DOCSLIB.ORG

Feminist Political Theory: an Introduction

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Feminist Political Theory: an Introduction Feminist Political Theory An Introduction Second Edition Valerie Bryson Feminist Political Theory Also by Valerie Bryson Feminist Debates: Issues of Theory and Political Practice Contemporary Political Concepts: A Critical Introduction (edited with Georgina Blakely) Feminist Political Theory An Introduction Second Edition Valerie Bryson Consultant Editor: Jo Campling © Valerie Bryson 1992, 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition 1992 Reprinted eight times Second edition 2003 Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–94570–0 hardback ISBN 0–333–94568–9 paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 1098 7654321 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Creative Print & Design (Wales), Ebbw Vale Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Early feminist thought 5 Seventeenth-century feminism in Continental Europe and Britain 6 Early British feminism and the ideas of Mary Astell 7 The Enlightenment and early liberal feminism 11 Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman 16 The utopian socialists and feminism 20 Wheeler and Thompson’s Appeal On Behalf of Women 25 2 Liberalism and beyond: mainstream feminism in the mid-nineteenth century 28 Feminism in the United States: Maria Stewart and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 29 Evangelical Christianity and the temperance and anti-slavery movements 29 The Seneca Falls Convention 32 The analysis of sexual and personal oppression 35 Education, religion and the Woman’s Bible 37 Class, ‘race’ and feminism 38 The difference/equality debate 40 Feminism in Britain and Mill’s Subjection of Women 41 The spread of feminist ideas 41 John Stuart Mill’s Subjection of Women 45 3 The contribution of Marx and Engels 56 Classic Marxist theory 56 Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State 58 Recent criticisms of Engels 61 The relevance of Marxist concepts 63 4 Mainstream feminism: the vote and after, 1880s–1939 70 The situation of women in the late nineteenth century 70 The suffrage campaign 73 v vi Contents Equality or difference? 74 Anti-democratic strands in the suffrage campaign 75 Socialism, black feminism and the suffrage campaign 77 Christabel Pankhurst 79 After the vote: the re-emergence of contradictions 83 Equal rights v. welfare feminism in the United States 85 Equal rights v. welfare feminism in Britain 88 Birth control 91 5 Socialist feminism in Britain and the United States 94 Britain 94 Sylvia Pankhurst 96 The United States 97 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 98 Emma Goldman’s anarchist feminism 101 Mary Inman and American communism 103 6 Marxist feminism in Germany 105 Bebel’s contribution 105 Clara Zetkin 107 Hostility to bourgeois feminism 107 Lily Braun and the revisionist debate 110 Modification of Zetkin’s position 111 7 Marxist feminism in Russia 114 Early Russian feminism 114 The ideas of Alexandra Kollantai 117 Practical achievements 118 Sexual morality and communism 119 The family, childcare and motherhood 122 8 Feminism after the Second World War 126 The situation of women in the mid-twentieth century 126 Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex 128 Existentialism applied to women 130 Feminist responses to The Second Sex 131 De Beauvoir’s life and influence 137 9 Liberalism and beyond: feminism and equal rights from the 1960s 139 Betty Friedan and the politics of NOW 140 Subsequent developments 143 From ‘backlash’ to ‘power feminism’ 143 Contents vii Richards, Okin and a feminist theory of justice 146 Critical analysis and debate 147 Equality 148 Power and the state 153 The public/private distinction 155 Individualism and individual rights 156 Reason, knowledge and ethical thought 158 Feminism, equal rights and liberalism today 162 10 Radical feminism and the theory of patriarchy 163 The origins of radical feminism 163 Kate Millett and the theory of patriarchy 165 Criticisms of the concept of patriarchy 167 Politics and personal life 167 A merely descriptive approach? 168 An over-generalised and a-historical account? 170 Women good, men bad: an essentialist view of sex difference? 172 The concept of patriarchy today 174 11 Patriarchy and private life: the family, reproduction and sexuality 175 Patriarchy and the family 175 Domestic labour 176 Sexual exploitation and violence within the home 177 Psychoanalytic theory: parenting and the acquisition of adult sexual identity 178 Pro-family arguments 180 Patriarchy and reproduction 181 Reproductive technology 182 Mothering and eco-feminism 185 Patriarchy, sexuality and sexual violence 187 The attack on heterosexuality 188 Patriarchy, sexual violence and pornography 191 12 Patriarchy: the public sphere 196 Patriarchy and the state 196 Patriarchy and the economic system 197 Patriarchy, ‘man-made language’ and knowledge 198 Conclusions: the impact of radical feminism 201 13 Marxist and socialist feminism from the 1960s 203 The domestic labour debate 205 Women and the labour market 207 viii Contents Two systems or one? ‘Dual systems’ v. ‘capitalist patriarchy’ 209 Social reproduction 211 Ideology, the family and ‘structures of oppression’ 214 Alienation 217 Feminist standpoint theory 218 Recent developments in Marxist feminist thought 220 Socialist feminist strategies 221 Socialist and Marxist feminism today 224 14 Black and postmodern feminisms 226 Black feminism 226 The critique of white feminism 227 Black women: from margin to centre? 