Origins, Beliefs, and Strands (AQA A-Level Politics): Revision Notes

Origins, Beliefs, and Strands

Feminism is a diverse and multifaceted ideology that encompasses various perspectives on women's position in society. At its core, feminism is united by two fundamental principles: first, that women have historically occupied inferior positions in society, suffering injustices and institutionalised disadvantages; second, that this subordination of women is neither inevitable nor desirable, and can be changed through awareness and action.

Origins of feminism

The emergence of liberal feminism can be traced to two foundational texts: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and Harriet Taylor's Enfranchisement of Women (1851). These early feminists identified that societal customs and legal constraints prevented women from entering the public sphere (the world of politics, culture and industry where public values and goals are formed) or achieving success within it.

Women were considered to lack the rationality, intellectual capacity or physical capability required for politics, economic activity or academic and professional life. The initial aim was to secure basic rights and formal equality for women, ensuring fair rules that would allow all to compete without discrimination.

First wave: liberal feminism

Core principles of liberal feminism

Liberal feminism draws upon classical liberal ideas about human nature, freedom and individualism to create a theory that liberates women.

Rationality forms the foundation of liberal feminist thought. Wollstonecraft argued that women are human, and all humans possess the same capacity for rationality. Therefore, women have the same rational capacity as men.

Education became a crucial demand. Wollstonecraft insisted on genuine education for women (equivalent to men's education) based on their capacity for reason. This would benefit wider society through creating rational, independent women, whilst allowing women to be autonomous and make their own life choices, which Wollstonecraft saw as fundamental to being fully human.

Gender justice for liberal feminists means addressing discrimination through securing equal rights and opportunities. Following the liberal principle that all have equal moral worth, equality of treatment should exist in three key areas:

• The intellectual sphere – equal right to education for all
• Civic life – voting rights and women's participation in lawmaking
• Economic life – equal access to all jobs and equal pay for equal work; economic independence for women was particularly important to Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Reformism was central to achieving gender justice. Winning the right to vote was crucial because once women could influence lawmaking, laws could be shaped to tackle discrimination and ensure equality of treatment. Historical examples include the suffragettes and suffragists in the UK and the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the USA.

Contemporary liberal feminism

Originally, liberal feminists believed equal rights and anti-discrimination laws would suffice. However, contemporary liberal feminists argue that more action is needed to counteract years of gender discrimination. This can involve affirmative action (policies to improve opportunities for historically excluded or under-represented groups in education and employment) to ensure women are recruited over equally qualified men into jobs or higher education.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman identified clear economic barriers blocking women's progress in her work Women and Economics (1898). Her writing does not fit comfortably within any single strand of feminism, and her idea of gender as socially constructed was ahead of its time.

Gilman observed that humanity was unique as a species where 'the female depends on the male for food' and 'sex-relations is also an economic relation'. This had limited social progress and evolution. Because women lacked economic independence, they were assigned 'a social role that locked her into her home', a role that was culturally created rather than based on biological difference.

This male domination also appeared in an androcentric culture (placing men or the masculine view at the centre of perspectives on the world), with male domination in the arts, humanities, fashion and health reinforcing the domestic role of women as wife, mother and housekeeper.

As a reform Darwinist (someone who believes humans can direct and control evolution through their actions), Gilman proposed economic independence for women, centralised nurseries and cooperative kitchens to create true freedom for women to think and judge for themselves. This freedom and equality between men and women would allow natural growth of qualities and virtues that would bring lasting progress to society.

Second wave: Marxist, radical and socialist feminism

Marxist feminism

Whilst liberals identified discrimination as the root cause of women's oppression, Marxist feminists saw capitalism as the fundamental problem. Friedrich Engels, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), argued that class oppression is the most universal form of oppression and causes all other forms of oppression.

The analysis begins with the shift from matrilineal families (where family is traced through the female line) to patriarchal structures where 'the man took command in the home'. This change was brought about by the advent of private property and capitalism.

