Feminism - Core ideas - final

Question 1

What two things did feminism develop a distinction between?

Answer 1

Sex and gender.

Question 2

What does sex mean to a feminist?

Answer 2

It refers to the biological differences between men and women that are inevitable, natural, and unalterable.

Question 3

How should sex differences be treated by society according to feminists?

Answer 3

Irrelevant - the biological status of women should not affect their general status.

Question 4

What is essentialism?

Answer 4

Refers to the fundamental nature of the biological differences between men and women that some feminists say are essential to an understanding of the status of women.

Question 5

What does gender refer to?

Answer 5

The cultural differences between the sexes that feminists see as creating the patriarchy and that are not natural or inherent.

Question 6

Who is often described as the founder of second wave feminism?

Answer 6

Betty Friedan

Question 7

What type of feminist was Betty Friedan?

Answer 7

A liberal feminist.

Question 8

According to liberal feminists, what causes the apparent inferiority of women?

Answer 8

They believe it is a learned behaviour, with its roots in history and reinforced by education and other cultural institutions.

Question 9

What is androgyny?

Answer 9

People should be free to choose their sexual identity and may choose to have none at all.

Question 10

How did Shulamith Firestone view history?

Answer 10

As a struggle between men and women and would be resolved by removing all sex differences and creating a state where men and women exist without sexual relations.

Question 11

How do socialist feminists view the inferior status of women?

Answer 11

As being bound up in the whole operation of capitalism.

Question 12

How does the phrase ‘the personal is political’ help to differentiate between liberal and radical feminists?

Answer 12

Liberals advocate the separation of the private sphere and the public sphere; for radicals, everything is political.

Question 13

What is the private sphere?

Answer 13

Those aspects of life that are the concern of the individual and their close family and friends only - it is of no concern to that state or the rest of society.

Question 14

What is the public sphere?

Answer 14

Aspects of social, political, and economic life that concern the whole community.

Question 15

What do radical feminists mean when they refer to the ‘political’?

Answer 15

They mean that even in the private sphere patriarchal attitudes are reflected and reinforced and it is therefore not a private matter - if a woman is kept at home to raise a child it is not a personal matter because it impacts wider society.

Question 16

What is the main characteristic of the modern state feminists are concerned with?

Answer 16

The patriarchy - the oppression and exploitation of women in a male-dominated society.

Question 17

How do liberals view the state?

Answer 17

They see it as part of the problem (patriarchy) but also part of the solution.

Question 18

How do radical feminists see the improvements made through the state, i.e. legislation and and education?

Answer 18

They are welcome but superficial. These reforms do not address the fundamental problem of systemic inequality.

Question 19

How do feminists view society’s nature?

Answer 19

Patriarchal

Question 20

For radical feminists, what is the key characteristic of modern society?

Answer 20

Patriarchy

Question 21

What are the 2 ways radical feminists seek to combat patriarchy?

Answer 21

• A full-scale attack on cultural values possibly involving violence to male dominance.
• The creation of a female counter-culture with women leading completely separate lives from men.

Question 22

What is the difference between liberal and radical feminists with regards to patriarchy?

Answer 22

Liberals view patriarchy as a characteristic rather than fundamental of society, meaning they believe it can be made less patriarchal whereas radicals do not see this as possible.

Question 23

What is equality feminism?

Answer 23

The strive for equal treatment of men and women in all spheres.

Question 24

What is difference feminism?

Answer 24

The acknowledgement that men and women have fundamental differences and these should be recognised in society.

Question 25

How do difference feminists view the search for equality?

Answer 25

Fruitless; some have even suggested that women are better.

Question 26

Why do some difference feminists think a female dominated world would be better to a male one?

Answer 26

The interests of children would be paramount due to their caring nature, and since they are less aggressive there would be fewer - or maybe no - wars and violence.

Question 27

What did Simone de Beauvoir say about patriarchy?

Answer 27

“Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior”

Question 28

What is the post-modern critique of feminism?

Answer 28

It has been largely white and middle-class, and they point to the fact that women from a variety of social and cultural backgrounds face very different problems.

Question 29

What is intersectionality?

Answer 29

The idea that the problems women face involve a combination of their female identity and other identities such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, social class, and religion.

Question 30

Who coined the term ‘intersectionality’ and when?

Answer 30

Kimberle Crenshaw, 1989

Question 31

What did bell hooks say of intersectionality in her book ‘Feminism is for Everybody’, published in 2000?

Answer 31

White women need to “divest of white supremacy”

Question 32

How are women economically discriminated against?

Answer 32

• They are a source of unpaid labour in the home.
• They are a source of low-paid, part-time, dispensable labour.
• Paid less for the same work.
• The ‘glass ceiling’; senior jobs are reserved for men.

Question 33

What 2 things did Engels believe capitalism had done to women?

Answer 33

• Reduced them to inferior wage-slaves.

- Turned them into a reserve army of labour.

Question 34

What is Friedrich Engels’ idea of the reserve army of labour?

Answer 34

That women were available for short-term, low-wage work in times when male labour was scarce and there was a danger that wages would rise.

Question 35

What do socialist feminists see as being bound together?

Answer 35

Female exploitation and capitalism.

Question 36

What does Sheila Rowbotham propose to advance the feminist cause?

Answer 36

The overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a new world of equality.

Question 37

What did Sheila Rowbotham say women needed to do in her 2014 work ‘Women, Resistance and Revolution’?

Answer 37

“start to organise in large numbers [so] that we become a political force”