Academic Course on Feminism

1. FEMINISM
REV. WILSON
A SUBALTERN APPROACH

4. Brain Storming: What are they doing?

5. BS: What are they doing? Is it ok?

6. Please share your points
•Enumerate the five things a man can do
and a woman can not do?
•Enumerate the five things a woman can do
and men can not do?
•Giving birth to a child – Artificial semen.
•Who is stronger?

7. 1. DEFINITION
•Bell hooks (2000)
•Feminism is a ‘movement’
•to end sexism
• to end sexist exploitation
• to end oppression.

8. 2. Feminism:
• It is a social movement for….
• 1) Eradicating gender inequality
• 2) Promoting women's rights, interests, and issues in
society.
• 3) It is an intellectual commitment
• 4) Political movement that seeks justice for women
and the end of sexism in all forms.

9. 3. Themes of Feminism:
• 1) Patriarchy: The social structures and practices where
men dominate and oppress women.

10. 2) Stereo-typing
• : It is an over-generalized belief about the specific roles played by
women. E.g. Cooking, soft work for women and child rearing to
women.

11. 3) Objectification
• Looking at women and treating them as an object.
• E.g. Role of women in sex. E.g. Missionary position promoted by
religious people.

12. 4) Sexual objectification
• : It is purely treating women as an object of sexual desire without
considering their dignity.
• E.g. Gang rape usually by men never by women.

13. 5) Sexual oppression
• Gender relations that institutionalise norms to privilege male over
female.
• E.g. Dowry system.

14. 4. Feminist theory
• Feminist theory is founded on three main principles.
• 1. Women contribution: They have something valuable to contribute
to every aspect of the world.

15. 2. Realising the potential
• As an oppressed group, women have been unable to achieve their
potential, receive rewards, or gain full participation in society.

16. 3. Social transformation
• Feminist research should do more than critique, but should work
toward social transformation.

17. 5. Biological Sex vs Gender
• 1. Biological Sex: It refers to the ‘physiological’ characteristics of
femaleness with which a person is born.

18. 2. Gender Identity
• It refers to one’s ‘psychological’ sense of oneself as a male, female,
gender transgressive, etc.

19. 3. Gender Role
• It refers to the ‘socially constructed’ and culturally specific behaviour
and expectations for women (i.e. femininity) or men (i.e. masculinity)
and are based on heteronormativity.

20. 4. Gender Expression
• It refers to the behaviour and ‘physical appearance’ that a person
utilizes in order to express their own gender. This may or may not be
consistent with socially constructed gender roles.
•

21. 6. Gender Theory
•Gender is a socially constructed theory where
•a man is expected to behave in a certain fashion
and
•women are expected to behave in another
pattern.
• While Sex is a biological dimension, Gender is a
Social phenomenon (physical and social).

22. 7. Patriarchy System:
• 1. Definition: It is an ideology enforced by culture and religious
beliefs. E.g. Funeral rights are conducted by men. Sylvia Walby (1990)
defined patriarchy as a system of social structures and practices in
which men dominate and oppress women.
• 2. Types of Patriarchy: There are two types of patriarchy, namely
private patriarchy which is practiced in household and public
patriarchy is a collective response.

23. 7. Key factors of Patriarchy System
1. Son preference: Sons are deemed to be more important than girls.

24. 2. House Confinement
• Women are considered to be gate keepers of the house and confined
to walls of a house.

25. 3. Subordinate status
• In household affairs, men are providers and protectors and women
are just supporters and their authority and powers are limited to
men.

26. 4. Economic Liability
• A girl is believed to be an economic liability and educating her is a bad
investment because she is bound to get married and leave paternal
home.

27. 5. Silent acceptance
• Women mostly subordinately accept their roles in family and society.

28. 6. Payment inequality
• Men are paid high for any job and women are paid low in agriculture.

29. 7. Commodification of women
• The media portray women as commodity. E.g. Ads.

30. The Three Types of Oppression
• 1. Individual: Attitudes and actions that reflect prejudice against a
social group.
• 2. Institutional: Policies, laws, rules, norms, and customs enacted by
organizations and social institutions that disadvantage some social
groups and advantage other social groups. These institutions include
Types of Oppression religion, government, education, law, the media,
and health care system.
• 3. Societal/Cultural: Social norms, roles, rituals, language, music, and
art that reflect and reinforce the belief that one social group is
superior to another.

