Varieties Of Feminist Theory Gender Difference example essay topic

Introduction Since the beginning of time women have been considered inferior to men, which seem to proceed to affect everyday lives of all social beings in this world. Women have a disease, a disease that will prevent them for ever having the political drive to achieve political, social or economic opportunities men have. This 'disease' is the need for independency and self-respect or the lack there of. This is what we have come to know as feminism. Feminism refers to the body of thought on the cause and nature of women's disadvantaged and subordinate position in society, and efforts to minimize and eliminate the subordination (Hughes, 2002: 160).

Understanding that the need for independency and self-respect is not a real disease, it is just a metaphor for how women go about trying to achieve them. 'For nearly one hundred and fifty years, women have fought for equality and been oppressed by men, and no matter what they do, they will never be considered equals' (Hughes, 2002: 161). Feminism focuses on the relations between genders and how both male and female become classified as distinct groups rather than a team united as one. The preceding was what feminists and historians want us believe, however, this is not always the case and quite possibly, it has never been the case.

For some reason feminism became an international phenomenon. The feminist theory is fairly comparable to this explanation and determinedly claims that the basic structure of society is patriarchal, or male-dominated. The purpose of this paper is to prove that society has changed for women, but women have not changed for society. Women of today have not fought for anything, but they have simply protested their demands and expected society to cater them. This will continue to be true for as long as society takes sympathy upon women and their 'needs.

' Historical Development of Feminist Theory Both Third World leaders and Western development specialists assumed that Western development policies would position fragile Third World economics for a 'take-off. ' Few questioned whether this prosperity would extend equally to all classes, races, and gender groups. Ester Boserup's (1970) Women's Role in Economic Development investigated the impact of development projects on Third World women. Boserup discovered that most of these projects ignored women and that many technologically sophisticated projects undermined women's economic opportunities and autonomy (1970: 4). Training in new technologies was usually offered to men, which meant that most 'modern' projects improved male opportunities and technology and employment. Boserup's study seriously challenged the argument that benefits from development projects would automatically 'trickle-down' to women and other disadvantaged groups in Third World nations (1970: 8).

Women involved with development issues in the United States lobbied to bring this evidence to the attention of policymakers. These women challenged the assumption that modernization would automatically increase gender equality. The first formal dating of feminism began in the 1630's, for example Abigail Adams' famous 'Remember the Ladies' letter to her husband has been referred to in numerous histories of women's rights in America (Rossi, 1973). The high points of feminist activity and writing occurred in the liberationist moments of modern Western history.

According to Sheila Rowbotham, 'feminism came, like socialism, out of the tangled, confused response of men and women to capitalism' (Kandal, 1998). In the 1780's and the 1790's, there were debates surrounding the American and French Revolution. The problems surrounding the American and French Revolution causes chaos and disorder to spread rapidly through society, especially in France. As a result, women were subjected to a double oppression, at home as well as in the workplace (Kandal, 1998). The chaos and disorder gave women the initiative to fight for their rights. According to Kandal (1990: 10) the Enlightenment and the French Revolution provided the political activity in which expresses them.

A more organized effort in the 1850's served as part of the mobilization against slavery and fir political rights for the middle class. The Akron Convention, where Sojourner Truth gave her amazing speech 'Ain't I a Woman', is an example of the (Rossi, 1973). Other events that helped to develop the Feminist Theory were massive mobilization for women's suffrage and for industrial and civic reform legislation in the early twentieth century, especially the Progressive Era in the United States (Ritzer, 2000). In the intervals between those periods, feminism became far less visible, essentially because dominant groups deliberately tried to repress it (Spender, 1982). According to Kandal (1998: 12), men were against feminism because they were afraid that women were equal to them, the family would become dysfunctional. Intellectual Roots of Feminist Theory There are numerous men and women who have contributed to the development of the Feminist Theory from the early sixteenth century to the twenty first century.

