What is Feminism: Ideology & History

Key Ideas

• Many types of feminism (listed by Trimble)
• Key concepts: “sex”, “gender”, “masculine” and “feminine”
  • Sex: biological, physiological,
  • Gender: social construction of roles humans sexed male and female
    • “Determine a person’s social, economic, cultural, and political status”
    • Constructed discursively & materially
    • One gender is valued or superior
    • More than 2 genders (more than 2 sexes, also)
  • Masculine: characteristics or traits associated with, appropriate for, and considered naturally belonging to males/men
  • Feminine: characteristics or traits associated with, appropriate for, and considered naturally belonging to females/women
  • Creates political institutions and systems
    • Affect behaviour and decisions made by people, especially leaders
    • Provide a “logic” or rationale for certain institutions
    • Issue: valuing male/men/masculinity over female/women/femininity
• Key issue = oppression > “power over”
  • Power assumed to be ‘power over’ (the problem)
    • Other ideologies: kings, nobles, citizens, aristocrats, workers
    • Men have exercised power over women (few women have also exercised power over men and women)
  • Power can be ‘power to’ — empowerment = feminist
  • Society can be based on power relations which do not involve domination but empowerment
• Goals:
  • “Equality” among men & women
  • Opportunities and choice for women & men
  • Deconstruction and reconstruction of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ — gender
• Arguments about “human nature” have reflected men’s understanding and claims about men’s human nature
  • Established men as the ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ to which women are measured against
  • Women’s “human nature” has been ignored, misunderstood, or degraded
  • Human nature is not essentially this or that
• Society constructed on or constructed with women’s lived experiences may be different
• Many thinkers due to diversity of paths of feminism, but also due to many influences on feminism

Liberal Feminism

• Key idea: equality of rights
  • Men and women should have equal rights
  • Men and women should not be treated differently under the law
  • Legal barriers against women’s full participation in politics
  • Women have rights within the family as well
• Key thinkers:
  • Mary Wollstonecraft:
    • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
    • “First” European feminist
    • Argued against Burke’s conservative view of the French Revolution incorrect
    • Supported the French Revolution’s egalitarian principles & wanted to extend them to women
    • Rights denied to women included voting, jobs, property, education
  • John Stuart Mill (Harriet Taylor Mill):
    • Subjection Women (1869)
    • Men and women should receive equal opportunity to develop their potential
    • Women’s participation in politics will be temporary
    • Natural division of labour: men = income-earners, women = take care of family
  • Betty Friedan:
    • Women should have the choice to have a fulfilling life outside of family and domesticity
    • Women need to have opportunities for full participation in politics
    • Family structures and society should make changes to ensure and assist women’s full participation in politics

Socialist & Marxist Feminism

• Key thinkers:
  • Moral socialists
    • Fourier = social progress linked to progress of women; collective housekeeping and child-rearing arrangements
    • Owen = easier divorces
  • Marx:
    • State and community look after children
    • Roles and duties related to domesticity become activities for the whole community to perform
  • Engels:
    • Family is a microcosm of class struggle: husband = capitalist, wife = worker
    • Women need to be brought into public industry, and family unit as the basis of economy will be eliminated
    • Equality rights of liberals is essential but not sufficient
  • Many female thinkers also! > Maria Mies, Alison Jaggar, Iris Young, and Juliet Mitchell
• Key ideas:
  • Capitalism produces family structures which perpetuate capitalism
  • Family is a functional economic unit of capitalism
  • Double burden/double day carried by women
  • Women’s work:
    • ‘pink-collar’ jobs
    • ‘feminization of labour’ (Guy Standing)
    • Unpaid labour necessary for society’s & economy’s functioning (Marilyn Waring)

