Polsci Tutorial Class 6
Social Movements and Feminism
Greeks like Pythagoras who wrote, "There is a good principle that created order, light and man and a bad
principle that created chaos, darkness and woman."
Originally a subset of socialism and feminism. In 1960s with rise of radical feminists, became own
category
3 broad core traditions:
Marxist feminism
A form of feminism that links the subordination of women to the dynamics of the capitalist
economic system, emphasizing that women’s liberation requires a process of radical social
change.
According to Engels, before capitaism there was superior position for women. Patriarchy exists
because men want to pass on property to their sons - that's why, insist on monogamy
SOme suggest system of communal living, free love
Neomarxists - also think women need to be free from roles of being workers, reproducers,
socializers, sex objects
Liberal feminism
A form of feminism that is grounded in the belief that sexual differences are irrelevant to
personal worth, and calls for equal rights for women and men in the public sphere.
Wollstonecraft (on the subjugation of women - 1869)
Reformist - open up public life to equal competition
Radical feminism
A form of feminism that holds gender divisions to be the most politically significant of social
cleavages, and believes that they are rooted in the structures of domestic life.
Sisterhood
Challenge patriarchy through"consciousness raising" - from black pride movement
Strategies to remodel social identity and challenge cultural inferiority by an emphasison
pride, self-worth and self-assertion
Humanity is essentially androgynous
One subset believes in emphasizing on female features - superior, possessing the qualities of
creativity, sensitivity and caring, which men can never fully appreciate or develop
"Against our will" by Susan Brownmiller - Men have created an ‘ideology of rape’, which
amounts to a ‘conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of
fear’. Brownmiller argued that men rape because they can, because they have the ‘biological
capacity to rape’, and that even men who do not rape nevertheless benefit from the fear and
anxiety that rape provokes among all women.
Common ground:
redefining ‘the political’
•patriarchy
•sex and gender
•equality and difference.
"The personal is the political" - radical feminism
Public-private divide
Modern feminists, on the other hand, insist that politics is an activity that takes place within all social
groups and is not merely confined to the affairs of government or other public bodies. Politics exists
whenever and wherever social conflict is found.
Kate Millett (1970), for example, defined politics as ‘power-structured relationships, arrangements
whereby one group of persons is controlled by another’. - not only govt, but also workers, family
Inequality has persisted because it has been presented as "natural" and not "political"
If politics takes place only within the public sphere, the role of women and the question of sexual
equality are issues of little or no political importance. Women, restricted to the private role of
housewife and mother, are in effect excluded from politics.
This includes the process of conditioning in the family, the distribution of housework and other
domestic responsibilities, and the politics of personal and sexual conduct.
although liberal feminists object to restrictions on women’s access to the public sphere of education,
work and political life, they also warn against the dangers of politicizing the private sphere, which,
according to liberal theory, is a realm of personal choice and individual freedom.
Socialist feminists have also viewed the private sphere as political, in that they have linked women’s
roles within the conventional family to the maintenance of the capitalist economic system
Patriarchy
Literally, rule by the father; often used more generally to describe the dominance of men and
subordination of women in society at large. Patriarchy thus expresses the belief that the pattern of male
domination and female subordination that characterizes society at large is, essentially, a reflection of the
power structures that operate within domestic life.
even if male domination may be universal, varies from place to place. 80 mil africans - fgm, india honour
killings, dowry, infanticide
Some socialist feminists reject the term, saying it is a consequence of class system (capitalism), not
patriarchy
Caution about generalized thinking:
Gynocentrism - boys more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Fewer refugee homes despite 40% of UK
domestic violence victims being men. Majority of homeless people. Higher suicide rates. 97% of fatal work
injuries in the UK
According to University of Massachusetts philosopher Christa Hodapp, in modern men's movements
gynocentrism is described as a continuation of the courtly love conventions of medieval times, wherein
women were valued as a quasi-aristocratic class, and males were seen as a lower serving class
**Radical ideas about sex and gender:
Although childbearing and suckling is unique to women, doesn't mean they can need to have that
responsibility. Link is cultural not biological. Do symmetrical families instead.
