Gender Overview Flashcards
What does Oakley argue?
Oakley argues that gender role socialisation in the family is where gender inequality starts from a young age. This occurs through manipulation and canalisation which teach children norms and values for their sex.
What is manipulation?
Encouragement of behaviour that is seen as ‘gender appropriate’ -for example, girls being dressed in pink and attention being paid to their appearance
What is canalisation?
Relates to the “channelling of children towards toys and activities seen as appropriate for their gender
How can Oakley be criticised?
Postmodernist ideas suggest that gender identities are no longer fixed. Oakley's views are out of date. Theorists such as Connell says some children actively go against traditional gender stereotypes. Liberal feminism is a middle-class movement
What do Marxist feminists believe?
Women reproduce the next generation of workers and socialise them into norms and values that benefit capitalism. Boys are brainwashed to believe they must be breadwinners and girls learn their primary role is a housewife.
What does Feeley say?
The family teaches children to accept authority from their fathers and that it is ‘natural’ for men and women to have separate jobs in the home, which leads to women being oppressed.
What does Benston say?
Argues that the wife keeps her husband in good running order by feeding him and caring for him.
What does Ansley say?
Sees women as acting as a ‘safety valve’ and talks of women as being “the takers of shit’ as husbands take their frustrations out on their wives.
How can Marxists be criticised?
They place too much emphasis on social class. Postmodernists say class is no longer a significant social division.
How does Bruegel criticise Marxism?
Argues that the family is central to women’s oppression and points to the way that the ruling class use women to join the workforce when needed and send them back to the role of full-time housewife when not required.
What do radical feminists believe?
Believe that gender inequality is the outcome of men who dominate women and they see the family as central to the oppression of women. They argue that there has always been a gender division of labour. They believe that men defend their power.
What is ‘patriarchal terrorism’?
Johnson explains how men use violence over women, a form of terroristic control of wives by their husbands. The World Health Organisation reported in 2013 that 30% of women globally and 25.4% in Europe have experienced domestic or sexual abuse in their lifetime.
What does Ti-Grace Atkinson say?
“Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice”. The traditional nuclear family is also seen as a way men dominate as women are seen as inferior due to their unpaid domestic labour as housewives and mothers, forcing them to be dependent upon men.
What are criticisms of radical feminism?
Radical feminists tend to talk about the family without recognising variations in family life between classes and different ethnic groups. Radical feminists see women as sharing common interests because they are female but it has been argued that social class and ethnicity are important. Improvements are happening.
What does Sylvia Walby argue?
Combines both Marxist and radical feminism.
She developed the concept of triple systems of oppression, including racism.
More recently she developed the concept of intersectionality.
What is private patriarchy?
Women limited to the domestic sphere of home and family.
What is public patriarchy?
Women are in employment and politics but still suffer from disadvantage.
