Sex/Gender, Gender identity, Gender Stereotypes, Gender Discrimination, Gendered division of labour, Heteronormativity, Gender continuum and LGBTIQ,Social institutions, and Gender reproduction, Patriarchy as an ideology and practice

1. Module 2.2
Development of Perspectives on Gender
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2. 2.2. Equality/difference - the feminist
debate
Whether gender equality or women’s di
ff
erences from men and each other need to be valued?
Especially during
fi
rst wave; equal pay—when can do a job the same as a man and should be
paid the same; but maternity leave discussions shift to the idea of women as di
ff
erent from
men because their ability to bear children; should value this di
ff
erence
Concerns regarding equality - liberal feminism— reforms within the present system without
challenging it
Women’s di
ff
erence from men— radical stance; critical of present social system which
devalue the di
ff
erence
Equality/di
ff
erence stances - western second wave feminism
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3. Men are the seen as the standard, the norm against which women are measured and usually found lacking
Biological essentialism
At the same time, smallness of women—reinforced by sociocultural eating practices
Di
ff
erence theorists argue that heaviness and largeness—as superior feature, maintenance of power over
the small — under patriarchy women’s smallness as inferior
Removing women from speci
fi
c historical and cultural contexts
Womanly as seductive; caring
Manly as competitiveness, aggression, individualism
1960-70s cosy sisterhood focus-di
ff
erent colours, sexual orientations, classes, abilities etc; overlapped
identities (eg. black working lesbian )
So the di
ff
ernce/equlaity debate is meaningless prompting the feminists to turn towards culture
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other, needed to be valued. Although feminists can be grouped into
those with equality or difference stances, this tends to oversimplify the
way such ideas have been used within feminism. Often individual
How Can Gender Best be Explained? 77
Central ideas
View of women
Equality
Rational individuals have
certain rights that should be
common to all
Women are equal, practically
the same as men
Difference
Women’s difference (even if not
‘natural’) should be recognized
and valued. Sometimes
separatists
Women are different, but not
appreciated within patriarchy
Table 4.5 The equality/difference debate within feminism

5. PUBLIC Vs PRIVATE
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6. The Personal is Political
As an intellectual distinction from earlier forms of feminist political activities
This slogan was iconic in expressing the challenge posed by public and private
distinction
The need to see women’s everyday experiences put on the political agenda or
as an encouragement to women to change themselves as a political act
For feminists, the private refers to the domestic sphere; as opposite to a public
sphere (non domestic, which consist of state, the economy and arenas of public
discourse)
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7. During second wave - consciousness-raising groups - met regularly to share
their experiences of living as woman within a male dominated society
Eg. menstruation experience- negative social attitudes to women’s bodies
which helps to constrain women
By seeing everyday aspects of women’s lives as being political, feminists were
challenging representations of ‘the personal’ in patriarchal society
Need for access to twenty four hour free childcare; breastfeeding only for a
small portion of child’s life; Ultimate responsibility remains with mother.
Lactating males; unmaternal females-prolactin and oxytocin, the hormones
that govern lactation, are not produced by the ovaries, but by the pituitary
gland
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8. From private to public patriarchy
Women’s subordination is due to their con
fi
nement to the private sphere
(Ronaldo, 1974); men’s work is always more highly valued than is that of
women; women’s status would be the lowest in those societies where there is
the clearest split between the public and the private and where women are
isolated from one another
Men can be fathers without a
ff
ecting their career and job performance -
image of respectable, strongly heterosexual and e
ff
etely paternal
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9. Boserup (1970) provides empirically rich account of di
ff
erent forms of sexual
divisions of labour, especially in agriculture, on a world basis; Africa-women
do farming , men-clearing and hunting;
Asia- plough agriculture, men
fi
eld labour, women is in seclusion and veiled
and performing domestic labour
Complex systems are also there; separated by class, caste or ethnicity; wives
of ruling men are domesticated, while lower catogoriesof women engage in
public labour
Colonial Europeans disrupted these patters creating further complex systems
of sexual division of labour
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10. Patriarchal appropriation of women’s labour, sexuality and psychological care
Collective and private appropriation of women (private vs public)
Juteau and Laurin (1986) - certain categories of women, such as nuns, escape
private appropriation, but subject to collective appropriation
But today women have access to public spheres which were previously barred
Family-unfriendly workplaces can make combining work and care very
di
ffi
cult
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11. WOMEN’S STUDIES /
GENDER STUDIES
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12. Women’s Studies
To critically engage with the notion of ‘woman’, to connect knowledge to
power and to transform the intellectual landscape radically
An approach to knowledge which places women at the centre of analysis,
challenging and androcentriic/phallocentric notion of knowledge which can be
de
fi
ned as men’s experiences and priorities being seen as mental and
representative of all
Women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the West - triggered by second
wave- establishment of Women’s Studies courses in adult and higher education
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13. Connecting the academic world to a social movement - setting up and
teaching such courses as a political act
Theoretical analysis intimately connected to social change (how to end the
subordination of women in patriarchal and capitalist societies)
By 1990s connection between movement and women’s studies gradually
faded away
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14. The feminist insistence on the importance of sisterhood, the personal being political,
the false separation of public and private spheres, a recognition of the common
oppression of women and their diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, class,
age, and levels of disability, the acknowledgement of the importance of women’s
historical and immediate experience and the idea of the development of a feminist
consciousness
Informed the development Women’s Studies
As a formal area of study emerged in the USA in the late 1960s ;
fi
rst course in Cornell
University in 1969 and
fi
rst program in San Diego State University 1969
In Britain; the left wing feminists, 1960s & 70s -women’s studies courses with higher
education and in an adult education (women’s health, history etc)
In Britain, 1980-MA in Women’s Studies at the University of Kent; gradually UG also
introduced
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15. Women’s studies encompasses the deconstruction of traditional disciplines in terms of
their subject matter and their structure
Teaching, learning and research are all transformed by a questioning of conventional
knowledge claims to objectivity and truth and the separation of experience from theory
Attempt to produce theories and concepts which re
fl
ect feminist concerns and
principles
Crossing of theoretical boundaries—multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or
transdisciplinary; allows an issue to be examined from a variety of intellectual
standpoints
Why women’s studies, not feminist studies? (Internal con
fl
ict within feminism)
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Nature of W.S

