1970s Feminism

1970s Feminism

• The 1960s may have brought the pill and the sexual revolution but as the 1970s dawned equality of the sexes was still a long way off. Women could be paid less than a man for doing the same job, posts were advertised by gender and 'sexual harassment' was an unknown term. The 1970s saw the self-titled second wave feminists motivated to abolish sexism wherever they found it. The "second wave" of feminism spread across the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. By 1970, women's liberation was in the news and a part of many women's lives
•  
• The Women’s Strike for Equality was a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights held on August 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage. It was described by Time magazine as “the first big demonstration of the Women’s Liberation movement.”

​

What is Feminism?

• Feminism is the organized movement which promotes equality for men and women in political, economic and social spheres. Feminists believe that women are oppressed simple due to their sex based on the dominant ideology of patriarchy

​

• Feminism ideology can take many different forms. In the 1970's, women started developing a theory which helped to explain their oppression. Pockets of resistance began to organize and challenge patriarchy. By the 1980's, however, feminists started disagreeing on particular issues linked to feminism. What was once one theory, began to branch out into many theories that focused on different feminist issues

​

Types of Feminism

Radical Feminism

• Radical feminism promotes the basis for many of the ideas of feminism.
• They usually clash with the ideals of the liberal feminist, because radical feminists believe that society must be changed at its core in order to dissolve patriarchy, not just through acts of legislation
• Radical feminists believe that the domination of women is the oldest and worst kind of oppression in the world.
• Radical feminists want to free both men and women from the rigid gender roles that society has imposed upon them.

Radical culture feminism:

• The Radical-Cultural feminists believe that women should encompass their femininity because it is better than masculinity
• This type of radical feminist sees sex and penetration as male dominated. They see a link between sex, female subordination, porn, rape and abuse

Radical liberation feminism

• Radical-Libertarian feminists believe that femininity and reproduction limit women's capacity to contribute to society
• Radical-Libertarian feminists like to violate sexual norms and believe that women should control every aspect of their sexuality.
• They also advocate artificial means of reproduction so that less time is devoted to pregnancy and more time is devoted to worthwhile things.

Types of feminism Cont’d

Liberal feminist

• Liberal feminism was most popular in the 1950's and 1960's when many civil rights movements were taking place.
• The main view of liberal feminists are that all people are created equal by God and deserve equal rights.
• Liberal feminists believe that women have the same mental capacity as their male counterparts and should be given the same opportunities in political, economic and social spheres.
• Women should have the right to choose, not have their life chosen for them because of their sex. Essentially, women must be like men

Cultural feminism

• Cultural feminists believe that there are fundamental, biological differences between men and women, and that women should celebrate these differences.
• Women are inherently more kind and gentle. Cultural feminists believe that because of these differences, if women ruled the world there would be no more war and it would be a better place.
• a women's way is the right and better way for everyone.

Socialist feminism

• Socialist feminists believe that there is a direct link between class structure and the oppression of women
• Socialist feminist believe that the way to end this oppression is to put an end to class and gender
• In order to get anything accomplished, women must work with men, as opposed to ostracizing them.

​

​

MARY DALY - Radical

Women have had the power of naming stolen from us

If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination

God's plan' is often a front for men's plans and a cover for inadequacy, ignorance, and evil

BETTY FRIDIAN – Liberal

A woman is handicapped by her sex, and handicaps society, either by slavishly copying the pattern of man's advance in the professions, or by refusing to compete with man at all

Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim

A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex but neither should she adjust to prejudice and discrimination

CAROL GILLIGAN – Cutural

The women's movement is taking a different form right now, and it is because it has been so effective and so successful that there's a huge counter movement to try to stop it, to try to divide women from one another, to try to almost foment divisiveness

In the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection

Germaine Greer

• Born in Melbourne in 1939

​

• Academic and a Journalist

​

• Major Feminist voice of the later 20^th Century

​

• Most noted work – The Female Eunuch (First Published in 1970)

• Greer’s works have been received with both positive and negative feedback, especially The Female Eunuch

​

• Greer has perceived her role in the feminist movement by providing, as she describes in The Whole Woman (1999) ‘…women’s liberation…’ and pushes the idea of women embracing their gender differences in a positive way

​

• Greer asserts that the liberation of women however does not mean equality to men as it is her belief that equality to men would be believe as settling like ‘…unfree men.’

Receptions and Beliefs

The Female Eunuch�(1970)

• Greer’s most notable work in her career

​

• Greer argues that women do not know how much men hate them and themselves

​

• It is written that when it was first released women had to wrap it up in brown paper to hide it from their husbands (Wallace, 1997)

​

• Greer writes that women should get to know and accept their own bodies and when interviewed about the book she commented that women have been ‘…separated from their libido…from their sexuality.’

Discussion Questions

• How do Greer’s beliefs relate to the female characters of Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill? Particularly relating to The Female Eunuch

​

• Do you think that literature such as 50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James has helped or hindered the liberation of women? Why?

​

• Do you think Greer’s beliefs have been realised in today’s Western culture? (Home, Workplace etc…)

​

• ‘Women still have a right to be angry’ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CITBPjJCU9o&feature=related

Luce Irigaray (1932)�Belgian feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist.�

DE BEAUVOIR - EQUALITY

X

IRAGARAY - OTHERNESS [GREER]

​

ECH SEX SHOULD BE ‘OTHER’ FOR THE OTHER SEX.

​

WOMEN AND MADNESS

X

MEN AND SCIENCE

​

​

CHALLENGES :��male dominated language��the Freudian oedipal construct ��the western history as a paternal genealogy��EMPHASIZES:��the mother-daughter relationship��woman’s love for her mother and for her sisters/other women��the story that Freud omitted: The Bartered Daughter �

Bibliography

• "Germaine Greer," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007.

​

• Greer, Germaine (1999), The Whole Woman, Transworld Publishers Ltd p 1 – 2

​

• Interview with Germaine Greer - New York Times, 22 March 1971

​

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CITBPjJCU9o&feature=related

​

• Walters, Natasha (2010), Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, Hachette Digital

​

• Irigaray, Luce, (1994), ‘The Forgotten Mystery of Female Ancestry’, Thinking the Difference, For a Peaceful Revolution, London: Athlone Press� �Whitford, Margaret, (1991), The Irigaray Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell� �Donovan, Sarah K., (2005). Iragaray Luce (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy), [online], available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/irigaray/, accessed 12/10/2012

​

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/70sfeminism/) 11th October 2012

 Linda Napikoski ‘Feminism in 1970 Important Events of Feminism in 1970’(http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/Feminism-in-1970.htm) Assessed: 11th October 2012

Jone Johnson Lewis ‘Mary Daly Quotes’ (http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/mary_daly.htm) Assessed: 11^th october 2012

Jone Johnson Lewis ‘Betty Friedan quotes’(http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/betty_friedan.htm) Assessed: 11th October 2012

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/carol_gilligan.html) Assessed: 11th October 2012

​