FEMINISM
Origins and Development
General
• First usage: A medical term to describe either the feminization of men or
the masculinization of women.
• First Book: Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Structures on Political
and Moral Subjects (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft
• Assumptions for woman movement:
– TWomen are disadvantaged because of their sex; and that this disadvantage
can and should be overthrown
– Diversity of views and political positions:
• the achievement of female suffrage
• the establishment of equal access to education and
• an increase in the number of women in elite positions in public life,
• the legalization of abortion,
• the abolition of restrictive or demeaning dress codes. Etc
1- Origins and Development I
Waves
• First wave feminism: Mid 19th and first half of 20th century
– Central focus on demand universal female suffrage for the same legal
and political rights as men
– Achievement of Female Suffrage
• New Zealand )1893) (Germany (1918) USA (1920) UK (1928)
• Turkey (1930), France (1944) Japan (1946)
• Second wave feminism: 2nd half of 20th
– The problem that has no name in ’The Feminine Mystique! (1963) by
Bretty Friedan
– Suffrage had not brought about female liberation
– Demanded a radical and perhaps revolutionary process of social
change, which turned it into a distinctive ideology
Origins and development : II
Processes
• Deradicalization:
– 1960s/70s onwards: Attacking the cultural myths that sustained
woman domesticity, it aimed at broadening educational and career
opportunities for women
– Criticized by radicals for focusing on the needs of middle class
women.
• Fragmentation:
– 1990s to today: ‘post-feminism’ and radical diversification which
makes it hard to identify a common ground within feminism
– Varieties
• Liberal, Socialist, Radical, Difference or even Islamist feminism
2- Principles of feminism
General
Feminist ideology perceives other ideologies as inadequate
vehicles for female social advancement, for the way in which
they have each systematically incited the oppression of women.
Feminist themes focus primarily on:
• a redefinition of what constitutes ‘the political’
• acknowledging the patriarchy
• sex and gender
• equality and difference
2- Principles of feminism I
What constitutes ‘the political
• Private and Public Divide
Traditional notions of what is ‘political’ locate politics in the arena
of public rather than private life.
• For Feminists, Politics
– an activity that takes place within all social groups
– ‘power-structured relationships and it exists whenever and
wherever social conflict is found
– in conclusion, ‘the personal is the political’
2- Principles of feminism II
Patriarchy
Feminists believe that gender, like social class, race or religion, is
a significant social cleavage and that gender is the deepest and
most politically important of social divisions.
• Sexual politics (Sexism) compared to class conflict in Marxism
• Patriarchy is the term to define the power relationship
between men and women.
– rule by the father’ (pater meaning father in Latin),
– the supremacy of the husband–father within the family, and therefore to the
subordination of his wife and his children.
– the dominance of the father within the family symbolizes male supremacy
in all other institutions
2- Principles of feminism III
Gender
• Non-feminist arguments asserts that gender divisions in
society are ‘natural’: women and men merely fulfil the social
roles that nature designed them. in short, ‘Biology is destiny’.
• Feminists challenged the idea that biology is destiny and draws
a distinction between sex and gender.
• The goal of Feminism is the achievement of genderless
‘personhood’
– Sex, refers to biological differences between females and males and
the most important one is linked to reproduction
– Gender is a cultural term. Refers to the different roles that society
ascribes to men and women.
– Patriarchal ideas blur the distinction between sex and gender.
Childbearing is biological )sex) but childrearing is cultural (gender)
2- Principles of feminism IV
Equality & Difference
Although the goal of feminism is the overthrow of patriarchy and is often
characterized as a movement for the achievement of sexual equality, the issue of
equality has also exposed major fault-lines
• Egalitarian Forms of Feminism: Linking difference to ‘patriacrchy’
– Seeing the difference as a form of oppression and subordination.
– The feminist project is defined by the desire to liberate women from difference
• Difference Feminism: Valuing difference rather than equality
– Notion of equality is either misguided or undesired. To want to be equal to a man
implies a desire to be ‘like men’
– Sex differences do have political and social importance
– To idealize personhood and ignore sex differences is a mistake
– Feminism should seek liberation not as sexless ‘persons’ but as developed and fulfilled
women, recognizing the distinctive characteristics of feminism
3- Sex and politics
Genel
• Hierarchical and elitist ideologies, such as conservatism, are
commonly associated with anti-feminism
• Feminism has been influenced by other political traditions,
liberalism and socialism most obviously, but also modern
traditions such as post-modernism and psychoanalysis.
• Reactionary feminism, critiqued as a contradiction in terms of
conventional feminism, also exists, for example with Islamic
feminism.
Sex and politics I
Liberal &Socialist and Radical
• Liberal feminism:
– The face of patriarchy is therefore the under-representation of women in senior
positions in politics, business, the professions and public life.
– Champions legal and political equality with men . Equality thus means equal access to
the public realm.
• Socialist feminism
– Emphasizes the economic aspects of patriarchy . patriarchy operates in tandem with
capitalism, gender subordination and class inequality being interlinked systems of oppression.
– Equal rights may be meaningless unless women also enjoy social equality. Equality, in this
sense, has to apply in terms of economic power, and so must address issues such a the
ownership of wealth, pay differentials and the distinction between waged and unwaged labour
• Radical feminism
– It sees patriarchy as a systematic, institutionalized and pervasive form of male power
that is rooted in the family.
– Primarily concerned about equality in family and personal life. Equality must therefore
operate, in terms of childcare and other domestic responsibilities, such as the control
of one's own body, and sexual expression and fulfilment
Sex and politics II
Third Wave
• Third-wave feminism:
– The second-wave over-emphasized experiences of upper middle-class
white women. They highlight other issues:
• Identity- However, race, ethnicity, class, religion and colour have significant factors to
understand feminism and need to be heard from.
• Breaking the ‘glass ceiling’, a metaphor for invisible barrier
• Reclaiming derogatory language-
• Sex and Body Positivity
Sex and politics II
Post-Colonial
• Post-Colonial Feminism
– A form of feminism that developed as a critique to feminism which
seemingly focuses on the experiences and women in Western culture
and mispresent the non-western women
– Double colonization- women subjected to both colonial domination and
patriarchy
• Islamic Feminism
– Diverse within itself
– A different conception and interpretation of woman problem, such as
’headscarf is not a form of repression but a symbol of liberation to
participate in social life’.
– A critique of both western type of feminism and traditional patriarchial
reading of religion
5- Feminism in the 21st Century
Current difficulties of feminism
• The women's movement has become increasingly fragmented and incoherent.
• A conservative backlash against feminism was also evident in the industrialized
West. The new right tried to reassert ‘profamily’ values and ideas
• Victory of feminism in the Industrialized West can be seen in the emergence of
a new breed of man, who has come to terms with the ‘feminine’ elements of
his make-up and is prepared to share domestic and family responsibilities
• Universalism versus Relativism debate plays its role in Feminism as well
