Key Feminist thinkers Flashcards
Key thinkers
- Kate Millet (Radical)
- Bell Hooks (Radical and intersectional)
- Simone de Beauvoir (Existentialist and liberal)
- Shelia Rowbotham (Socialist-feminist)
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Waves of feminism
1st - 1850s-1940s
Legal and political rights
2nd - 1960s-1980s
Roles expected of men and women
3rd - 1990s
Concerned that feminism focused solely on white MC women
4th - 2008-onwards
Focused on female portrayal in the media
Simone de Beauvoir key ideas and type of feminists
- Liberal and existentialist
- Key ideas : Women are the second sex
Charlotte Perkins Gilman strand and key ideas
- Liberal
- Key ideas : rejected biological differences and campaigned for the destruction of the nuclear family
Kate Millet Key beliefs and type of feminist
- Radical feminist
- Key beliefs : Patriarchy = dominance of men and heterosexual relationships
Kate Millet view on the economy ?
- Quasi-socialist but this isn’t relevant to her feminism
Kate Millet view on Human nature ?
- women are capable of freeing themselves from oppression by engaging in political lesbianism
- all heterosexual relationships are political in a patriarchal society as men exercise their power over women
- Kate Millet view on the state ?
- the state is an agent for patriarchy and is part of the problem not the solution
Kate Millet view on Society ?
- Both public and private spheres are characterised by patriarchy
- Modern society is completely characterised by patriarchy
Perkins Gilman view on the economy
- domestic servitude of women has allowed men to dominate the outside economic world
- “women are economic factors in society but so are horses”
Perkins Gilman view on human nature
- biological differences are irrelevant, men and women can compete equally
- women have equal brainpower
Perkins Gilman view on society
- society has always assigned inferior roles to women
- In the modern world this has no justification
Perkins Gilman view on the state
- no distinct views
De Beauvoir view on the economy
- Men’s domination of economic life restricts the life choices of women
De Beauvoir’s view on human nature ?
- ‘women are made not born’
- Gender differences are created by men and they are not natural
- women are the ‘other’ so seen as the different ones
De Beauvoir’s view on the state
- the state can help women out of these gender roles
- the state reinforces a culture which prevents women from expressing their true freedom and identity eg state funded childcare in necessary to help relieve women from their position
- The state is the only way to free women
De Beauvoir’s view on society
- Social constraints prevent individuals not just women from attaining true freedom
- Existentialism dominates here feminism in this area
Rowbotham view of human nature
- women’s consciousness of the world is created by men eg ‘men will often admit other women are oppressed but not you’ (Recognise it in theory not practice)
Rowbotham view of the economy
- Women are the reserve army of labour
Rowbotham view of society
- nature of society is economically determined
- society reflects the dominant position of bourgeoisie men
Rowbotham view of the state
- The state is the servant of capitalism
bell hooks view of the economy
- women living in poverty have more problems than MC women
- so the liberation of the poor is economic as well as a social issue
bell hooks view of society ?
- Women are in competition with each other for male approval so they must unlearn self hatred and equality must be fully established
- In order to resolve social conflict, love between minority cultures must be established
Bell hooks view on human nature ?
- Women have been socialised as females ie roles, men and women have multiple identities and therefore experience multiple forms of oppression
- men must understand the patriarchy they impose
