Feminism Origins And HN

Question 1

How was feminism founded?

Answer 1

• wollstonecrafts vindication of the rights of women was written in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution. It was a call for women to be recognised as ‘human creatures’
• she called for co-Ed schools and women to be able to peruse careers in fields such as medicine.
• Harriet Taylor called for women to be given ‘political, civil and social’ equality with men
• Wollstonecraft, Taylor and JSM influence the campaign for women’s suffrage which started to gain momentum in the 1890s.
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman became one of the most effective public speakers and advocates for women’s suffrage in the House of Representatives
• those who had campaigned for women’s right to vote came to be known as first-wave feminists

Question 2

What are liberal feminists views on the sex/gender divide?

Answer 2

-SDB Did not explicitly talk about sec and gender, but she was clear that the physical differences between men and women did not indicate any deeper distinctions between the sexes
- for Friedan, emphasising the sex/gender divide was a way to underpin her demand for equal rights. She reasoned that, since the categories of man and woman were merely biological classifications, they should not be used to draw conclusions about the intellectual abilities of women. Society needed to accept that all the scientific evidence showed that women were as capable as men and to reject the idea that their sex predisposed then to exclusively masculine or feminine ways of being. Instead they should aim for androgyny
- at the same time, liberals acknowledge that women might feel a strong indication towards motherhood, and defend the right of women to make traditional choices about how to live their lives

Question 3

What are radicals views on the sex/gender divide?

Answer 3

• radical feminists such as Kate miller argue that their liberal counterparts have underestimated the depth of the problems caused by pre-existing prejudices about secularism and gender
• they also see the liberal response to these problems as inadequate. Radical feminists believe that gender stereotypes are at the root of the repression of women in all aspects of their lives and advocate a sexual revolution to overthrow the patriarchy
• to participate in this sexual revolution, women will need to reject inferior, submissive roles in both their private and their public lives. Involved in this would be an insistence that men take equal responsibility for housework and child rearing

Question 4

What are socialist views on the sex/gender divide?

Answer 4

• socialist feminists argue that the sex/gender divide has made life worse for women both in the home and the workplace
• to socialist feminists the problems caused by the sex/gender divide are part of a larger system of discrimination caused by patriarchal capitalism
• the fact that childcare and housekeeping were traditionally done by women was helpful to employers because it freed up male workers from all obligations except wage earning
• this meant that women suffered at 2 levels. They faced worse treatment than men at work and were also exploited at home.
• to Marxist feminists the solution to this situation is a rebellion to overthrow capitalism and establish a society that guarantees complete equality
• more moderate socialist feminists believe that reform of capitalism is sufficient to eliminate the problems caused by the sex/gender divide. Among the reforms they advocate equal pay for women. They also want to see women give. A legal entitlement to the same consideration as men for roles

Question 5

What are cultural feminists view on the sex/gender divide?

Answer 5

• rather than seeing the connection between sex and gender as artificial, they argue that men and women have different inclinations and seem to honour their contrasting masculine and feminine characters. (This is known as essentialism)
• for cultural feminists the problem is not that sec and gender have been artificially linked, the problem is that the roles performed for society by women have been treated as of lesser importance
• to remedy this, cultural feminists emphasise the value of motherhood and highlight those feminine qualities that they think give women an advantage over men.
• feminists should, Judith butler suggested, focus less on definitions and more on analysing the power structures in society

Question 6

What do feminists belive about the personal is political?

Answer 6

• the main aim of liberal feminists is for women to enjoy equality with men in the public sphere, achieved through political and legal reform, which willl extend the same rights to women as men. Liberal feminists do not concern themselves with what happens in the private sphere, they believe that women should be able to make their own decisions about how to conduct their lives behind closed doors and take the view that how women behave in private has little bearing on their loves outside the home
• radical feminists disagree complete with liberal feminist reason on the significance of the private sphere. First they feel that women who are submissive at home will find it difficult to asset themselves in the public sphere. Second they argue that if women do most of the housework and childcare this limits the time they have to advance their careers. Third is that if the greater part of the household chores and parenting is done by women this models a pattern of unequal gender relations to the next generation
• socialist feminists agree with radicals that repression within the home matters. The unpaid work performed by. Women in private props up the exploitative, capitalist state. The major problem socialist feminists remains, however, Patriarchal capitalism in the public sphere, and it is in the reform or overthrow of this that they have focused their efforts