‘The Everyday’ in Feminist Thought

Question 1

Social vs. sociological theory

Answer 1

• sociological as empirical social as philosophical and not meant to be tested against data
• I have come to define my own work theorizing systems of inequality between men and women as gender theory to stress that it is sociological rather than social theory. Social theory pertaining to gender may properly be called feminist theory (chaftez)

Question 2

Why feminism is social theory

Answer 2

feminist researchers do not adequately conceptualize and clarify what they mean by:
• Patriarchy
• Oppression
• Agency
These are best used as variables in research so that they can be tested (and/or falsified)

Question 3

Feminist Methodology

Answer 3

• Focuses on the significance of gender
• Reflexivity
• Avoid exploitation in the research process
• Use of multiple methods across the disciplines
• Activist orientation (compatibility of scholarship and advocacy)
• Equalize power relations in research process

Question 4

Chafetz proposes four basic tenets of feminism that she argues “virtually all who self label as feminists would accept.

Answer 4

1. Gender is a system of inequality between M and F by which feminine is devalued and men enjoy greater access
2. Produced socioculturally
3. Evaluated as unfair
4. Therefore feminists should strive to eliminate gender inequality

Question 5

Critical Social Theory

Answer 5

Without a collectivity or group, there can be no critical social theory that aims to struggle with the realities confronting that group. In other words, if [African- American] women’s experiences are more different than similar, then Black feminist thought does not exist

Question 6

Gendered Impacts of climate change

Answer 6

• Exacerbates existing inequalities
• Poor women most vulnerable
• People impacted differently based on gendered norms, roles and expectations
• Impacted in their multiple roles
• Increase in women’s unpaid labour
• For example, collecting food and water becomes increasingly more difficult, time consuming
• Girls may forgo education as a response
• In a number of climate disasters more women died because they were less likely to be able to swim and their mobility was constricted
• During Hurricane Mitch more men died because they were expected to be heroes
• Women have fewer assets than men to recover from • natural disasters (e.g. property)

Question 7

Neoliberalism

Answer 7

• limited state regulation, market can regulate itself
• reduced government spending in favour of a reliance on market logic to address economic crises and social problems (e.g. for profit prisons, privatization of health care and child care)
• deregulation, privatization, trade liberalization, reduced government spending (e.g. cuts to health care)
• Environmental regulations/protections an impediment to trade

Question 8

Black feminist autoethnography

Answer 8

• Autoethnographic writing as a means of resistance
• Narrative method, storytelling
• Personal accounts of experiences with and/or critiques of oppression
• Connects the personal to the cultural
• Anger as rational
• Productive anger
“Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision, it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change”