Feminist social theory: overview of key approaches

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Feminist social theory overview of key
approaches

• lecture 4

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lecture outline

• historical overview first and second wave
  feminism
• critique of malestream sociology
• overview of (modernist) feminist theoretical
  perspectives
• cultural turn shift from things to words
• postmodern feminism
• Black and post-colonial feminisms
• final thoughts

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terminology

• feminism originates from the French term
  féminisme
• in 1871 some claim the term feminist first used
  in French medical text
• -feminisation of male body
• 1872 Alexandre Dumas (French Writer) pamphlet -
  adultery
• women with masculine traits
• the early usage of the term associated with
  gender confusion and it is also worth noting
  that the term feminist was not initially used
  by women
• meaning changed - political position change and
  improve the position of women in society
• retrospectively applied to recognise earlier
  attempts by women who were attempting to promote
  such changes

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first wave feminism

• e.g. Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) 1848 Seneca
  Falls Convention (USA) rise of womens suffrage
  movements (UK and USA)
• first wave feminism 1880s -1920s
• e.g. associated with equal rights struggle
  for vote legislative changes but addressed
  other issues too
• important to note that there were splits within
  the movement in terms of focus and strategy
• pros and cons of wave analogy

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second wave feminism

• second wave feminism 1960s-1970s
• - grass-roots activism
• - womens liberation movement radical?
• consciousness raising groups
• - personal is political
• - sisterhood
• moved into the academy
• womens studies (now gender studies - debate)
• feminism is both theory and activism (praxis)
  importance of experience

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feminist critique of malestream sociology

• sociology has a history of conducting research on
  men
• e.g. use male only samples findings derived
  from studies are unquestioningly generalised and
  assumed to be equally relevant to women men
  taken as norm?
• issues and experiences of concern to women were
  at best neglected and at worst considered
  sociologically irrelevant
• e.g. domestic violence and labour
• if women incorporated into studies - tended to be
  quite simply misrepresented and/or represented in
  a stereotypical manner
• sex and gender tended to be naively and
  uncritically tagged on and stirred into research
  designs little (if any) appreciation that the
  theoretical frameworks themselves were part of
  the problem

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e.g. sociological research on class(Acker 1973)

• Nuffield Mobility Study (1980)
• Register Generals Scale (1911- 2001)
• based on all male sample
• women classified indirectly male head of
  household women hidden from the figures
• Joan Acker seminal paper feminist critique of
  stratification literature

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Feminists argue that womens position within
society is not a natural phenomenon, but a
social, political and economic product which is
reflected and perpetuated by the bias of
science.(Harding, in May 2001 19)
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feminist theoretical perspectives (e.g. Tong
1990 Evans 1995 Jackson Jones 1998 Zalewski
2000 Abbott et al 2005)

• attempt to explain womens subordination in
  society different perspectives - ask different
  questions and come to different conclusions e.g.
• liberal feminism
• radical feminism
• marxist feminism
• postmodern feminism
• black and post-colonial feminism

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liberal feminism

• equal rights and opportunities challenge long
  held beliefs and ideas about womens
  (in)abilities
• e.g. Wollstonecraft (1792) the feathered
  race
• humanism emancipation meritocracy
• sameness ability to reason
• are human values equated with male values?
• reform - simply add women perpetuate malestream
  bias?
• explain womens inequality?

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radical feminism

• feminism in its purest form (Abbott et al
  2005 33)
• woman-centred and celebrates the differences
  between women and men
• patriarchy is central - structural domination
  universal sisterhood
• the personal is political e.g. family
  domestic violence body politics

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radical feminism

• separatist women only organisations and
  critique of heterosexuality
• rediscover and promote knowledge from the
  experience and standpoint of women
• oversimplified understanding of patriarchy?
• claims to a universal and homogenous sisterhood
  problematic?

