Jimma University

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Department Of Social Anthropology

PhD in Social Anthropology

Course Name: Contemporary Anthropological Theories

Course Instructor: Dejene Gemechu(PhD)

Paper on Postmodern Feminism

Candidate’s Name: Tesfaye Tesema

December, 2022

Jimma, Ethiopia
Paper Title: Postmodern Feminism

Outline contents pages

1.1.Introduction---------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.Feminism Theory: An Overview---------------------------------------------
1.3.Feminism and Anthropology-------------------------------------------------
1.4.Divisions of Feminism Theory-----------------------------------------------
1.5.Postmodern Feminism Theory-----------------------------------------------
1.5.1. Feminism and Postmodernism----------------------------------------
1.5.2. Postmodernism Approach in Feminism----------------------------
1.5.3. Postmodernism in Anthropology------------------------------------
1.5.4. Critics and Argumentation--------------------------------------------
1.6.Summary------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Postmodern Feminist Theory

1.1 Introduction
The origin and progress of global feminism is the concern of scholars in various fields of
interdisciplinary areas other than social anthropology. Feminism is a mass movement
commenced by women groups to against all oppression by the existing patriarchal form of
society. Procedurally, it attempts to understand and conceptualize gender roles in social
organization. It also tries to explain the gender inequalities in all spheres of life. Women are
victim of the oppression, marginalization and exploitation in the patriarchal societies (Kumar,
2022:2). With the common consideration of gender equality for all feminists, various feminists
give definitions for feminisms relying on their own history, beliefs and culture differently.
Feminism is women oriented socio-political movement and ideology to promote equality of
women, sharing equal opportunity and scarce resources with masculine groups. It is an ideology
which demands equal rights of men and women in every aspect to participate equally. Feminism
endeavors to eradicate the dominance masculine groups from households to the political
participation. To contribute in this arena different fields of study and scholars of the fields are
contributing in the modern world. Disciplines like sociology, philosophy, economics, and
politics, served as distinctive intellectual backgrounds of feminism (Herouach, 2019 cited in
Kumar, 2022: 3).
There are various theoretical approaches in the discipline of anthropology. These all theories
have at least something in common within the area of anthropological traditions. Each was
devised unique set of epistemological and metaphysical doctrines of western intellectuals called
modernism (Naugle, 1992: 1). However, a newly emerged approach in the anthropological
perspective separates itself and constitutes a demarcation line from other modernist precursors.
Postmodern anthropology is one of the recent theory emerged in line of postmodernist
philosophy with its radical deconstructionist methodology. Postmodernism sometimes
synonymously referred to as deconstructionism and “post-structuralism”. While Post-modernists
are more oriented on cultural critique, the poststructuralists give emphasis to method and
epistemological matters. Postmodernism articulated in various fields of study encompassing
anthropology. The key objective of this paper will focus on the discussion of Feminist theory and
how theorists were theorized gender relations in line with anthropological perspectives.

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1.2 Feminism Theory: An Overview

There is no common definitions and interpretation for the term Feminism by scholars. Various
meanings attribute to feminism across different fields of study according to their own political,
social, cultural, and religious perspectives. It encompasses various social, cultural and political
engagements, theories and moral philosophies dealt with inequality in gender and promotion of
equal rights for women groups. Therefore, the main concern of feminism is to eliminate social,
cultural and political disbeliefs towards the women groups in all spheres of life. In turn, this
brought equality and empowerment women in social organizations. Etymologically, the word
“feminism” originated from the French word “féminisme” and a French philosopher Charles
Fourier (1772-1837) was credited for the coining of this word in 1837. Feminism is a socio-
political movement occurred in France in the 1880s and later spread into USA in 1910
(Herouach, 2019; Hilversum, 1994; cited in Haradhan, 2022: 6).
Feminist theory is not a unified or homogenous discourse. It is differed based on an individual
theorist’s subject matter, methodologies and desirable outcomes. The analyses of gender
relations are a fundamental goal of feminist theory. Grounding on postmodern philosophy,
feminist theory reveals and involves in the growing ambiguity within western intellectual spheres
about the suitable foundations and methods for interpreting human experience. Contemporary
feminists and postmodern philosophers join each other in raising important meta-theoretical
questions about the possible nature and status of theorizing itself. The modern feminist
movements are in part rooted in transformations in social experience that challenge widely
shared categories of social meaning and explanation (Flax, 1987: 622- 627).

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1.3 Feminism and Anthropology

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1.4 Divisions of Feminism Theory

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1.5 Postmodern Feminism Theory

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1.5.1 Feminism and Postmodernism

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1.5.2 Postmodernism Approach in Feminism

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1.5.3 Postmodernism in Anthropology

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1.5.4 Critics and Argumentation

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1.6 Summary

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References

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