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9 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the background of feminism? |
- Inequality between men & women is universal and the most significant form of inequality. - Gender norms are socially constructed therefore can be changed. - Patriarchy is the main cause of gender inequality- women are subordinate because men have more power. - Feminism is a political movement; it exists to rectify sexual inequality although strategies for social change vary enormously. |
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What do radical feminists believe about society? |
- Blames the exploration of women in men. It’s mainly men who have benefited from the subordination of women. - Society is patriarchal: dominated/roles by men- men are the ruling class and women the subject class. |
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What does Andrea Dworkin (1981) believe? |
Rape, violence and pornography are methods through which men have secured and maintained power over women. |
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What do Marxist feminists believe? |
- They believe that capitalism is the principle source of women’s oppression, and capitalists as the main beneficiaries. - Women’s subordination plays a number of important functions in capitalism: • Women reproduce the Labour force for free. • The traditional nuclear family also performs the function of ‘ideological conditioning’ - it teaches the idea that the capitalist class require for their future workers to be passive. • In a communist society, Marxist feminists believe that gender inequalities will disappear. |
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What do liberal feminists believe about society? |
-Nobody benefited from existing inequalities. - Gender inequality is mainly because societies culture and values. - Socialisation into gender roles has the consequences of producing rigid, inflexible expectations of men and river. - Discrimination prevents women from having equal opportunities . - They don’t want revolutionary change, just changes to the existing structure. - The creation of equal opportunities is their main aim. - They are trying eradicate sexism from children books and media. |
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What do postmodern feminists believe about society? |
- They don’t see women as a single homogenous group. - Criticised preceding feminists theories for claiming a ‘false universality’ ( white, western, heterosexual, middle-class) - Criticised preceding feminist theories of being essentialist ( that people have a set of characteristics). - Critiqued preceding feminist theory as being part of the musculinist enlightenment project. - Postmodern feminism- concerned with language (discourses) and relationship between power & knowledge rather than politics & opportunities. - postmodern: Helene Cixous |
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What are the criticisms of Marxist feminists view on society? |
1. Radical feminists: ignores other sources of inequality such as sexual violence. 2. Practical systems existed before capitalism in tribal societies for example. 3. The experience of women has not been particularly happy under communism. |
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What are the criticisms of liberal feminists view on society? |
1. Based upon male assumptions and norms such as individualism and competition, and encourages women to be more like men and therefore deny the ‘value of qualities traditionally associated with women such as empathy’. 2. Liberalism is accused of emphasising public life at the expense of private life. 3. Radical & Marxist feminists- it fails to take into account of deeper structural inequalities. 4. Different feminists argue it is an ethnocentric perspective- based mostly on the experiences of middle-class, educated women. |
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What are the criticisms of radical feminists view of society? |
1. The concept of patriarchy has been criticised for ignoring variations in the experience of oppression. 2. Some critics argue that it focuses too much on the negative experiences of women, failing to recognise that some women can have a happy marriage for example. 3. It tends to portray women as universally good and men as universally bad, it has been accused of man hating, not trusting any man. |
