MRM Secret Agent Spy:  Mini Mission

LIBERAL FEMINISM

• ‘1^st wave’ feminism – sex is unimportant because women are rational
• Wollstonecraft’s A vindication of the rights of women: Women entitled to same rights and privileges as men on grounds of being a human being.
• John Stuart Mill + Harriet Taylor On the subjection of women – society organized according to reason not ‘accident of birth’, sex= irrelevant
• 2^nd wave- Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique: Cultural myth – women seek security and fulfilment in domestic life.
• Individualism- equal moral worth, rational grounds, equal rights, participate + gain access to political life.
• Suffrage based on liberal individualism, female emancipation gained through equal voting rights.
• Want to break legal/social pressures restrict women from careers, representation+ being politically active.
• Reformist-open public life + equal competition
• Do not want to abolish distinction between public/private life
• Reform: establish equal rights in public sphere.
• Men+ women different natures- natural impulses incline women to domestic life.
• Freidan: Difficulty with reconciling ‘personhood’ + home and family.
• Reflects interests of white, middle class women who can take advantage of wider opportunities- ignore other social disadvantages (“white feminism”? “privileged feminism”?)

MRM Secret Agent Spy:  Mini Mission

SOCIALIST FEMINISM

• Emerged in 2^nd half of 20^th century – believed the relationship between sexes rooted in social+ economic structure, therefore genuine Emancipation requires social revolution
• Friedrich Engels: The origins of the family, private property and state- position of women in society changed due to development of capitalism+ private property: pre-capitalist societies communist+ ‘Mother-right’. Capitalism based on male ownership= ‘The world historical defeat of the female sex’; Female oppression operates though family; ‘Bourgeois family’ patriarchal + oppressive
• Men achieve undisputed paternity-monogamous relationships, which men ignore- women compensated through ‘cult of femininity’: attractions of romantic love (organized hypocrisy-protect male privileges and property).
• Utopian socialists Charles Fourier+ Owen: traditional families replaced by communal living+ ‘free love’.
• Confinement of women to domestic sphere serves economic interests of capitalism: women constitute ‘reserve army of labour’, recruited to increase production then return to domestic life.
• Women produce next generation of capitalism’s workers/relieve men of burden of house work allow them to focus on paid + productive employment; so provides workers incentive to find + keep work- provide for family-‘breadwinners’ enjoy higher status.
• Orthodox Marxists: class politics more important than women’s rights – female emancipation will be a by-product of socialist revolution
• Modern Socialists: Little progress made for women in socialist societies (Soviet Union). Socialism won’t end Patriarchy. Sexual oppression as important as class .Interplay of economic, social, political, cultural forces.
• Juliet Mitchell: Women fulfil 4 social functions: 1) Members of workforce. 2) Bear children. 3) Socialize children. 4) Sex objects: Liberation requires emancipation in all 4 areas.

MRM Secret Agent Spy:  Mini Mission

RADICAL FEMINISM

• Gender = most important of all social divisions; women inferior + subordinate to men – Stereotype of ‘femininity’ imposed on women by men.
• Women conditioned to passive sexual role-repressed true sexuality + active side of personalities; women ‘Castrated’- turned into ‘sexless’ objects.
• Kate Millet: Sexual politics- patriarchy = social constant running through all political, social, economic structures – origins lie in structure of family.
• Roles of men + women originate from processes of ‘conditioning’- conform to specific gender identities, therefore female liberation requires sexual revolution
• Most believe Human nature = androgynous
• Difference feminists: extols positive virtues of fertility+ motherhood – women should embrace sisterhood + female bonds, accept differences between men + women- women superior: creative, sensitive +caring
• Roots of patriarchy lie within male sex- all men physically/psychologically disposed to oppress women – men dominate women through physical+ Sexual abuse, Male abuse= Biological (therefore) Sexual equality impossible
• All heterosexual relationships involve oppression – heterosexual women ‘male identified’
• Lead to political Lesbianism – women celibate/lesbian to be female-identified; Separatism/ lesbianism divided women’s movement

MRM:  Mini Mission

POST-MODERNISM FEMINISM

‘Third wave feminism’

• adopted by younger generation – believed campaigns and demands of 60’s+70’s not relevant to them due to new issues and social transformations; adopted radical engagement with the politics of difference – show a great concern for the differences amongst women.
• Tried to rectify over emphasis of earlier forms of feminism on middle class women; modern women’s movement characterized by diversity and hybridity, showcasing voices of low-income women, women in developing world and ‘women of colour’ to be heard effectively.

‘Black feminism’

• challenged tendency in forms of feminism, to ignore racial differences and for them suggest women endure common oppression by virtue of sex.
• sexism and racism as linked systems of oppression- highlights complex range of gender, racial, and economic disadvantages that confront women of colour.

Post-modernist/Post-structuralist feminism

• poststructualism – all ideas and concepts are expressed in language that is enmeshed in complex relations of power
• Postsructualism drawn attention to link between power and systems of thought and discourse or ‘discourse of power’- knowledge=power.
• Poststructuralist/postmodernist feminists question idea of a fixed female identity- idea of ‘women’=fiction
• Supposedly indisputable biological differences between sexes are significantly shaped by gender discourses (discourse=human interaction, especially communication, may disclose or illustrate power relations).

‘new feminism’

• (Natasha Walter) seeks to address political, economic and social inequalities that disadvantage women, while at the same time not policing their clothes, personal or sexual behaviour.
• Walter drew attention to strengthening of cultural sexism through ‘hypersexualisation’ of girls and women and the rise of the cult of ‘exaggerated femininity’.

‘post feminism’

• linked to deradicalization and defined by a rejection of second wave feminism.
• Camille Paglia attacked tendency for feminists to portray women as victims- women should take responsibility for own sexual and personal conduct
• Naomi Wold- told women to use ‘new female power’-principle impediments to women’s role advancement= psychological not political
• Germaine Greer criticized ‘life-style feminism’ – saying women ‘having it all’- abandoned goal of liberation, settled for phoney equality – amounts to assimilation, male behaviour+ values.
• Capacity for patriarchy to reproduce itself through generations – subordinating women through fake forms of emancipation