Feminism - Core Basic Notes

Origins of feminism:

• Wollstonecraft who claimed that women were not rational or physically capable enough so were denied a place in politics and society.
• Aim is to achieve equality to ensure that everything is free and fair.

Essays:

• Most essays will be on comparing different strands of feminism.

Liberal:

• Equality and legislation needed, this means that women self-actualise and become what they want.
• Has it worked: Equality Act 2010, Equal Pay Act 1970, 1918 Franchise, 1967 Abortion Act, 1991 Rape Ban, 1961 Contraception available through NHS. All Women Shortlists in Labour.

Marxist/Socialism/Economistic:

• Laws are not enough.
• Men and women have been exploited by the economy and the business owners. Women are doubly “screwed” because they are exploited by both the business owners and men too. This is just part of our society. In short, they blame the economy and men.
• Until there is a revolution and the economy has changed as well as the social outlook that men and women have – a false consciousness. Until this is changed, women shall remain exploited.

Radical:

• Don’t blame the economy, just blame men.
• De Beauvoir: Men treat women as second class objects. This has been set up as part of society to become the plaything of men
• Women shouldn’t have sex with men and can bear children through IVF. Women do not need men. Androgyny society.
• So the personal is political, in other words, women do not need men in either of their lives.

Patriarchy:

• Men have deliberately set up society and spread this attitude that men are the dominant sex. All of society is set up to control all power but in particular to control women.
• In all areas of life such as the state, culture and work
• Society has been set up by men for men.

Equality – One method for radical feminists	Difference: - Another method for radicals
Men and women are equal. No real difference between the two genders.	Men and women are not the same, clearly they are different. Biological and psychological differences.
Different is how they’re socialised. The difference and links between sex and gender. Given sex at birth e.g men but gender is something which is given to you by society	Celebrate the differences between the two sexes and feminine traits. They agree with the separation of male and female.
Equality feminists say the link between sex and gender is wrong and we are socialised into this way of thinking.	Solution is female separatism as all male and female relations are oppressive. Define yourself through lesbianism and autoeroticism
Every individual should be given the freedom to be androgynous and choose from the various masculine and feminine traits.

Socialist – blend of Marxism and Radical:

Post-modern feminism:

• Intersectionality – a black women is likely to face more oppression than a white woman.
• Feminism had contorted itself to the white middle class but there was more issues facing other feminists.
• Revolution should include class and race as well as gender too.
• What feminists forget is that women’s are treated differently around the world. An Asian woman is going to have a different experience than a black woman in America or London.
• Oppression was different depending on where they lived.

Post-feminist:

• Things have been achieved, women have achieved equality with men e.g women leaders in Politics, Theresa May etc etc
• Time to move on and focus on female accomplishments and female power.
• Some women claim that women have the power to dominate and manipulate using their sexualised bodies but some do not view this as a form of feminism at all but rather anti-feminism.

Feminism - More Tensions, Feminism Today & Pressure Groups Link

Tensions Within Feminism:

1. Radical feminists reject the liberal feminist agenda because it fails to understand the true nature of the patriarchy. Liberal feminists see patriarchy in terms of the historical dominance of men in society. Liberals explain the oppression of women; it is merely a characteristic of society rather than a fundamental explanation of how society works for women. They suggest the answers lie deep in the human consciousness.
2. Liberals counter this by arguing that radical feminists are imposing their own views on female consciousness which seek to restrict their freedom of choice. If there is a framework of legal and political equality, women should be free to adopt their own aspiration. Liberals criticise radical because they do not recognise that there is a private sphere in which women can choose to be free.
3. Socialist feminists argue that liberals and radicals have de-emphasised the importance of economic factors in the oppression of women. For them, the inferior exploited status of women in economic life is the true source of their oppression.
4. Radical feminists take issues with socialists, for stressing economic factors. The patriarchal domination of society may have economic elements but the truth is more complex. Patriarchy is cultural and psychological not just economic. By over-stressing economics, radical feminists argue, socialists fail to recognise that there is still a great deal of patriarchy in socialist societies.
5. The tension between difference feminists and equality feminists. Difference feminists say that seeking equality is a recognition that male characteristics are superior. The feminism of difference denies male superiority and seeks a different road to liberated consciousness by stressing sex differences and celebrating the superior quality of women.

