Globalization & Feminism

Text definition
• An ideology that “opposes the political,
economic, and cultural relegation of
women to positions of inferiority.”
• Feminism is also different from
• “Women movements”
• Simply put, feminism affirms women’s
equality with men, and rejects patriarchy.
 What does patriarchy mean?
• In the text:
• “the rule of men as a social group over
women as a social group,” and
• “a system based on sexual hierarchy,”
with men at the top and women below.
 What is women movement?
• Organizing women as explicitly women
to make social change is what makes a
women’s movement.
• By using the language of gender , it
constructs woman as a distinctive
“interest group”
Examples of denial of equality
• Economically
• Women paid less than men throughout the
world. In U.S., pay gap about 75%
(controlling for all other factors).
• Women represent the majority of the
world’s poor.
Examples of denial of equality
• Politically
• Globally, only 23 women ever elected head
of state (only 6 served in 1995).
• Also underrepresented in legislatures.
• Political institutions don’t provide equal
protection & equal access to the vote.
Examples of denial of equality
• Politically
• in U.S.
Examples of denial of equality
• Educationally
• Girls denied education in many countries;
2/3 of the world’s illiterate adults are
women, higher in some places.
• Under certain regimes, females punished
for seeking an education (as under the
Taliban).
Examples of denial of equality
• Access to basic health care & food
• Females less likely to receive adequate
nutrition or health care.
Examples of denial of equality
• Violence:
• Femicide, the murder of women because they are
women.
• Outside the home, women vulnerable to assault
and rape.
• In the home, women beaten and even murdered
by husbands or boyfriends, family members, and
in-laws (dowry deaths).
• Female babies much more likely to be subjected
to infanticide in some cultures that value sons.
Feminism’s roots in liberalism
• In many ways similar to liberalism:
emphasis on equality, on personal
autonomy (the right and ability of
individuals to make decisions for
themselves), on the importance of
democratic processes, on the right of
revolution against tyranny.
 Waves of feminism OR
Historical Trends
• First wave of feminism: Mid-19th
century
• Second wave of feminism: Late 19th to
early 20th c.
• Third wave of feminism: Mid to late
20th century.
 Waves of feminism conti…….
• First-wave feminism involved a period of feminist
activity during the 19th and early 20th centuries,
especially in Europe and in the Anglosphere; it
focused primarily on gaining the right of women's
suffrage, the right to be educated, better working
conditions and double sexual standards.
 Waves of feminism conti……
• Second-wave feminism" identifies a period of feminist activity
from the early 1960s through the late 1980s. Second-wave
feminism has existed continuously since then, and continues to
coexist with what some people call "Third Wave Feminism".
• Second-wave feminism saw cultural and political inequalities as
inextricably linked. The movement encouraged women to
understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized,
and reflective of a sexist structure of power.
• If first-wavers focused on absolute rights such as suffrage,
second-wavers largely concentrated on other issues of equality,
such as the end to discrimination.
 Waves of feminism conti…..
• The Third-wave of feminism began in the early 1990s.
• The movement arose as responses to what young women thought
of as perceived failures of the second-wave. It was also a response
to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the
second-wave.
• Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems
the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity, which
(according to them) over-emphasized the experiences of upper
middle class white women.
• A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central
to much of the third wave's ideology. Third wave feminists often
focus on "micropolitics", and challenged the second wave's
paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females.
 Types of feminisms
• Liberal feminism
• Radical feminism
• Diversity feminism
 Liberal feminism
• Shared with liberalism these ideas:
• Human equality
• Human rationality
• Importance of individual rights
 Early liberal feminists
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Lucretia Mott
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Susan B. Anthony

• Wollstonecraft
 Mary Wollstonecraft
• Mary Wollstonecraft in the late 18th century
used classical liberal arguments in favor of
women’s rights:
Women are human beings, “rational and
capable of self-determination and liberty.”
Patriarchy distorts women’s personalities so
that they seem to be the worst stereotypes
(vain & shallow).
 Modern liberal feminists
• Betty Friedan
• Gloria Steinem
Working within the
existing democratic
system.
Seeing patriarchy as hurting men as
well as women.
Liberal feminist views
 Radical feminisms
• Multiple types of radical feminisms, but
they all share a common critique of
liberal feminism for accepting the status
quo economic and social structures.

• The status quo operates with the male

model as the norm (e.g., seeing the
world as competitive and aggressive).
 Types of Radical Feminisms
• Socialist feminists argue that patriarchy &
capitalism are linked; both exploitive.
• Lesbian feminists criticize society’s
definition of heterosexuality as normal, & all
other sexualities as deviant.
• Anti-pornography feminists argue that
pornography fosters violence against women.
 Diversity feminism
• The needs and perspectives of non-
Anglo, non-Western, and non-affluent
women must be considered. Liberal
feminism ignores different perspectives.
• Women’s issues change across cultures
and across time; no single feminist
voice or viewpoint.
 Feminism in Global Era
• Immediately after the war a new global dimension was added by the
formation of the United Nations.
• In 1946 the UN established a Commission on the Status of Women.[151]
[152] Originally as the Section on the Status of Women, Human Rights

Division, Department of Social Affairs, and now part of the Economic

and Social Council (ECOSOC).
• In 1948 the UN issued its Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
protects "the equal rights of men and women", and addressed both the
equality and equity issues.
• Since 1975 the UN has held a series of world conferences on women's
issues, starting with the World Conference of the International
Women's Year in Mexico City, heralding the United Nations Decade for
Women (1975–85).
 Feminism and globalization?
• These two topics have become controversial, as how
much both are effecting each other in international
relations?
• Which concept is over ruling the other?
• Which of them is getting more credit in international
relations?
• For that we are going to present few points in favor
and few against to each other
 Feminism and Globalization
(in favour)
• globalization has facilitated new spaces, institutions and rhetoric

• embedded in specific institutions. Globalization constitutes a

new framing for feminist politics that assists the change in
discursive presentation and new opportunities for
argumentation.
• Globalization impacts on the nature of feminism especially by
creating changes in political opportunities.
• By globalization I mean a process of increased density and
frequency of international or global social interactions relative to
local or national ones. This includes economic, political and
cultural dimensions.
 Feminism and globalization
(in favour) conti….
• Feminism has changed its form in recent years. Changes in the gender
regime have involved increases in economic and organizational
resources as a result of increased paid employment and education for
women, an increase in their organizational capacity, including
increasing involvement with a variety of organizations.
• These changes have changed the political opportunity structure and
contributed to the increase of women in formal political arenas, such as
parliament and the state.
• Groups of feminists have re-framed key feminist projects within the
powerful legitimation of the discourse of universal human rights and re-
oriented political claims making towards the state.
• Globalization has facilitated the development of feminist transnational
networks along which ideas and political practices can spread.
 Globalization and
feminism(against)
• Of course, there are contradictory impacts, since in some
places the rhetoric of globalization has been used to legitimate
the erosion of some dimensions of welfare provision in some
nation-states that perceive themselves as under threat from
global economic competition.
• Globalization has also effected the feminists voices in different
ways, such as cultural, social, cultural, economic and politically
as well.
Thank you