5.3 Feminism key thinkers Flashcards
1
Q
5
Which branch does each feminist key thinker belong to?
A
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman - influential to radical and socialist
- Simone de Beauvoir - socialist
- Kate Millett - radical
- Sheila Rowbotham - socialist
- bell hooks - postmodern
2
Q
3
Describe Gilman’s sex and domestic economics
A
- Sex and capitalist economy interlinked
- Women reliant on sexual assets to gratify their husbands - in turn would support them financially
- Viewed marriage (‘the bargain for life’) as comparable to prostitution (‘the transient trade’)
3
Q
5
Describe Gilman’s societal pressure
A
- Societal norms mean that women have been histroically assigned inferior domestic roles
- Gender roles such as motherhood socially constructed from young age
- Gender-targeted clothes and toys marketed to women create stereotypes - Gilman argued children should play with gender-neutral toys
- Wished to reverse false consciousness so women no longer saw themselves as naturally frailer and weaker than men
- Though believed that collectivism and cooperation were female values - later co-opted by socialist feminists
4
Q
3
Describe Gilman’s views on capitalism
A
- Capitalism’s exploitative qualities reinforced patriarchy
- Socialism would gradually succeed (reformist socialist feminism)
- Would allow male-female co-existence in egalitarian society and economy
5
Q
4
Describe Gilman’s views on social darwinism
A
- Darwinist theory that biological fittest would succeed no longer had relevance due to modern economy
- Biological differences no longer had relevance
- Equally rational
- Modern economic activity could faciliitate gender equality
6
Q
1
Describe Gilman’s views on female autonomy
A
- Women have lack of autonomy which hinders mental and emotional wellbeing
linked to liberal feminism
7
Q
5
Describe Gilman’s proposed solutions
A
- Sought economic independence for women
- Expansion of paid employment to women
- Advocated approximate sharing of domestic housework, centralised nurseries, community kitchens
- abolition of nuclear family, freeing women for role in wider society
- Would grant women freedom and autonomy
8
Q
6
List key quotes from Gilman
A
- there is no female mind’
- ‘sex slavery’ - economic dependence on men
- ‘the bargain for life’ and ‘the transient trade’
- child rearing and domestic work amounts to ‘domestic slavery’
- domestic labour enabled men to ‘produce more wealth than it otherwise could’
- ‘a house does not need a wife any more than it needs a husband’
9
Q
4
Describe de Beauvoir’s sex versus gender
A
- Feminity an artifical societal construct
- Biological differences used by male-dominated state and society to predetermine gender roles that limit autonomy of women
- Existence as human beings ‘infinitely more important’ than biological differences
- Humans are organically genderless (androgynous), but altered by society
10
Q
4
Describe de Beauvoir’s otherness
A
- Male domination means that men are ‘first sex’/’norm’, whereas women are ‘second sex’/’‘other’
- ‘Otherness’ imposed by men on women
- women viewed as imperfect men
- only viewed as ‘other’ because they are oppressed by men
11
Q
3
Describe de Beauvoir’s views on marriage
A
- marriage defines women
- women are taught to idolise men and marry one as their ultimate goal
- agreed with Gilman that women should not enter institution of marriage as saw it as prison
12
Q
2
How do Gilman and de Beauvoir differ on sexual liberation
A
- Gilman more critical of prostitution
- de Beauvoir was pro-sex work, seeing it as form of empowerment
13
Q
2
Decribe de Beauvoir’s views on patriarchy
A
- created by men
- should be abolished
14
Q
2
Describe de Beauvoir’s criticism of women’s role in upholding gender stereotypes
A
- Women often berated themselves for not living up to incompatible myths of feminity
- Women should value their freedom (‘rapport a soi’) by asking themselves what they wanted from life
15
Q
2
Describe de Beauvoir’s views on capitalism
A
- consumptive materialism (society addicted to purchasing consumer goods) inherent within capitalism
- further weakens women’s position within society
16
Q
4
List key quotes from de Beauvoir on ‘otherness’
A
- otherness’ and ‘norm’
- ‘first sex’ and ‘second sex’
- society ‘codified by man’
- ‘society… decrees that woman is inferior’
17
Q
2
List key quotes from de Beauvoir (excluding ‘otherness’)
A
- ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’
- ‘rapport a soi’
18
Q
5
Describe Millett’s family
A
- Saw nuclear family unit as foundation of patriarchal thought, so should be dismantled
- Favoured communal living and childrearing, lesbian relationships
- family merely a social construct
- Family socialised young into recognising masculine authority and feminine marginalisation in society (agree with Gilman on socialisation of young, but disagree on cause)
