feminism knowledge

Question 1

5 feminist thinkers

Answer 1

Simone de Beauvoir - liberal
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - socialist
Sheila Rowbotham - socialist
Kate Millet - radical
bell hooks - post-modern

Question 2

Sheila Rowbotham view on capitalism

Answer 2

Women are forced to sell their labour to survive and use their labour to support their family under the capitalist system. Liberation of women required an end to capitalism and to a sexist culture, “revolution within a revolution”

Question 3

Sheila Rowbotham view on the family

Answer 3

The family is not just an instrument for disciplining and subjecting women to capitalism, but a place where men took refuge from alienation under a capitalist economy.

Question 4

Sheila Rowbotham view on Marxism

Answer 4

Though having a Marxist background, she criticized Marxism for its narrow focus on capitalism and class, rather than oppression in domestic life and society.

Question 5

bell hooks intersectionality

Answer 5

bell hooks developed the idea of intersectionality and multiple factors which cause suffering in society e.g. poverty, sexuality, race, religion and gender, which sometimes act together.
She criticises feminists who have failed to recognise these factors and focused mainly on white middle-class women.
She shifts the focus to the individual and understanding their circumstances, with women often suffering from multiple forms of discrimination e.g. young gay black women.

Question 6

Gilman on socialisation

Answer 6

Gilman criticised how girls were socialised into an expectation of domestic servitude in “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) and “Women and Economics” (1898).

Question 7

Gilman on economic equality

Answer 7

She believed there was no rational reason why women should not play an equal economic role, as they were just as intelligent and capable, so should have equal opportunities.

Question 8

Gilman on family

Answer 8

Gilman campaigned for more radical ideas on the destruction of the traditional nuclear family, replacing it with communal living and symmetrical roles for men and women.

Question 9

de Beauvoir society makes patriarchy

Answer 9

“one is not born, but rather becomes a woman”

Question 10

de Beauvoir women being made different

Answer 10

“otherness” - neb are perceived as the “norm” and women deviate from this norm

Question 11

de Beauvoir on women living under patriarchal rules

Answer 11

She believed women had for too long lived a life according to rules imposed by men, which she saw as “bad faith”