Liberal Feminism

Question 1

What is gender equality?

Answer 1

The belief that men and women are of equal value in society and should be treated the same.

Question 2

What is legal equality?

Answer 2

No one is above the law and the law applies equally to all.

Question 3

What is political equality?

Answer 3

Equal right to vote and protest

Question 4

What is equality of opportunity?

Answer 4

All individuals have equal chances in life to rise and fall.

Question 5

What is a reformist?

Answer 5

Seeking to change society gradually and peacefully.

Question 6

What are gender stereotypes?

Answer 6

The dominant and usually negative views in society on the different ways men and women should behave.

Question 7

What is discrimination?

Answer 7

Less favourable treatment of one group of people compared to other groups.

Question 8

How is liberal feminism probably best understood by?

Answer 8

Taking the liberal values of individualism and foundational equality (all humans are of equal moral worth) and applying them to women.
If all humans are of equal worth, and women are humans, women are entitled to the same rights and freedoms as men.
Women should have all the freedom they need to become autonomous individuals in society.

Question 9

Who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women and was one of the famous early liberal voices fighting for women’s rights?

Answer 9

Mary Wollstonecraft

Question 10

What did Mary Wollstonecraft call far?

Answer 10

Political emancipation for women

Question 11

What was liberal feminism closely associated with and what was the assumption?

Answer 11

Demand for women’s suffrage.
Assumption is that once women have the vote, they would have a voice and politicians would need to listen to them if they wanted to be elected.

Question 12

What did liberal feminists campaign for in the last century?

Answer 12

Educational equality, pay equality, abortion and divorce laws and freely available contraception for men and women.

Question 13

Liberal feminism also seeks to ensure equal access to the public sphere, which is connected to the liberal idea of what?

Answer 13

Equality of opportunity.

Question 14

Who is often credited with starting second-wave feminism?

Answer 14

Betty Friedan

Question 15

What is Betty Friedan’s ‘the problem that has no name’?

Answer 15

The misery and frustration of middle-class women festering in domesticity, which was supposed to make them feel fulfilled but in fact trapped them.
Friedan asserted that women were as capable as men in any career path and lobbied for the reform of laws that restricted women.
Friedan believed that women were being held back from their full potential because they were limited to only a few jobs that were 'acceptable' for women.

Question 16

How is liberal feminism reformist?

Answer 16

It believes that gender imbalance can be overturned primarily through democratic pressure.
Once all barriers to women entering the workplace have been removed, it is merely a matter of time before women will enter all areas of industry.
Liberal feminists believe that as women start doing traditional ‘men’s jobs’, society will accept that there is no industry that women cannot work in.
Also, the more young girls see women in all types of jobs and positions of responsibility, the sooner gender stereotypes of the past will start to disappear.