31. Types of Crimes against Women
• 1. Sexual crimes such as rape (forced sexual intercourse), molestation
(unwanted sexual advances), sexual harassment at work place.
• 2. Human trafficking of women for sex workers
• 3. Forced prostitution
• 4. Female infanticide and feticide (abortion of foetus)
• 5. Pornography and obscenity (disgusting behaviour)
• 6. Honour killing of women
• 7. Marriage arrangement

32. The Origins of Women’s Oppression
• 1. Biology of women: The division of labour between men and
women is seen as inevitable due to the difference in biology. women
are “naturally” or biologically built for giving birth to and suckling
young.

33. 2. Feminine care
• The naturally feminine, like the ability to care for babies, change their
nappies, nurse them when they are sick, oversee their development
and education etc, these things, men are also capable of performing.

34. 3. Vulnerability during Pregnancy
• Many women are physically unwell and unable to labour during some
of pregnancy, lactation and during times of other menstrual
problems. This vulnerability must have played a part in their
subjection. The basis of women’s oppression lies in her vulnerability
during pregnancy and childbirth. During some of this period she is
unable to work, except for the work of childbearing itself, and during
much of it, she is able to work at partial strength only and feels both
mentally and physically weaker. This varies from woman to woman,
and pregnancy to pregnancy, but is nevertheless universal to some
degree.

35. 4. Idea of property of men
• The accumulation of surplus and private property, by pillage and
force, not only made one section richer and more powerful than
another, but was notable in that this powerful section was almost
entirely men.

36. 5. Domestic labour
• Domestic labour plays a central role, especially within a family with
children. In much of the Third World, women toil ceaselessly on
domestic and subsistence work, such as 1) carrying water, 2) growing
food, 3) preparing food, 4) washing clothes.
• Although, in this country, domestic labour is much less gruelling and
time-consuming than this it is still an area of drudgery from which
most men are almost entirely free.

37. The Three Waves of Feminism
• 1. The First Wave (Enactment of Divorce Laws)
•
• The First Wave occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. It involved some of the foremothers of liberal feminism such as
Elizabeth Candy Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage who, in advocating for
divorce laws to protect the rights of women, cited Iroquois laws that
ensured a man provided for his family on pain of banishment. There was a
strong influence of Native American women with whom white women
shared land. The pioneers of the women’s movement took cues from
Native American ancestors such as the Iroquois system of election,
whereby women chose their governmental representative from among
eligible men.
•

38. 2. The Second Wave: 1960-1990 – (The enactment
of Civil rights)
The Second Wave occurred during the 1960’s and 1990’s. It unfolded in
the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing
self-consciousness of a variety of marginalized groups around the
world. The Second Wave differed from the First Wave in that it “drew in
women of colour and developing nations, seeking sisterhood and
solidarity and claiming ‘women’s struggle as class struggle’. Some
notable events during this period include the passage of Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the formation of the National Organization for
Women, passage of Title IX in the Education Amendments of 1972, the
Roe v. Wade decision, and the publication of The Feminine Mystique by
Betty Friedan.

39. 3. The Third Wave (1990-2008) (Postmodern
feminism)
The Third Wave is considered as the timeframe from 1990’s to
present day. It is informed by postcolonial and postmodern
thinking. Third Wavers often mystifies earlier feminists as
many have reclaimed lipstick, high heels, and cleavage. In
addition, tattoos may adorn current day feminists. This wave
breaks constraining boundaries of gender, including what it
deems essentialist boundaries set by the earlier waves.
Controversy and disagreement around identity politics
between feminists in the third wave have escalated.

40. 4. Fourth Wave Feminism (2008-present) (Me too
movements)
Fourth wave feminism is shaped by technology and
characterized by the #metoo and the #timesup movements.
Considering that these hashtags were first introduced on
Twitter in 2007, this movement has grown rapidly, as social
media activism has spread interest in and awareness of
feminism. Waves of accusations against men in powerful
positions—from Hollywood directors, to Supreme Court
justices, to the President of the United States, have catalysed
feminists in a way that appears to be fundamentally different
compared to previous iterations.

41. The Types of Feminism
• 1. Liberal Feminism (Break from traditional roles)
• 1. Liberal feminism argues that “society has a false belief that women
are by nature less intellectually and physically capable than men”.
This perspective seeks to level the playing field that would allow
women to seek the same opportunities as men, especially the
opportunity to excel in various fields.
• 2. Modern liberal feminists argue that patriarchal society fuses sex
and gender together, making only those jobs that are associated with
the traditionally feminine appropriate for women to pursue.

