FEMINISM

Definition

■ Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a

common goal: to define, establish and achieve equal political,
economic, cultural, personal and social rights for women.
■ Seeks to establish equal opportunities in:
– Education
– Employment
■ Feminism focuses on women’s rights but also highlights the
injustices that women have to face in the society.
■ A feminist advocates or supports the right and equality of
women.
Definition

■ Feminist movements campaign for women’s right to:

– Vote
– Hold office
– Work
– Earn fair wages (or equal pay)
– Own property
– Education
– Equal rights in marriage
– Maternity leave
Origin

■ Relatively modern term – first used in 1871 in a French medical

text to describe sexual organs of men which stopped developing.
■ Term picked up by Alexandre Dumas fils, a French writer, who
used it to describe women behaving in a masculine way.
■ Feminist thought existed before the term was coined:
– Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
– Declaration of Sentiments
– These movements claimed the principles of liberty and
equality for women.
Development

■ The National Woman Suffrage Association was founded by

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
■ The 1840s saw women’s suffrage movement in the US and the
UK.
■ In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft had published “A Vindication of
the Rights of Women”.
■ Also in the late 1700s,Olympe De Gouges and Theroigne De
Mericourt were fighting for the extension of the rights promised
by the French Revolution to women.
Development

■ “Feminism” or “feminist” first appeared in France and the

Netherlands in 1872, Great Britain in the 1890s and 1910 in
USA.
■ The UK Daily News introduced “feminist” to the English
language.
 LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Main Arguments
■ Liberal feminists champion legal and political equality with men;
equality means equal access to the public realm.
■ The focus of liberal feminism is to reform existing structures so that
power is shared across gender lines.
■ Liberal feminism focuses on providing opportunities of women and
including them in traditionally male-dominated areas – idea of
inclusion.
■ Changes need to be done in institutions and laws which has resulted in
keeping women confined to domestic roles with no opportunities.
■ Another goal is creating a “just and compassionate society in which
freedom flourishes”.
■ Equality in education, right to vote, employment, wage rate, etc.
■ Gender-blind approach to feminism i.e. women need to be given
rights, it doesn’t matter what men do.
Origins

■ Liberal Feminism began in the 18th century and has continued

through to the present day.
■ First wave and second wave of feminism was heavily influenced
by liberal feminism.
■ Called the “mother of feminism”.
■ The movement started gaining traction after the works of Mary
Wollstonecraft especially in 1792.
Important Contributors

■ Marry Wollstonecraft
– A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) which argued for equality.
– She urged women to become autonomous decision-makers.
– Women should not be reduced to the ‘toy of man’. Rather, she is an ‘end in
herself’ his rattle.
■ John Stuart Mill
– Mill argued that natural differences between men and women can’t be seen until
they are equal in the social spheres.
– He says that we simply don't know what women are capable of, because we have
never let them try – one cannot make an authoritative statement without evidence.
– He compared the domination of men over women to slavery in his essay, “The
Subjection of Women”.
– His ideas focused on utilitarianism; nothing should be wrong completely. We need
to focus on what gives most benefit even if those are rights of women.
– Harriet Taylor Mill, his wife, also contributed by writing “Enfranchisement of
Women” (1851).
Important Contributors

■ Betty Friedman
– Published the “Feminine Mystique” in 1963 (after WWII).
– It identified the problem with no name i.e. women facing
boredom due to no participation in the public sphere.
– She pointed out women were not able to pursue personal
development due to political laws made against them.
– Founder of National Organization for Women (NOW)
which worked for ending gender discrimination and
legalization of abortion.
Important Events

■ Seneca Falls Convention (1848), New York

– Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
– Declaration of Sentiments was produced.
Achievements

■ Equal Pay Act signed in 1963 by President Kennedy – same job,

same wage.
■ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 promised no sexual discrimination
in employment.
■ Educational Amendment of 1972 barring discrimination in
educational programs.
■ In 1973, Roe v. Wade decision was passed by US Supreme
Court which legalized abortion.
Critiques

■ In 1972, Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) of the Constitution of

