Feminism - key thinkers Flashcards
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
believed from an early age girls were encouraged to take a domestic role (done through the family structure and culture of society) and were dependent on their husbands to survive financially
Sex and domestic economics are hand in hand – for women to survive, they have to depend on their sexuality and body in order to please their husbands.
Societal pressure – young girls are compelled to conform in society and prepare for motherhood by playing with toys and wearing clothes that are specifically designed for and marketed to them.
Simone de Beauvoir
women have been socialised to think of themselves as inferior to men, did not see the idea of a ‘feminine nature’ as positive (unlike difference feminists)
Sex versus gender – ‘one is not born, but rather becomes a woman’.
‘Otherness’ – men are perceived as the ‘norm’ and women deviants from
Sheila Rowbotham
argued that women’s oppression came as a result of economic and cultural factors, criticised the concept of marriage
Capitalism – women are forced to sell their labour to survive and use their labour to support their family under the capitalist system.
The family – not just an instrument for disciplining and subjecting women to capitalism but a place where men took refuge from alienation under a capitalist economy
Kate Millett (radical feminist)
argued female oppression was political and cultural, nuclear family structure mirrored the patriarchal society, masculine authority is taught in childhood and reinforced through culture, women are degraded in art and culture (seen as objects of male desire etc)
Family – undoing the traditional family was the key to true sexual revolution.
Portrayal of women in art and literature –patriarchal culture produced writers and literary works that were degrading to women.
bell hooks (postmodern feminist)
wanted to bring the concerns of black women into the mainstream feminism movement which had previously been focused on the interests of white middle class women
Women of colour –cultural concerns of women of colour brought into the mainstream feminist movement.
Intersectionality – the mainstream feminist movement had focused mostly on the plight of white, college-educated, middle/upper-class women who had no stake in the concerns of women of colour.
Betty Friedan (liberal feminist)
Friedan argued that women were as capable as men in terms of performing any type of work or career path.
She was also an advocate of raising consciousness and lobbied in favour of legislative reform to address gender inequality.
Friedan’s approach to the problems facing women typify the liberal feminist position on the path towards female emancipation. Whilst the political process is dominated by men, Friedan and others believe there is sufficient scope within its boundaries for women to advance the feminist position.
Andrea Dworkin (radical feminist)
Andrea Dworkin rejects the mainstream assumption that men are somehow redeemable.
Dworkin has no faith in the ability of men to adopt an entirely different set of values and behavioural traits. This had primarily centred upon her critique of pornography and how it enables men to own and possess women’s bodies.
She also claims that those institutions which formalise the relationship between men and women (such as marriage and the nuclear family) are deeply patriarchal. The man is both the head of the household and – as the breadwinner – exerts direct economic power over his wife. As a solution, she advocates a form of separateness to free women from the shackles of patriarchy.
Carol Gilligan (difference feminist)
Her theory of moral development:
Gilligan proposed that women come to prioritize an “ethics of care” as their sense of morality evolves along with their sense of self while men prioritise an “ethics of justice.”
She believed that women face a lot of psychological challenges and they are not moral widgets. The women’s point of view on moral development involves caring which shows its effect on human relationships.
Charlotte Bunch (difference feminist)
she regards lesbianism as a political revolt against a system in which neither a woman nor her labor belong to herself.
She made the argument that lesbianism was a political choice (form of separatism)
Sheila Jeffreys (difference feminist)
She argues that women suffering pain in pursuit of beauty is a form of submission to patriarchal sadism; that transgender people reproduce oppressive gender roles and mutilate their bodies through sex reassignment surgery; and that lesbian culture has been negatively affected by emulating the sexist influence of the gay male subculture of dominant/submissive sexuality
Advocate for political lesbianism - promoting seperate spaces etc