42. 2. Radical Feminism (Behaving like men)
1. Radical feminists think liberal feminist perspectives are not drastic
enough to address the centuries of individual, institutional, and
systemic oppression that have ensued. This can be further
deconstructed into two types:
2. 2. Libertarian radical feminism focuses on personal freedom of
expression but also turns to androgyny(behaving like men behave-
smoking, dressing) as an option.
3. 3. Cultural radical feminism expressly argues that the root cause of
the problem is not femininity, but the low value that patriarchy
assigns to feminine qualities. If society placed a higher value on
feminine qualities, then there would be less gender oppression.

43. 3. Marxist/Socialist Feminism (property rights and
equal pay)
• 1. This lens on feminism incorporates perspectives of social justice as
well as socioeconomic differences. For many centuries women were
considered the property of men and a key cog in the capitalist
machine from a commodities perspective.
• 2. Marxist feminists argue that the path to gender equality is led by
the destruction of our capitalist society. This perspective speaks out
to issues such as unequal pay, obstacles to achieving tenure or
excelling in certain fields.
• 3. Socialist feminists purport that women can only achieve true
freedom when working to end both economic and cultural
oppression.

44. 4. Black/Womanist Feminism (Double oppression)
• 1. The term Womanist is often used to describe the experiences of a
woman of colour, including the intersections of race and gender.
• 2. Wheeler (2002): Black feminist is an African American 1) woman
academic, who believes that female descendants of American slavery share
a unique set of life experiences distinct from those of 2) black men and 3)
white women and the lives of African American women are oppressed by
combinations of racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism.
• 3. The Black Womanist feminism (or Black Feminist Thought) movement
comes out of the feminist movement of the 1970’s and is a direct interface
with the civil rights movement, as it recognizes that women of African
descent in the U.S. faced a unique set of issues that were not being
addressed by the predominantly white feminist movement.

45. 5. Asian-American Feminism (Asian literature and
Arts)
• 1. Lingyan Yang (2003) defines Asian American feminism as “paying
particularly attention to Asian American women’s voices, texts,
experiences, literature, arts, visual arts, histories, geography, theory,
epistemology, pedagogy, sexuality, body and life”.
• 2. It includes women in the U.S. whose ancestors are from a number
of countries throughout Asia (including East Asia, South Asia, and
Southeast Asia) as well as multi-racial women.
• 3. Throughout centuries of colonization, Western values and
educational norms were pressed upon Indigenous people and
educational systems of South and East Asia, the Americas, Africa and
Australia.

46. 6. Arab American Feminism (Islamic feminism)
• 1. Muslim women have created feminisms of their own. They
were not “Western;” they are not derivative. Religion from
the very start has been integral to the feminisms that Muslim
women have constructed, both explicitly and implicitly.
• 2. Arab American feminism often addresses key issues of
politics and modernity, East/West relations, religion,
colonization, and relationships between and across gender
and class.
• 3. Muslim women have historically favoured two major
feminist paradigms: Secular feminism and Islamic feminism.

47. 7. Existential Feminism (economic freedom by
prostitution)
• 1. Simone de Beauvoir (1952) developed another conceptualization of
feminism – existentialist feminism. This type of feminism puts forth
the knowingly controversial idea that prostitution empowers women
both financially and within the general hierarchy of society. When
compared to Marxist and socialist feminism, the contrast with this
type of entrepreneurial spirit is distinct.
• 2. Central to this perspective is the concept that one is not born a
woman but becomes a woman. de Beauvoir emphasizes that women
must transcend their natural position and choose economic, personal,
and social freedom.

48. 8. Eco Feminism (Exploitation of nature and women)
• 1. Eco Feminism is the recognition of the common ground in
both feminism and environmentalism.
• 2. This is a natural pairing as eco feminists argue that there is
a correlation between the destruction of the planet and the
exploitation of women worldwide by the patriarchy.
• 3. Eco feminists contend that both the destruction of the
planet and its inhabitants are at stake, and the only way to
avert these disasters is through taking a feminist perspective
of the world.

49. 9. Postmodern Feminism (radical feminism)
• 1. Olson (1996): Postmodern feminists, see female as having been
cast into the role of the Other. They criticize the structure of society
and the dominant order, especially in its patriarchal aspects.
• 2. Many Postmodern feminists, however, reject the feminist label,
because anything that ends with an “ism” reflects an essentialist
conception. Postmodern Feminism is the ultimate acceptor of
diversity. Multiple truths, multiple roles, multiple realities are part of
its focus. There is a rejection of an essential nature of women, of one-
way to be a woman.