US could not pass.
■ Reason, freedom and autonomy are not as good as they sound.
They come with a lot of responsibilities. In feminist Politics and
Human Nature Alison Jaggar formulated a powerful critique of
liberal feminism.
■ Liberal feminism mainly focused on the interests of white,
middle-class, heterosexual women.
■ The feminine mystique addresses white, middle-class,
heterosexual women.
RADICAL
FEMINISM
Main Arguments

■ Radical feminists “insist that the sex/gender system is the

fundamental cause of women's oppression.“
■ Radical feminists want a new system altogether; no matter how
much you reform the current system, it won’t be enough.
■ Radical feminists seek to challenge patriarchy existing in
social norms and institutions.
■ Root cause of oppression  PATRIARCHY as opposed to
legal standings or class conflicts.
■ Patriarchy: a universal system in which men dominate women.
Main Arguments

■ They believe that eliminating patriarchy will liberate everyone

from an unjust society.
■ Radical feminists reject the view that women’s subordination is
linked with biological inferiority.
■ Radical lesbians also existed who supported lesbianism to
escape from the institution of heterosexuality, which they
viewed as violent and oppressive.
■ “Personal is political”
■ “The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house”
(Lorde)
Main Arguments

■ Goals:
– Expanding reproductive rights.
– Right to make those choices freely without pressure from individual
men.
– Changing the organizational sex culture e.g. breaking down traditional
gender roles reevaluating societal concepts of femininity masculinity
– Need to fight against the “glass ceiling” – lack of opportunities due to
gender.
– Women-centric approach to solving issues.
– Establish Conscious Raising Groups against male oppression.
■ Two types of Radical Feminism according to Rosemarie Tong:
– Radical Libertarian Feminism
– Radical Cultural Feminism
Types
Radical Libertarian Feminism
Androgynous combination of the best masculine
and feminine traits should be adopted by everyone.
Shulamith Firestone’s concept of biological
revolution in “The Dialectic of Sex” i.e. women
should seize the means of reproduction. Use
technology and artificial ways to reproduce so
women can focus on productive processes.
Supported pornography as it is a liberating tool
from all sexual taboos.
Radical Cultural Feminism
Women should focus on feminine characteristics and
stay away from masculine characters i.e. no
androgyny.
Natural reproduction is a woman’s main source of
power which is unavailable to men. To take this
power from the women and give it to technology
controlled by men would make women even more
vulnerable. Oppression is not because of biology
but because of the jealousy to the biology.
Opposed pornography as it objectifies and
oppresses women.
Origins

■ Also known as “Women’s Liberation Movement”

■ Started in the second wave feminism and grew out of the
protests against the Vietnam War and New Left me who treated
women as subordinates (make coffee, etc.).
■ Many women withdrew from the New Left and formed their
own organizations such as:
– New York Radical Women (NYRW)
– Redstockings
– Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell
(WITCH)
Important Contributors

■ Shulamith Firestone
– “Seize the means of reproduction” in Dialectic of Sex
– Feminist revision of the materialistic theory of history offered by Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels.
■ Kate Millett
– Wrote the book Sexual Politics (1970) which focused on the male-
female sex relationship
– Male control of public and private spheres must be eliminated if
women are to be liberated. To eliminate male control, men and women
have to eliminate gender.
– Need to create a new society in which men and women are equals at
every level of existence.
Important Events

■ In 1968, they protested against the Miss America pageant.

■ In 1970, they also staged a sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal.
Achievements

■ In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the

House of Representatives
■ In 2008, Sarah Palin became the first woman nominated for Vice
President.
Critique

■ During the early years, radical feminists were criticized for

emphasizing sex-based discrimination at the expense of race and
class-based discrimination.
■ According to Ellen Willis’s 1984 essay “Radical Feminism and
Feminist Radicalism”, radical feminists were accused of being
‘Bourgeois’, ‘antileft’ or even ‘apolitical’.
■ Radical feminism was criticized because it tended to be white and
middle-class.
■ Ellen Willis also criticized radical feminism’s inability to integrate a
feminist perspective with an overall radical politics.
■ Utopian concept which may not be possible.
Differences between Liberal and
Radical Feminism
Liberal Feminism Radical Feminism

