PHIL 2610 - Test 1

Question 1

Feminism

Answer 1

• political stance, theoretical or activist or both, which accepts women are systematically disadvantaged within society due to network of deprivations/marginalizations with respect to men
• aims to change this
• normative stance (persumes ethical and political judgements) concerning a certain social reality (systematic disadvantage)

Question 2

Liberal feminism

Answer 2

• oldest pedigree in Western society (ex: Mary Wolstonecraft)
• stresses equality of women with men and demands equal civil and political rights/freedoms
• centered on right to vote, then equal access to employment, etc

Question 3

Socialist feminism

Answer 3

• women’s subordination to men as result of capitalist class relations.
• division of reproductive labour and of domestic labour = exploitative and alienating
• blindness of some women’s issues.

Question 4

Radical feminism

Answer 4

• need for drastic or revolutionary change in dismantling patriarchy which is viewed as a system of oppressive power
• sometimes accompanied by separatism, women are better off or more effective (at least in some circumstances) without the presence/cooperation of men (cf. radical lesbian separatism)

Note:
- they push that the systematic nature of patriarchy pervades everything so it needs to be reconstructed, ex: equal pay is a slight advance in the greater scheme of things

Question 5

Cultural Feminism

Answer 5

• in some ways, related to radical feminism and emphasizes and values the distinctness of woman: women have a particular feminine ‘nature’ which sets them apart as particularly valuable
• promote distinctness of women (biological basis)

Question 6

Feminist philosophy

Answer 6

• looks at issues and arguments
• analyses concepts to make sure they are coherent
• evaluates arguments to determine whether they are cogent, valid and sound.
• seeks to reform traditional philosophy, so that it is more inclusive both as regards methods and assumptions, as well as on an institutional level.

Question 7

Early women’s activism (1840s-1920)

Answer 7

Arises within the context of industrialisation in the mid-1800’s:
- Education and employment rights
- Legal rights for married women
- Women’s suffrage (early 20th century) (right to vote, own property, etc)

Question 8

What are the two early theories (give book title/author) about women’s rights?

Answer 8

• Precursor: Mary Wolstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
• John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869)

Note:
- early accounts emphasize a common humanity in both men and women (mainly reason).
- If women are educated, they will be better wives, mothers, etc.
- There is not much questioning here of traditional social roles (contrast with more radical social feminism and post WW I ‘equal rights’ feminism)

Question 9

Second period of activism (1960s-1980)

Answer 9

• Consciousness raising in small groups (de-bunking women’s ‘false consciousness’ or ‘adaptive preferences’)
• Public demonstrations
• Focus on women’s ownership of their own bodies.
• Campaigns for abortion rights, against rape and domestic violence

Note:
- domestic violence comes to be a concept, wasn’t articulated as much back then
- false consciousness limited/constrained by ideology (capitalist thinking, ideologies seep into the minds of the oppressed)

Question 10

Explain De Beauvoirs main ideas in The Second Sex (1952)

Answer 10

• “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”
• Key idea: gender is socially constructed.
• Social positions and meanings have been attached to women’s bodies in a way that produces social asymmetries of power between men and women.
  “The personal is political”
• analyses the current social situation of women (subordinate to mens thoughts/actions)
• women traditionally viewed as ‘deficient’ in some manner
• women determined in relation to men, cannott exist w/o or outside of these relations
• blocked transcendence

Question 11

Sartre - “Existence exceeds essence”

Answer 11

• Existence comes before life.
• To take Sartre’s example, imagine a paper-cutter. For a paper-cutter, essence precedes existence because the idea and purpose of a paper-cutter must exist prior to a craftsman creating the paper-cutter; no person would create a paper-cutter without having any idea what it was used for

Question 12

Third period - Action (1990s to present)

Answer 12

• Feminism becomes more self-critical
• Skepticism of ‘identity politics’ and a critique of earlier white, middle-class feminism (disconnect from larger issues)
• Influences of queer theory, race theory, psychoanalysis, postmodernism (Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault)
• methodological pluralism (public and diffused)
• What is a woman anyway? So many experiences
• Intersectionality

Question 13

Describe key things that have stemmed from the third period?

Answer 13

• Slut Walk’ – reclaiming negative and sexist images, words and conceptions of women;
• Pussy Riot – band of an anarchist art collective, with punk rock influences: provocative style, media impact
• Vagina monologues – explicitly thematising women’s bodies and sexual experiences;
• Fanzines, blogs, issues of fitness and body image
• “Me Too” by Tarana Burke

Question 14

What does Hay believe the third-wave of feminism main message is?

