Feminism Flashcards
1
Q
Four main strands of feminism
A
- Liberal feminism
- Socialist feminism
- Radical feminism
- Post-modern feminism
2
Q
Liberal feminism
A
- Simone de beauvoir
- Gender stereotypes should be eliminated via democratic pressures
- They focus on the public sphere rather than the private sphere.
3
Q
Simone de Beauvoir, Key ideas
A
- Sex versu gender, gender roles have been assigned to women on the basis of their sex.
- Otherness, men are peceived as the norm and women as deviants from this norm.
- Exestentialism
4
Q
Simone de Beauvoir on SOCIETY
A
- She was a existential feminist, she argued for indivdual freedom above the societal coventions and constictions placed on women.
- Biological differences of sex have been used as a justification for predeterming the role of a ‘women’ by a process of socialisation in a male-dominated society. All roles in society should be equal, she rejected the ideas of ‘womens nature’.
- She developed the idea of ‘otherness’ where in society men have characterised themselves as the norm and they have designated women as the inferior.
- Imposed by men on women, they have internalised this false sense of natural inferiority and will need to become consious of their socialisation if they are to contest their roles in society.
- Gender roles in the family and workplace must be equal, women need to liberate themselves from this.
- The notion of what women SHOULD be is a social construct.
- In favour of the ABLOSHEN of the nuclear family.
5
Q
Simone de Beauvoir qoutes on society
A
- ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a women’ society conditions women into accepting a passive role in life and care over their appearance. This is done through socialisation at a early age encouraging them to adopt a feminim identiny and enforcing gender steryotypes.
- ‘Society being codified by men, decrees that women is inferioir, she can do away with this inferioirity only by destorying the males superiority’
- ‘political sameness’
‘when there would no longer be men and women but only workers equal with one another’ this is clear social change and reform, equality.
6
Q
Other liberal feminist views on society
A
- Equality of oppurtunity, everyone regardless of their gender should have the same life chances in society.
- Betty friedan argued that society confined women to the narrow roles of a house wife and mother, which alienated and opressed women.
EQUALITY of oppurtunity in the public sphere
‘Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves’
7
Q
Simone de Beauvoir on STATE
A
- Biological differences of sex have been used as a justification for predertemining the role of women by a proccess of socialisation in a male dominated state.
- Although she argues women MUST liberate themselves she also believes there is a large state role in promoting reform and making gender roles in the family and workplace equal.
- The state must fund childcare, widespread contraception and legalisation of abortion in order to give women complete control over their bodies.
- State funded childcare gives women freedom from the nuclear family, sexual liberation through state funded contracpetion and abortion.
This will lead to EQUALITY OF OPPURTUNITY
8
Q
Simone de beauvoir and other liberal feminists on STATE
A
- Betty friedan wanted to reform society so women could easily choose between a domestic and career role, this would result in equal rights and all laws that prvented this should be repealed.
- Liberal feminists are reformists, negative consequences of opression can be removed via legislation and can gradualy increase equality.
DISAGREE with radical feminist over the omnipresence of patriarchy
9
Q
Simone de beauvoir on HUMAN NATURE
A
- Bioligical differences matter to some degree but have been used to justify the predertimed role of women in society.
- Rejected the idea of ‘womens nature’, all roles within society should be gender neutral.
- Rejected that women are born with a predetermined nurturing instinct, socialisation by parents, education and society removes womens freedom to choose.
- Rejects the idea of ‘motherhood’
- Women have internalised a sense they are naturally inferioir, this is not true and they and the state must liberate them from this.
10
Q
Simone de beauvoir qoutes on HUMAN NATURE
A
‘One is not born, but rather becomes a women’ they are conditioned into accepting a passive role in life and in taking inordinate care over appearance, this is NOT in their numan nature.
EXESTENSIALISM
11
Q
Simone de beauvoir on ECONOMY and QOUTES
A
- Economy discriminates against women.
- Men construct a notion of femininity and the feminine ideal that served their own economic and physical ends. Social contruct that women are inferioir has lead to men dominating the economy.
- Eqaulity of opuurtunity in the economy
- ‘political sameness’
‘when there would no longer be men and women but only workers equal with one another’ this is clear social change and reform, equality.
12
Q
Socialist feminism
A
- All socialist feminist argue that economies lead to gender inequality and that capatalism causes patriarchy.
- Perkins Gilman
- Shiela Rowbothan
13
Q
Perkins Gilman on SOCIETY
A
- Young girls are compelled to conform in society and prepare for motherhood by playing with toys and wearing clothes that are specificaly designed and marketed for them.
- She argued fro gender neutral toys and clothes.
- Biological differences in society were irrelavent and women are interlectually equal to men, which what matters most in modern society.
- Rejected social darwinism, male domination of society is linked to his idea of survival of the fittest.
- Motherhood should not prevent women from working outside the home.
- The traditional role of women in the nuclear family with sole responsibility for childcare and domesticity was comaprable to slavery. There should be a communal form of living where housework and childcare is shared so women can gain a larger role in society.
14
Q
Perkins Gilam Qoutes on SOCIETY
A
‘A house does not need a wife anymore that it needs a husband’
The traditional role of women in the nuclear family with sole responsibility for childcare and domesticity was comaprable to slavery. There should be a communal form of living where housework and childcare is shared so women can gain a larger role in society.
15
Q
Shiela rowbotham on SOCIETY
A
- Female opression also stems from the traditional nuclear family and the cultural dominace of mens sexuality.
- Rowbotham believes women have always been opressed, marriage is like deudalism, with a women like a serf playing fuedal dues to her husband.
- Capatalism means that women are doubely opressed, they are forced to sell their labour to survive in the workplace and to cede their labour in the family home.
- ‘Revolution within a revolution’ was needed to restructure both sources of opression, patriarchy and capatalism.
- The family is a instrument for disiplining and subjecting women to the demands of capatalism and to offer a place of refuge for men from the alienation of capatalism.