Liberal:	Radical:	Socialist:
A reform movement	Revolutionary, seeking a social and cultural revolution	Often revolutionary but proposes an economic transformation of society towards socialism.
Patriarchy is a modern phenomenon which can be combatted through legal and cultural reform	Patriarchy has long and deep historical roots. It has penetrated deep into male and female consciousness	Patriarchy is largely economically based. Men dominate women generally because they dominate them economically
If legal and economic equality can be achieved for women, they will achieve general liberation	Male and female consciousness must change if liberation is to be achieved	Patterns of employment and the economic structure of the family must be transformed to achieve the economic liberation of women
Women should be free to choose how they conduct their lives and their relationships with men	It is not sufficient to create freedom for women – men’s domination must be destroyed and their consciousness of superiority reversed	Women cannot be genuinely free until they achieve economic freedom

Conclusion: Feminism Today:

• Some argue that we live in a post-feminist society but many disagree.
• It remains relevant today as a social movement
• 5 principal areas of action.

1. Liberal feminists have won most of their legal battles in western societies. They still campaign against sexist attitudes and language to seek equality. They notice the discrimination against women at work and in politics. Equal pay remains an aspiration. Women still earn less than men but some groups are trying to close the gender pay gap.
2. The plight of women in traditional societies is a concern for all feminists. An issue is a female circumcision and forced marriage. The denial of education and dress codes also remains an issue.
3. Socialist feminists insist that women are exploited by a class within modern capitalism. The liberation of women will be synonymous with the destruction of free-market capitalism.
4. Radical feminists continue to argue that liberals are deluding themselves if they believe that women can escape oppression through reform. Patriarchy is deeply rooted in modern society. Some areas are still dominated by men such as the media and politics.
5. There are specific campaigns being run by feminist groups in relation to specific groups and issues in society. This includes black and Muslim feminists where issues specific to them have become popular.

Pressure Group Links: UKFEMINISTA:

• A pressure group started to tackle feminism at it’s core: when children are young. They think that feminism starts at an early age and it remains a major issue in the world because children are used to it.
• They want to stop it in schools. They work with the NUT and the National Education Union too.
• They think that many girls in schools are sexually harassed, and it is gendered because it is mainly boys attacking girls.
• Over 37% of girls at secondary school have witnessed some form of sexual harassment whilst 32% of teachers have witnessed sexual harassment in their school on a weekly basis. A further 36% say they witness it daily.
• Stereotyping and discrimination are all usual forms of behaviour by boys in schools, and the pressure group say it starts at primary schools with many teachers who work in primary schools (34%) say they witness name calling towards female pupils from children from boys daily.
• They also want to tackle, that fact that many boys get master degrees and girls do not.

Tackling The Issues:

• They want schools and governing bodies to show teachers and upper staff the information they have found and they hope that teachers can be trained to spot this form of behaviour and how they can tackle it. They do not want children to be punished (because the basis) is already there they do however, want children to know that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable.
• Right now, only 20% of teachers receive training on how to deal with this kind of behaviour and the pressure group want to change this by making over 50% of teachers receive this training
• They realise that teachers workload is too high to be dealing with this but they think that if just 20% of time was spent in a year then this issue could be tackled by 40%.
• They want to set up a safe space for students to report other students without any worry that anything will happen to the victim. But they understand that this will be hard because there is no much space to fund this.

Type Of Feminism:

• They are liberal feminists who aim to reform society in and the evidence suggests that they accept the modern patriarchy can be combatted through cultural reform.
• They want a greater role for women but they accept that for these changes to occur, they need women to be free to choose the type of life they live and relationships with men.

Feminism - All Key Thinkers & Tensions Between Them

Key Thinker 1: Simone de Beauvoir:

• Known as the first existential feminist.
• Externalism set the freedom of the individual against the constrictions placed on him/her by the moral and religious world by opposing them their own will upon life.
• Also developed the idea of women as Other. The idea was that men had characterised women as different, but different in a way of men’s choosing not the choice of women themselves
• She rejected the notion that girls are born without any nurturing instinct rather, she asserts that they learn it from their parents and from their schooling. Their freedom to choose their own way of life is removed almost from birth. The position they play in society has been determined by men.
• Her solution to the plight of women was for women to be granted as the opportunity to make as many choices as men and to be able to escape marriage. They must seek sexual liberation and freedom from the nuclear family
• “One is not born but rather becomes a woman. No biological, psychological or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilisation that produces this creature.”