The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) by Christine de Pizan
Response to Roman de la Rose
Argues for women as valued participants in society, favours edcation of women
Part I - starts by reading lamentations. Lady Reason.36 women
Mary Magdalene, Queen of Sheba, Amazons,
Lady Rectitude
Part II - As they build, Lady Rectitude informs Christine with examples and "stories of
pagan, Hebrew, and Christian ladies" who possessed the gift of prophecy, chastity, or
devotion to their families and others. Christine and Lady Rectitude also discuss the
institution of marriage, addressing Christine's questions regarding men's claims about the
ill qualities women bring to marriage.
92 women.
Part III - Lady Justice
About female martyrs. Warns women to respect their chastity and good name. 37
women discussed
Mary Wollstonecraft - 1792 - Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and
Moral Subjects
In reponse to M Talleyrand Perigord (French) - hopes to “induce [him] to reconsider the subject” of
women’s rights and national education. She explains that she considers independence to be “the
basis of every virtue.”
Wollstonecraft warns her female readers that she's going to speak to them directly and
rationally, which might offend some women who are used to being addressed with all kinds of
silly politeness.
she’s inspired to write out of “affection for the whole human race,” because she wants to see women
in a position to advance humanity’s progress in virtue, not to slow it down.
Her main argument is built on the principle “that if [woman] be not prepared by education to become
the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common
to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice.”
3 assumptions:
Her first (and most important) assumption is that the power of Reason (and Reason alone)
is what places humankind above the rest of the natural world.
Her second biggest assumption is that virtue and moral goodness are what make one human
being better than another.
Her third and final assumption is that God gave us passions and temptations so that we could
gain knowledge by struggling against them. Therefore, the qualities of Reason, Virtue, and
Knowledge are our starting points.
Reason is supposed to help us overcome our prejudices by looking at things more objectively.
Unfortunately, most men use reason to justify prejudices instead of overcoming them.
At the end of the day, every human being should have the power to question the decisions of
another human being on rational grounds. It is never okay for one person to tell another: that's
just the way it is, so do what you're told.
Humanity's greatest gift is reason - since men and women are born with the same ability to reason,
women should enjoy just as much education, power, and influence in society as men do
Men may be stronger, but it is rarely relevant
Attacks argument that women's educaiton should just teach them to be girly. how can people expect
a woman to raise children well if she has no education and no ability to reason? Further, how can
women be moral and virtuous if all they're ever taught is how to look moral and virtuous? This kind of
education focuses only on appearances and makes women totally superficial.
Wollstonecraft believes that women's poor education teaches them to be superficial and
ignorant, which only makes life more miserable for their future husbands and children.
Applies to class too - argues that education should be available equally to both boys and girls
regardless of how wealthy their families are. That's why she thinks that there should be a national
public school system that is free for children up to a certain age. That probably sounds familiar; it's a
lot like today's public school system.
Chapter 2 - The prevailing opinion on sexual character discussed
Women don't have mental strength to be morally good on their own.
Souls - reason. Women have souls
Women should be kept innocent like children, taught nothing except skills to please husbands
Agrees for children, not for women
Rousseau thinks men are rational. MW argues, many men are overgrown children
MW compares women to military - only surface level understanding, no tools to figure out larger
patterns from individual observation
Criticizes book by Dr Gregory, on how he raised his daughters
How to dress nicely
Hide true emotions, hide frustration
Wollstonecraft believed in an afterlife
If men are superior, give equal playing field, prove your point
Men have about as much right to oppress women as kings have to oppress men.
Bodily strenght - no longer imp - but dont look down on meatheads
Weakness should not be a source of pride
At this point, Wollstonecraft turns to a more practical question. What will happen to a
woman whose husband dies and leaves her with young children and no income? Without
a good education (or another husband), this woman is completely doomed, since she has
no resources or skills to fall back on.
