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FEMINIST THEORIES
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| Liberal Feminism/
aka egalitarianism feminism |
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All people are created equal,
women are essentially the same as men |
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Based
upon principle of equality of opportunity and freedom |
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Gender
not determined by sex |
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Inequality
stems from unequal participation in spheres outside of the family,
primarily education and paid labour force |
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Seek
social changes that will create a meritocracy where social rank is
based on merit and in which hierarchy and inequality are both
inevitable and acceptable |
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Faith in rationality |
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Education is means to change |
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Oppression of women is not a structural feature of
capitalist economic system |
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Look to state to bring about women's liberation through
legislative measures - equality through law |
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Programs
advocated include affirmative action, equal opportunity employment,
employment equity, pay equity, parental leave, subsidized daycare |
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professional and middle-class women |
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National Action Committee on the Status of Woman (N.A.C.):
umbrella organization representing 500 hundred feminist-oriented women's
group |
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National Organization of Women
(N.O.W.) |
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Marxist
Feminism |
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| Primary
source of female oppression is the capitalist economic system, i.e.
inferior position of women linked to class-based capitalistic system
and family structure within this system |
| Women’s
subordination was a consequence of the introduction of private
property, women became the property of men and the first oppressed
class |
| Women’s
oppression caused by their economic dependence in the family but also
in the work force, this keeps an exploitable reserve labour force |
| Women
have always had unpaid work (housewife) and most low paying and boring
jobs |
| Women
must have equal participation in the economic production process |
| Propose
wages for housework, developing a system for paying women directly for
their household work |
| Sexuality
is to feminism what work is to Marxism |
| working class women |
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Socialist Feminism |
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| Integrate issues of gender and class, i.e. unite concepts
of patriarchy and capitalism,
seeks to eliminate both class and gender oppression |
| Women's oppression caused by their economic dependence |
| Economic
production systems of sexuality, childbearing and childrearing, care
of other members of family and sick, and gender socialization must all
be looked at |
| Investigate
interface between women’s paid labour and domestic labour lives |
| Traditional
sexuality script is emblematic of gender power relations |
| Abolition of gender and class are goals where socialism
will only occur with the liberation of women and women's liberation will only occur under
socialism |
| working class women |
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Radical Feminism |
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| Women
live under conditions of inequality in most systems of economic
production regardless of whether capitalist, socialist or communist |
| Gender
is the fundamental form of difference, little emphasis on class or
ethnicity |
| Patriarchy,
women’s oppression and domination by men, is the fundamental
oppression and at the root of other isms |
| Patriarchy
pervades public world of formal economic production processes but also
private worlds of family, marriage, sexuality and biological
reproduction |
| Introduced
the phrase the personal is political and then also the political is
personal |
| Social
change is necessary in both private and public worlds |
| Seek
to replace existing gender roles with androgyny, any resulting
differences would then be human not gender differences |
| Some
focus specifically on the male physical, psychological and social
control of female sexuality as the basic cause of female subordination |
| Some
focus on the tyranny of reproductive biology from which women must be
liberated, and thus they seek to eliminate biological sex as basis of
social differentiation |
| First
to introduce the following as feminist issues:
reproductive and contraceptive rights, abortion, reproductive
technologies, sexuality expression and experience, sexual and physical
violence against women (rape, sexual harassment, incest, pornography
and domestic violence) |
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Cultural Feminism |
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| A
branch of radical feminism |
| Identify
suppression of distinctive or different female qualities, experiences,
and values as the primary cause of women’s subordination |
| Don’t
focus on elimination of patriarchy but rather seek to create an
alternative female consciousness where existence of gender differences
are stressed by the identification, rehabilitation and nurturance of
women’s qualities |
| Idea
of women’s cultures emphasizing consensual nonhierarchical
decision-making processes, valuing responsibility, connection
community, negotiation, altruism, nurturance, from this we have
ecofeminism and pacifist feminism |
| Pornography
is the theory, rape is the practice since believe that male sexuality
if selfish, violent and women-hating, linking male sexuality as
violence against women with pornography |
| Advocates
lesbianism as a personal and political choice that expresses ultimate
rejection of patriarchy |
| Separation
from men in every way (some only advocate separation from male
values), i.e. create institutions for women and sever relationships
with men |
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Postmodern Feminism |
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| all
women are different and thus can never generalize |
| a
feminist theory is not possible |
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Multicultural/Global Feminism |
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| recognizing all other differences not just gender |
| Focuses
on inclusion of oppressions based on gender, class, ethnicity,
sexuality, able-bodiedness and age |
| Intersection of gender with race, class and issues of
colonization and exploitation of women in developing world |
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