Key Feminist thinkers

Question 1

Key thinkers

Answer 1

1. Kate Millet (Radical)
2. Bell Hooks (Radical and intersectional)
3. Simone de Beauvoir (Existentialist and liberal)
4. Shelia Rowbotham (Socialist-feminist)
5. Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Question 2

Waves of feminism

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Simone de Beauvoir key ideas and type of feminists

Answer 3

• Liberal and existentialist

- Key ideas : Women are the second sex

Question 4

Charlotte Perkins Gilman strand and key ideas

Answer 4

• Liberal

- Key ideas : rejected biological differences and campaigned for the destruction of the nuclear family

Question 5

Kate Millet Key beliefs and type of feminist

Answer 5

• Radical feminist

- Key beliefs : Patriarchy = dominance of men and heterosexual relationships

Question 6

Kate Millet view on the economy ?

Answer 6

• Quasi-socialist but this isn’t relevant to her feminism

Question 7

Kate Millet view on Human nature ?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

• Kate Millet view on the state ?

Answer 8

• the state is an agent for patriarchy and is part of the problem not the solution

Question 9

Kate Millet view on Society ?

Answer 9

• Both public and private spheres are characterised by patriarchy
• Modern society is completely characterised by patriarchy

Question 10

Perkins Gilman view on the economy

Answer 10

• domestic servitude of women has allowed men to dominate the outside economic world
• “women are economic factors in society but so are horses”

Question 11

Perkins Gilman view on human nature

Answer 11

• biological differences are irrelevant, men and women can compete equally
• women have equal brainpower

Question 12

Perkins Gilman view on society

Answer 12

• society has always assigned inferior roles to women

- In the modern world this has no justification

Question 13

Perkins Gilman view on the state

Answer 13

• no distinct views

Question 14

De Beauvoir view on the economy

Answer 14

• Men’s domination of economic life restricts the life choices of women

Question 15

De Beauvoir’s view on human nature ?

Answer 15

• ‘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

Question 16

De Beauvoir’s view on the state

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

De Beauvoir’s view on society

Answer 17

• Social constraints prevent individuals not just women from attaining true freedom
• Existentialism dominates here feminism in this area

Question 18

Rowbotham view of human nature

Answer 18

• 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)

Question 19

Rowbotham view of the economy

Answer 19

• Women are the reserve army of labour

Question 20

Rowbotham view of society

Answer 20

• nature of society is economically determined

- society reflects the dominant position of bourgeoisie men

Question 21

Rowbotham view of the state

Answer 21

• The state is the servant of capitalism

Question 22

bell hooks view of the economy

Answer 22

• women living in poverty have more problems than MC women

- so the liberation of the poor is economic as well as a social issue

Question 23

bell hooks view of society ?

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

Bell hooks view on human nature ?

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

bell hooks view on the state ?

Answer 25

• state is dominated by white MC males so they reinforce their dominant position in society