Key Thinker 2: bell hooks:

• A radical black American feminist, best known for her work in intersectionality.
• She says that society is completely disfigured by inequality in general. Diverse groups, not just women suffer from inequality.
• She thinks that for women to have equality, all of society must have equality.
• hook criticises many feminists for not recognising this reality. They concentrate too much on women. She thinks that for black women to achieve equality, black people must gain equality first. This is true of many groups such as gay men.
• Men have a valid role to play because they can enter the struggle against inequality of all groups.
• hooks thought that women had been taught by the patriarchy to hate themselves. “…patriarchal thinking to see ourselves as always and only in competition with one another in patriarchal approval”
• Two elements hooks had: A more equal society so the disadvantages women face can be reduced and eliminated & men must understand the patriarchy that they are imposing whilst women must break free of the preconceptions about themselves.
• She belongs mainly to the contemporary branch of the movement known as post-modern feminism as she is attempting to break the movement free of its traditional perspective and to accept modern realities.

Key Thinker 3: Sheila Rowbotham:

• A leading English socialist feminist, who thought that Marxists took a narrow view of the oppression of women by confining themselves to analysing the role of women in industrial capitalism.
• She wrote one of the best-known statements in feminist literature when she said: “Men will often admit other women are oppressed but not you” – this implied that men cannot really understand the nature of oppression they are imposing on women.
• Rowbotham sees the best hope for women lies in a socialist future; under capitalism, there is little hope that women will ever be able to escape from patriarchal society. She points out that the greatest advances for women have taken place after socialist revolutions. The capitalist society in the 1980s appeared to offer widening opportunities for women but it did not offer ultimate liberation and little progress was made. Women remained a cheap source of labour.
• She is a Marxist and critic of Marxism. The inferior position of women is seen by Marxists as economically determined with which she agrees but she adds that this is too narrow. Women are oppressed in the home and the wider culture. She thinks women must be freed from oppression from within the home too.
• She thinks that it is much of a task for men to end the oppression than for women. Women cannot do It in their home, they need men to become willing to relinquish their dominant position by seeing patriarchy for what it is really for.

Key Thinker 4: Charlotte Perkins Gilman:

• Expressed her vision of early feminism in both fictional works and scholarly writings.
• Gilman set up an attack on those who suggested that Darwin’s theories could be used to justify male domination of society
• Survival of the fittest suggested that it was biologically inevitable that men should be the dominant sex because they were more suited to be competitive in nature and being stronger. Gilman argued that this was not the case because of the nature of economic activity had changed so much.
• She thought that there were no reason women could not play an equal part in society, she asserted that women had the equal brain power to men and this justified their equality in modern society.
• Women could be liberated is a lay inequality of opportunity and therefore a full place in the world of employment. She understood that girls are socialised from an early age at home or at school to take on the role of motherhood and homemaking rather than thinking of a wider range and career in the economic world outside the home. Their homes in the home are culturally determined – not biologically.
• She wrote “the labour of women in the house certainly enables men to produce more wealth than they could otherwise, and in this way, women are economic factors in society. But so are horses”
• She was concerned that child-rearing and housework amounted to domestic slavery. She campaigned for the destruction of the traditional nuclear family and its replacement by forms of communal living whereby child rearing and housework would be shared both among women and men thus freeing women for a wider role in society.

