FEMINISM

WHAT IS FEMINISM?

•The promotion of equal rights, opportunities, and privileges for women

•Wide and varied sub-sets

•Extends to theoretical and philosophical fields

WHAT FEMINISM IS NOT

•A monolithic philosophy

•Hatred of men

•An attempt to replace patriarchy with an oppressive matriarchy

VOCABULARY

•Gender vs. Sex

•Patriarchy

•Misogyny / Misandry

•Androcentrism

•Gay, Lesbian, Transsexual, Queer, Bisexual

•Cis-sexual, intersex, heteronormativity

FIRST WAVE FEMINISM

•Retroactively named by Second Wave feminists•Early 19th and 20th century

•Primarily fought against overt legal discrimination

•Ended with the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920

•The suffrage movement

SECOND WAVE FEMINISM

•Solidified the movement and philosophy of feminism•Attacked social and cultural inequalities instead of legal ones

•Simone de Beauvoir introduces the idea of women as an “other”

•Equal Pay Act, Title VII, Roe V. Wade, marital rape laws. Equal rights amendment fails

•Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

END OF THE SECOND WAVE

•Backlash against exclusivity

•What does it mean to be female?

•Some felt second wave focused too much on white, upper class women

•Colloquially referred to as the “Feminist sex wars”

•Debate over pornography and sex work

THIRD WAVE FEMINISM

•Focuses more on inclusivity and perception of women

•Criticized for lacking clear goals and motivation

•Rejects the essentialist views of the Second Wave

•Promotes sex positivism and more postmodern conceptions of gender and sex

PROMINENT AUTHORS AND FIGUREHEADS•Andrea Dworkin• Antiporn activist, highly controversial author•bell hooks• Examined the role of black women in feminism

•Gloria Steinem• Feminist activist, founder of Ms magazine

•Judith Butler• Gender, sex and sexuality are all performative

ETHIC OF CARE•All individuals are interdependent

•Relative power and privilege should be considered in moral choices

•Caring and other feminine virtues are devalued in modern society

•Seeks to elevate caretaking in society

•Carol Gilligan

INTERSECTIONALITY

•There are many kind of discrimination

•Each person experiences different forms of discrimination

•You can’t understand the experiences of women without taking racism/classism/heterosexism into account

•You’re not a feminist if you hate blacks or gays

BLACK FEMINISM•Turns out not all women are upper/middle class white people

•Black women had/have fundamentally different experience than most mainstream feminists•Mainstream feminism ignores the struggles of black women

WOMANISM

•Criticized by mainstream feminism for overemphasizing the plight of black men and the nuclear family

•Focuses on community, with strong theological elements

•Alice Walker

•Offshoot of black feminism

QUEER THEORY

•Gender is inherently a social construct

•Constantly evolving, shifting theory•Highly deconstructionist

•Identity based philosophy, also criticizes identity

ECOFEMINISM

•Domination of women and nature are interconnected

•Coined by Francois d’Eaubonne

•Criticizes modern conceptions of science as masculine and destructive

•Dichotomies are inherent to current systems and should be rejected

MARXIST FEMINISM

•Root of women’s oppression is capitalism•Gender is a form of class warfare

•Traditional gender roles, sex work etc

•Fixing capitalism will also solve patriarchy

STANDPOINT FEMINISM

•Proposes a feminist epistemology

•Women have different knowledge than men•This can be used to deconstruct and examine patriarchy

•Criticized for generalizing the experiences of women

FEMINIST INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS•International relations can be understood through gender

•Domination, aggression and discipline viewed as IR traits derived from masculine influences•Role of women in IR

•Cynthia Enloe, Banannas, Beaches, and Bases