Marriage became an institution built on exploitation, with the man as the property-owning bourgeois and the woman as the property-less proletarian. The property-less woman was degraded and reduced to servitude as a slave to male lust and an instrument to produce children – the working classes of the future.

Marxist feminists built on Engels's work to argue that reproductive labour (unpaid labour performed by women in the home, such as cooking, washing clothes and bearing/raising children, which produces future workers and maintains current workers) should either be recognised as productive and fairly paid or socialised so that women can take their place in the workforce.

Radical feminism

Whilst Marxist feminists blame capitalism and private property, radical feminists argue that patriarchy (a whole network of systems of control which systematically allow men to dominate and exploit women) is the root cause of oppression.

Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1970) was integral to the radical feminist approach, focusing on how patriarchy and the family and wider culture support masculine authority in all areas of life, permitting women no authority outside the home.

Radical feminism encompasses several key elements: 'the personal is the political', sex and gender distinctions, and patriarchy.

'The personal is the political'

Radical feminists argue that patriarchy is pervasive, dominating both the public sphere and the private sphere (the family, the home and the body, where individuals have freedom largely unregulated by the state).

The personal includes women's experiences related to the female body (such as menstruation, childbirth and pregnancy) and experiences in the home and workplace (such as sexual harassment, domestic labour and sexual violence).

By bringing these issues into public discussion, the understanding of oppression was greatly deepened. The home and the female body were now recognised as sites of oppression alongside the political and social spheres.

Sex and gender

There is a theoretical distinction between sex (a biological distinction) and gender (a socially defined distinction known as 'masculinity' and 'femininity'). This is the issue raised by Simone de Beauvoir when she stated that 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.'

Radical feminists acknowledge biological sex differences, such as differences in sexual reproductive organs. However, they see humans as androgynous (combining characteristics of male and female in the same person, revealing that differences between men and women are so slight they should have no impact on their political, social or economic role).

Biology itself is not oppressive, but the way men have constructed gender to control women as child bearers and carers is oppressive. Gender is a social construct, as femininity has changed over time and varies between different cultures.

Femininity is constructed and then imposed on women, setting out expectations, rules and restrictions on their behaviour. The division into 'masculine' and 'feminine' genders is not a division into equal parts.

American anthropologist Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) illustrated the idea of gender as a construct by showing clear distinctions in social roles and personality traits that were seen as desirable and normal across three different cultures in Papua New Guinea.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86)

Simone de Beauvoir used existentialism (the idea that humans have no nature or essence and use their freedom to make themselves through their own actions) in her book The Second Sex (1949) to pose the question: 'What is a woman?' In answering this question, she argued that the oppression of women is unique and without a historical starting point.

De Beauvoir considered biological, psychological and socialist analysis, finding that all only partially answered the question, so she looked instead for an explanation in women's being or existence.

Men are like women in that they are free but subject to nature, with natural bodies that are neither predictable nor fully controllable. Desiring to be a free being and create their own meaning in the world, men see themselves as the Self (the norm) and see nature as the Other (a threat and danger). In society, the Self is constructed as an identity with the Other as the binary opposite. Humanity is constructed as male, with women defined only in relation to men as incidental and inessential, whilst men are absolute and essential.

Men create the feminine myth/mystery (about what it is to be a woman, motherhood and female sexuality) to make women the embodiment of nature. The essence of femininity has to be a myth because human beings have no inherent nature or essence.

Women are socialised into this role through childhood experiences and cultural and marital expectations based on socially constructed standards of beauty, behaviour and sexuality. Women have taken on board this alien point of view of the Self and the Other and are therefore complicit in their own oppression.

