RADICAL FEMINIST VIEW Flashcards
1
Q
What do they argue?
A
- Radical feminists, such as Firestone, argue that biology is the basis for women’s inequality and domination by men. Equality between the sexes can only occur when the family is abolished, childbirth is carried out independently of men, and women begin to live their lives separately and apart from men.
2
Q
Criticisms of this approach?
A
- It assumes all women share common interests but ignores the inequalities between women such as those of class and ethnicity.
- It doesn’t recognise that gradual reforms have improved opportunities for women and weakened patriarchy.
- Separatism is a person lifestyle choice, which is a means of escaping patriarchy rather than challenging it, and is unlikely to appeal to all women
3
Q
WEAKNESSES OF RADICAL FEMINISM
A
- It focuses too much on the negative experiences of women, failing to recognise that some women can have happy marriages for expmple.
- It tends to portray women as universally good and men as universally bad
- Radical feminists see women as sharing common interests because they are female but it has been argued that social class and ethnicity are important sources of inequality and difference between women
- Liberal feminists would argue that the position of women in society has improved over time adn that is ignored by radical feminists.
4
Q
STRENGTHS?
A
- Exposes dark side of family life and the way in which male violence is used to subordinate women ( in 2013, the WHO sponsored the first widespread study of global data on violence against women, and found that it constitutes a global health problem of epidemic proportions)
- Furthermore, radical feminists have often been actively involved in setting up and running refuges for women who are the victims of male violence
- The gender pay gap - and lack of women in control of corporations supports the radical feminism argument that there has not been as much progress as claimed by liberal feminists.