228 Black women’s centrality questioned 231 Postmodernism 233 Language, power and identity 233 Postmodern feminisms 235 Feminist criticisms of postmodernism 239 Feminism and postmodernism today 241 15 Feminist theory in the twenty-first century 243 Notes 251 Bibliography 253 Index 275 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Politics team at Huddersfield University for enabling me to have a sabbatical semester to work on this revised edition and for providing such a supportive academic environment. Thanks too to many of the students on my Women, Politics and Society module for their hard work and enthusiasm. Thanks to my friends and family for practical, emotional and intellec- tual support, and for putting up with my neglect as the enormity of the task became apparent and the time available shrank. And thank you, Alan Pearson. VALERIE BRYSON ix Introduction For most of its history, western political theory has ignored women. We seldom appear in its analyses of who has or should have power; when it has deigned to notice us it has usually defended our exclusion from public affairs and our confinement to the home; only rarely have we been seen as political animals worthy of serious consideration. Even today, this exclu- sion of half the human race is frequently either perpetuated or dismissed as a trivial oversight, while the inequalities that may exist between men and women are seen as of little practical importance or theoretical interest. Most feminist political theory, in contrast, sees women and their situation as central to political analysis; it asks why it is that in virtually all known societies men appear to have more power and privilege than women, and how this can be changed. It is therefore engaged theory, which seeks to understand society in order to challenge and change it; its goal is not abstract knowledge, but knowledge that can be used to guide and inform feminist political practice. The term ‘feminist’ first came into use in English during the 1880s, indi- cating support for women’s equal legal and political rights with men. Its meaning has since evolved and is still hotly debated: in this book I will use it in the most broad and general terms to refer to any theory or theorist that sees the relationship between the sexes as one of inequality, subordination or oppression, that sees this as a problem of political power rather than a fact of nature, and that sees this problem as important for political theory and practice. I will also provisionally use it to include those contemporary writers who are concerned with exploring the meanings attached to ‘woman’ and the ways in which these are constructed, but who deny that we can talk about ‘women’ or ‘men’ as stable political identities. The following chapters explore something of the history of feminist political theory from medieval times to the present day. They do not claim to be comprehensive, partly because there is not the space to include everything and partly because the rich heritage of feminist thought is still being rediscovered. It is also important to remember that our view of the past and our interest in it are inevitably filtered by our concerns in the present, and that these help determine which tiny fractions of what has gone before are recalled and presented as history.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Katy Shannahan Edited
    1 Katy Shannahan OUHJ 2013 Submission The Impact of Failed Lesbian Feminist Ideology and Rhetoric Lesbian feminism was a radical feminist separatist movement that developed during the early 1970s with the advent of the second wave of feminism. The politics of this movement called for feminist women to extract themselves from the oppressive system of male supremacy by means of severing all personal and economic relationships with men. Unlike other feminist separatist movements, the politics of lesbian feminism are unique in that their arguments for separatism are linked fundamentally to lesbian identification. Lesbian feminist theory intended to represent the most radical form of the idea that the personal is political by conceptualizing lesbianism as a political choice open to all women.1 At the heart of this solution was a fundamental critique of the institution of heterosexuality as a mechanism for maintaining masculine power. In choosing lesbianism, lesbian feminists asserted that a woman was able to both extricate herself entirely from the system of male supremacy and to fundamentally challenge the patriarchal organization of society.2 In this way they privileged lesbianism as the ultimate expression of feminist political identity because it served as a means of avoiding any personal collaboration with men, who were analyzed as solely male oppressors within the lesbian feminist framework. Political lesbianism as an organized movement within the larger history of mainstream feminism was somewhat short lived, although within its limited lifetime it did produce a large body of impassioned rhetoric to achieve a significant theoretical 1 Radicalesbians, “The Woman-Identified Woman,” (1971). 2 Charlotte Bunch, “Lesbians In Revolt,” The Furies (1972): 8.
