Feminism

23 April 2018

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 Early History
• Feminism focuses on redressing causes of
inequality or oppression vis-à-vis women. But
feminists differ on what precisely are the
causes.
• Early representatives:
• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97): women as
slaves of men, marriage as legal prostitution.
• Charles Fourier’s (1772–1837) féminisme: No
social progress and historic change without
progress of women toward liberty: “the
extension of women's privileges is the general
principle for all social progress” ("Degradation
of Women in Civilization”). Synonymous with
advocacy of women’s rights and universal
suffrage.
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• 1st wave 20th Century History
• Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born, but rather
becomes, a woman” (The Second Sex, 1949).
• Feminism as product of contingent forces (i.e.,
social construction) and not eternal essence.
• 2nd wave (1970s)
• Women’s Liberation Movement: emphasis on
idea of sisterhood, unity of interests among all
women across race and class.
• Assumes universal female identity but
overemphasizes white upper-middleclass
women’s experiences.
• Post-feminism (1980s)
• Backlash against 2nd wave’s monolithic quality,
feminism’s perceived irrelevance, rise of Gender
Studies and its alleged misandry and
gynocentrism.
• Ally McBeal, Sex and the City: feminism plus
sexuality

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• 3rd wave (1990s)
• Against essentialism of 2nd wave and Post-Cold War History
individualization of post-feminism.
• Naomi Wolf’s “power feminism”: abandon
“victim feminism” and see women as potent
change agents with resources at their disposal.
• Natasha Walter’s “new feminism”: promote
economic equality with men, not female-
centric culture. Margaret Thatcher as unsung
heroine for having normalized notion of
female success? “I believed sexism in our
culture would wither away. I was entirely
wrong” (2010)
• Rebecca Walker: "I am not a post-feminism
feminist. I am the third-wave.“ (“Becoming the
Third Wave”)
• Power to choose (2000s)
• Hillary Clinton, Challenge to Superwoman
notion: “As long as you raise perfect children,
or are a gourmet cook, dress for success or are
multi-orgasmic till dawn… It’s so exhausting,
it’s not possible” (Gloria Steinem)
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 Sex vs. Gender
• Popular distinction between “sex” and “gender” in
English language appeared in 1970s, largely as result of
impact of feminism and the women’s liberation
movement, with Gender Studies subsequently emerging
as an academic discipline
• Research on genital malformation and incorrect gender
assignment at birth: easy to undo biological effects (via
corrective surgery), but not easy to unravel
psychological effects of having lived as the “wrong”
gender (Stoller 1968; Millett 1969).
• Sex can be defined according to biological and
physiological attributes, whereas gender is defined by
socially constructed notions of femininity and
masculinity (Oakley 1972). Mechanisms include
different modes of socialization (Sharpe 1976), power
relations that define logocentric domestic and public
roles and forms of sexuality (Lees 1993), speech acts,
e.g. “boying” and “girling” (Butler 2004)
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 Liberal Feminism
• Root problem: biased institutions. Seeks equality
of men and women through political and legal
reform. Demands no special privileges for
women, but aims to create gender equity.
• Emphasizes individualism of liberalism. Women’s
realization of “personhood” when emancipated
(Wollstonecraft)
• Examples: Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill,
Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem
• Criticisms:
1. Individualist assumptions
2. Reflects values of bourgeois white women while
ignoring the rest
3. Universal suffrage not good enough as it still means
continued reliance on and preservation of
patriarchy. 9
 Radical Feminism
• Root problem: patriarchy. Focus on society as a
patriarchal system that privileges male supremacy
and domination, thereby oppressing women.
• Recognizes other oppressive forms, e.g. gender
identity, race, social class, ability, perceived
attractiveness, sexual orientation.
• “Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice”
(’70s popular slogan).
• Aim is to abolish patriarchy. Some RFs call for
women to govern women and men.
• Criticisms:
1. Stresses principally white, middle-class women’s
interests with little concern for class and race

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 Socialist/Marxist Feminism
• Emancipation of women through overcoming class
and patriarchy. Emphasis on capitalist sources of
oppression on women. How capitalist relations of
production, via class domination and struggle,
shape gender relations.
• However, sees Marx’s view of gender oppression
as merely a sub-class of class oppression as naïve.
• Examples: Rosa Luxembourg, Emma Goldman,
Donna Haraway
• Criticisms:
1. Patriarchy not a subset of class, but other way round.
2. Feminism as bourgeois ideology against Marxism and
working class.

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 Postcolonial Feminism
• Focus on economic, political and cultural effects
of racism and colonialism in postcolonial settings.
See complicity between colonialism and
patriarchy.
• Insist gender must account for class and ethnicity.
• Focus on “othering”, Imperial Woman vs.
Colonial/Native/3rd World Woman.
• Struggle not only against men but Western (i.e.
white) feminists. Critical of Lib Fem and Rad Fem
and their assumptions of universality.
• Examples: Gayatri C. Spivak, Chandra Mohanty,
Anne McClintock
• Criticisms: can the subaltern speak?!
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 Postmodern Feminism
• Focus on language’s role in constructing gender. Sex as a
construction of language. Critiques distinction by other
feminisms between sex (as given/natural) and gender (as
construction).
• Rejects concept of “woman”, both as unified object of
theorizing/analysis and unified subject of knowing. How can
“woman” know and be known if “woman” itself is problematic.
• Sees other forms of feminism as essentializing sex and gender,
and entrenching opposition between “men” and “women”.
• Examples: Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Mary Jo
Frug
• Criticisms: 1) Philosophically, it rejects both objectivism and
relativism by permitting knower to escape responsibility for
the representations she constructs. 2) Rejection of “woman” is
to deny reality of sexism(s). 3) Dissolves all categories while
reproducing individualism they claim to reject.
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 International Security from a Feminist View
• International security as a gendered space: private vs.
public, domestic vs. international, masculine vs.
feminine. Gendered identities and ideologies (1)
produce and preserve structural insecurities; (2)
institutionalize and legitimize masculine and class
domination, and structural violence
• Gendered hierarchy as outcome of patriarchy and state
formation: state- and war-centric systems as
“protection rackets” that create threats and charge for
their reduction. Hierarchies obscured by nationalist
ideology/ identity (citizenship), which stresses unity
and non-differentiation
• Rethinking international security requires: (1) accurate
understanding of existing structural insecurities; (2)
politicizing structural violence as historically
constituted, i.e. contingent not natural
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 International Security from a Feminist View (cont.)
• See masculine autonomy as socially constructed and
dependent on its Other, i.e. feminine dependency
(passivity, vulnerability, protected)
• Subverting 3 traditional dichotomies/separations
1. Separation of public/private: transform division of
labour not just by adding more women to what men
do (e.g. women doing and possibly transforming IR),
but greater engagement by men in reproductive
and caring work
2. Separation of logocentric pairings, e.g.
reason/affect, mind/body, freedom/necessity:
seeking a form of politics that is neither
disembedded nor disembodied, but with
appreciation of context
3. Separation of “protector” and “protected”

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 Discussion Questions
1. “Gender is actually very central to the constitution
and practice of international politics” (Marysia
Zalewski, 2009). Agree or disagree?
2. How is international politics and security – its ideas,
institutions, language, practices, etc. – masculine
and/or patriarchal in character?
3. “Men make war, women make peace.” Discuss.

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