Feminism

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Feminism

• The Search for Equality

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What is Feminism?

• How would you define it as an ideology?
• What comes to mind when you think of the word
  feminism?

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Text definition

• An ideology that opposes the political,
  economic, and cultural relegation of women to
  positions of inferiority.
• Simply put, feminism affirms womens equality
  with men, and rejects patriarchy.

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What does patriarchy mean?

• In the text
• the rule of men as a social group over women as
  a social group, and
• a system based on sexual hierarchy, with men at
  the top and women below.

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Examples of denial of equality

• Economically
• Women paid less than men throughout the world.
  In U.S., pay gap about 75 (controlling for all
  other factors).
• Women represent the majority of the worlds poor.

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Examples of denial of equality

• Politically
• Globally, only 23 women ever elected head of
  state (only 6 served in 1995).
• Also underrepresented in legislatures.
• Political institutions dont provide equal
  protection equal access to the vote.

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Examples of denial of equality

• Politically
• in U.S.

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Examples of denial of equality

• Educationally
• Girls denied education in many countries 2/3 of
  the worlds illiterate adults are women, higher
  in some places.
• Under certain regimes, females punished for
  seeking an education (as under the Taliban).

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Examples of denial of equality

• Access to basic health care food
• Females less likely to receive adequate nutrition
  or health care.
• Females subjected to female genital mutilation
  (FGM) in some cultures.

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Examples of denial of equality

• Violence
• Femicide, the murder of women because they are
  women.
• Outside the home, women vulnerable to assault and
  rape.
• In the home, women beaten and even murdered by
  husbands or boyfriends, family members, and
  in-laws (dowry deaths).
• Female babies much more likely to be subjected to
  infanticide in some cultures that value sons.

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Feminisms roots in liberalism

• In many ways similar to liberalism emphasis on
  equality, on personal autonomy (the right and
  ability of individuals to make decisions for
  themselves), on the importance of democratic
  processes, on the right of revolution against
  tyranny.

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Female subordination

• Womens inferiority to men legitimated
  historically by
• Enlightenment writers such as Rousseau and
  Jefferson
• Some religious traditions
• Aristotle (classical Greece)
• Western democracies in the 19th early 20th
  centuries

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U.S. Historical Trends

• First wave of feminism abolition movement.
  Mid-19th century
• Second wave of feminism suffrage movement. Late
  19th to early 20th c.
• Third wave of feminism equal legal rights
  political participation. Mid to late 20th
  century.

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Types of feminisms

• Liberal feminism
• Radical feminism
• Diversity feminism

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Liberal feminism

• Shared with liberalism these ideas
• Human equality
• Human rationality
• Importance of individual rights

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Early liberal feminists

• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Lucretia Mott
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Susan B. Anthony
• Wollstonecraft

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Mary Wollstonecraft

• Mary Wollstonecraft in the late 18th century used
  classical liberal arguments in favor of womens
  rights
• Women are human beings, rational and capable of
  self-determination and liberty.
• Patriarchy distorts womens personalities so
  that they seem to be the worst stereotypes (vain
  shallow).

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Modern liberal feminists

• Betty Friedan
• Gloria Steinem
• Working within the
• existing democratic
• system.
• Seeing patriarchy as hurting men as well as
  women.

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Liberal feminist views
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Radical feminisms

• Multiple types of radical feminisms, but they all
  share a common critique of liberal feminism for
  accepting the status quo economic and social
  structures.
• The status quo operates with the male model as
  the norm (e.g., seeing the world as competitive
  and aggressive).

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Types of Radical Feminisms

• Socialist feminists argue that patriarchy
  capitalism are linked both exploitive.
• Lesbian feminists criticize societys definition
  of heterosexuality as normal, all other
  sexualities as deviant.
• Anti-pornography feminists argue that pornography
  fosters violence against women. Liberal
  feminists, in contrast, emphasize 1st amendment
  free speech rights.

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Diversity feminism

• The needs and perspectives of non-Anglo,
  non-Western, and non-affluent women must be
  considered. Liberal feminism ignores different
  perspectives.
• Womens issues change across cultures and across
  time no single feminist voice or viewpoint.

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Feminism as an emerging ideology

• Impacts include
• New thinking about public policy priorities.
• The gender gap in U.S. politics.
• New thinking about traditional assumptions
  regarding gender roles.
• Opens new areas of study in social science.

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Feminism as an emerging ideology, continued

• Impacts include
• New thinking about war war crimes.
• Realization that rape can be a weapon of war.
• New studies of impact of war on children.
• Sudanense
• refugee
• camp
• 2005

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Another emerging ideology

• Environmentalism
• Next slide presentation.