Lecture 10

Question 1

What is feminism?

Answer 1

▪ Feminists ‘share a common concern with
women’s unequal position in society,
calling into question power relations
between women and men traditionally
defended as ‘natural’ (LMS p. 92)
▪ Feminist approaches (like Marxist
approaches) are explicitly
political/normative in that they seek not
only to recognize and understand gender
power relations, but also to change them

Question 2

Human rights are women’s rights

Answer 2

▪ Olympe de Gouges:
Déclaration des droits de la
femme et de la citoyenne
(1791)

Question 3

Women’s education and socialization

Answer 3

▪ Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication
of the Rights of Women (1792)
‘taught from their infancy that
beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind
shapes itself to the body, and,
roaming around its gilt cage, only
seeks to adorn its prison’

Question 4

First wave feminism

Answer 4

▪ Focused on matters of equal legal and
constitutional rights: 19th & early 20th
century
▪ But issues relevant for longer! e.g.
Switzerland 1971

Question 5

Second wave feminism

Answer 5

▪ Included more attention to workplace and
family equality, domestic violence &
reproductive rights

Question 6

Third wave feminism

Answer 6

▪ Critical of ‘liberal feminism’, draws
attention to intersectionality, generally
sex-positive.

Question 7

Women in politics

Answer 7

▪ Historically, women were excluded from
politics
▪ Now still hugely underrepresented in
politics, e.g. as Heads of Government and
Heads of State
▪ Women make up 30% of the discipline of
political science. Fewer still in the
professoriate (currently 1/8 in our Institute)

Question 8

Feminist critiques of malestream polisci

Answer 8

▪ Fudging the footnotes
▪ Assuming male dominance
▪ Accepting masculinity as the political ideal
▪ Explaining political behaviour through
unexamined stereotypes of the roles of
women
▪ Excluding what women have traditionally
done from the definition and scope of politics

Question 9

Is sex/gender constructed?

Answer 9

▪ The move to rethink gender has been
influenced by constructivism (interpretivist
epistemology)
▪ The ‘natural’ sex/gender binary is questioned,
with the idea that human bodies are
constructed as male and female (LMS p. 98)
▪ If we see gender as constructed we can also
theorize gendered institutions (who rely on or
produce ideas about masculinities and
femininities)