Core Ideas and Tensions (AQA A-Level Politics): Revision Notes

Core Ideas and Tensions

Feminism is a diverse ideology that examines the subordinate role of women in the state, society and the economy. Whilst all feminists agree that women face systematic discrimination and that this situation can and should be changed through political action, there are significant tensions between different feminist strands regarding the causes of oppression and the solutions required.

Human nature

Areas of agreement

The central issue regarding human nature for feminists is the distinction between sex and gender. For most feminists, biological differences (sex) are inconsequential and should not determine how women are treated by the state, society or the economy.

Areas of tension

Liberal feminists

Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Perkins Gilman focused on the fundamental similarity of human nature between men and women. Wollstonecraft viewed humans as rational, self-seeking and independent individuals who wish to be autonomous and pursue their own version of the good life.

Liberal feminists are equality feminists, believing that all humans possess equal moral value and are therefore entitled to formal equality and equality of opportunity. This means removing legal and institutional barriers that prevent women from competing fairly in the public sphere.

Marxist and socialist feminists

Friedrich Engels saw gender roles as part of capitalism's structure, arguing they ensure women fulfil the role of reproductive labour (unpaid domestic work and childcare) that is essential for capitalism to function. Marxist feminists are equality feminists who focus on achieving economic equality between men and women.

Sheila Rowbotham blended Marxist and radical critiques, arguing that gender is a construct of both capitalism and patriarchy (male dominance) to ensure women's subordination. This requires equality in an economic sense as well as within the family and personal life.

Radical feminists

Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett saw gender roles and traits as artificially constructed and imposed on women to secure male dominance through patriarchy. Women are socialised into viewing gender roles as 'natural' when they are not. De Beauvoir famously argued that women are made to see themselves as 'the Other' whilst man is considered the norm.

Postmodern feminists

Postmodern feminists see gender roles as forced on women by society. However, gender is not the only influence on identity – it intersects with class and race to create different experiences for different women. This approach is known as intersectionality.

Postmodernists are equality feminists who see these different experiences as a way to understand how all women are oppressed under patriarchy, whilst recognising that oppression takes different forms depending on a woman's race and class position.

The state

Areas of agreement

All feminists recognise that the state has the potential to serve a useful purpose for women. However, most agree that historically, currently, or both, the state has been complicit in women's subordination to men. Feminists believe the state could be used more effectively to enhance women's position in society.

Areas of tension

Liberal feminism

Wollstonecraft and Betty Friedan pointed to the state's failure to tackle discrimination against women, thereby perpetuating their subordinate role. However, they also saw the state as the source for ending this discrimination through granting formal equality, as campaigned for by Wollstonecraft and Harriet Taylor.

The state can ensure women's access to education and work to secure economic independence, as Perkins argued. Liberal feminists believe the state should pass laws to guarantee women's equality, including:

• Banning discrimination (e.g. Civil Rights Act 1964 in the USA)
• Imposing gender justice in the public sphere (e.g. Equality Act 2010 in the UK)
• Protecting equal pay (e.g. Equal Pay Act 1970 in the UK, superseded by the Equality Act 2010)
• Tackling domestic violence and rape in marriage (e.g. 'Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls' strategy launched by the Coalition government in 2010)

Friedan went further, arguing that affirmative action policies should be used by the state to tackle past injustices and actively promote equality.

Radical feminism and socialist feminism

Second-wave and third-wave feminists might agree that legal measures are useful, but would argue they are insufficient to tackle the systemic oppression of women.

Kate Millett identified the state as part of the problem because it promotes and sustains patriarchy. Sheila Rowbotham argued that it serves both patriarchy and capitalism in their oppression of women. The state could use the law more effectively, for example by banning pornography, which Millett argued associates power, cruelty and dominance with masculinity and victimhood with femininity.

bell hooks saw the state as part of the interlocking system of 'imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy', promoting injustice, exploitation and oppression.

Society

Area of agreement

All feminists agree that society and societal attitudes have placed women in a subordinate role to men, causing them to suffer injustices and institutionalised disadvantages.

Areas of tension

The most significant tension exists between difference feminists and equality feminists within the radical feminist movement. Equality feminists argue for sexual equality by freeing women from gender differences, whilst difference feminists see men and women as biologically and psychologically different.

Some difference feminists argue for cultural feminism based on a woman-centric culture and lifestyle focused on female values, either by discovering their lost feminine nature or by formulating a new nature without reference to men. Others argue for separatist feminism – as the desire for men to dominate is part of their basic nature, women need to formulate a society separate from men to realise their true nature.

Liberal feminism

Wollstonecraft saw women as discriminated against because society fails to accept their full humanity and rationality. Friedan identified discrimination through women's lack of access to education and work. She famously described 'the problem that has no name' – where women were supposed to find satisfaction in the roles of wife and mother but this left them miserable and empty.

Liberal feminists believe discrimination can be tackled through legal changes, which will lead to changes in attitudes and behaviours over time. With women taking a full part in society, public values and social institutions would gradually change to end bias and discrimination. This represents a process of societal reform not societal revolution.

Second and third waves

Second-wave and third-wave feminists argue that women's subordinate role has a much deeper foundation in the system of patriarchy, which sees oppression stretching across both the public and private spheres. For these feminists, the personal is the political.

The solution for radical feminists and postmodern feminists is revolution to challenge and overthrow patriarchy, whereas socialist feminists call for an economic and social revolution to create equality politically, legally, economically, sexually and in family life.

Radical feminism

Millett argued that patriarchy is pervasive across society in religion, culture, the arts, the media, education, the family and sexual life. She identified the patriarchal family unit as the key body that reinforces the subordination of women.

