Ideologies: Feminism PDF

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Lecture overview      What is feminism? Feminist contributions to political and social theory Variants of feminism Sexism as an ideology Case study: gender and the university What is feminism?      ‘a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, ...

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Lecture overview     

What is feminism? Feminist contributions to political and social theory Variants of feminism Sexism as an ideology Case study: gender and the university

What is feminism?   

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‘a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.’ – Pat Robertson A broad church o Liberal/radical/socialist the most frequently named ‘schools’ Advocacy of women’s rights? o What about men and masculinity?  Some feminists argue that sexism can't be controlled without addressing toxic masculinity A belief in gender equality? o Do you have to do anything to be a feminist? o Or just passively believe in equality? ‘Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression’ (bell hooks) o ‘To understand feminism it implies one has to necessarily understand sexism’ o Naming sexism and not men as the enemy o About advocating for change and actually doing something o Seeing sexism as a social structure and trying to change it

The ‘waves’ model  

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1st wave o Suffragettes; focus on formal institutions 2nd-wave feminism from late 60s/70s o Shift of focus towards power and gender in society more generally o Critiquing social institutions more generally e.g. Family, heteronormative relationships 3rd-wave feminism from 90s o Focus on difference and empowerment – the ‘sex wars’ Are we now witnessing the ‘4th wave’ of feminism? o Internet and intersectionality o Similar to 3rd wave

Critiquing the waves model 

Criticised for setting up false dichotomies between feminists o Intergenerational infighting o e.g. first wave didn't focus on intersectionality and was focused on white middle class women

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In particular, pitting older and younger generations of feminists against one another An elitist and exclusionary model? o Very much based on Anglo-American feminism o Key figures don’t ‘fit’:  Mary Wollstonecraft;  Before first wave  Simone de Beauvoir  After suffragettes but before second wave o Assumption that BAME feminists only appeared in the 1990s

The feminist critique of liberalism 

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Liberal theory is predicated on a public/private divide o ‘Politics’ situated within the public sphere  Idea that inside the home is apolitical o Private sphere should be untouched by the state Feminists argue that ‘public’ politics is grounded in ‘private’ power o i.e. women’s historical consignment to the private sphere o Classic liberal theory thus assumes a ‘male’ subject…  Idea that men either don't have a family or have a wife at home to take care of the private sphere o … and cannot accommodate women’s specific needs o Woman feel like they have to choose between a career and family in a way that men don't

‘The personal is political’   

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60s and 70s radicals thus began to challenge power relations in their day-to-day lives Emergence of feminist self-help groups which aimed to question ideas about what was ‘normal’ Shared experiences of oppression formed the basis of the movement o e.g sexual harassment, submit to your husband, pressure of being beautiful o Idea that women should be happy and fulfilled by running the home ‘The personal is political’ o An expression of how power relations are ever-present in our day-to-day lives o NOT (necessarily) a call for widespread state intervention in the private sphere

Who are ‘women’ anyway?     

An early contribution was to distinguish between sex and gender Beauvoir: ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ Sex = biological; gender = social and cultural Feminists question the assumption of an automatic and necessary link between the two We tend to conflate biology and social roles when we talk about ‘men’ and ‘women’

Gender as a social construct 

Socialisation into gender roles begins from a young age

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o Sometimes before birth! o Some use different tones/ voices for different genders Cultural gender roles can be so ingrained that we tend to see them as ‘natural’ o Evolutionary psychologists: pink is for girls and blue is for boys  Recent development and a Western perspective  Boys used to wear pink as it used to be seen as the softer version of red Discriminatory practices can therefore be subconscious o Men seen as assertive, women seen as bossy ‘Stereotype threat’ affects performance o Told that you're inferior, affects the way you act o Self fulfilling prophecy Just because something is a social construct doesn’t mean it’s not real! o Differences exist due to culture and socialisation

Performativity     

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Judith Butler argues that gender roles are performative In other words, gender is constituted through constantly repeated actions (or ‘performance’) About what you do not what you are However, we do not simply will our (performed) gender into being Social and cultural norms provide the ‘scripts’ for our behaviour o Difficult to act differently o Can result in negative consequences e.g. ridicule, physical attacks Power of drag acts to expose the performative nature of gender

Sex as a social construct?  

