Feminist Theory free essay sample

Feminist Theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines womens social roles and lived experience, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, psychoanalysis, economics, literary criticism, education, and philosophy. While generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of womens rights, interests, and issues.Themes explored in feminism include art history and contemporary art, aesthetics, discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy. The feminist theory dates back to as early as the 18th century and to this day is still around with women trying to fight for the rights women deserve to be treated as equal as men and respected as an equal to men. From research I have found the feminist theory can be roughly broken down into three waves. When capacity refers to the ability of individuals to do act freely and make their own decisions choices, social structure describes the obstacles regarding to constrains from the views of society, religion, ethnicity, gender that prevent people from doing what they choose to do, limit them from their decisions. It is what sociologist Philip Abrams (1982) stated as the paradox of human agency. In short,, meaning that peoples (women) decision making is never straightforward and influenced by the circumstances which were inherited from the past and the living environment people are in. In terms of feminist theories, it is necessary to analyze each of them through women capacity and the circumstances under which they make their own history (Marx, ) Compare and contrast Generally, Aall of these theories set the same goal of liberating women from inequality in their lives but they have different viewpoints and approaches, and the most significant ones is the causes leading to the oppression against women that prevent them from doing what their ability choose to do. They then propose solutions for women to have an equal position with men. Liberal feminism was found from the first feminist wave in the Enlightenment period. The liberal feminists believe that all people are created equal and should not be denied equality of opportunity because of gender, and the oppression is rooted in the constraint of customs and legitimacy, women rights to access to education are taken away and they are confined in their family. Women, according to these feminists, were perceived wrongly by the society that by their nature, women are less capable than men in both intellectual and physical aspects, and they are excluded from participation and success in public world such as academy, forum and marketplace. It cannot be concluded that women are inferior to men, because they did not share the same education so the capacity of many women were not revealed. The circumstance here is that women were born with the role of manual workers in family regardless their real ability due to prejudices and laws. The way to change the role of women in society has to rely on individuals (both two sexes) to adjust these laws and prejudices (to reform oppressive system), and fix women’ exclusion from political power. In terms of radical feminism, the role of women is associated with patriarchy which appeared before privatization. Radical feminists are considered to have strong ideas and struggle thoroughly for gender equality. According to this theories, both of liberal feminism and Marxism are not persuasive enough, throughout the history, the patriarchal was the root cause of oppression, not external factors such as laws or policies. Patriarchal is a system of male authority and it spread through social forms, and it always oppresses women, or women are dominated by men. Radical feminist said that the heterosexuality under coercion as well as the way of organizing a patriarchal family is to ensure the longevity of male domination; therefore women depend on men both physically and mentally. This theory shows that biological factors are not the cause of oppression but the in the way men control women role in childbearing and upbringing. The noticeable difference between radical feminism and other theories can be shown through its solution. If most of theories try to liberate women by changing the structure of society, radical feminism liberate women by encouraging them to get rid of the constraints of male sexuality, allowing each person to xpress their own capacity in sexuality that is full of masculine and feminine. Unfortunately, both liberal and radical feminist perspectives have been criticized, especially by women of color, for being exclusionary and limited in scope. Historically, liberal feminism and radical feminism have mentioned the issues that related to White heterosexual women, without necessarily considering the realities that women of color, poor and working-class women, and also lesbian women might face. Marxism, like radical feminism, starts with a theory of adversative social classes with a fundamental distinguishable power relationship defining them, and then analyzes all of society in terms of that power struggle, especially in economic system of capitalism in which Marxism focuses on the economic independence capacity of women when noticing the gender equality. Due toAccording to this theory, in class’s society, all people, especially women cannot achieve equal opportunity when property produced by a large number of powerlessness but held by few powerful people. Engels believe that the women oppression rooted when the private property regime arose, wealth was not contributed equally for everyone. This theory blames capitalism, not social norms, on the cause of oppression. Under capitalist society, women are a crowed ratio of labor force, they are hired because they are prone to be commanded, and with low wage, they seem to be consistent with monotonous and tedious work. Based on Engelss, the liberation of women depends on the participation of women in production which will enhance the role of their earning in the society, so they can have an equal footing with men. Socialist feminism is the dissatisfaction over Marxism thought. Marx felt when class oppression was overcome, gender oppression would automatically vanish. Socialist feminism is against the traditional Marxist ideas by including it under broader oppression. If Marxist mainly focuses on the division of labor in classes’ society, socialist feminism believes that class is not the only oppressor of women, women is suffered from not only class exploitation, but also the sexes oppression. This means that in the society, women is oppressed by capitalism in the role of labor, and within the family, they continue to be victim of another layer of oppression from their husband. Husband is bourgeoisie and wife is proletariat. In terms of radical feminism, the role of women is associated with patriarchy which appeared before privatization. Radical feminists are considered to have strong ideas and struggle thoroughly for gender equality. According to this theories, both of liberal feminism and Marxism are not persuasive enough, throughout the history, the patriarchal was the root cause of oppression, not external factors such as laws or policies. Patriarchal is a system of male authority and it spread through social forms, and it always oppresses women, or women are dominated by men. Radical feminist said that the heterosexuality under coercion as well as the way of organizing a patriarchal family is to ensure the longevity of male domination; therefore women depend on men both physically and mentally. This theory shows that biological factors are not the cause of oppression but the in the way men control women role in childbearing and upbringing. The noticeable difference between radical feminism and other theories can be shown through its solution. If most of theories try to liberate women by changing the structure of society, radical feminism liberate women by encouraging them to get rid of the constraints of male sexuality, allowing each person to express their own capacity in sexuality that is full of masculine and feminine.