16. Initially concerned with contesting masculine knowledge, gender-blind and gender
biased scholarships, linked to women’s political agendas
Who engages with women’s studies?
Students of WS varies in terms of race, ethnicity, age, class, sexuality, able-
bodiedness and nationality; may be connected with the women’s movement and
diversity of feminist ideas
Women’s lived experiences and perceived ideas
Majority of the students and teachers of WS are women
May be for political reasons, out of a curiosity to engage with feminism, or help
them to combat with sexism at work; for a quali
fi
cation; as an intellectual exercise
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17. Pedagogy of the oppressed 1970
Engage with feminist principles in the classrooms
Dismantling and reconstructing previously comforting educational practices -
with intimacy and vitality of their experience
Recognition of power and attempts to challenge hierarchical notions of
assessment and learning
Collective working methods and joint student essays and presentations, non
traditional methods, collective marking etc
Struggle to analyse and overcome sexism, racism, heterosexism, classism ageism
etc
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18. Gender Studies
GS emerged out of WS
Bell Hooks, “Feminist Theory from Margin to Centre (1984) - the impact of employing a monolithic
conception of women’s experiences in the new scholarship on gender and sexuality
Black Women’s Studies; A
ll
the Women are White,A
ll
the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us are Brave, Edtd by
Gloria Hull Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith, 1982— transformation of women’s studies , providing
a theoretical rationale for incorporating minority women’s studies an intersectional analyses into
teaching and research
From the critical position established by WS; to look more broadly at gender as a phenomenon
More inclusive; talking about men, women and multiple genders
More universal and broader in scope, focuses on gender identity and gendered representation as central
categories analysis
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19. Adopts theories like— post-structuralist, postmodernist, postcolonial
studies, critical studies of masculinity, queer studies, critical race, critiques of
whiteness, ecofeminism, techno-science etc
Multidisciplinary nature; sociology, anthropology, psychology, biology etc.
(Gendered spaces, gendered technology, gendered economics)
Consciousness raising is not a prominent objective, unlike women’s studies
Initially started as part of PhD in gender studies in the U.S. in 2005
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20. Writing Activity
Discuss the contemporary relevance women’s studies in India.
Distinguish between the nature of women’s studies and gender studies.
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21. Reference
Sylvia Walby. (1991). Theorizing Patriarchy. Wiley Blackwell.
Boserup, Ester (1970) Woman’s Role in Economic Development. Allen and Unwin. London
Juteau, Danielle and Laurin, Nicole (1986), ‘Nuns in the Labor Force : a Neglected
Contribiton’. Feminist Issues, fall, pp. 75-87.
Mary Holmes (2007). What is Gender Sociological Approaches. SAGE ; New Delhi
Robinson, Victoria & Richardson, Diane. (1997). Introducing Women’s Studies. MacMillan.
London.
Hooks, Bell. (1984). Feminist Theory from Margin to Centre. Boston, MA : South End Presa
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