Dorothy E. Smith contributed a lot to the feminist theory. Her work offers sociological alternative to feminist post modernism, and post-structuralism (Ritzer, 1996). Smith also focuses on the concept of ruling apparatuses in which more women are needed to participate in such as government and the presidency. According to Smith, the ruling apparatus is viewed as an organization of class in which minorities are excluded. Jesse Bernard is another person who contributed a great deal to the Feminist Theory.

Bernard's interest in women's lives illustrates her ability to rethink core concerns within new intellectual contexts (Ritzer, 1996). Feminist Allie Russell Hochschild developed the sociology of emotions (Jaggar and Rothenberg 1993). She focused on emotions such grief, contempt, envy, depression, guilt, anger, and fear. Her theory uncovered that males have learned to repress and deny their female qualities in order to achieve their individual male identity and to qualities in order to achieve their individual male identity and to have underdeveloped relational capacity and view that which is feminine as inferior (Jaggar and Rothenberg, 1993). Patricia Hill Collins focuses on the intersection of race, social class, and gender in understanding the experiences of African-American women based on literature about them and by them (Jaggar and Rothenberg, 1993). Judith Sargent Murry, wrote an essay untitled 'On the Equality of Sexes', which was published in the Massachusetts Magazine.

John Stuart Mill, who wrote 'The Subjection of Women', has been a major classic feminist writing of the century. Other people who contributed to the development of the feminist theory are Jane Adams, Ida B. Wells, Beatrice Potter, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Susan B. Anthony, and Mary Wollstonecraft (Rossi, 1973). Varieties of Feminist Theory Gender difference, gender inequality, and gender oppression are the main focus in the varieties of the Feminist Theory. Cultural Feminism, Biological Explanations, and Social Psychological Explanations all try to help explain gender differences (Ritzer, 1996). Cultural Feminism is the most important topic explaining gender difference. According to Cultural Feminism, gender difference was used against women in the male patriarchal discourse to claim that women were inferior and subservient to men (Ritzer, 1996).

According to Lengermann and Nie burgee in the nineteenth century, cultural feminism inverted into positive aspects of what was seen as the 'female-character' of 'feminine personality' (Ritzer, 1996). Writers such as Jane Adams, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Margaret Fuller, were all proponents of cultural feminism which argued that society needed are women's virtues, cooperation, caring pacifism, and non-violence in the settlements of conflicts in governing the state (Donovan, 1985). Cultural feminism is more concerned with promoting the value of women's differences rather than explaining its origins. Another variety of the feminist theory is gender inequality. Gender Inequality is composed of four themes, which are that men and women are situated in society differently, but are also unequally, inequality results from organizations of society, no significant pattern of natural variation distinguishes that sexes, and all inequality theories assume that men and women will respond fairly, easily, and naturally to more egalitarian social structures and situations (Ritzer, 1996).

Liberal feminism is the feeling that individuals should be free to develop their own talents and pursue their own interests. According to liberal feminism, one reason gender inequality exists is because of private spheres, which consist of mindless, unpaid, and undervalued tasks associated with homework, childcare, and the emotional, practical, and sexual servicing of adult men (Ritzer, 1996). On the other hand, public spheres consist of things that women seek after, such as money, power, status, freedom, and opportunities for growth and self-worth. Unfortunately, the system that private-sphere responsibilities, isolates them in individual household, and excuses their mate from any sharing of private-sphere labor is the system that produces gender inequality. According to Liberal Feminism, the key forces in the system are linked to sexism, which is an ideology similar to racism (Ritzer, 1996). Sexism consists of prejudices and discriminatory practices against women and taking for granted and belief and the 'natural' differences between women and men that suit them to be different social destinies (Ritzer, 1996).

Sexism is the reason females are, from childhood, limited and deprived, so they can move to those adult roles that formulate mindless, dependent, subconsciously depressed being (Ritzer, 1996). Sexism is the foundation for gender inequality in society. The last variety of the feminist theory is gender oppression. Gender oppression, according to Len german and Nie brugge, describes women's situations as the consequence of a direct power between men and women's situation as the situation as the consequence of direct power between men and women in which fundamental and concrete interests in controlling, using, subjugated, and oppressing women, which is the practice of domination (Donovan, 1985).