Key Thinker 5: Kate Millett:

• An American radical feminist. She was first active in the National Organisation for Women but she quickly moved towards a more radical form of politics.
• She sees the dominance of men in terms of both sexism – an entrenched belief in male superiority and heterosexualism – the idea that heterosexual relationships are superior to gay relationships.
• Her main contention in Sexual Politics was that it is necessary for women to find sexual liberation first if they are to achieve liberation in general life. Heterosexual relationships are political in a patriarchal society because they involve men exercising power over women.
• She also analysed women’s place in society. She thought that when one group oppresses another, the result is political in nature and the solution must be the liberation of the oppressed group.
• Some of her ideas chime with ideas of socialist ideas with working-class women “the toil of working-class women is more readily accepted as “need”, if not always by the working class itself. It serves the purpose of making cheap labour in factory and low-grade service… It fails to threaten patriarchy financially or psychologically.”
• She also implied in the above quotations that Millett criticised parts of the feminist movement for being concerned largely with problems relating to middle-class women.

Summary Of Key Thinkers:
	Human Nature:	The State:	Society:	The Economy:
Simone De Beauvoir:	Gender differences are created by men in society. They are not natural	The state reinforces a culture that prevents women from expressing their true freedom and identity	De Beauvoir’s existentialism dominated her feminism. Social constraints prevent individuals, not just women from attaining self-realisation and true freedom	Men’s domination of economic life restricts the life choices open to women
bell hooks:	Women, in common with men, have multiple identities and therefore experience multiple forms of oppression	The state is dominated by white males and therefore reflects and reinforces their dominant position in society	Society is full of complex relationships between different minorities. To resolve social conflict, love between different minority cultures must be established	Women living in poverty have problems that middle-class women do not face. The liberation of the poor is an economic as well as a social issue
Sheila Rowbotham:	Women’s consciousness of the world is created by men	The state is the servant of capitalism	The nature of society is economically determined. Society reflects the dominant position of both capitalists and men in general	Rowbotham has a Marxist perspective. Women are a low-paid reverse army of labour
Charlotte Perkins Gilman:	The biological differences between men and women are irrelevant. Women can compete equally with men.	Gilman had no especially distinctive views on the state.	Society has always assigned inferior roles to women. In modern society, this no longer has any justification	The domestic servitude of women allowed men to dominate the outside economic world.
Kate Millett:	Women are all capable of freeing themselves from male oppression by engaging in lesbian relationships	The state is merely the agent of patriarchy. It is part of the problem but not the solution	Modern society is completely characterised by patriarchy, which is all pervasive and infests both the private and public sphere.	Millett is a quasi-socialist but this is not fundamental to her feminism.

Feminism - Post-Modern Feminism

Post-Modern Feminism:

• A general term that refers to the modern tendency to reject forms of thinking which have become limited by their confinement to the traditional ways of viewing the world.
• This means rejecting the fixed ideas of various theorists such as radicals and socialists.
• Stresses the importance of language in carrying forward patriarchal attitudes and sexism.
• In practice, this means that women must be given the freedom to make choices for themselves. It could be a traditional role or it could be competing with men. The same can be said for their sexuality.
• The search will continue as women cannot make such free choices if patriarchy and male superiority continues to fly.
• Known as third wave feminism. Includes intersectionality, rather than being a woman but including roles such as black women or gay women.
• Known as post-structuralism, suggesting that the traditional structures of society have broken down and so cannot be cared for.
• Post-feminists reject the traditional discourse used by radical feminists, suggesting instead that it is for each woman to choose her own lifestyle and to find her own liberation.

Feminism - Radical, Cultural & Socialist Feminists

Radical Feminism:

• They propose the destruction of patriarchal society and its transformation into a completely new form
• Liberal feminists are reformists: A term often used to describe moderate liberal feminists who wish to reform society rather than transform it. Radical feminists use the term pejoratively of liberals.
  Radical feminists stress the importance of female consciousness in both their critique of patriarchy and their proposals for a new social order
• Known as difference feminists: See women as different but equal or even superior to men. The difference should be accepted and even celebrated. Equality feminists seek to eliminate cultural differences between the sexes in the pursuit of quality.