    [Show full text]
  • Discrimination Against Men Appearance and Causes in the Context of a Modern Welfare State
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Lauda Pasi Malmi Discrimination Against Men Appearance and Causes in the Context of a Modern Welfare State Academic Dissertation to be publicly defended under permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lapland in the Mauri Hall on Friday 6th of February 2009 at 12 Acta Electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 39 University of Lapland Faculty of Social Sciences Copyright: Pasi Malmi Distributor: Lapland University Press P.O. Box 8123 FI-96101 Rovaniemi tel. + 358 40-821 4242 , fax + 358 16 341 2933 publication@ulapland.fi www.ulapland.fi /publications Paperback ISBN 978-952-484-279-2 ISSN 0788-7604 PDF ISBN 978-952-484-309-6 ISSN 1796-6310 www.ulapland.fi /unipub/actanet 3 Abstract Malmi Pasi Discrimination against Men: Appearance and Causes in the Context of a Modern Welfare State Rovaniemi: University of Lapland, 2009, 453 pp., Acta Universitatis Lapponinsis 157 Dissertation: University of Lapland ISSN 0788-7604 ISBN 978-952-484-279-2 The purpose of the work is to examine the forms of discrimination against men in Finland in a manner that brings light also to the appearance of this phenomenon in other welfare states. The second goal of the study is to create a model of the causes of discrimination against men. According to the model, which synthesizes administrative sciences, gender studies and memetics, gender discrimination is caused by a mental diff erentiation between men and women. This diff erentiation tends to lead to the segregation of societies into masculine and feminine activities, and to organizations and net- works which are dominated by either men or by women.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School College of The
    The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts EXISTENTIALIST ROOTS OF FEMINIST ETHICS A Dissertation in Philosophy by Deniz Durmus Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2015 The dissertation of Deniz Durmus was reviewed and approved* by the following: Shannon Sullivan Professor of Philosophy Women's Studies, and African American Studies, Department Head, Dissertation Advisor, Co-Chair Committee Sarah Clark Miller Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Director of Rock Ethics Institute, Co-Chair Committee John Christman Professor of Philosophy, Women’s Studies Robert Bernasconi Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, African American Studies Christine Clark Evans Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Women’s Studies Amy Allen Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy, Head of Philosophy Department *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT My dissertation “Existentialist Roots of Feminist Ethics” is an account of existentialist feminist ethics written from the perspective of ambiguous nature of interconnectedness of human freedoms. It explores existentialist tenets in feminist ethics and care ethics and reclaims existentialism as a resourceful theory in addressing global ethical issues. My dissertation moves beyond the once prevalent paradigm that feminist ethics should be devoid of any traditional ethical theories and it shows that an existential phenomenological ethics can complement feminist ethics in a productive way. The first chapter, introduces and discusses an existentialist notion of freedom based on Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre’s writings. In order to establish that human beings are metaphysically free, I explain notions of in-itself, for-itself, transcendence, immanence, facticity, and bad faith which are the basic notions of an existentialist notion of freedom.
