Feminism : Sex and Politics

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  • Feminism : Sex and Politics
    • Liberal Feminism
      • Early feminism, particularly the ‘first wave’ of the women's movement, was deeply influenced by the ideas and values of liberalism.
      • Argued that women should be entitled to the same rights and privileges as men on the ground that they are ‘human beings’.
      • ‘Distinction of sex’ would become unimportant in political and social life if women gained access to education and were regarded as national creatures in their own right
      • John Stuart Mill proposed that society should be organised according to the principle of ‘reason’ and accidents at birth such as sex should be irrelevant. Women should be entitled to the same rights and liberties enjoyed by men.
      • ‘Second wave’ feminism has a liberal component, The Feminine Mystique marked the resurgence of feminist thought in the 1960s.
      • The ‘feminine mystique’ to which Friedan referred is the cultural myth that women seek security and fulfilment in domestic life and ‘feminine’ behaviour, a myth that serves to discourage women from entering employment, politics and public life in general.
      • She highlighted what she called ‘the problem with no name’, by which she meant the sense of despair and deep unhappiness many women experience because they are confined to a domestic existence, unable to gain fulfilment in a career or through political life.
      • Individuals are entitled to equal treatment, regardless of their sex, race, colour, creed or religion. If individuals are to be judged, it should be on rational grounds, on the content of their character, their talents, or their personal worth.
      • Liberal feminism is essentially reformist: it seeks to open up public life to equal competition between women and men, rather than to challenge what many feminists see as the patriarchal structure of society itself.
      • In particular, liberal feminists generally do not wish to abolish the distinction between the public and private spheres of life. Reform is necessary, they argue, but only to ensure the establishment of equal rights in the public sphere
      • At a deeper level, radical feminists have drawn attention to the limitations of individualism as the basis for gender politics.
      • In the first place, an individualist perspective draws attention away from the structural character of patriarchy, in which women are subordinated not as individuals who happen to be denied rights or opportunities, but as a sex that is subject to systematic and pervasive oppression.
      • However, this may at best depoliticize sexual relations by, in effect, making gender invisible, and at worst it may foist male attributes and aspirations on women, because the allegedly sexless ‘individual’ invariably embodies concealed male norms. Treating people equally may thus mean treating women like men.
      • Second, the stress in individualism upon ‘personhood’ may make it more difficult for women to think and act collectively on the basis of their common gender identity, their ‘sisterhood’.
      • Third, liberal individualism may only appear to rise above gender differences. In viewing human beings as individuals, liberalism seems to transcend gender and other social identities, enabling people to be valued on the basis of personal talents and achievements.
    • Socialist Feminism
      • Engles believes that capitalism added to female oppression because wealth is passed down by male heirs which leads to ‘historic defeat of female sex’. Before this ‘mother right’ accepted inheritance. Bourgeois idea of nuclear family, which men don’t stick to.
      • Some socialists believe traditional, patriarchal family should be replace with communal living and ‘free love’, as advocated by early Utopian socialist such as Charles Fourier.
      • Many socialist feminists believe that women’s domestic role supports economic interests because they are the reserve army of labour, used to rebuild economy and prop up economy. Giving birth to next generation of workers. Image of men being workers, while women being domestic housewives encouraged under capitalism.
      • Orthodox Marxists believe that ‘class war’ is more important than ‘sex war’ because once there is a classless and stateless society sexual harmony will be achieved, gender equality will be accomplished.
      • Modern socialist feminists such as Juliet Mitchell believe that class politics is not above sexual politics because, socialism does not in itself, end patriarchy. As shown in Soviet Union. Women need to achieve liberation with neo Marxism that accepts the interplay of economic, social, political and culture.
      • They need to liberate themselves from four social functions;       - They are members of the workforce and are active in production  -They bear children and thus reproduce the human species.          - They are respond for socializing children          -They are sex objects.    Until women are liberated from these roles sex is just as important if not more important than class.
    • Radical Feminism
      • 1st and 2nd wave are criticized as that only seeked to achieve public sphere rights, for example right to vote and rights, without addressing inequality in the private sphere, where women are oppressed by family roles.
      • Greer believed women had the role of domestic, and sex roles being unable to express themselves as they are stuck in those roles.
      • Millet thinks the patriarchy can be challenged through consciousness re raising, changing opinions and raising awareness of societal conditioning from a very early age.
      • Some radical ‘pro women’ feminists believe women are superior as they have aspects of femininity such as being creative, caring, givers of life, whereas men are as aggressive.
      • Female separatists advocate that society admits a ‘**** culture’, men dominate women through physical and sexual abuse. Creates a ‘conscious process of intimidating by which all men keep all women in a state of fear’. Men **** because they can, because they have the ‘biological capacity to ****’, and even men that do not **** benefit from the fear and anxiety that **** provokes amongst all women.
    • Third wave feminism and beyond
      • Third wave feminism is associated with younger generation of feminists who believe demands in 1960s-70s were of limited relevance to their own lives. (New feminist issues arose, and the political and social transformation that has been brought about)
      • Unifying theme of third wave feminism is ‘politics of difference’, that emphasises women are different to men, showing the differences within women.
      • The difference within women has shown the diversity and hybridity within feminism for example liberal feminism and its effect on middle class women has allowed for the emergence of black feminism.
      • Third wave feminism believes ‘identity’ especially womens identity is constructed and can be reconstructed which shows the effect of poststructuralism and discourse.
      • Third wave feminists question the idea of a fixed female identity, even the idea of ‘woman’ may be nothing more than fiction, as some women are not capable to bear children for example
      • Reaction to political, social, economic inequalities that disadvantage women, and combat cultural sexism as seen as the hypersexualisation of girls and women and the exaggerated femininity.
      • Greer argued women abandoned the goal of liberation and settled for phoney equality that amounts to assimilation of aping male behaviour and male values. This shows the idea the patriarchy can reproduce itself through subordinating women through the creation of borgus forms of emancipation.

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