De Beauvoir saw women as moulded into their gender roles to such a degree that they feel their gender roles are natural. They have become complicit in their own oppression by viewing themselves as the Other and man as the norm.

Socialist feminism

Rowbotham saw capitalism and patriarchy as interlinked systems of oppression that teach women to be feminine based on myths made by men. These myths make women subordinate in the home and subordinate in the workplace.

Postmodern feminism

bell hooks saw patriarchy as the most important of the wider systems of oppression like class and race. She was critical of previous forms of feminism for their narrow focus on white, middle-class women.

Patriarchy socialises men to be dominators and women to see themselves as subordinate. hooks argued that ending patriarchy will free women and remove 'the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation'.

The economy

Areas of agreement

Feminists agree that women are subordinate to men in the economic sphere in multiple ways. The gender pay gap – the percentage difference between average hourly earnings for men and women – results from:

• Women doing the vast majority of reproductive labour, forcing them into temporary, part-time, low-paid work with fewer opportunities for promotion
• A divided labour market where women are more likely to be employed in professions seen as feminine, which are paid less
• Most senior roles in firms being held by men

All feminists agree that women should be economically independent.

Areas of tension

Gilman argued that given the nature of work in modern industrial societies, biological differences are of no consequence. She, along with Wollstonecraft and Friedan, agreed that women should have access to work and there should be equality of opportunity in the labour market.

Friedan argued that the state has a responsibility to intervene so there are no obstacles to women competing fairly with men in the labour market.

bell hooks argued that capitalism, imperialism and white supremacy combined with patriarchy to create oppression for all women, but that this oppression was different for different women depending on how race and class intersected with their gender. She also criticised Friedan's call for women to have careers, arguing that Friedan failed to 'tell readers whether it was more fulfilling to be a maid, a babysitter, a factory worker, a clerk, or a prostitute than to be a leisure-class housewife'.

Key debates within feminism

Public vs private

Liberal feminists see discrimination and bias in the public sphere as placing women in a subordinate role. However, they do not wish to challenge traditional family and marriage roles because the private sphere is seen as the realm of personal freedom where the state should not interfere.

In contrast, radical feminists see the personal as the political because the family is the base unit of patriarchy. Unequal relations in the home are passed on from generation to generation as the norm for relations between the sexes. Postmodern feminists also see the family as the key patriarchal unit, passing on dominator values based not just on gender but also on race and class. Marxist feminists reject the private/public split, seeing sexual inequality rooted in the public sphere of the economy spreading into the home and family unit.

Difference vs equality

All the main strands of feminism subscribe to androgyny and the idea that personhood is difference-blind. All strands agree that there is a distinction between sex and gender, and that gender is a socially constructed idea that men and women are conditioned from birth to internalise.

Reform or revolution?

Liberal feminism is rooted in individualism and the idea of granting formal equality to all. Discrimination against women in the public sphere is brought about by bias, ignorance and the socialisation of gender roles, and is not rooted in a pervasive system of patriarchy. Social reform can achieve equal access for all to the public realm by making the rules fair and stopping any players from being systematically disadvantaged by discrimination. This will allow the individual to be autonomous, achieve full personhood and follow their version of the good life.

However, radical feminism sees the root of oppression in patriarchy and the common experience of oppression, which creates a collective identity for women, or sisterhood, that they can use to advance the revolution. This collective action will bring about a cultural, social and sexual revolution.

Postmodern feminism sees oppression as rooted in gender as well as in class and race. The revolution must tackle all these interlocking systems of oppression through an approach based on solidarity across the different groups, who all have their own voice expressing their own experience of oppression.

Socialist feminism is also about collective action and revolution, arguing for an economic and social/sexual revolution to liberate women from patriarchy and everyone from capitalism.

Is feminism a single doctrine?

Feminism starts from the point of equality, which was once a radical idea but is now widely accepted. Feminism has two fundamental beliefs that unite it:

• Women have a subordinate role in the state, society and the economy, suffering persistent injustices and systemic discrimination on the basis of their sex
• The subordination of women is not desirable or permanent, and women's role in the state, society and the economy can and should be changed via political action

Beyond that, there is limited agreement between feminists. There are fundamental clashes between difference and equality feminism; post-feminism suggests that feminism has achieved its goals; and there are key differences between the main strands.

Strand	Liberal	Radical	Socialist	Postmodern
Approach	Reformist	A social and sexual revolution	Socialist revolution alongside a social and sexual revolution	A revolution that overthrows the interlocking systems of oppression
Main problem	Discrimination in the public sphere can be challenged via changes in the law. The increased role of women in the public sphere will whittle away bias and prejudice.	Patriarchy is the oldest, most pervasive and most damaging form of oppression. It has been conditioned into human consciousness.	Patriarchy and capitalist domination work together to oppress women by making them unequal in the workplace and unequal in the home.	The imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy promotes injustice, exploitation and oppression that is different for different groups.
Solution	Formal equality and economic equality will liberate women as individuals.	The root and branch removal of patriarchy is needed to create sexual equality.	The removal of capitalism, private property and the patriarchal family is central to the liberation of women.	The recognition of different identities and the bringing together of the different voices to challenge oppression is the key to liberation.
Focus	Women should have equality in the public sphere and freedom to pursue their own version of the good life in their private lives.	Radical transformation is needed in all spheres of life, including a woman's control over her own body, sexual freedom and equality, and freedom in terms of reproductive labour.	Women cannot be free unless they achieve freedom from patriarchy and freedom from economic exploitation.	It is essential to counter all the interlocking systems of oppression, such as class, race and gender.