De Beauvoir offers four strategies for freedom to create a future where men and women are true equals:

• Women must go out to work
• Women must become intellectuals
• Women must exercise their sexuality as they see fit
• Women must seek economic justice and independence by changing society into a socialist society

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a whole system of control and dominance over women and their bodies by men. It cannot be reformed; it can only be rooted out through revolution. Sylvia Walby in Theorizing Patriarchy (1990) identifies six structures that form this system of control:

• The state – legal and political structures that prevent or limit representation for women within the state
• The household – housework is presented as a woman's most fulfilling role; even if a married woman works, housework remains her domain
• Culture – women are expected to want children and sacrifice their careers to bring them up. The 'beauty myth' is perhaps the most pervasive current myth. Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth (1990) illustrates how, as the social power and prestige of women has grown, so has the pressure to adhere to unrealistic standards through the mass media
• Sexuality – women should be virgins until marriage, practise monogamy and subordinate their sexual needs to their husband's
• Work – where women have sought work, this is in the part-time sector or lower-paid roles associated with female traits, such as teaching, nursing or caring
• Violence – levels of domestic abuse which have historically been kept off the public agenda as the home is seen as 'personal'

The solutions to patriarchy proposed by radical feminists involve a sexual revolution to eradicate it. However, the solutions reveal an incompatible divide within radical feminism between equality feminists (those who believe the goal of feminism is sexual equality, achieved by freeing women from difference) and difference feminists (those who believe women are essentially different from men biologically and psychologically, and these differences matter).

Equality feminists see patriarchy as a male-imposed construction and the imposition of difference. Patriarchy must be removed by freeing women from 'difference' so that sexual equality exists. This is based on the idea that biological differences between men and women are of little importance and their human nature is basically the same.

Shulamith Firestone argued in The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970) that if women are to be liberated, they must have control over their own bodies. This includes the ability to choose when and if to use technology to control reproduction (contraception) and aid reproduction (in vitro fertilisation or even artificial gestation outside the womb).

Equality feminists propose that women should be released from the domestic responsibility of bringing up children through socialised childcare. Women should be free to explore and experiment with their sexuality to learn and understand their own desires so they can be sexually fulfilled. Women should take back control of their own bodies and enjoy their bodies as they are. Every individual should be given the freedom to be androgynous and choose from various masculine and feminine traits that are beneficial to both sexes.

Difference feminists argue there are clear biological and psychological differences between men and women and these differences matter. By seeking liberation through equality, women are seeking to be like men rather than having their own woman-centred approach. The idea of androgyny is misplaced as it ignores the significance of these biological differences.

Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice (1982) showed that men and women had different approaches to moral dilemmas.

Difference feminists propose that women should create a women-centred culture because either gender is male-defined, so women should throw off the male definition of gender and define their own femininity entirely unrelated to men or masculinity, or patriarchy has imposed a false nature on women, which they must throw off to discover their true identity – the true feminine self. Either way, the feminine self will be based on the values of women, which are different from men.

Some difference feminists go further, arguing that sex differences are natural and patriarchy is a direct expression of male human nature. The solution is female separatism as all male-female relations are oppressive. Women must escape the male-defined concept of sexuality (heterosexuality) and define their own form of sexuality through autoeroticism, lesbianism or celibacy.

Kate Millett (1934–2017)

Kate Millett was a radical feminist who argued for 'sexual politics', as politics refers to any power-structured relationship like the relationship between men and women.

The roots of women's oppression can be found in patriarchy's sex/gender system. Patriarchy is pervasive; it is found in every sphere of life including education, work, family life, religion and sex.

In the patriarchal family, the man has priority, with marriage being the exchange of female domestic service and sex in return for financial support. The key institution of patriarchy is the family – it acts as 'a patriarchal unit in a patriarchal whole'. It is within the family that children are socialised into patriarchy-prescribed gender roles. This socialisation is reinforced by peers, education and the wider culture to create uniformity of attitudes.