Focus is on equality in the public sphere between men Focus is on women’s rights
and women

Reform the system Create a new system

Inclusion and Integration Inclusion is not enough

Focus on public sphere Focus on public and private sphere; personal is

political

Reason for oppression is because women left behind Reason for oppression is patriarchy; remove
due to laws; so change the laws patriarchy
MARXIST
FEMINISM
Main Arguments

■ Men and women were the same in the first Mode of Production; private
properly led to class system which led to exploitation of women.
■ Society is divided into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. When
women enter the workforce, they are delegated to discriminated jobs, and are
underpaid for their labor.
■ Focus is on investigating and explaining the ways in which women are
oppressed through systems of capitalism.
■ Women’s liberation can only be achieved through a radical restructuring of the
current capitalist economy, in which much of women’s labor is uncompensated.
■ Root cause of oppression  CAPITALISM
■ Class oppression is the primary form of oppression; “sexism has its roots in
the private property system.”
Main Arguments

■ Capitalism exploits women in 3 ways:

1. Unpaid domestic labor
2. Reproduction and socialization of next generation of laborer's
3. Women consume good and services at a high price by
produced by capitalists
■ Marxist feminists devoted their activism to fighting for the inclusion
of the domestic work within the waged capitalist economy.
■ Marxist feminists argue that exclusion of women from productive
labor leads to male control to both private and public domains.
■ There should be wages for housework and domestic tasks.
Origins

■ Inspired by the works of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels

■ According to Engels the shift from feudalism to private
ownership of land has huge effects on status of women. He
argues that subordination is not a result of her biological
disposition but of social relations.
■ Gender operation is closely related to class operation and the
relationship between women and men is similar to the
relationship between Proletariat and Bourgeoisie.
Important Contributors

■ Juliet Mitchell
– Need to change the idea in the minds of men that women are inferior.
■ Heidi Hartmann
– Women have started to work in the public sphere recently but still
have to take care of domestic responsibilities. So, there should be
balance and equality for this issue.
■ Margaret Benston
– Wrote “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation” which highlights
women exploitation.
– Women can’t unionize like other laborers.
– 24 hour work days, no weekends.
– “unpaid domestic labor that primarily serves the capitalist class.”
Important Events

■ Predominant in the 1960s America.

Critique

■ Marx himself didn’t talk about position of women in capitalism.

Rather, he advocated for the women to work in domestic sphere.
■ Marxist feminists state that oppression of women is due to
capitalism but there are actually many other factors.
SOCIALIST
FEMINISM
Main Arguments

■ Central idea  patriarchy and capitalism are overlapping and interlocking

systems of oppression.
■ Women are seen as “reserve labor” e.g. use them during WWII and then let them
go during economic depressions.
■ Marxist feminism focuses on class oppression of women; socialist feminism
focuses on class and gender oppression.
■ Difference between a wife and a prostitute is money. Both sell themselves in
different ways.
■ Marxist feminists argue patriarchy is a tool used by capitalists, socialist feminists
assert that these are both tools used together to oppress women.
■ Marxist Feminists  Marxist first, feminists second.
■ Socialist Feminists  Feminism first, socialists second.
Main Arguments

■ Socialist feminism is a confluence of Marxism and radical

feminism; a dual systems theory that targets both capitalism
and patriarchy.
■ Patriarchy and Capitalism come together to oppress women by:
– Wage differentials
– Segregation
– Restricting them to domestic sphere
– Using them as unpaid labor
■ Goal of Social Feminists  REMOVE CAPITALISM AND
PATRIARCHY
Important Contributors

■ Hartmann’s Theory of Capitalism-Patriarchy:

– Gender and class have equal importance
– Sphere of production dominated by capitalism  class exploitation
– Sphere of reproduction dominated by patriarchy  gender exploitation
– Accused Marxism for being gender-blind; no mention of patriarchy
■ Social feminists call for a change in the sexual division of labor, that takes place
within the home and in the public sector. Problems mentioned below need to be
addressed:
– Pink collar jobs – low wages
– Glass ceiling
– Stigma against certain jobs e.g. army
– Institutional discrimination
■ Maggie Hume concludes socialist feminism by saying, “unlike radical
feminism, socialist feminists refuse to treat economic oppression as secondary;
unlike Marxist feminists, they refuse to treat sexist oppression as secondary.”
PSYCHOANALYTIC
AL FEMINISM
Main Arguments
■ Psychoanalytical feminism asserts that men have an inherent need to oppress and
subjugate women.
■ The root of this oppression is the human mind or psyche.
■ This pattern of oppression is integrated in society thus creating and sustaining
patriarchy.
■ Hence, it is possible to alter this by changing the early socialization of the child
before the age of 3 i.e. the key to changing gender construction can be achieved through
altering parenting practices.
■ Two Levels of Psychoanalytical Feminism:
– Micro Level: Childhood learning and formation, relationships with parents, early
sexuality traits and it also explores the establishment of masculinity and
femininity.
– Macro Level: It investigates the construction of gender. It encompasses
examination of masculinity and femininity, emergence of adult sexuality, continual
reinforcement of patriarchy and societal institutions.
■ The theory is based on the works of:
– Sigmund Freud
– Lacan
Main Arguments
■ Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis
– Anatomy is Destiny – biology determines how the child’s psyche will
develop and how that psyche will be reflected in the personality.
– Personality made up of conscious (tip of iceberg) and unconscious
(whole iceberg).
– In the phallic stage (Age 3), a child’s focus is on genitals. This is also
the stage of Oedipal Conflict/Electra Complex. Child falls in love with
opposite parent and considers the same-sex parent their rival. He/she
adopts the personality of the same sex parents in the hopes of getting the
other parent.
– Girl’s experience penis envy during this process. They believe that they
have been castrated and blame their mothers for it. They wish they had a
penis. She believes she is biologically inferior which affects her psyche.
– Boys and girls adopt their fathers and mothers role respectively. Thus
boys join a larger collective group of males, who in turn dominate
women, whereas girls remain closed to their mothers, remaining on the
margin of the society, being ruled by men.
Main Arguments

■ Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis (continued)

– Criticism: Feminists believe it is a very sexist perspective. Simone de Beauvoir
states that Freud did little effort to study the female psyche; many little girls do
not even know about the penis until they grow up. Also the Oedipus and Electra
complexes are hasty generalizations; not everyone goes through this experience.
– Defense: Juliet Mitchell in Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974) defended
Freud arguing that Freud’s theories were not recommendations rather
observations of a patriarchal society. She claimed that a rejection of
psychoanalysis would be fatal for feminism.
■ Lacan’s Theory
– Freud  penis = power; anatomy is destiny; males are naturally superior;
biological determinism
– Lacan  anatomy does not explain the social oppression of women.
– Lacan believed gender is a construct rather than biologically determined.
Main Arguments

■ Nancy Chodrow Assertions

– If men took a more active role in child rearing, it would create changes in
gender construction and diminish their domination over women.
– The relationships of mothers and their children and concludes that
femininity is the strong representative of the strong tie to the mother,
whereas the masculinity manifests itself as distance from mother and father.
■ Judith Butler
– Wrote a book called “Gender Trouble”; it explores influence of maternal
care on the emerging self, social oppression of women on the basis of
presumed gender differences, oedipal conflict and heterosexual
identification.
■ While liberal or socialist feminists emphasize the importance of social
factors or the struggle for legal rights and equal access to public life, the
psychoanalytic approach emphasizes internal and emotional issues, and
indicates the sense in which women do have some power to bring about
change.
Critique