Women on a pedestal - not a real power to be an object of beauty
Boys like to play rough sports while girls like to sit and play with dolls. But Wollstonecraft insists
that this is only because parents give their daughters dolls and tell their sons to play more
active games.
Disagrees that women should look good while praying - misses the point
Disagrees that kids should obey parents like king and commoner
One thing Wollstonecraft knows for sure is that men tend to improve their intelligence more than
women because they're allowed to make more mistakes (and thus learn from those mistakes)
than women. Regardless of their gender, young people should be allowed to make mistakes
and to learn from those mistakes.
Wollstonecraft also thinks that young women tend to get bad habits from nurseries and
boarding schools where they sleep and wash in the same rooms as other women.
Sometimes, women from the middle and upper classes mix with women from the lower
classes, and the lower-class women end up infecting these "better" women with bad
habits. In general, Wollstonecraft finds that young women are a little too "familiar" and
candid with each other when no parents are around.
Virtue should be basis for respect. Women need right to be virtuous
On parents - duty to be rational
Criticisms of women
Going to quacks
Being influenced by romance novels
Being judgmental towards other women
Too harsh on servants
In closing, Wollstonecraft says that she has no interest in excusing the faults of women.
She simply thinks that these faults wouldn't be so bad if women were given a better
education and a more equal place in society.
August 18, 2020 marks 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the
United States Constitution granting women the right to vote.
However, obstacles like poll taxes, literacy tests and other discriminatory state
voting laws would keep Black women (and men) disenfranchised for a further 45
years, until the Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965.
USA - initially - only property owners could vote. Included some women
First wave
By the mid-nineteenth century, the women’s movement had acquired a central focus: the campaign for
female suffrage, the right to vote, which drew inspiration from the progressive extension of the franchise to
men.
Political and legal rights
Believed other sexual inequalities would be on the way out if right to vote given
In the USA, a women’s movement emerged during the 1840s, inspired in part by the campaign to abolish
slavery. The famous Seneca Falls convention, held in 1848, marked the birth of the US women’s rights
movement. It adopted a Declaration of Sentiments, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), which
deliberately drew on the language and principles of the Declaration of Independence and called, among
other things, for female suffrage.
Declaration of sentiments
He has not ever permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
He has withheld her from rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both
natives and foreigners.
Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without
representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
He has made her morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity,
provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is
compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her
master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce, in case of
separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the
happiness of the women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of a
man, and giving all power into his hands.
After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed
her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to
it.
He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow,
she receives but a scanty remuneration.
He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable
to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against
her.
He allows her in church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for
her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs
of the Church.
He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and
women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but
deemed of little account in man.
He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere
of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.
He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to
lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
n the UK, an organized movement developed during the 1850s and, in 1867, the House of Commons
defeated the first attempt to introduce female suffrage, an amendment to the Second Reform Act,
proposed by John Stuart Mill
He wrote the Subjugation of Women
Mill argues that if women seem emotional, passive and apolitical, it is because they have been
brought up to be so. In making this claim, Mill echoes Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the
Rights of Women, published almost 70 years earlier.
In 1830 J S Mill met 22-year-old Harriet Taylor. They did not marry until 1851, after Taylor’s husband
had died, but Mill insisted that she inspired, contributed to and revised all his mature writings. Harriet
Taylor died in 1858, more than a decade before Mill wroteThe Subjection of Women, but he
nevertheless attributes much of the essay to her. Mill says that though he had been committed to the
principle of equality before he met her, she taught him the ‘practical’ consequences of women’s legal
subordination
‘First-wave’ feminism ended with the achievement of female suffrage, introduced first in New Zealand
in 1893. The Nineteenth Amendment of the US Constitution granted the vote to American women in
1920. The franchise was extended to women in the UK in 1918, but they did not achieve equal voting
rights with men for a further decade.
