Perspectives on Gender

YOUR TASK: Match the perspective on gender to the ideological group.

Feminists     Difference feminists     Religious fundamentalists

Liberals     Conservatives     Socialists     Fascists

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….. have traditionally regarded differences between women and men as being of entirely private or personal significance. In public and political life all people are considered as individuals, gender being as irrelevant as ethnicity or social class. In this sense, individualism is ‘gender-blind’.

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….. have traditionally emphasised the social and political significance of gender divisions, arguing that they imply that the sexual division of labour between women and men is natural and inevitable. Gender is thus one of the factors that gives society its organic and hierarchical character.

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….. like liberals, have rarely treated gender as a politically significant category. When gender divisions are significant it is usually because they reflect and are sustained by deeper economic and class inequalities.

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….. view gender as a fundamental division within humankind. Men naturally monopolize leadership and decision-making, while women are suited to an entirely domestic, supportive and subordinate role.

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…… usually see gender as a cultural or political distinction, in contrast to biological and ineradicable sexual differences. Gender divisions are therefore a manifestation of male power.

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….. may nevertheless believe that gender differences reflect a psycho-biological gulf between female and male attributes and sensibilities.

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…… usually regard gender as a God-given division, and thus as one that is crucial to social and political organization. Patriarchal structures and the leadership of males therefore tend to be regarded as natural and desirable.