Radical Perspectives On Patriarchy:

• Kate Millett looked first to the family to aid understanding of patriarchy. In marriage, she argued women are exploited both sexually and economically. This is a common theme among radical feminists.
• She stated in her book that men oppress women in all friends, in-home, economy and in life in general. She stated it was because of the exercise of power.
• Germaine Greer stated that men hated women and women are taught to hate themselves to an inferior position.
• Firestone saw the struggle as a dialectic class struggle and the struggle relates to the traditional bondage of always being confined to the home.
• Andrea Dworkin was the most modern radical feminist against the sexual oppression of women. She stated that pornography was a man’s view of women as sex objects – she stated that to change this, women would have to become lesbians.
• She thought that patriarchy destroys any ideas of potential liberation

Radical Responses To Patriarchy:

• The abolition of the nuclear family and its replacement by communal forms of child-rearing and living in general. This will naturally remove the male domination of the family.
• Sexual liberation is critical for many radicals. Women can be free from male-female relationships.
• Elimination of biological roles is perhaps the most radical solution of all. Firestone began the idea of androgyny, the removal of sex differences – she saw a world where women will no longer need men to reproduce

Cultural Feminism:

• A type of feminism that accepts that women are born with diverse cultural characterises to men as well as biological differences. These characteristics are both useful to society and in some cases, superior to the male characters.
• They think that differences should be embraced rather than opposed.
• Explores the essence of women and finds that it is more caring and nurturing than the essence of men which tends to be more aggressive.
• Eco-feminists have adopted this view as the female essence is more peaceful and just.
• Cultural feminists accept that women are more likely to take up domestic roles but value them highly or even more highly than some roles played by men.

Socialist Feminists:

• Marxist feminists look to the ideas of Friedrich Engle’s who pointed out that women were becoming a key element in the future of capitalism.
• Women have always been oppressed in terms of property, therefore, they have oppressed by property owners
• Their lack of property forced them into paid employment
• Modern Marxist feminists take a similar view but criticise Engle’s for over-stressing the importance of property as women are increasingly owning property. But they remain an exploited part of the workforce
• Less extreme socialists have rejected the idea that class is the only idea that has any meaning, they argue that class and patriarchy are sources of oppression. They tend to concentrate on the working-class women whilst liberals focus on equal chances and pay for women.
• Socialist feminists argue that only the extreme modification of capitalism will liberate women from their inferior economic position e.g. the state ownership of industry will eliminate the need for women to compete against men for employment.
• Sheila Rowbotham is described as a socialist rather than Marxist and for her female oppression has economic roots but it also stems from the traditional nature of the nuclear family and the dominance of male sexuality.
• Equality for women is a precondition for sexual revolution but it is not enough to raise the consciousness of women or to ensure their ability to define their own future.
• Socialists seek the liberation of women from their economic dependence upon men.
• Power must be distributed more evenly in society so that even working-class women would benefit and so there is a change in culture

Are Women Inevitably Oppressed And Discriminated Against Under Capitalism:
Yes:	No:
If men dominate positions of economic power, they will discriminate against women	Women are making progress in achieving senior positions in life.
The predominance of women playing domestic roles means that men are bound to dominate economic life	No longer inevitable that women must concentrate on domestic roles – women can play a full part in the economic life outside the home
Women’s innate lack of aggressiveness and competitiveness makes them ill-suited to the world of capitalism	No such thing as the ‘innate non-aggressive’ nature of women. If women are more caring, it would make a more humane form of capitalism.

Feminism - Liberal Feminism

Liberal Feminists:

• First wave feminism was largely liberal in its nature.
• Liberty: They wanted women to be free to choose the nature of their own lives.
• Equal opportunity with men in education, the same civil rights, enjoy private rights, same democratic rights.
• Influences included Mary Wollstonecraft and the suffrage movement.
• When these objectives were noticed, it was evident that it was far from enough and women remained an inferior gender suffering from discrimination.
• By the 1960s, it became evident that women were still suffering and Friedan said the problem was cultural in nature and it became known as the “problem with no name” implying that it was largely undiscovered. She said that women did not recognise the nature of their oppression. Men themselves are the victims of patriarchy because they have been socially conditioned to think of themselves as superior.
• Otherness: In feminist theory, otherness refers to the position of women in patriarchal society, treated as separate to society, an inferior minority, subordinate to men
• After the true nature of patriarchy was revealed by writers, women took up the cause by themselves. Liberals believe that women should be able to choose what role they take, it could be traditional domestic.
• 3 ways to combat patriarchy: End discrimination described as gender equality. Cultural attitudes had to be demeaned as a women’s sense of inferiority had to combatted achieved through education. They want political and legal equality.

