept which may not be possible.

Differences between Liberal and Radical Feminism

MARXIST FEMINISM

Main Arguments

• Men and women were the same in the first Mode of Production; private properly led to class system which led to exploitation of women.
• Society is divided into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. When women enter the workforce, they are delegated to discriminated jobs, and are underpaid for their labor.
• Focus is on investigating and explaining the ways in which women are oppressed through systems of capitalism.
• Women’s liberation can only be achieved through a radical restructuring of the current capitalist economy, in which much of women’s labor is uncompensated.
• Root cause of oppression 🡪 CAPITALISM
• Class oppression is the primary form of oppression; “sexism has its roots in the private property system.”

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Main Arguments

• Capitalism exploits women in 3 ways:
1. Unpaid domestic labor
2. Reproduction and socialization of next generation of laborer's
3. Women consume good and services at a high price by produced by capitalists
• Marxist feminists devoted their activism to fighting for the inclusion of the domestic work within the waged capitalist economy.
• Marxist feminists argue that exclusion of women from productive labor leads to male control to both private and public domains.
• There should be wages for housework and domestic tasks.

Origins

• Inspired by the works of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels
• According to Engels the shift from feudalism to private ownership of land has huge effects on status of women. He argues that subordination is not a result of her biological disposition but of social relations.
• Gender operation is closely related to class operation and the relationship between women and men is similar to the relationship between Proletariat and Bourgeoisie.

Important Contributors

• Juliet Mitchell
• Need to change the idea in the minds of men that women are inferior.
• Heidi Hartmann
• Women have started to work in the public sphere recently but still have to take care of domestic responsibilities. So, there should be balance and equality for this issue.
• Margaret Benston
• Wrote “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation” which highlights women exploitation.
• Women can’t unionize like other laborers.
• 24 hour work days, no weekends.
• “unpaid domestic labor that primarily serves the capitalist class.”

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Important Events

• Predominant in the 1960s America.

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Critique

• Marx himself didn’t talk about position of women in capitalism. Rather, he advocated for the women to work in domestic sphere.
• Marxist feminists state that oppression of women is due to capitalism but there are actually many other factors.

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SOCIALIST FEMINISM

Main Arguments

• Central idea 🡪 patriarchy and capitalism are overlapping and interlocking systems of oppression.
• Women are seen as “reserve labor” e.g. use them during WWII and then let them go during economic depressions.
• Marxist feminism focuses on class oppression of women; socialist feminism focuses on class and gender oppression.
• Difference between a wife and a prostitute is money. Both sell themselves in different ways.
• Marxist feminists argue patriarchy is a tool used by capitalists, socialist feminists assert that these are both tools used together to oppress women.
• Marxist Feminists 🡪 Marxist first, feminists second.
• Socialist Feminists 🡪 Feminism first, socialists second.

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Main Arguments

• Socialist feminism is a confluence of Marxism and radical feminism; a dual systems theory that targets both capitalism and patriarchy.
• Patriarchy and Capitalism come together to oppress women by:
• Wage differentials
• Segregation
• Restricting them to domestic sphere
• Using them as unpaid labor
• Goal of Social Feminists 🡪 REMOVE CAPITALISM AND PATRIARCHY

Important Contributors

• Hartmann’s Theory of Capitalism-Patriarchy:
• Gender and class have equal importance
• Sphere of production dominated by capitalism 🡪 class exploitation
• Sphere of reproduction dominated by patriarchy 🡪 gender exploitation
• Accused Marxism for being gender-blind; no mention of patriarchy
• Social feminists call for a change in the sexual division of labor, that takes place within the home and in the public sector. Problems mentioned below need to be addressed:
• Pink collar jobs – low wages
• Glass ceiling
• Stigma against certain jobs e.g. army
• Institutional discrimination
• Maggie Hume concludes socialist feminism by saying, “unlike radical feminism, socialist feminists refuse to treat economic oppression as secondary; unlike Marxist feminists, they refuse to treat sexist oppression as secondary.”

PSYCHOANALYTICAL FEMINISM

Main Arguments

• Psychoanalytical feminism asserts that men have an inherent need to oppress and subjugate women.
• The root of this oppression is the human mind or psyche.
• This pattern of oppression is integrated in society thus creating and sustaining patriarchy.
• Hence, it is possible to alter this by changing the early socialization of the child before the age of 3 i.e. the key to changing gender construction can be achieved through altering parenting practices.
• Two Levels of Psychoanalytical Feminism:
• Micro Level: Childhood learning and formation, relationships with parents, early sexuality traits and it also explores the establishment of masculinity and femininity.
• Macro Level: It investigates the construction of gender. It encompasses examination of masculinity and femininity, emergence of adult sexuality, continual reinforcement of patriarchy and societal institutions.
• The theory is based on the works of:
• Sigmund Freud
• Lacan

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Main Arguments

• Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis
• Anatomy is Destiny – biology determines how the child’s psyche will develop and how that psyche will be reflected in the personality.
• Personality made up of conscious (tip of iceberg) and unconscious (whole iceberg).
• In the phallic stage (Age 3), a child’s focus is on genitals. This is also the stage of Oedipal Conflict/Electra Complex. Child falls in love with opposite parent and considers the same-sex parent their rival. He/she adopts the personality of the same sex parents in the hopes of getting the other parent.
• Girl’s experience penis envy during this process. They believe that they have been castrated and blame their mothers for it. They wish they had a penis. She believes she is biologically inferior which affects her psyche.
• Boys and girls adopt their fathers and mothers role respectively. Thus boys join a larger collective group of males, who in turn dominate women, whereas girls remain closed to their mothers, remaining on the margin of the society, being ruled by men.