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Marxist/materialist feminisms

• particularly influential during 1960s-70s
• explain womens subordinated status in
  (capitalist) society
• feminists revised Marxist theory blind to
  gender - tried to fit women in to Marxism
  relations of production and relations of
  reproduction

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Marxist/materialist feminisms

• - e.g. institution of the nuclear family
  property and inheritance (Engels) flawed
  thesis?
• womens work in public sphere devalued and
  poorly paid reserve army of labour why
  women?
• domestic work not regarded as real work -
  domestic labour debates

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Marxist/socialist feminisms (see e.g. Jackson in
Jackson Jones 1998)

• serve interests of capitalism and men?
• what about non-capitalist societies?
• capitalism and/or patriarchy debates disputes
  over the location and explanation of womens
  subordination?
• e.g. dual systems theory e.g. Walby shift
  from private to public patriarchy?
• exclusion/segregation
• convergence/polarisation
• but what about other factors and inequalities
• e.g. globalisation and ethnicity?

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cultural turn and feminist theory (1)

• social science perspectives informed and shaped
  feminist theory but some argue that literary and
  cultural theoretical perspectives are now more
  influential
• since the 1980s witnessed a cultural or
  linguistic turn
• a shift from things to words
• (Barrett in Kemp Squires 1997)
• for example the focus moved away from materialist
  issues related to domestic labour, gender
  inequities in the workplace and domestic violence
  to issues related to symbolic - language,
  representation and discourse

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cultural turn and feminist theory (2)

• gender is understood to be shaped not just by
  social structures but by dominant discourses
  forms of language that construct what it means to
  be a man or a woman
• (Abbott et al 2005 358 my emphasis)
• misrecognise and take as real what is actually
  linguistically constructed? (e.g. Butler)
• how has this shift impacted on feminist theory?

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impact of cultural turn?(see e.g. Barrett in
Kemp and Squires 1997)

• Barrett charts a shift to focus on symbolic in
  explaining gender differences (late 1970s
  onwards)
• critique of universalism not all women the same
• critique of rationalism and of the subject
  masculine?
• the gendering of modernity - modernmasculine
  is feminism indebted to modernist liberalism?
• critique of materialism are we determined by
  social structure or are meanings and experiences
  important?

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reminder of postmodernist thinking
anti-everything?

• post-modernism is not a clearly defined theory,
  but a loose body of thought which draws on
  interconnected ideas around language, knowledge,
  reason, power, identity and resistance
• (Bryson 1999 36)
• critical of Enlightenment project
• authoritative and objective status of scientific
  knowledge reject view from nowhere
• grand or meta-narratives e.g. Marxism
• include (modernist) feminism too?
• claims to the truth
• reject idea of the subject
• anti-foundational
• contest and deconstruct stability favour
  shifting, fractured, arbitrary nature of meaning
  and identities

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postmodern feminism(see e.g. Weedon 1997
Zalewski 2000)

• contest and resist categorisation what woman
  ought to be - the point is to deconstruct all
  attempts to fix identity this in itself is a
  political act
• focus on differences between women not
  commonalities
• but what are the political implications for
  feminism if no basis for a collective identity?

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Black and post-colonialist feminisms

• critical of white elitism prioritises and
  represents the experiences of white, middle
  class, heterosexual, affluent Western women
• diversity of womens experiences e.g. family
• how does gender intersect with other factors?
• e.g. class, ethnicity, disability
• should gender be given primacy over other aspects
  hierarchy of oppression?

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Black and post-colonialist feminisms

• can women oppress other groups of women and/or
  men?
• all women have racialised identities?
• notion of solidarity as opposed to sisterhood?
  (hooks 1984)

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mapping feminist theories

• Material Linguistic/ Cultural Turn
  Symbolic
• MODERNSIM ? POSTMODERNISM
• STRUCTURALISM ? POSTSTRUCTURALISM
• CRITICAL THEORY ? DECONSTRUCTION
• EQUALITY ? DIFFERENCE

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final thoughts

• what about materialist issues and structural
  factors?
• things - words debate
• opportunity to re-think and transcend dichotomies
  - modernist/postmodernist? (Roseneil 1995)
• feminist theory more theory and less feminism?
• (Wise and Stanley 2000)
• feminist theory arose out of personal politics
  importance of womens everyday lived
  experiences is it becoming disconnected from
  womens experiences?

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final thoughts

• to what extent is feminist theory politically
  relevant today and for whom?
• given the emphasis on diversity and differences
  between women how effectively and legitimately
  can feminists from different cultural, religious,
  class, ethnic backgrounds etc theorise about
  other women and their experiences?
• inaccessible and elitist?