Answer 14

• sexism and racism and other forms of oppression like classism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia are always interconnected
• as long as we continue to ignore these relationships we’ll only ever advance the interests of some women at the expense of others.

Question 15

Linda Nicholson criticizes the terminology of ‘waves of feminsim’. Explain her three reasons why?

Answer 15

1. Gender activism has never been unified around one set of ideas.
   - 19th and early 20th century: many who supported the vote for women did not believe in women’s equality (didn’t believe they themselves were equal to men, wouldn’t impose and or see themselves in leadership roles)
2. Metaphor of ‘waves’ implies even progression along the whole ‘wavefront’ this isn’t 100% the case.
   -(+): feminist issues from earlier decades have seen great progress (the ‘institutionalization’ of feminism in the academy, a much greater awareness of sexism and women’s rights, a decrease in the wage gap). This is the good news.
   (-): The wage gap has not disappeared, widespread violence against women, rigid beauty norms, ‘backsliding’ around reproductive rights. Earlier ideas (for example, radical feminist separatism) have simply not caught on.
3. Suggests dif. metaphor - Kaleidoscope
   - colours and shapes become more or less distinctive, larger or smaller, as we turn the kaleidoscope.

Question 16

Linda Nicholson criticizes the terminology of ‘waves of feminsim’. Explain the three ‘configurations’ of her metaphor of the ‘kaleidoscope’.

Answer 16

1. women and men have a common nature
   - should be treated equally
2. women are distinct from men
   - with their own values, bodily experiences, attitudes, ways of thinking, etc. and should be recognized as such
3. women are diverse
   - woman is not a homogeneous category as it was conceived by white, privileged feminists
   - unstable and fluid one which can be re-defined for political purposes

Question 17

Angry Feminism (Hay’s stereotypes 1/2)

Answer 17

• the image of the man-hating, hairy, bra-burning woman
• Assertive and ‘bitchy’ (angry feminist is a “sanctimonious shrew” – Hay p.21)
• Irrational, unsexy
• A threat to the social order (and seen a threat by many women themselves

Question 18

Girl Power Feminism (Hay’s stereotypes 2/2)

Answer 18

• Feisty, sexy, but unthreatening
• Sexually liberated and positive (often uncritically so)
• Commercially or professionally successful (commercially lucrative)
• “Postfeminist”? (Distancing themselves from the angry feminist’ trope)

Notes:
- playing to patriarchy
- whole idea we don’t need feminism (controversial)
- objectification implicitly communicating ‘I’m available’

Question 19

Do you think women are oppressed? If so, in what way?

Answer 19

• assumed women will take her husbands last name
• property of the father to now property of the husband
• celebrated for obstacles that shouldn’t have had in place (she’s a ceo! how awesome!)
• otherness of women is invisible
• quiet oppression: systematic and invisible barriers like access to human rights, generally participating in society
• forced into gender roles
• emotional work/labour
• abilities assigned on nature (overtly caring)

Question 20

What does Young say about oppression?

Answer 20

• oppression due to well-intentioned practices of a liberal society rather than a tryrannical power

Question 21

Distributive justice

Answer 21

how we ought to distribute the goods a society produces equitably, based on merit or need?

Question 22

Oppression termed by Hay. Give examples.

Answer 22

Oppression is not just the outcome of individual choices or policies. It is ingrained in unquestioned norms, habits, symbols, and the assumptions behind institutional rules. The collective consequences of adhering to these rules contribute to the structural nature of oppression
- oppression = structural

Examples:
- Media and Culture
- Market mechanisms
- Subtle forms of norm enforcement (e.g ostracism)
- Education and Employment

Question 23

Features of oppression?

Answer 23

• victims generally singled out by their membership of certain social groups
• limits capacities for human flourishing and for full communication and participation in society
• not necessarily that there is a conscious, identifiable “oppressor”.
• Oppression is systematic in character (as opposed to agentic)

Question 24

Social group

Answer 24

• Social groups = aggregations or associations of individuals, Young rejects this notion of social group
• A social group is formed in and through social interactions. The group defines itself in relation to at least one other group within society
• Constituted as members of the group through social relationships that are often not of their own choosing: “woman”, “black”, “disabled”.
• Social relations define the type of individuals we are
• fluid and their boundaries and constitution can and do change with time

Question 25

Five faces of oppression - Exploitation

Answer 25

• Exploitation concerns the value of what we do or produce
• In exploitative relationships, this value is appropriated
  unfairly, implicitly or explicitly taken advantage of
• Control of what is produced is out of the hands of the
  person/group that produces it