Main Arguments

• Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis (continued)
• Criticism: Feminists believe it is a very sexist perspective. Simone de Beauvoir states that Freud did little effort to study the female psyche; many little girls do not even know about the penis until they grow up. Also the Oedipus and Electra complexes are hasty generalizations; not everyone goes through this experience.
• Defense: Juliet Mitchell in Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974) defended Freud arguing that Freud’s theories were not recommendations rather observations of a patriarchal society. She claimed that a rejection of psychoanalysis would be fatal for feminism.
• Lacan’s Theory
• Freud 🡪 penis = power; anatomy is destiny; males are naturally superior; biological determinism
• Lacan 🡪 anatomy does not explain the social oppression of women.
• Lacan believed gender is a construct rather than biologically determined.

Main Arguments

• Nancy Chodrow Assertions
• If men took a more active role in child rearing, it would create changes in gender construction and diminish their domination over women.
• The relationships of mothers and their children and concludes that femininity is the strong representative of the strong tie to the mother, whereas the masculinity manifests itself as distance from mother and father.
• Judith Butler
• Wrote a book called “Gender Trouble”; it explores influence of maternal care on the emerging self, social oppression of women on the basis of presumed gender differences, oedipal conflict and heterosexual identification.
• While liberal or socialist feminists emphasize the importance of social factors or the struggle for legal rights and equal access to public life, the psychoanalytic approach emphasizes internal and emotional issues, and indicates the sense in which women do have some power to bring about change.

Critique

1. Due to focus on early human development, the few strategies offered for creating change primarily concentrate on this parent and reliant upon parent raising their children.
2. The theories that provide foundation for most of this kind of feminism rely on Freud and Lacan. Many of these theorists are misogynistic and place men in position of superiority over women.
3. Psychological theory interpreted the feminine experience largely on relation to masculinity, which is one of the critiques of science and technology offered by psychoanalytic feminism.
4. Like liberal, radical and Marxist feminism, psychoanalytic feminists have not provided a totally satisfying explanation for female subordination. Dual parenting is not a panacea for all women woes.

POST-MODERN FEMINISM

Main Arguments

• Inspired from “post-modernism.”
• There is no single object reality and thus, there is nothing universal. Postmodernists reject the claim that a single theory can explain the oppression of women i.e. there is no single solution or grand theory which can solve all problems.
• Women are not the same. There is no universal form of women. Hence, no one solution to their problems. A women can be white or black, rich or poor and so on. There are so many differences such as:
• Race
• Class
• Sexual orientation
• Nationality
• Education
• Political views
• Queer Theory
• Rejects the idea of sexuality as a stable concept and of heterosexuality as a norm.
• Sexual identity is fluid
• Theory is no Theory:
• No specific framework for combating oppression; instead a model for questioning various existing theories.
• Need to contextually look at situation before deciding what is the best way to deal with it.

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Main Arguments

• Deconstructionism
• Need to deconstruct male language and masculine view of the world based on the language.
• View that gender is constructed through language
• World seen in terms of binary: good or bad, holy or evil, beautiful or ugly, men or women. Male is then seen as normal and female as the deviation from it.
• Even Freud said the female is always cast as the “other”
• They oppose essentialism and deny categorical, abstract theories which are based on spurious assumptions.
• Postmodern feminists and feminists of today share a common tendency to thin nonbinary, non-oppositional whether postmodern feminists can by carving the block and by speaking and writing, help overcome binary opposition, phallocentrism and logo centrism, is not certain. What is certain, however, is that the time has come for a new conceptual order.

Important Contributors

• Jacques Derrida
• Focus on “symbolic order” or symbols.
• Symbols in society are sexist and when internalized, the person becomes sexist. This continues on and on.
• In other words, the symbolic order regulates society through the regulation of individuals; as long as individuals speak the language of the symbolic order-internalizing its gender, race and class roles-society reproduces itself in constant forms.
• Helene Cixous
• Language is male dominated; phallocentric.
• For a variety of sociocultural reasons, masculine writings have reigned supreme over feminine writing.
• Man has unnecessarily segmented reality by coupling concept and terms in pairs of binary polar opposites, one of which is always privileged over the other. Some examples she gave are:
• Activity/Passivity
• Sun/Moon
• Culture/Nature
• Day/NightSpeaking/Writing
• High/Low
• Man is associated with all that is active. Cultural light, high, or generally positive, whereas woman is associated with all that is passive, natural, dark, low or generally negative.
• Cixous challenged women to write themselves out of the world men constructed for women.
• By developing feminine writing, she insisted, women can change the way Western world thinks, speaks and acts.

Important Contributors

• Michel Foucault
• Discourse about sexuality is primary site of power in contemporary society.
• Foucault claimed that often, we are unaware of the social forces that have constituted our sexual subjectivity. We operate on the unquestioning assumption that our subjectivity is our own. He conducted this analysis to permit others to help us transform our realities.
• Judith Butler
• Butler claimed that there is no necessary connection between as person’s sex and a person’s gender.
• She said, within the discursive territory of heterosexuality, not only is gender constructed but so too is sex constructed.
• Queer Theory

Criticism

• Objection that postmodern feminism is out to destroy existing feminist theories rather than building them, which many see as not useful to feminism in the long run.
• Some critics reject all ‘postmodern feminism for academicians’. As they see it, postmodern feminism/feminists are deliberately opaque and complicated, viewing clarity as one of the seven deadly sins of the phallogocentric order.
• Convinced that Butler’s thought in particular is more than jargon for an elite group of feminists and other social critics, Nussbaum trivialized Butler’s ideas about resistance.

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