1. Due to focus on early human development, the few strategies offered for
creating change primarily concentrate on this parent and reliant upon
parent raising their children.
2. The theories that provide foundation for most of this kind of feminism
rely on Freud and Lacan. Many of these theorists are misogynistic and
place men in position of superiority over women.
3. Psychological theory interpreted the feminine experience largely on
relation to masculinity, which is one of the critiques of science and
technology offered by psychoanalytic feminism.
4. Like liberal, radical and Marxist feminism, psychoanalytic feminists
have not provided a totally satisfying explanation for female
subordination. Dual parenting is not a panacea for all women woes.
POST-MODERN
FEMINISM
Main Arguments
■ Inspired from “post-modernism.”
■ There is no single object reality and thus, there is nothing universal. Postmodernists reject the claim
that a single theory can explain the oppression of women i.e. there is no single solution or grand
theory which can solve all problems.
■ Women are not the same. There is no universal form of women. Hence, no one solution to their
problems. A women can be white or black, rich or poor and so on. There are so many differences such
as:
– Race
– Class
– Sexual orientation
– Nationality
– Education
– Political views
■ Queer Theory
– Rejects the idea of sexuality as a stable concept and of heterosexuality as a norm.
– Sexual identity is fluid
■ Theory is no Theory:
– No specific framework for combating oppression; instead a model for questioning various
existing theories.
– Need to contextually look at situation before deciding what is the best way to deal with it.
Main Arguments

■ Deconstructionism
– Need to deconstruct male language and masculine view of the world
based on the language.
– View that gender is constructed through language
– World seen in terms of binary: good or bad, holy or evil, beautiful or
ugly, men or women. Male is then seen as normal and female as the
deviation from it.
– Even Freud said the female is always cast as the “other”
– They oppose essentialism and deny categorical, abstract theories which
are based on spurious assumptions.
■ Postmodern feminists and feminists of today share a common tendency to
thin nonbinary, non-oppositional whether postmodern feminists can by
carving the block and by speaking and writing, help overcome binary
opposition, phallocentrism and logo centrism, is not certain. What is
certain, however, is that the time has come for a new conceptual order.
Important Contributors
■ Jacques Derrida
– Focus on “symbolic order” or symbols.
– Symbols in society are sexist and when internalized, the person becomes sexist. This continues on and
on.
– In other words, the symbolic order regulates society through the regulation of individuals; as long as
individuals speak the language of the symbolic order-internalizing its gender, race and class roles-
society reproduces itself in constant forms.

■ Helene Cixous
– Language is male dominated; phallocentric.
– For a variety of sociocultural reasons, masculine writings have reigned supreme over feminine writing.
– Man has unnecessarily segmented reality by coupling concept and terms in pairs of binary polar
opposites, one of which is always privileged over the other. Some examples she gave are:
■ Activity/Passivity
■ Sun/Moon
■ Culture/Nature
■ Day/NightSpeaking/Writing
■ High/Low
– Man is associated with all that is active. Cultural light, high, or generally positive, whereas woman is
associated with all that is passive, natural, dark, low or generally negative.
– Cixous challenged women to write themselves out of the world men constructed for women.
– By developing feminine writing, she insisted, women can change the way Western world thinks, speaks
and acts.
Important Contributors

■ Michel Foucault
– Discourse about sexuality is primary site of power in contemporary society.
– Foucault claimed that often, we are unaware of the social forces that have
constituted our sexual subjectivity. We operate on the unquestioning
assumption that our subjectivity is our own. He conducted this analysis to
permit others to help us transform our realities.
■ Judith Butler
– Butler claimed that there is no necessary connection between as person’s
sex and a person’s gender.
– She said, within the discursive territory of heterosexuality, not only is
gender constructed but so too is sex constructed.
– Queer Theory
Criticism

■ Objection that postmodern feminism is out to destroy existing

feminist theories rather than building them, which many see as
not useful to feminism in the long run.
■ Some critics reject all ‘postmodern feminism for academicians’.
As they see it, postmodern feminism/feminists are deliberately
opaque and complicated, viewing clarity as one of the seven
deadly sins of the phallogocentric order.
■ Convinced that Butler’s thought in particular is more than jargon
for an elite group of feminists and other social critics, Nussbaum
trivialized Butler’s ideas about resistance.