Question 26

Alienation

Answer 26

to become othered or disposed of fruits of labor

Question 27

Give two examples of exploitation

Answer 27

1. The Move towards “flexible” Temporary Work Contracts
   - The Employer is given a lot of flexibility in hiring and gains leverage (control) over the employee’s labour
   - Benefits (e.g. health and dental care) do not need to be provided – employer saves money
   - The Employee has additional burdens and costs: must re-apply for the job; experiences job insecurity and limited access to health care
   - Yet, the employee does not really ‘have a choice’, especially in a saturated job market.
2. The Traditional Model of Women’s Domestic Work
   - Women do the house chores, care for children, often manage household budgets (at least as far as groceries and house maintenance are concerned)
   - This frees the professional husband to “get on with his career”.
   - Effectively, the women is producing valued, professional time for her partner, at no cost. Moreover, she becomes financially dependent on the wage-earning spouse.

Question 28

In the traditional model of domestic work, what is the social group thats exploited? Who is the exploiter? What/who is producing this?

Answer 28

Exploited group:
- partners of men
- partnered mothers
- young girls, sisters
- children (?)

Exploiter:
- family expectations
- society/patriarchy
- child (domestication of mother)
- husband/partner

Question 29

Five faces of oppression - Marginalization…based on what two aspects?

Answer 29

1. Material deprivation
   - racially marked groups or ‘eternally unemployable’ persons are doomed to unemployment or partial employment
   - cannot participate in the material benefits a society has to offer
2. The lack of opportunity to exercise one’s full capacities as a human being
   - The elderly, disabled, and infirm are consigned to lead
   ‘useless’, boring lives
   - This leads to a lack of respect and an erosion of self-respect
   - The type of dependency on bureaucracy and government agencies is demeaning and arbitrary, engendering frustration and stress (the experience of having to ‘jump through hoops’, or of not having control over one’s own life)

Note (Hay):
- people the system of labour cannot or will
not use

Question 30

Five faces of oppression - Powerlessness

Answer 30

• They do not have ‘prospects’ – often there is no sense of a progressing, expansive life trajectory;
• little or no work autonomy
• do not possess the privilege of “respectability”, that is,
  they do not command respect and, generally, their voices go unheard (see racism and sexism!)

Note (Hay):
- the powerless lack the authority, status, and
sense of self that professionals tend to have

Question 31

Five faces of oppression - Cultural Imperialism

Answer 31

• The dominant interpretation is often seen as being the
  “objective” or “universal” one, acceptable in all cultures.
• Miranda Fricker terms this type of oppression “Hermeneutical Injustice”.

Question 32

Five faces of oppression - Violence

Answer 32

• Having to live in fear of random, physical violence
  Institutions can re-inforce or perpetrate such violence
• Example: Police profiling
• microagressions: day-to-day, unobservable ‘slights’
  that can cause real psychological harms

Question 33

Stereotype threat and Impostor syndrome

Answer 33

• Stereotype threat: The fear or concern of conforming to a group stereotype leads, paradoxically, to reinforcing behaviour
• Example: Girls doing math tests
• Impostor syndrome: Feeling alienated or out-of-place in a given work or social environment, leading to stereotypical forms of behaviour which are the result of implicit ‘pressure’ of social norms and expectations
• Example: People of Colour embarking on an academic career

Question 34

Is there anything wrong in spending time and money on
‘feminine’ appearance (clothes, jewelry, make-up)? If so,
what is it that is wrong?

Do you think that feminine beauty norms can be harmful in any way?

Question 35

Explain Susan Bordo’s perspective on why feminine
beauty so uniform?

Answer 35

According to Bordo, the uniformity of women’s fashion
and appearance choices implies there is something
more going on than simply personal enjoyment and
choice .

Question 36

Susan Bryant - Black women & beauty standards

Answer 36

• Black women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of European standards of beauty, because these standards emphasize skin colors and hair types that exclude many black women, especially those of darker
  skin.
• internalized self-hatred

Question 37

C.N. Le - The Homogenization of Asian Beauty

Answer 37

• preference for light skin is alive and well in many Asian countries.
• Skin-lightening creams and lotions are as mainstream
  as lipstick and mascara.
• plastic and cosmetic surgery and procedures such as breast augmentations, rhinoplasty (nose jobs), collagen lip implants, and blepharoplasty (an eyelid surgery meant to give Asians a more European “double-eyelid” appearance) are commonplace.
• top eight countries in terms of total cosmetic procedures performed were in Asia: China #3, Japan #4, South Korea #7, and India #8.