Weakened the movement
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir - 1949
Man default, woman other
According to Beauvoir, two factors explain the evolution of women's condition: participation in
production and freedom from reproductive slavery.
Beauvoir writes that men oppress women when they seek to perpetuate the family and keep
patrimony intact. She compares women's situation in ancient Greece with Rome. In Greece, with
exceptions like Sparta where there were no restraints on women's freedom, women were treated
almost like slaves. In Rome because men were still the masters, women enjoyed more rights but, still
discriminated against on the basis of their sex, had only empty freedom
Beauvoir relates the history of [women's suffrage](and writes that women like Rosa Luxemburg and
Marie Curie "brilliantly demonstrate that it is not women's inferiority that has determined their
historical insignificance: it is their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority"
man's experience of the "horror of feminine fertility" - cites examples from medical literature
Sex, gender roles culturally defined from male perspective - causes alteration in consciousness of
herself.
"to ask two spouses bound by practical, social and moral ties to satisfy each other sexually for their
whole lives is pure absurdity"
She describes the work of married women, including housecleaning, writing that it is "holding away
death but also refusing life".
Pregnancy - woman loses herself as a passive instrument
Beauvoir writes that, "maternal sadomasochism creates guilt feelings for the daughter that will
express themselves in sadomasochistic behavior toward her own children, without end", and makes
an appeal for socialist child rearing practices.
"The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her weakness, not
to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will become
for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger."
Second wave
The Feminine Mystique is a book by Betty Friedan that is widely credited with sparking the beginning of
second-wave feminism in the United States.
1963
The phrase "feminine mystique" was created by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women
would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. It was said that women,
who were actually feminine, should not have wanted to work, get an education, or have political
opinions. Friedan wanted to prove that women were unsatisfied and could not voice their feelings
"problem that has no name" - unhappy housewives in 50s and 60s
Unhappy despite material comfort, marriage, children
Friedan questioned the women's magazine, women's education system and advertisers for
creating this widespread image of women
Although aware of and sharing this dissatisfaction, women in the 1950s misinterpreted it as an
individual problem and rarely talked about it with other women. As Friedan pointed out, "part of
the strange newness of the problem is that it cannot be understood in terms of the age-old
material problems of man: poverty, sickness, hunger, cold."
"We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my
husband and my children and my home.'"
Depictions of women either as happy housewives or unhappy careerists, creating feminine
mystique
Friedan goes on to argue that the problem is women needing to mature and find their human
identity. She argues, "In a sense that goes beyond any woman's life, I think this is a crisis of
women growing up—a turning point from an immaturity that has been called femininity to full
human identity."
Critiques Freud, functionalism
WW2 and Cold War - tried to create image of idealized home for comfort. many of the women
who worked during the war filling jobs previously filled by men faced dismissal, discrimination,
or hostility when the men returned, and that educators blamed over-educated, career-focused
mothers for the maladjustment of soldiers in World War II
Friedan shows that advertisers tried to encourage housewives to think of themselves as
professionals who needed many specialized products in order to do their jobs, while
discouraging housewives from having actual careers, since that would mean they would not
spend as much time and effort on housework and therefore would not buy as many household
products, cutting into advertisers' profits.
Women grow to think of housework as their role. Lack of sense of fulfilment. Leads to affairs,
mania with sex.
Maslow's hierarchy - stuck on physiological level - sexual role. Need to do more
Friedan ends her book by promoting education and meaningful work as the ultimate method by
which American women can avoid becoming trapped in the feminine mystique, calling for a
drastic rethinking of what it means to be feminine, and offering several educational and
occupational suggestions
personal, psychological and sexual aspects of female oppression
The goal of second-wave feminism was not merely political emancipation but ‘women’s liberation’
Shifted focus in many fields, questioned fundamental assumptions. Eg. brought in victim centric approach,
more sensitivity in criminal law
In addition to the ‘core’ feminist traditions – liberal, socialist/Marxist and radical feminism – must now be
added postmodern feminism, psychoanalytical feminism, black feminism, lesbian feminism, transfeminism
and so on.
