Feminism Flashcards
Liberal Feminism
Equal rights for all human beings
Optimistic theory - positive about progress so far
2 main aims of Liberal Feminism
Aim 1: Gradual policy reforms
Aim 2: Gradual cultural change and moving away from stereotypes.
Somerville
Principled pragmatism - gradual legislation and attitude changes.
Acknowledges positive progress (which she feels some feminists ignore) e.g. freedom to go into paid work, choice on whether or not to marry.
Greater equality in relationships but still many men not pulling their weight - but radical change not likely/desirable.
(Liberal Feminist)
Oakley
Gender roles are socially constructed.
Stereotypes change depending on culture.
Ideas about “masculine” and “feminine” passed down through socialisation.
(Liberal Feminist)
Radical Feminism believes that Patriarchy is…
Universal - happens everywhere.
The primary form of inequality/conflict.
Beneficial for all men - unpaid domestic labour and sexual services.
Radical Feminism
All men oppress all women.
Men are women’s main enemy.
“The person is political”
Patriarchy occurs in the public and private spheres.
All relationships involve domination by men (threat of violence).
Women are sexualised and objectified by men.
Therefore, there needs to be a focus on sexual politics: how power is exercised in personal relationships.
(Radical Feminism)
Separatism
Some radical feminists advocate separatism - women living apart from men completely.
Consciousness raising
Women should share their experiences through collective action.
(Radical Feminism)
Political lesbianism
Heterosexual relationships are oppressive, lesbianism is the only non-oppressive version of sexuality.
(Radical Feminism)
Greer
Women are oppressed by their roles in the family - wife, mother, daughter.
Wives’ role is to keep her husband happy.
Mothers are undervalued in society.
Daughters are more likely to be subject to abuse.
Married men report higher levels of satisfaction than non-married men, while single women report higher levels of satisfaction than married women.
Solution - women would be better off in “Matrilocal families” where all adults are female (a type of separatism).
(Radical Feminist)
Firestone
One of the original radical feminists.
Firestones views on childbirth
Patriarchy = the result of the female biology and reproductive role being exploited:
Women at physical disadvantage through childbirth - weakened and dependent on men.
Also interdependence of child on mother (exhausting).
Men extending this power on women into other spheres beyond childbirth.
Positive about how technology can liberate women from childbirth: Hopeful for artificial womb transforming power relations.
Marxist Feminism
Capitalism is the cause of women’s oppression.
Women’s oppression is advantageous to capitalism because they reproduce the proletariat and they can be used as backup labour when capitalism needs them.
Women stay at home and do unpaid labour (domestic labour) such as looking after children, cleaning the house, cooking and looking after the husband when he gets home.
Links between women’s subordination and capitalism
Cheap labour - paid less as assumed to partially live on husbands earnings.
Women as reserve army of labour at times of economic crisis.
In women’s interest to overthrow capitalism.
(Marxist Feminism)
Benston
Housework not regarded as “real work”
Capitalism benefits from an army of women - an unpaid workforce
“Ideological conditioning” - women are socialised into this being the norm
This is profitable to those who own the means of production.
Women reproduce labour force.
(Marxist Feminist)
Ansley
Wives are the “takers of shit”
Women absorb men’s anger and frustration at the Capitalist system
(Marxist Feminist)
Difference Feminism (Intersectional Feminism)
Critiques other feminisms for “essentialism”.
Claims feminist theory has claimed a “false universality” - claims to be about all women but really only about White, Western, Heterosexual, Middle Class women.
Essentialism
All women have the same “essence” and share the same experiences of oppression.
Difference Feminism believes this to be a problem with other types of Feminism.
(Difference Feminism)
Intersectionality
When several forms of oppression meet in a person.
(Difference Feminism)
Judith Butler
Poststructuralist Feminist.
Importance of language/discourse (ways of seeing/thinking/speaking) e.g. women as patients (alienated from birth process, would work for Marxist Feminism).
White middle class women have dominated feminism with “universal ideals”.
There isn’t one female “essence” because there are different discourses, cultures etc.
Need to deconstruct Feminism and discourses - to uncover power/knowledge that’s being used to define and oppress women.
Diversity of women’s struggles.
(Difference Feminist)
Strengths of Liberal Feminism
They produce a lot of data that validates concerns raised by Feminists.
They are the type of Feminists that people are more likely to listen to because they are far more reasonable than the others.
Criticisms of Liberal Feminism
They are perhaps over-optimistic, saying that everything can just be swept away before the march of progress, rather than looking at the possibility that structures like Capitalism might be the cause of women’s oppression.
They could be called naive in thinking that changes in law and attitude will solve all their problems.
Strengths of Radical Feminism
They shed light on how individual relationships can involve domination.
Criticisms of Radical Feminism
Marxist Feminists argue that the position of women is due to the position of the working class as a whole, not due to men as a whole.
It assumes all women are in the same positions, that of Western women who dislike their position.
Also, the theory of separatism is hugely unlikely to be achieved, especially with the emphasis on political lesbianism.
Liberal feminists say that their position has improved, so there is reason to hope which Radical Feminists are ignoring.
Radical Feminism also neglects women’s domestic violence against men and domestic violence between lesbians.
Strengths of Marxist Feminism
Because we live in a society where economic production is so important, it makes sense for it to also be important in the gender roles sphere.
Criticisms of Marxist Feminism
Women’s subordination is also found in non-capitalist societies, and Marxist Feminism fails to address this.
Marxist Feminism may not put enough emphasis on how men oppress women and not just how the rich oppress everyone.
Unpaid domestic labour is not proven to be the cheapest way of reproducing labour power.
Strengths of Difference Feminism
It offers a theoretical basis for recognising the differences between women.
Criticisms of Difference Feminism
While there are differences between women, there are more important similarities for the feminist cause, such as all being faced with patriarchy.
Dividing women into warring sub-groups makes it far easier for men to keep them subordinate.