Question 38

Barbie body

Answer 38

• unlikely to support itself
• some feminine beauty norms are simply unattainable.
• “people only listen to her because she is beautiful”

Question 39

What does Sandra Bartky say about women’s posture?

Answer 39

Women’s typical body language, a language of relative
tension and constriction, is understood to be a language of subordination when it is enacted by men in male status hierarchies. In groups of men, those with higher status typically assume looser and more relaxed posture.

Question 40

Women’s clothing - Marilyn Frye

Answer 40

• As feminists have been saying for two hundred years or so, ladies’ clothing is generally restrictive, binding, burdening and frail; it threatens to fall apart and/or uncover something that is supposed to be covered if you bend, reach, kick, punch or run.
• It typically does not protect effectively against hazards in the environment
• Men’s clothing is generally opposite of all this – sturdy, suitably protective, permitting movement and locomotion.
• The details of feminine posture serve to bind and restrict. To be feminine is to take up little space, to defer to others, to be silent or affirming of other, etc. …

Question 41

Why is advertising interesting to see near empowerment articles in fashion/popular women’s magazines?

Answer 41

• Many women’s magazines advocate for ‘feminist’
  causes (equal pay for women, childcare, parental leave,
  the “glass ceiling”, ‘no means no’ …)
• Advertisers will want their advertisements placed
  “strategically”.
• One of the intended effects of advertising is to
  ‘produce’ needs. Hair products will tend to be
  advertised in proximity to articles dealing with hair
  issues, for example.
• But issue needs uptake in culture. And, in a
  sense, they reflect cultural and social assumptions and
  implicit norms and expectations regarding how women
  should look

Question 42

What does Hay suggest above survalience?

Answer 42

• Imagine, for a moment, that you’re in charge of controlling massive numbers of people.
• What’s the best way to get them to do what you
  want? What would the most effective method of social control look like?
• Far more elegant to get people
  to do the work for you. What’s needed is surveillance. Constant surveillance. When it’s best to assume that you’re always being watched, you tend to make sure that you’re not doing anything unsanctioned.

Question 43

Bentham’s “Panopticon”

Answer 43

Foucault’s thesis is that the Panopticon prison is a metaphor for modern society, which he took to be organized by panopticism even outside of prisons. The panopticism summary is that power relations in modern society are often structured by surveillance and non-violent correction for the sake of a presumed goal

Question 44

Satisfaction and Norm Internalization

Answer 44

Feminist authors have claimed that women can derive ‘repressive satisfaction’ from a cultural system of beauty norms which can be psychologically harmful.

Question 45

Is “Compliance” to Beauty Norms
Simply Reasonable?

Answer 45

• One can encounter the argument that – given the way our society works – compliance, to at least some degree, with beauty norms is a way to ‘move on’ in society, and avoid the social ostracisms/judgments/marginalizations that are forthcoming if we do not comply.

Hay Opinion:
- [O]ne can acknowledge that women are not
always passive ‘victims’ of sexism, but that we may contribute to the perpetuation of female subordination … without this entailing that we have ‘power’ (or are equally positioned with men) in sexist culture.”
(Quoted in Hay, p.56)

Question 46

Badly adaptive preferences - Hay

Answer 46

inclinations we have and choices we make which are a result of a lack of other options, and which are not in our best interest. We can end up harming ourselves, and also perpetuating our disadvantage

Question 47

Femme Resistance to Patriarchal Femininity

Answer 47

• Patriarchal femininity is a homogeneous and homogenizing perspective on how cis, straight women should appear and behave.
• Lesbians, trans women, disabled women and variously queer women who are ‘femme’ resist patriarchal femininity by presenting in feminine ways that depict the failure of this homogenizing process

Question 48

In faces of oppression, Iris Young states that women are too emotional to enter the workforce. True or false?

Answer 48

False

Question 49

Write a brief definition of Youngs notion of Exploitation?

Answer 49

Young argued that exploitation encompasses not only the economic realm but also various forms of oppression and injustice that result from power imbalances in different social structures. She highlighted the importance of recognizing and addressing the ways in which certain groups are systematically disadvantaged and denied access to resources, opportunities, and decision-making processes. Young’s notion of exploitation thus goes beyond a narrow focus on economic exploitation and emphasizes the broader systemic dynamics that perpetuate inequality and marginalization in various social domains.