Different Feminist Theories

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  • Created by: ZoeMorley
  • Created on: 02-12-14 17:47
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  • Feminism
    • Liberal Feminists
      • Concerned with human rights and achieving equality by opposing laws against women.
      • They want to abolish traditional stereotypes.
      • Reject the idea that biology creates inequality.
      • Reformism - progression towards equal rights can be done through gradual reforms in society rather than a revolution.
      • Stereotypes are formed via the process of socialisation.
    • Radical Feminists
      • Firestone: Patriarchy is due to women 'bearing and caring' making them economically dependent on men.
        • Evaluation: Marxist feminists believe capitalism is to blame for inequality.
        • Anna Pollert: Patriarchy has little value in explaining women's position as it involves a circular movement.
      • All men benefit from patriarchy (domestic labour and sexual services).
      • The personal is political as all relationships are based on power.
      • Brownmiller:fear of **** is powerful deterrent against going out at night.
      • Rich: men force women into narrow 'compulsory heterosexuality'.
      • Greer: all female or 'matrilocal' households as a n alternative to the heterosexual family.
    • Marxist Feminists
      • Women's subordination is a result of capitalism as women are domestic- reliant upon men as workers.
      • Barrett: must give more emphasis to women's consciousness.
        • Marxism: Is 'sex blind'.
        • Women may choose these different roles via free-will, not via capitalism.
        • Marxist Feminism doesn't look at subordination in non-capitalist societies.
      • Mitchell: Hard to overcome deeply rooted patriarchal ideology.
    • Difference and Black Feminsm
      • Don't see women as a single homogenous group.
      • Feminism has created a 'false universality' when it only looks at white, western middle-class women.
      • Essentialism- all women are the same as they're oppressed by men but they claim this is wrong and fails to reflect diversity.
      • Judith Butler: an alternative approach based on the ways of seeing, thinking or speaking about something as the world is made up of competing discourses.
      • By enabling its users to define others in certain ways, a discourse gives power over those it defines.
  • Reject the idea that biology creates inequality.

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