To overturn patriarchy, it is necessary to overturn gender as constructed by patriarchy. This sexual revolution would involve:

• The end of sexual inhibitions and taboos to create sexual freedom
• The end of the ideology of patriarchy and its means of socialisation – the family unit
• The undermining of the traditional family unit through the abolition of the sex role for women, full economic independence for women and the socialisation of care of the young
• A re-examination of the masculine and feminine traits of gender, selecting those traits which are desirable to both sexes

Socialist feminism

Socialist feminism is closely associated with Sheila Rowbotham and emerged in the 1970s by blending ideas of radical feminism with Marxist feminism.

Women act as a reserve army of labour, who work for low pay when needed, keeping wages low and then returning to their family when there is unemployment. Labour in the home is unrecognised, certainly in terms of pay, and is used to suggest that women are unreliable and often absent, so need to be kept out of better jobs.

The propaganda around femininity makes the subordination of women to men appear as 'natural'. Reform will never be enough as it is not possible for women to be free within patriarchy or capitalism.

Sheila Rowbotham (1943–)

Sheila Rowbotham offered a revolutionary challenge to capitalism and patriarchy in her work Woman's Consciousness, Man's World (1973).

The issue of being born a woman in capitalism is specific and not an issue that affects all of humankind. Patriarchy predates capitalism and is embedded in the sexual division of labour and the possession of women by men. It comes from a pre-industrial period when it was common for humans to be owned by others.

Under capitalism, the boss controls the labour power of workers but does not own the workers. This undermines the patriarchal idea that men own women.

At the same time, women are allowed into the workplace but not to be exploited equally with men. They are limited to low-paid roles, still responsible for childbearing and rearing, and so continue to need the economic support of men to survive.

Women are badly paid and underprivileged in the workforce, yet handy for capitalism as a reserve army of labour that allows men to 'console themselves for their lack of control at work with the right to be master in their own home'.

Third wave: postmodern feminism

Postmodernism, which emerged towards the end of the twentieth century, rejects the idea that there are grand narratives offering one all-encompassing theory that explains everything. As a result, postmodern feminism is more a collection of different ideas.

There is no single explanation for the oppression of women and there is no singular or uniting experience of oppression for women. Different women, in different locations and at different times, all experience oppression in different ways.

The theory focuses more on the differences between women than those between men and women. One key criticism levelled by bell hooks at all preceding forms of feminism is that they represented the interests of white, middle-class women who sought sisterhood within their experiences. This sidelined the experiences of black women in America and meant their voice was not being heard.

Postmodern feminism also focuses on the idea that there is not one way of understanding feminism. Instead, each new generation of women has to define feminism for themselves in the light of their own experiences.

bell hooks (1952–2021)

bell hooks was a recent contemporary feminist who deals with the issues of gender, race, class and sexual oppression in her book Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981). Note that her name is spelt without capitals as she wanted the focus to be on her work and ideas, not her personality. Her birth name was Gloria Jean Watkins.

bell hooks refused to accept that gender defines everything about who a female person is. There is a need to consider other elements such as class and race.

bell hooks wrote a withering critique of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, arguing that 'the problem that has no name' is not the condition of women in society. It is 'the plight of a select group of college-educated, middle- and upper-class, married white women' who wanted more than their husband, children or house – they wanted careers.

The feminist movement gave a voice to this group and drowned out the voices of women without men, without children, without homes, poor white women and all non-white women.

These systems of oppression have left black women as the most marginalised group in society.

The answer is to acknowledge that patriarchy is the problem and to work together, between genders, classes and races, to end patriarchy and all other forms of oppression.

Post-feminism

Post-feminism sees many objectives of the feminist movement as being achieved: in employment, financial independence, political power and women's increasing control over their bodies through reproductive technology and choice of sexual relationships and partnerships. As a result, it is time to move on from feminism. Now, women should focus on female accomplishments and female power.

Some have gone further, arguing that women should claim the power to dominate and manipulate using their sexualised bodies. Many feminists do not see post-feminism as a form of feminism at all, but rather as a form of anti-feminism.

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