Feminism

1. Feminism

2. What is Feminism? • The promotion of equal rights, opportunities, and privileges for women • Extends to theoretical and philosophical fields • Wide and varied sub-sets

3. What Feminism is not • Hatred of men • A monolithic philosophy • An attempt to replace patriarchy with an oppressive matriarchy

4. Vocabulary • Gender vs. Sex • Patriarchy • Misogyny / Misandry • Androcentrism • Gay, Lesbian, Transsexual, Queer, Bisexual • Cis-sexual, intersex, heteronormativity

5. First wave Feminism • Retroactively named by Second Wave feminists • Early 19th and 20th century • Primarily fought against overt legal discrimination • The suffrage movement • Ended with the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920

6. Second wave Feminism • Solidified the movement and philosophy of feminism • Attacked social and cultural inequalities instead of legal ones • Simone de Beauvoir introduces the idea of women as an “other” • Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique • Equal Pay Act, Title VII, Roe V. Wade, marital rape laws. Equal rights amendment fails

7. End of the Second wave • Some felt second wave focused too much on white, upper class women • Backlash against exclusivity • What does it mean to be female? • Debate over pornography and sex work • Colloquially referred to as the “Feminist sex wars”

8. Third wave feminism • Focuses more on inclusivity and perception of women • Rejects the essentialist views of the Second Wave • Promotes sex positivism and more postmodern conceptions of gender and sex • Criticized for lacking clear goals and motivation

9. Prominent authors and figureheads • Andrea Dworkin • Antiporn activist, highly controversial author • bell hooks • Examined the role of black women in feminism • Gloria Steinem • Feminist activist, founder of Ms magazine • Judith Butler • Gender, sex and sexuality are all performative

10. Ethic of care • All individuals are interdependent • Relative power and privilege should be considered in moral choices • Caring and other feminine virtues are devalued in modern society • Seeks to elevate caretaking in society • Carol Gilligan

11. Intersectionality • There are many kind of discrimination • Each person experiences different forms of discrimination • You can’t understand the experiences of women without taking racism/classism/heterosexism into account • You’re not a feminist if you hate blacks or gays

12. Black Feminism • Turns out not all women are upper/middle class white people • Black women had/have fundamentally different experience than most mainstream feminists • Mainstream feminism ignores the struggles of black women

13. Womanism • Offshoot of black feminism • Focuses on community, with strong theological elements • Criticized by mainstream feminism for overemphasizing the plight of black men and the nuclear family • Alice Walker

14. Queer theory • Gender is inherently a social construct • Constantly evolving, shifting theory • Highly deconstructionist • Identity based philosophy, also criticizes identity

15. ecofeminism • Coined by Francois d’Eaubonne • Domination of women and nature are interconnected • Criticizes modern conceptions of science as masculine and destructive • Dichotomies are inherent to current systems and should be rejected

16. Marxist feminism • Root of women’s oppression is capitalism • Gender is a form of class warfare • Traditional gender roles, sex work etc • Fixing capitalism will also solve patriarchy

17. Standpoint Feminism • Proposes a feminist epistemology • Women have different knowledge than men • This can be used to deconstruct and examine patriarchy • Criticized for generalizing the experiences of women

18. Feminist international relations • International relations can be understood through gender • Domination, aggression and discipline viewed as IR traits derived from masculine influences • Role of women in IR • Cynthia Enloe, Banannas, Beaches, and Bases