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Butler also argues that sex itself is socially constructed Biological sex isn’t as straightforward as we might think o Operates at different levels: chromosomes, genitals, phenotype, hormones…  We think of these as naturally aligning, but they aren't always  Women who have XY chromosomes Thus, we interpret bodies as ‘male’ or ‘female’ based on factors which are socially significant o ‘to what extent does a body get defined by its capacity for pregnancy? Why is it pregnancy by which that body gets defined?’ (1996: 112-113)  Why have we decided that this is so important that we structure all of society around it?

Reproduction and the body 

Reproduction central to much feminist theory but has been theorised in various ways o Butler: the significance of pregnancy is socially constructed o Beauvoir: pregnancy a ‘servitude’ which places women ‘in the grip of the species’ o Shulamith Firestone: the female reproductive body places women ‘at the mercy of their biology’

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o Iris Marion Young: a more positive feminist account of pregnancy But general agreement that women need some form of agency over reproduction so as not to experience pregnancy as alienating

The feminist critique of capitalism 

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Socialist and Marxist feminists argue that capitalism is fundamentally gendered o Structured on women’s economic subordination in both the home and the workplace o Exploitation of women in textile labour Yet feminism and Marxism have a complicated relationship o Tendency of Marxists to write off gender-based struggle as secondary to classbased struggle o Is feminism now ‘capitalism’s handmaiden’? (Fraser 2012)

Corporate feminism  

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E.g. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In (2013) o Focus on how women can assert themselves in the workplace Problems? o ‘Fixing the women’? o A feminism for the few? Is this ‘faux feminism’ (hooks 2013)?

For middle-class white women only?    

Sojourner Truth (1851): ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ o Former slave A recurrent issue into the 20th and 21st centuries Who gets to be the face of the movement? Whose issues are ‘women’s’ issues?

Intersectionality and multiple oppressions   

Black feminism in the 60s and 70s o Response to both feminism and the civil rights movement Drew attention to ‘triple oppression’ of black women o Racism, sexism and class-based oppression Intersectionality o Draws attention to multiple oppressions o But key is how these intersect

Post-colonial feminism 

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A response to mainstream feminism’s perceived focus on white, Western women o Alternatively: ‘Third World’ and ‘global’ feminism o Related to Black feminism and womanism Critical of ‘universalisation’ of Western women’s experiences

o Emphasis on local politics o E.g. cultural rights and economic empowerment rather than individual rights o Women’s experiences of (post)colonial times Men and feminism  

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‘Sexism hurts men too’ bell hooks: o Feminist theory isn’t only relevant to women o Boys are ‘indoctrinated into the rules of patriarchy’ o Women play a role in sustaining this culture Scholarly literature on masculinity o Carver: ‘Men are not born, but made’ (1996) o Tendency of classical political theory to present masculinity and maleness as ‘neutral’

Anti-feminist backlash   

Faludi (1991): the 1980s saw a huge media-driven backlash against feminist advances Caused ‘not by women’s achievement of full equality but the increased possibility that they might win it’ Several features: o Scare stories about women’s life experiences o Myths about feminism e.g. bra-burning  never actually happened o Fictional representations of dangerous and predatory ‘bunny boilers’

Feminism unravelled?   

Angela McRobbie (2008) argues that Western nations are witnessing the ‘disarticulation’ of feminism ‘Post-feminist’ ideology has taken hold Dominant cultural narratives pit different groups of women against one another o ‘Liberated Western’ women vs ‘oppressed non-Western’ women o Precludes common causes being articulated

Sexism as an ideology 

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Different ways of defining sexism o Ideas only? o Or a material structure? We tend to think of sexism in ideational terms o Beliefs, discriminatory attitudes etc. Sexism as a social theory o Women and men as occupying different places in society

Sexism as a social structure  

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Not just ideas but material effects Reflected in social and political institutions o Formal: legislatures, workplaces etc. o Informal: marriage, the family, friendships… ‘Patriarchy’ describes sexism as a set of social structures Millett: ‘the principles of patriarchy appear to be two fold: male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger.’ o Historically ‘rule of the fathers’ o Now: ‘fraternal patriarchy’? (Pateman 1988) o Not a shadowy cabal of men!