- Radical feminism: A form of feminism that holds gender divisions to be the most politically significant of
social cleavages, and believes that they are rooted in the structures of domestic life.
Difference feminism vs trans feminism
The aggressive and competitive nature of men and the creative and empathetic character of women are
thought to reflect deeper hormonal and other genetic differences, rather than simply the structure of
society.
Third wave
If there is a unifying theme within third-wave feminism it is a more radical engagement with the politics of
difference, especially going beyond those strands within radical feminism that emphasize that women are
different from men by showing a greater concern with differences between women.
Take into account a wider set of experiences - not just white middle class women
Intersectionalism
Poststrcuturalism - discourses of power - knowledge is power. Even "woman" may be a fictional category.
Used as a tool, incompatible with feminism
Postfeminism - Camille Paglia. Rejected 2nd wave. attacked the tendency of feminism to portray women
as ‘victims’, and insisted on the need for women to take greater responsibility for their own sexual and
personal conduct.
Culture Matters (But Not How You Think) - gender equality paradox
Fact: As a percentage of enrollment, there are more female science majors in Burma, Oman, and
Morocco than in the countries of Scandinavia.
Fact: American women are 15 percent less likely to reach a managerial position in the workplace than are
men—but in Sweden women are 48 percent less likely, in Norway 52 percent, in Finland 56 percent, and
in Denmark 63 percent.
As a result, it is often expected that sex differences will be smaller in cultures with higher levels of gender-
related egalitarianism, as in Scandinavia, where socialization and roles are more balanced between men
and women and sociopolitical gender equity prevails. Surprisingly, several large cross-cultural studies
have found this is not at all the case. Whether scientists measure Big Five personality traits, such as
neuroticism; Dark Triad traits, such as psychopathy; or self-esteem, subjective well-being, or depression,
empirical evidence shows that most sex differences are conspicuously larger in cultures with more
egalitarian gender roles—as in Scandinavia.
The same holds true for cognitive attributes, including mental rotation and location ability, objectively
measured on tests, as well as for physical traits such as height and blood pressure (both greater in men).
And among such differences as preferring physically attractive mates, some of the largest psychological
variances of all occur among the most progressive people: Scandinavians. The phenomenon is called the
gender equality paradox.
Culture matters in explaining psychological sex differences, but not in the way most people think. It's not
harsher gender socialization by parents and media, stringent societal gender roles, or institutional
sociopolitical forces that widen the differences between men and women in the most progressive nations
in the world. When you treat everyone the same, as in the Nordic countries, it's only genetic
predispositions that produce the most observable individual differences.
The size of the gender difference in preference for both girl and boy-related toys increased significantly
with child age,
Preference of boys for boys toys increased, pref for girls toys for girls did not increase
Difference in preference for neutral toys decreased over time
No difference of effects based on publicaiton year
Holds true in primates
Indian Feminism
3 phases:
mid-19th century - reformists
Concepts of equality, democracy and individual rights - colonialism
sati, widow treatment, child marriage
Mostly initiated by men
Thwarted by nationalism - claimed women as some type of victorian entity (special but separate
from public)
incorporation of women's movements with Quit india movement by Gandhi
localized womens associations
Women's participation in the struggle for freedom developed their critical consciousness about
their role and rights in independent India.
Post independence: fair treatment of women at home, in work place, political parity
Right of self determination
Indira gandhi - pm 1966
Inheritance laws
Domestic violence
Secual harrassment
Legalization of adultery
GROUP 6
35
27
2+6
34
18
13
11
10
5
4
29
25
28
40
15
19
33
22
21
38
32
6
36
31
24
12
1
15
GROUP 8
69
61
