Difference feminism and post structuralism

Question 1

Difference feminists

Answer 1

• Don’t see women as a single homogenous group
• Argues that feminist theory has claimed a ‘false universal’ for itself - it claimed to be all about women, but in reality its only about white, mc, western women
• E.g. by seeing the family as the only source of oppression, wthite fems have ignored black women’s experience of racial oppression

Question 2

The problem of essentialism

Answer 2

• Essentialism is the idea that all women share the same fundamental ‘essence’ - all women are essentially the same and share all the same experiences of oppression
• Difference fems argue that liberal, marxist and radical fems are essentialist - they all see women as the same and fail to reflect the diversity of women’s experiences

Question 3

Poststructuralist feminism

Answer 3

• Butler (1992)
• Concerned with discourses and power/knowledge
• Discourses are ways of seeing, thining or speaking about something
• A discourse gives power over those it defines e.g. by defining childbrith as a medical condition and healthy women as patients, medical discourse empowers doctors

Question 4

The enlightenment project

Answer 4

• Its a discourse - a form of kn/power. Butler uses this in her critique of existing feminist theories
• Argues that EN were ideals that legitimated domaination by western, white, mc males. Claimed to apply to everyone but excluded women
• Argued that the White, Western, mc women who dominate the fem movement has falsely claimed to represent ‘universal womanhood’
• There isn’t a fixed essence of what it is to be a woman, identities are contstructed through discourses which change over time and cultures
• Different discourses give rise to different forms of oppression, and thus to different identities and experiences for women

Question 5

Evaluation

Answer 5

Walby (1992) argues that there are some differences among women, but she argues that there are also important similarities - they are all faced with patriarchy