Feminism and Family

Question 1

Liberal feminists

Answer 1

‘March of progress view’ towards gender equality at home and in wider society through reforming existing laws.

Question 2

Marxist feminists

Answer 2

Challenged traditional gender roles at home, examining the unpaid labour of women and the expectations of society on women to look after their husbands.

Question 3

Radical feminists

Answer 3

Critical of marriage, seeing it as an unequal institution that was patriarchal in nature and where men used financial and physical power to control women.

Question 4

Policies encouraging employment

Answer 4

• Equal Pay Act
• Sex Discrimination Act
• Equality Act

Question 5

Policy allowing control over reproductive rights

Answer 5

• Family Planning Act

Question 6

Policies over marital rights

Answer 6

• Divorce reform
• Exclusion or Marital Rape Clause

Question 7

Impacts of policies encouraging women’s employment

Answer 7

Indirect impacts:
• Raising girls career aspirations, encouraging delayed marriage and child bearing to develop career.
• Changes to gender roles as a result of women’s paid employment, altering power roles in the family.

Question 8

Impacts of reproductive rights policy

Answer 8

Direct impact:
Legalisation of abortion
Availability of contraceptive pill
Gave women decision to have it not have children, raising average age of women having their first child, age of first marriage and decreasing the fertility rate (impacts amount of children in society)

Question 9

Impacts of marital rights policy

Answer 9

• 2/3 of divorces are requested by females indicating dramatic shift in power relationships in marriage.
• No longer forced to have sex with husbands (1992 exclusion of marital rape clause)

Question 10

Impacts of unpaid labour in the home

Answer 10

Domestic labour is often unpaid and unfair expectation on women to complete this labour:
• Dual burden - paid work and domestic work
• Triple shift - paid, domestic, emotional support

Question 11

Social expectation of women to provide emotional support to workers

Answer 11

Women are treated as the ‘slaves of wage slave’
Ansley - women absorb the pressure of males and capitalism

Question 12

Role of women as being part of a ‘reserve army of labour’

Answer 12

Used to bolster the work force in times of economic boom and how they are expected to return to the home when the economy contracts.

Question 13

Highlight the coercive power over women in different formats:

Answer 13

• physical
• psychological
• sexual
• financial

Question 14

Decision making (radical)

Answer 14

Inequalities in decision making which are often dominated by males and made in the interest of males

Question 15

Social expectations (radical)

Answer 15

Women should be the “housewife and mother”

Question 16

Gender socialisation (radical)

Answer 16

Challenging the notion of gendered socialisation for girls into passive and submissive roles

Question 17

Post-structural / Postmodern feminism

Answer 17

Stacey’s research into the different experiences of women and the kinship networks they develop as responses to divorce and death of their partners - believe friends can fill in for the family (surrogate support)

Question 18

Neo-liberal feminism

Answer 18

Focuses on the empowerment and the expectations for women to have it all. HOWEVER, negative impacts:
• increased pressure in work
• increased pressure on family life
• increased expectations of personal life such as appearance
Empowerment or unrealistic expectations for women?

Question 19

Evaluation of feminist ideas

Answer 19

• lack of coherent approach to role of women in contemporary society, undermining the choice of some women to adopt traditional values
• intersectionality of women’s experiences, focusing on the experiences of white middle-class women and ignoring the differences of women of colour, disability, sexuality and WC