Feminism Flashcards
Charlotte Gilman Perkins
Place of women in society
Do domestic work, unpaid, forced to satisfy the sexual needs of their husband for financial support.
This leaves them underdeveloped.
Charlotte Gilman Perkins
Socialisation and gender roles
Girls are prepared from a young age, by toys and play, for the domestic role they will inevitable take up in the future.
Motherhood shouldn’t stop women working.
Charlotte Gilman Perkins
Family
Old ideas about the family unit are outdated. We don’t need women to stay at home and be financially dependent on the man.
Charlotte Gilman Perkins
Economic independence and employment
If domestic work was professionalised women could go to work, and not depend upon anyone.
Charlotte Gilman Perkins
Economic independence
We can all be free to reach our potential if we didn’t have to so unpaid domestic work
What type of feminist was Charlotte Gilman Perkins?
Socialist feminist
Which book did Charlotte Gilman Perkins write? in which year was this released?
“The Yellow Wallpaper” 1860
What is the message of “The Yellow Wallpaper”?
About a woman who suffers from mental illness after 3 months of being locked in a room by her husband for the sake of her health.
The treatment prescribed by her husband directly contradicts what she actually needs - metal stimulation and autonomy
Simone de Beauvoir
Place of women in society
Women are defined by their ‘otherness’. They are different from, but are defined in the terms of men.
Simone de Beauvoir
Socialisation and gender roles
This ‘otherness’ os internalised by women as they grow up. You are not born a women - you become one via this process.
Simone de Beauvoir
Family
Families are where the expectations and impressions of men and women are enforced.
The feminine mystique traps women as unknowable by their men who are freed from meeting the woman’s needs because they claim they can’t understand them.
Simone de Beauvoir
Economic Independence and Employment
Women can move on from being secondary to men when they realise their situation and decide to act.
Simone de Beauvoir
‘Otherness’
Men are normal, women are ‘other’. Women are unknowable and mysterious so don’t bother trying to understand or deal with their situation.
What type of feminist is Simone de Beauvoir?
Socialist feminist
What was the name of Simone de Beauvoir’s book? In which year was it published?
“Le Deuxieme Sexe” 1949
Dr Kate Millet
Place of Women in society
Women are portrayed in culture and literature as men want them to be - objects to desire, chase of save.
Women are kept under the patriarchy’s control.
Dr Kate Millet
Socialisation and gender roles
The family teaches children their roles, men to be themselves and women to be subservient. These roles are formalised by wider society (school, friends, media etc)
Dr Kate Millet
Family
The key tool of patriarchal oppression. But it is seen as great do is rarely challenged.
Dr Kate Millet
Economic independence and employment
Women are taught by the family to accept a role where giving up their careers or paid work is the desirable outcome.
Trapped in monogamous, male dominated relationships, independence is impossible.
Dr Kate Millet
Literature
Portrays women as objects in one way or another, reinforcing the ideas of them as possessions.
What Books did Dr Kate Millet write?
‘Sexual Politics’ 1970
‘The Basement’
What type of feminist is Dr Kate Millet?
Second-wave feminist
Sheila Rowbotham
Place of women in society
Women are doubly oppressed by capitalism. They work, but also work unpaid at home to allow the men to go out and be exploited.
Sheila Rowbotham
Socialisation and gender roles
The family teaches children their roles - men to be breadwinners and women to do the unpaid work. People are taught to want the thing taught keeps them oppressed.
Sheila Rowbotham
Family
Although it does socialise us it is also a refuge from capitalism where relationships are not dependent on production.
Sheila Rowbotham
Economic Independence and employment
Capitalism is exploiting everyone and should be overthrown but you need a simultaneous feminist revolution to avoid falling back into old ideas.
What type of feminist is Sheila Rowbotham? What approach does she bring?
Radical feminism
dualist or dualism - brings together cultural and economic factors.
What book did Sheila Rowbotham write and in which year was this published?
‘Womens’ Consciousness, Men’s World’ 1973
bell hooks
Place of women in society
Women are oppressed but black women are oppressed, its not just a white middle-class thing.
bell hooks
Socialisation and gender roles
Ideas of whoerish impurity passed to black women, even as they endured slavery. This made them a lower status than anyone else.
bell hooks
Family
Relationships are between men taught to hide feelings and focus on sex, women are taught to please everyone.
In this situation no relationship can be equal.
bell hooks
Economic interdependence and employment
Black women are accused of emasculating men by having the only kind of jobs they can get.
Independence can only come when oppressed minorities work together - why strive for women’s equality when black men are treated so unequally.
bell hooks
Intersectionality
You can’t understand the true plight of the oppressed unless you layer those categorisations.
If those groups were not seen in isolation (poor, black, female, disabled etc) then progress would be more substantial.
How many books did bell hooks write - give an example?
Over 30 books
“Ain’t I a Woman: Black Woman and Feminism” 1981
What is the value of unpaid domestic work done by women each year?
$10 trillion
What % of the world’s illiterate population are women?
64%
What % of the world’s malnourished people are women?
60%
How many women around the world die each year due to pregnancy or birth complications?
830
World earning average for men and women?
Men $21,000
Women $12,000
What are the 4 phases or waves of feminism?
- Equal rights (legal and political)
- Roles and expectaitons
- Challnging the white-middle class form of feminism
- Media image
Name an example of no specific gender division
Mbuti (Congo rainforest)
What is Sex?
Biological distinction between make and female, body shape, size, and sexual and reproductive organs
What is Gender?
Character - what they are like - a social construct
How many women in the UK are killed each week by a current or former parents?
2 each week
What proportion of women will suffer domestic violence at some point in their life?
1 in 4
What % of victims of domestic violence are women?
84%