Does Liberal Feminism Fail To Understand The True Nature Of The Patriarchy:
Yes:	No:
They do not understand the nature of the working class or ethnic minorities	They claim that the cultural nature such as sexism plays a bigger role
In a capitalist society, they do not understand how it oppresses them	By achieving legal equality, the patriarchy will decline as men will no longer hold dominant positions in society
They underestimate the “personal is political” and how relationships are power in nature	Women now have more knowledge and are slowly combating the patriarchy.

Feminism - The State, Society & The Economy

The State:

• Do not have a distinctive theory of the state, socialist feminists see the state as the agent of capitalism and since capitalism naturally exploits women, the state is the ultimate architect of such exploitation.
• The main characteristic of the modern state that concerns feminists relates to patriarchy. Oppression and exploitation of women in a male-dominated society – the state allows this exploitation.
• Liberals will argue that the state is reluctant to address the inferior position of women as themselves are dominated by men.
• Radical feminists will view such developments as welcome but also superficial. Such reforms do not address the more fundamental problem of the systemic nature of discrimination. Patriarchy is more pervasive than their forms suggest. These problems have been deeply rooted and the state is powerless to combat them.

Society:

Patriarchy:

• Many feminists see society as a deeply patriarchal in nature.
• For socialist feminists, they see capitalism as an area where workers have been exploited whilst radical feminists think the patriarchy is damaging women rather than workers.
• It can be combated in one of two ways: A full-scale attack on cultural values in society involving violent resistance to male dominance. Or create a female counter-cultural separate altogether from the patriarchal society.
• Liberals think reform is the solution.

Equality & Difference Feminism:

• Equality feminists have limited aspirations. They seek equality for women in all spheres. They are described as liberals.
• Difference Feminism is more complex. They see men and women as having differences and they should be recognised in society. They do not believe that one gender is superior to the other, they believe that the differences should be embraced. They believe some characteristics are better.
• Equality feminists believe that differences automatically lead to inequality and it must benefit men only.

Intersectionality:

• This contemporary, post-modern idea among feminists suggest that women have multiple identities as well as their female sex and gender. Thus, the problems women face is intersectional, involving a combination of their female identity and other identities such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, social class, and religion.
• Many critics suggest that feminism tended to be a largely white, middle class, one size fits all movement. Whilst pointing out that women from a variety of social and cultural backgrounds face very different problems. E.g. the oppression faced by black women vs white women.
• Kimberlee Crenshaw pointed out that in modern society we all have multiple identities and gender is not the only identity we have. Traditional feminism suggests that gender is everything but intersectionality says not.
• Bell Hooks stresses race as key identity and insists that the battle against sexism. She thinks that there needs to be a black feminist movement etc.

The Economy:

• All feminists are agreed that women are discriminated against in the economic world. E.g. low paid low skills.
• Socialists feminists go further saying that there is a reserve army of labour: Developed by Friedrich Engels, suggesting that in an industrial capitalist system, women form such a group to increase output in the short term and to keep wages low but the group can be dispensed with when not required.
• Similar in the way men were oppressed when capitalism first came about, women are oppressed in a post-industrial society.

Feminism - Origins & Human Nature

The Origins Of Feminism:

• Increasingly across the world, you will find a growing female consciousness and opposition to a male-dominated world.
• Some say that the African Tribes with strong women were the backbone of feminism in Ancient Greece
• Others say that the French Revolution is the starting point of feminism as we saw early ideas that women would want to share equal rights with men.
• The first well-known and rigorous work on women’s rights was written by an English liberal – Mary Wollstonecraft.
• She does not go as far as mentioning equal rights but she advocated equality for women and, good education and a status as a good member of society.
• She thought to be a good wife and mother was good enough but accepted that women had to be independent of their husbands
• Wollstonecraft was not a feminist in the modern age society but she was a pioneer for it
• These early signs were not substantial, feminism was regarded as a strong political and social movement in the last 19^th century such as when John Stuart Mills and his wife, Harriet Taylor campaigned for the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act which allowed women to keep property after they were married.
• Votes for women was the campaign that set feminism on the path it is on today.
• In 1890 the National American Women Suffrage was founded which was later followed by the National Women’s Party and by 1920 the constitutional amendment was passed which guaranteed equal voting rights for women.
• In the UK, the Women Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded in 1903 and run by the Pankhurst family.
• When Emmeline led the movement to get women after the age of 30 the vote (they could also stand in Parliament) it was seen to be the first wave of feminism in the UK.
• Many thought that after the vote was granted, many more rights would be given to women but nothing of the sort happened until the 1960s when second-wave feminism began.
• The second wave was part of a broader cultural movement which was a general critique of post-industrial society which wanted to identify various social groups such as the black population, gay community, the poor and of course women. Feminism had well and truly arrived!