Radical Feminism

• Grew from Marxist/Socialist feminism
  • Socialist societies did not end subjugation of women nor the domestic work that women were required to do
  • Capitalism, socialism, etc., have all failed to liberate women from various forms of oppression
• First set of feminist ideas deriving from women’s experiences and knowledge
  • Breaks with Marxist and Liberal theories and their derivative feminist approaches
  • Focussed on women as the key agents and center of analysi
• Emerges in the 1960s
• Key thinkers:
  • Kate Millet Sexual Politics
  • Germaine Greer The Female Eunuch
  • Shulamith Firestone The Dialectic of Sex
  • Adrienne Rich “Compulsory Heterosexuality”
• Key ideas:
  • Patriarchy = men dominate social, political, and economic relationships
    • Normalized: male domination/supremacy as the natural order of society — women’s subordination is natural and functional
    • Institutionalized : the state & institutions, political systems, economic system, etc.
    • Historical: Precedes socialism, capitalism, feudalism, etc. — long enduring system in Western and many non-Western societies
    • Superior: Ideas or actions of men/masculinity are valued over women’s/femininity
  • Liberal’s public/private divide is part of the problem
    • Public sphere of activity = political participation, going to work, etc. = men’s domain — masculine traits required
    • Private sphere of activity = looking after family, taking care of kids, cleaning, etc = women’s work — feminine traits required
    • Men rule over women
    • BUT “the personal is the political” according to radical feminists
    • E.g. wife-abuse, child abuse, rape in marriage, prostitution, stripping
    • Political and economic institutions protect, perpetuate and promote patriarchy in the private sphere
  • Reproduction & sexuality
    • Marxist’s focus on production overlooks the fundamental production of people
    • Sexuality and reproduction have been historically controlled by men and for their purposes or pleasure
    • “Compulsory heterosexuality” — marriage as socio-political institution, criminalizing of other sexualities
    • Determined the “value” of women — beauty, childbearing, etc.
    • ‘Sex pays better’
    • Creates unequal relationship between men and women as women are “forced” to have children, look after children, but not provided support — relegated to a “secondary” issue of politics (e.g. daycare)
    • Men’s “sex right” in law and/or customs vs. women’s rights over their body
    • Lesbian became deviant
    • Relates to issues of abortion, sex, pornography
  • Overthrow patriarchy, BUT debates over strategy:
    • Lesbianism: sexual preference and political statement
    • Separatism: women live separately from men
    • Reproduction: scientific methods, abortion-on-demand
    • Many of the older 70s-80s strategies have been discarded in favour of egalitarian strategies
  • Goal: patriarchal political, economic, and social institutions need to be overthrown to create either an egalitarian or separatist society

Postmodern Feminism

• Key ideas:
  • No single identity of ‘woman’ or ‘man’, or ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’
  • Focus = language — constructs who we are & who can be > we can change this
  • Gender is not just oppressive to women, but also to men
    • Need to understand how men are oppressed by gender — roles, sex, work, lack of family connections, etc.
  • Control over sexuality is critical to controlling people
  • Goal: androgyny = each person equally valuing and accepting their masculine and feminine characteristics
  • No political project or prescriptions

Feminism and Our Criteria

• Human Nature:
  • We don’t know
  • Men’s and women’s experiences lead to different understandings of “human nature”
  • Differences between men and women may be biological, but gender constructions override our “nature” & biology and give us particular roles & identities to which we must conform
• Nature of Society:
  • Patriarchy is an element of most societies and needs to be challenged and overthrown
  • Power relations between men & women embodied in gender constructions
    • Naturalized & institutionalized — from the family to the Parliament
• Conception of Freedom:
  • Freedom from patriarchy, oppression, and gender roles
  • Men and women should be free to take on and change their gender identity
  • Understanding of Justice
  • Liberation from imposed gender roles
  • Equal rights for men and women, but also protection/regulation in areas that are considered “non-political”: marriage, family, sexual relations, prostitution, pornography
  • Provision of social services and assistance to support women’s full participation in politics, economy, etc.
• State/government:
  • Perpetuates patriarchy & gender roles
  • Needs to better represent women, and not solely operate on masculine ideals
  • Should serve to assist society and facilitate full participation in politics