Feminism

Public/private divide

- politics is usually understood in the public sphere

- family and personal relationships are thought as personal

- modern feminists think politics takes place within all social groups

- feminists argue sexual equality has been preserved because the sexual division of labour running throughout society is thought of as natural

- public sphere has been restricted to men - politics art etc.

- women are confined to a private existence - family, domesticity

- feminists challenge the divide between the public man and the private woman

- radical feminists oppose the idea that feminism stops at the front door - the personal is the political. Female oppression operates in every walk of life

- liberal feminists object to women being restricted to accessing the private sphere but warn against politicising the private sphere which is a realm of personal choice and freedom

Patriarchy

- radical feminists think gender is the deepest and most politically important social division

- sexism is a form of oppression

- society is based on a system of sexual equality and oppression but conventional political theories have ignored this

- patriarchy is the realtionship between men and women. Some feminists just see this as families being dominated by the father.

- Dominance of the father is the family symbolises male supremacy in all institutions

- Men have dominated women…