The Core Ideas Of Feminism:

Human Nature:

Sex:

• The feminism movement developed the distinction between the two.
• Sex: Refers to the biological differences between men and women. They are seen as inevitable natural and unalterable.
• The most significant difference is that women give birth and play a decisive role in the life of a new-born whilst men do not. It could also refer to the physical strength that women have compared to men
• For most feminists, sex differences are irrelevant to the way in which women are treated in society whilst other feminists see sex or biological differences as important and some go as far to say they are the explanation of the inferior status of women. This is known as essentialism.
• Essentialism: This is a contested idea within feminism. The term refers to the fundamental natures of the biological differences between men and women. Some feminists say such differences are essential to an understanding of the status of women others claim it should be irrelevant.
• Radical feminists agree that biology may have determined the inferior status of women but they do not think the argument is relevant today.

Gender:

• Gender refers to the cultural differences between the sexes, leading to a feeling of superiority of men and inferiority of women and the assessments of inferior roles in society to women. Feminists view gender differences as the creation of patriarchal society and see them as not natural. Sex and gender stereotypes, such as typical female secretaries or male chief executives are the results of such distinctions.
• There used to a dominant attitude in society that sex and gender were linked – that the distinct roles played by women were biologically determined. Women, for example, should be unable to undertake demanding jobs because of their need to give birth and care for young children. Similarly, women would naturally have a more caring and humane attitude to life because of their childrearing role and would be less suited to the competitive world of business.
• There was a male-dominated cultural perspective that suggested that women were inferior to men because of the roles they play in motherhood and homemaking were seen to be less important than earning outside the home.
• Lack of education and occupational opportunities open to women reinforced the general cultural belief that men were superior.
• Betty Friedan, described as the founder of second-wave feminism, said that gender differences were so deep-rooted that women themselves tended to share them with men as she wrote “Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts, and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – “is this all?”
• Liberal feminists accept the significance of sex differences but regard gender differences and the superiority of men as an artificial construct created by male-dominated societies (patriarchal). There is, they say, no reason biological differences between the sexes should be converted into gender differences. The idea is reinforced by education and the media. They focus on the need to reform. They think change can come.
• Radical feminists such as Juliet Mitchell see gender differences as all-pervading and more deep-rooted than the liberal feminists believe. They believe that male genders exist in all aspects of all life. It must be destroyed. Shulasmith was a very radical feminist who thought the very sex differences have led to the oppression of women. She wanted androgyny, a state where men and women would co-exist without sexual relations. People should be free to choose their sexual identity and may choose to have no sexual identity at all.
• Socialist feminists, see the oppression or inferior status of women as being bound up with the whole operation of capitalism. They have become an oppressed class. They think they have become a cheap source of labour. At home, they are unpaid and outside they are paid for low-skilled jobs. They dub it as “second-class labour”

The Personal Is Political:

• An important idea which helps us to distinguish between liberal and radical feminists.
• Liberal feminists advocate the separation of the private sphere from the public sphere.
• Private Sphere: Refers to those aspects of life which are the concern of the individual and her close family and friends only. For a liberal, the private sphere should not concern of the state or the rest of society unless harm is being done to the individual within the private sphere e.g. domestic violence.
• Public Sphere: Refers to those aspects of social, political, and economic life that concern the whole community and so are not confined to the home and the private lives of women.
• If thoughts and actions do not harm others, say liberals, there is no justification for interference.
• We live in a public sphere because our actions do affect others because they concern the government and the laws they make e.g. equality laws, anti-discrimination laws, equal pay laws, domestic violence laws.