Theorists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, argue that rational basis for women's subordination lies in the family because the family as it exists in complex societies is overwhelmingly a system of dominant and subordinate roles (Ritzer, 1996). Gender oppression did not exist in the human prehistory families, until the replacement of the hunting and gathering by herding, horticulture, and farming economics. All of these led to the idea of property that causes the development of male domination in the family, which is a root of gender oppression. Male dominated culture hinders autonomy in female identity and prevents women form contributing to the common culture, according to Simmel (Kandal, 1998).

Marx and Engels decided that in order to defeat gender oppression, the structure of the family as created by capitalism must be changed (Kemp and Squires, 1997). They also felt that the only way to reach that goal was to have as socialist revolution, which would create a state-centered economy meeting the needs of all (Kemp and Squires, 1997). Basic Domain Assumption The feminist theory consists of two domain assumptions. First basic domain assumption is that men and women have differences experiences, that the world is not the same for men and women. Secondly, feminist theory assumes that women's oppression is not a subset of some other social relationship. It also assumes that women's oppression is not merely a case of what the Chinese call 'bad attitudes'.

The feminist theory assumes that the oppression of women is a part of the way the structures of the world is organized, and that one asks of feminist theory is to explain how and why this structure evolved. Unique Contributions The feminist theory brought attention to the inequalities women were and in some cases still are facing; causing women to take an active stand against these injustices. The women's movements, helped enable women to vote, choose to stay single, choose not to have children, work outside of home, receive equal education, and have the same job as men. The hard work and determination of women of today the confidence to make their own choices and pursue their own dreams with on limitations. Since the development of feminism, more laws were established to protect the rights of all women, for example, Roe vs. Wade, which gave women the right to have an abortion.

Women are establishing their own jobs and working as CEO in major companies. The women's movement has led to the development of more powerful women organizations such as the Women National Loyal League, Women's Party, Women's Political Union, Women Suffrage Committee, and National Organization for Women, and National Council of Negro Women. These accomplishments have helped to uplift women mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and economically. Women have definitely come, a long way, but there are obstacles ahead they must face. Today women have more support, especially by some men, to oversee these obstacles. Justification The difference between a feminist theory and a feminist perspective is that, a feminist perspective is composed of theories with the same basic domain assumptions.

In other words, feminist theories make up feminist perspectives, but a feminist perspective is not a component of a feminist theory. Sociology is the study of human beings and how they interact with one another. Sociology was also created to help recognized and help find solutions to social problem. According to George Simmel, "a woman posse a world of their own which is not comparable with the world of men" (Kandal, 1998). Most persons live in separate worlds, one male and the other one female. Bernard argues that sociology is concerned only with the male world and that all it knows of the female world is how it impinges on the male world (Kandal, 198).

The world is not the same for me and women. Since women make up a large part of the population and are subject to different social problems than men, a feminist perspective would help women analyze the problem and finds ways to solve them from a feminine point of view. In the past, sociology was composed of only men, some negative views about women. One assessment, given by some feminist critics of the social sciences, is that these theorists, founding fathers of their discipline, were prisoners of conventional thinking of their times, including the dominant cultural assumptions rooted in male-biased views of the world (Kandal, 1998). Some sociologists during this time believed that men were superior to women and many people believed their views, especially men.

Auguste Comte felt that women were inferior to men and were not intelligent enough to be sociologists. It was not until the work of a number of women in or associated with the field proved hat women are capable of being sociologists. It was the hard work of women such as Jane Adams, Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Florence Kelly, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida B. Wells, who examined social problems, more than a theory, because a perspective is composed of many theories with the common validity points about a problem. Another reason sociology should have a feminist perspective because it will enable feminists to express ideals that have theoretical support. These factors are reasons why there should be a feminist perspective in sociology along with a feminist theory. Conclusion The development of the feminist theory has played a major role in the advancement of all women in society.

If it were not the determination of many women but also some, standing up for women's rights, women still is subordinate to and oppressed by men. Feminism has given women the confidence and the boldness to reach their dreams. Women have definitely come a long way, but there are still some inequalities that must be conquered in order for women to be treated equally to men and not as inferior.

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