Includes 10 hugely detailed essay plans, covers all the points you would need in the exam. Each plan has numerous agree and disagree points aswell as including the key thinkers in them all.
To what extent do feminists agree on sex and gender?
To what extent do feminists agree over the concept of patriarchy?
To what extent do feminists agree that the personal is the political?
To what extent is equality rather than difference the goal of feminism?
To what extent do feminists agree/disagree on the economy?
To what extent do feminists agree/disagree on the role of the state?
To what extent do feminists agree/disagree on their view of human nature?
To what extent do feminists agree/disagree on their view of how society
should be organised?
To what extent do feminists disagree on their goals and how to achieve
them?
To what extent do radical feminists criticise liberal feminism?
The state
Agree:
• State has been a tool for the patriarchy in the oppression of women – denying women
power and representation. First Wave Feminists looked to the state as a means to
overcome this. Mary Wollstonecraft spoke of the ‘Rights of Women’. Many feminists
unite in the demand for legal, economic and political equality. This can be seen by the
continued lack of female representation in the House of Commons and Lords - At 32%,
the UK is in 39th position in the proportion of women in the lower (or only) house of
parliament. Rwanda has over 61%, and along with Cuba and Bolivia has a majority of
women in parliament. KATE MILLETT: “it is precisely because certain groups have no
representation in a number of recognised political structures that their position tends to
be so stable, their oppression so continuous”
• SYLVIA WALBY – State one of the six structures of patriarchy.
• BELL HOOKS – state – controlled by white men; but like LIBERALS believes it can be
reformed…
• Many feminists agree in the Equality of Opportunity – Liberalism is most closely
associated with this (policies and schemes designed to improve the life chances of
everyone regardless of their social background.) Evidence women are denied this:
glass ceiling, gender pay gap etc.
• In Politics: women who are not mothers can face challenges in the workplace, consider
how in 2016 Andrea Leadsom when she was running for to become Conservative Party
leader argued that being a mother made her a stronger candidate than Theresa May.
Consider also the scrutiny female politicians face over the their appearance or threats
of physical danger from internet trolls – Luciana Berger and Jess Phillips.
Disagree:
• Socialists the state is an agent of capitalism – capitalism exploits women, so the state is
the architect of such exploitation. Liberals would disagree – they support capitalism –
believe in freedom and see the state as possible to be reformed.
• LIBERALS - will see that the state can facilitate reform within a liberal democratic
structure e.g. legislative changes. SOCIALISTS see the state as an instrument of class
rule designed to protect and advance the interests of the bourgeoisie whilst
simultaneously acting as an instrument of patriarchy. SOCIALIST feminist SHEILA
ROWBOTHAM – believes only a revolutionary socialist movement will secure social
gains for women. She believes men and women should stand together against the
oppression of capitalism – but there needs to be a “revolution within a revolution.” to
ensure that once the revolution is over, women are not again relegated to the role of
care giver and housewife. RADCIALS believe the estate is a creation of the male world
view and therefore needs to be transformed to create a more female-centred construct
of society – they reject reformist strategies.
• Liberals see the state as the way to erase patriarchy and ensure equality – part of the
solution; Radical feminists argue that genuine equality requires more than just waving
a politician’s pen – it demands fundamental and lasting social change – they cite the
continued gender pay gap four decades after the legislation was passed to ensure
equal pay for all. Post modern feminists would argue that the state is too white, male
and unequal (note USA never passes the Equal Rights Amendment) – it needs to
become equal to all needs – intersectionality (Kimberlé Crenshaw) and bell hooks
, argued that current feminism is racist and ignored that fact that women were divided
‘by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege’; radicals would also disagree arguing the
state is too entrenched with patriarchy to change and that feminists need to ‘create a
world we can bear out of the desert we inhabit’ Millet.
To what extent do feminists agree on sex and gender?
The majority of feminists — liberal, radical, socialist and post-modern — can be described as
equality feminists who acknowledge the obvious natural physical differences between men
and women as sexes but argue that these are inconsequential when understanding the innate
behavioural qualities of gender characteristics. Gender characteristics are therefore artificially
constructed within society by patriarchy.
Sex refers to biological differences between men and women. We are assigned our sex
at birth.
Most feminists are equality feminists, arguing that women's nature is socially
constructed, determined by society and not biology
Gender is used to explain the roles a society gives to men and women. Most feminists
argue that gender roles are socially construsted and form gender stereotypes
Simone de Beauvoir and Charlotte Perkins Gilman
De Beauvoir argued that the sex of an individual had been used by patriarchy as a
justification for predetermining the gender roles of women
Gilman argued that gender roles are socially constructed from a young age,
subordinating women to the will of men. Women are socialised into gender roles such
as motherhood.
These ideas heavily influenced liberal and radical feminism.
Liberal feminist Betty Friedan argued that artificially constructed gender roles are so
powerful and pervasive that society perceives them as normal and not artificial.
Radical feminists such as Kate Millett argued that gender roles were constructed by the
family and mirrored by society.
Kate Millet and bell hooks both perceive social construction as beginning in childhood
within the family unit.
Socialist feminism and post-modern feminism expand the debate on sex and gender.
Sheila Rowbotham argues that patriarchy and economics are interlinked. In the past,
exploitative economic systems, such as feudalism and capitalism, helped to determine
subservient gender roles for women.
bell hooks (post-modern) agrees with Gilman that gender roles are socialised from a
very young age and argues that women have multiple identities that are not based on
gender alone and that they thus have multiple sources of oppression
The main disagreement within feminism over sex and gender concerns a minority
group of feminists: difference feminists who, unlike equality feminists, argue that
biological differences are consequential and do determine gender differences.
Difference feminists maintain that men's and women's biological distinctness makes
their gender characteristics fundamentally different.
difference feminists like Carol Gilligan have criticised equality feminism for encouraging
women to replicate male behaviour, which has had the unintended consequence of
alienating women from their own gender distinctiveness.
Cultural feminism (extreme radical) challenges the dominance of male values in society
and argue that 'women's values' should be promoted as they are superior, rather than
seeking equality in society
bell hooks argues that race was as important as gender in understanding oppression of
black women
Equality feminists disagree on solutions to gender stereotypes.
Liberal feminists like Gilman argued for reform within the public sphere of society.
Radical feminists argue that the 'personal is political' and that private family life must
also be addressed.
Unlike liberal feminism, radical feminism argues that patriarchy is too pervasive to
reform and has a plethora of diverse revolutionary solutions to transform society, as
argued by the likes of Millett and Rowbotham
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