FEMINIST THEORIES
Written By: Lawan Isa
All people are created equal, women are essentially the same as men
Based upon principle of equality of opportunity and freedom
Gender not determined by sex
Inequality stems from unequal participation in spheres outside of the family, primarily education and paid labour force
Seek social changes that will create a meritocracy where social rank is based on merit and in which hierarchy and inequality are both inevitable and acceptable
Faith in rationality
Education is means to change
Oppression of women is not a structural feature of capitalist economic system
Look to state to bring about women's liberation through legislative measures - equality through law
Programs advocated include affirmative action, equal opportunity employment, employment equity, pay equity, parental leave, subsidized daycare
professional and middle-class women
National Action Committee on the Status of Woman (N.A.C.): umbrella organization representing 500 hundred feminist-oriented women's group
National Organization of Women (N.O.W.)
Marxist Feminism
Primary source of female oppression is the capitalist economic system, i.e. inferior position of women linked to class-based capitalistic system and family structure within this system
Women’s subordination was a consequence of the introduction of private property, women became the property of men and the first oppressed class
Women’s oppression caused by their economic dependence in the family but also in the work force, this keeps an exploitable reserve labour force
Women have always had unpaid work (housewife) and most low paying and boring jobs
Women must have equal participation in the economic production process
Propose wages for housework, developing a system for paying women directly for their household work
Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism
working class women
Socialist Feminism
Integrate issues of gender and class, i.e. unite concepts of patriarchy and capitalism, seeks to eliminate both class and gender oppression
Women's oppression caused by their economic dependence
Economic production systems of sexuality, childbearing and childrearing, care of other members of family and sick, and gender socialization must all be looked at
Investigate interface between women’s paid labour and domestic labour lives
Traditional sexuality script is emblematic of gender power relations
Abolition of gender and class are goals where socialism will only occur with the liberation of women and women's liberation will only occur under socialism
working class women
Radical Feminism
Women live under conditions of inequality in most systems of economic production regardless of whether capitalist, socialist or communist
Gender is the fundamental form of difference, little emphasis on class or ethnicity
Patriarchy, women’s oppression and domination by men, is the fundamental oppression and at the root of other isms
Patriarchy pervades public world of formal economic production processes but also private worlds of family, marriage, sexuality and biological reproduction
Introduced the phrase the personal is political and then also the political is personal
Social change is necessary in both private and public worlds
Seek to replace existing gender roles with androgyny, any resulting differences would then be human not gender differences
Some focus specifically on the male physical, psychological and social control of female sexuality as the basic cause of female subordination
Some focus on the tyranny of reproductive biology from which women must be liberated, and thus they seek to eliminate biological sex as basis of social differentiation
First to introduce the following as feminist issues: reproductive and contraceptive rights, abortion, reproductive technologies, sexuality expression and experience, sexual and physical violence against women (rape, sexual harassment, incest, pornography and domestic violence)
Cultural Feminism
A branch of radical feminism
Identify suppression of distinctive or different female qualities, experiences, and values as the primary cause of women’s subordination
Don’t focus on elimination of patriarchy but rather seek to create an alternative female consciousness where existence of gender differences are stressed by the identification, rehabilitation and nurturance of women’s qualities
Idea of women’s cultures emphasizing consensual non hierarchical decision-making processes, valuing responsibility, connection community, negotiation, altruism, nurturance, from this we have ecofeminism and pacifist feminism
Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice since believe that male sexuality if selfish, violent and women hating, linking male sexuality as violence against women with pornography
Advocates lesbianism as a personal and political choice that expresses ultimate rejection of patriarchy
Separation from men in every way (some only advocate separation from male values), i.e. create institutions for women and sever relationships with men
Postmodern Feminism
all women are different and thus can never generalize
a feminist theory is not possible
Multicultural/Global Feminism
recognizing all other differences not just gender
Focuses on inclusion of oppressions based on gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, able bodiedness and age
Intersection of gender with race, class and issues of colonization and exploitation of women in developing world
Sources: see Gender bibliography