- Marriage saw women lose identity by taking women’s surname and offering domestic/sexual service for financial support
19
Q
3
Describe Millett’s portrayal of women in art and literature
A
- Gender roles and expectations stereotyped in art and literature
- Women portrayed as possessions to be fought over
- Millett’s analysis involved deconstructing work of influential male writers who she branded misogynist and phallocentric
phallocentric - privileging of masculinity
20
Q
4
Describe Millett’s views on the patriarchy
A
- Political and cultural phenomenon, not economic
- Affects both public and private sphere
- Reinforced heterosexualism as superior to bisexual/same-sex relationships
- patriarchy grants men ownership over wife and children, entrenching sexism and male superiority
21
Q
2
Describe Millett’s views on sexual liberation
A
- Needed to achieve wider societal liberation
- Women need to accept that lesbianism leads to personal freedom
22
Q
3
Describe Millett’s views on revolution
A
- Argued for change in social consciousness via revolution in head
- whereby patriarchy eliminated from people’s minds
- would enable gender equality in home, workplace and culture
23
Q
4
List Millett’s key quotes
A
- Women are ‘victims of patriarchy’
- Complete destruction of nuclear family the ‘revolutionary or utopian’ goal of feminism
- Women do not recognise the ‘totality of their conditioning’
- Sexual revolution begins ‘emancipation of women’
24
Q
7
Describe Rowbotham’s capitalism
A
- Capitalism the root of inequality
- Forces women into family roles and to sell labour to survive
- Makes them economically denpedent on marriage
- Low paid work of women compounded by unpaid domestic work
- Women historically oppressed due to alienation from capitalism
- Aimed to mitigate the economic impacts of patriarchal oppression before she tackled their cause, not vice versa
- WC women worked ‘like cattle’ at home and in workplace where they were paid less and had no childcare provisions in factories
25
Q
3
Outline Rowbotham’s proposals to mitigate the female oppression of capitalism
A
- Advocated free childcare
- economic equity - allocation of equal resources
- Argued that giving women equal employment rights would not improve the unregulated and unpaid aspect of their labour
26
Q
3
Describe Rowbotham’s family
A
- family performs dual function to oppress women:
- to subject and discipline women to demands of capitalism
- to offer place of refuge for men from the alienation of capitalism
27
Q
3
Describe Rowbotham’s views on patriarchy
A
- Development of intersection theory - saw wc women as doubly oppressed
- Feminism should seek to amend women’s internal lives, as well as external ones
- Non-violent revolution needed to abolish interlinked patriarchy and capitalism
28
Q
4
Describe Rowbotham’s views on male complicity with the patriarchy
A
- Men cannot fully understand nature of female oppression
- Sexism entrenched among both left and right wing men
- Women often relegated to traditional roles once revolution over
- ‘revolution within a revolution’ needed
29
Q
4
List key quotes from Rowbotham
A
- ‘Men will often admit that other women are oppressed, but not you’
- WC women work ‘like cattle’
- ‘revolution within a revolution’
- Large scale mobilisation needed to create ‘political force’ and ‘move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society’
30
Q
5
Describe hooks’ women of colour
A
- Broadened feminist debate, criticising second-wave for conceptualising feminism from white, college-educated, middle-upper class perspective
- Minority groups such as WOC previously excluded from earlier feminism
- Women of colour have different concerns
- WOC suffer greater oppression as suppressed for multiple characteristics
- black men wanted racial equality but also to assume their ‘proper place as patriarch in the home’
31
Q
3
Describe hooks’ intersectionality
A
- Challenged assumption that gender was most important factor in determining a woman’s life experiences
- Overlapping spheres means greater complexity in patriarchy and oppression
- mutliple identities of women meant that singular notion of ‘sisterhood’ gives way to more communal ‘solidarity’
32
Q
3
Describe hooks views on the patriarchy
A
- Women ‘socalised… by patriarchal thinking to see ourselves as inferior to men’
- women need to ‘unlearn self-hatred’
- media teaches some women to hate themselves by under representing WOC and non-white MC-UC women
33
Q
2
List key quotes from hooks on intersectionality
A
- ‘appropriation of feminist ideology by elitist, racist white women’
- must take responsibility for ‘eliminating all the forces that divide women’
34
Q
5
List key quotes from hooks
A
- ‘proper place as patriarch in the home’
- ‘sisterhood’ and patriarchy’
- Women ‘socalised… by patriarchal thinking to see ourselves as inferior to men’
- ‘unlearn self-hatred’
- media has ‘power over us, and we have no power over them’