Interrogating ‘patriarchy’  

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Is patriarchy a ‘totalising’ concept? Different institutions gendered in different ways o Alternative terms: o Connell (1987): ‘gender regimes’ o Schüssler Fiorenza (1992): ‘kyriarchy’ However, general consensus that sexism is not just about discriminatory beliefs but is embedded in the social life of institutions

Gender and political institutions   

~100 years after women’s suffrage to reach 30-40% women members of elected political assemblies Female under-representation – or male over-representation? o Women and minorities as ‘space invaders’ (Puwar 2004) New institutions = new opportunities to promote gender equality? o Devolution and democratisation

Feminist organisational theory     

A huge body of literature applies feminist insights to the workplace Why do economic inequality, sex segregation, the wage gap etc. persist? Gendered processes operate within the workplace These may be overt o E.g. discriminatory hiring practices; workplace culture Or more subtle o E.g. gender in the banking industry

Case study: a feminist analysis of the University   

Famous feminist academics But persistence of practices which disadvantage women Sexism as a social structure, reproduced through: o Institutional structures and cultures o Constructions of disciplinary ‘mainstreams’

o Sexist ideology and practice o Sexualisation Gender and the University stats 

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Women make up 45% of all academics in the UK o But only 23% of professors o 30.8% of academics in Politics (12% of professors) o Women disproportionately on temporary and part-time contracts A ‘leaky pipeline’? o The pipeline: progress from junior to senior posts o Yet research finds that women are ‘leaking’ at various stages Women disadvantaged in formal rankings of research outputs (the REF)

The ‘ideal male worker’ 

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Universities are ‘greedy institutions’ o They make compelling demands on the time and loyalty of their employees o Academic work can expand to fill whatever time is available This model rests on the assumption of an ideal(ised) male worker o Few family or other external commitments o Female academics can hit a ‘maternal wall’ Gendered division of labour within the academy o Pastoral, teaching and ‘housekeeping’ roles are feminised o Research is masculinised

Gender and status in the academy  

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Who gets to be ‘mainstream’? Sarah Franklin recounts her experiences as a PhD student in the 1980s o Supervisor ‘violently enraged’ by Franklin’s (modestly) feminist critique of Durkheim o The incident ‘marked the end of [her] progression as a graduate student’ Demarcation of what counts as ‘real’ scholarship is ongoing today o Impact on teaching (Evans and Amery 2016) o Impact on hiring practices and promotions

Sexist ideology and practice  

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At the undergraduate level: ‘lad’ culture NUS-commissioned research finds that: o 2 in 3 have witnessed unwanted sexual comments directed at another student o 1 in 3 have witnessed verbal harassment based on a student’s gender o 61% of first-years unaware of procedures to report sexual harassment At the staff level: o Former University of Buckingham VC once described female students as a ‘perk’ to be ‘enjoyed’ by male academics

Gender bias in student feedback  

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Evidence of unconscious bias in how students evaluate teaching staff MacNell et al. (2015) study of feedback on an online course o One male, one female instructor, each ‘operating under two different gender identities’ o Students rated the same instructor higher when they thought ‘he’ was male o Even on ‘objective’ variables such as punctuality http://benschmidt.org/profGender/ to explore how students describe teachers on RateMyProfessors.com o Male academics: ‘smart’, ‘funny’, ‘cool’ o Female academics: ‘helpful’ but also ‘unfair’, ‘annoying’

The male gaze 

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Edinburgh Tab article on ‘Politics girls’ o http://thetab.com/uk/edinburgh/2016/02/17/ politics-girls-most-fascinating-21770 SFU video and Tab article good examples of how the ‘male gaze’ operates in an academic setting o The male gaze in feminist film theory o Staff and students viewed through the lens of heterosexual male desire

Conclusions 

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Gendered structures within the academy are sustained through various practices o These can be overt e.g. sexist culture and practices o Or covert e.g. workload norms and what gets ‘mainstreamed’ Reflects how sexist (patriarchal?) structures persist in other formal and informal institutions o Feminists don’t think of ‘patriarchy’ in terms of a conspiracy theory o If they use the word ‘patriarchy’ at all!...