    [Show full text]
  • A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2019 A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry Karina Bucciarelli Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses Part of the Epistemology Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Bucciarelli, Karina, "A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry" (2019). Scripps Senior Theses. 1365. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1365 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: PREVENTING KNOWLEDGE DISTORTIONS IN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY by KARINA MARTINS BUCCIARELLI SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR SUSAN CASTAGNETTO PROFESSOR RIMA BASU APRIL 26, 2019 Bucciarelli 2 Acknowledgements First off, I would like to thank my wonderful family for supporting me every step of the way. Mamãe e Papai, obrigada pelo amor e carinho, mil telefonemas, conversas e risadas. Obrigada por não só proporcionar essa educação incrível, mas também me dar um exemplo de como viver. Rafa, thanks for the jokes, the editing help and the spontaneous phone calls. Bela, thank you for the endless time you give to me, for your patience and for your support (even through WhatsApp audios). To my dear friends, thank you for the late study nights, the wild dance parties, the laughs and the endless support.
    [Show full text]
  • Time for Women's Rights, Time for A
    TIME FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS, TIME FOR A UNITED FEMINIST EUROPE The state of women’s rights in Central Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Baltic States: Under Attack and Under Resourced A report by the Central Eastern Europe, the Balkan and the Baltic States Taskforce of the European Women’s Lobby This publication has been funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union. The information contained in the publication does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Commission. TABLE OF CONTENT Introduction . 4 What is the Central Eastern Europe, the Balkan and the Baltic States (CEEBBS) Taskforce? . 5 The History of Promoting Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the CEEBBS Region . 7 Taskforce Priorities and Recommendations . 11 1. Strengthening, supporting and resourcing a strong women’s rights movement in the region . 12 2. Reclaiming feminism and equality between women and men as European values . 14 3. Ensuring women’s economic independence, reducing economic disparities between women and men and urgently tackling poverty based on gender and other intersecting forms of discrimination . 16 4. Increasing women’s participation and representation in politics and increasing the number of feminist politicians in power . 18 5. Strengthening accountable, well-resourced domestic gender equality institutions whose mandates will take into account the principle of diversity and will be responsive to the needs of all women and girls . 22 6. Ending violence against women and ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights for all . 26 7. Ending intersectional discrimination of women from minority groups, including of Roma women and migrant and refugee women .
    [Show full text]
  • May, Cactus 03-14-18A
    Between the Lines: Writing Ethics Pedagogy A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Phillip W. “Cactus” May IV May 2018 ©2018 Phillip W. “Cactus” May IV. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled Between the Lines: Writing Ethics Pedagogy by PHILLIP W. “CACTUS” MAY IV has been approved for the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by Sherrie L. Gradin Professor of English Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT MAY, PHILLIP W. “CACTUS” IV, Ph.D., May 2018, English Between the Lines: Writing Ethics Pedagogy Director: Sherrie L. Gradin This research project seeks to establish the degree to which morality and ethics are implicated in writing pedagogy. While writing, rhetoric, and ethics have long been interlinked in the traditions of rhetorical pedagogy, perhaps most famously in Socrates’ admonishment of the Sophists, postmodern skepticism has, in part, diminished the centrality of morality and ethics to college writing instruction. I arrive at this project prickled by my own assumptions that writing might well be taught aside from moral and ethical considerations. To this end, I curate a collection of representative work applying the concepts of ethics to composition pedagogy research and scholarship from 1990 to the present. This work is necessary because the theory and practice of ethics in composition studies is diverse and diffuse. While a few scholars have made ethics a primary concern (for example, Marilyn Cooper; Peter Mortensen; James Porter) and others who have sought to map the disciplinary engagement (for example, Paul Dombrowski; Laura Micciche), treatments of ethics in composition scholarship remain fragmented and idiomatic.
    [Show full text]
  • Feminism & Philosophy Vol.5 No.1
    APA Newsletters Volume 05, Number 1 Fall 2005 NEWSLETTER ON FEMINISM AND PHILOSOPHY FROM THE EDITOR, SALLY J. SCHOLZ NEWS FROM THE COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN, ROSEMARIE TONG ARTICLES MARILYN FISCHER “Feminism and the Art of Interpretation: Or, Reading the First Wave to Think about the Second and Third Waves” JENNIFER PURVIS “A ‘Time’ for Change: Negotiating the Space of a Third Wave Political Moment” LAURIE CALHOUN “Feminism is a Humanism” LOUISE ANTONY “When is Philosophy Feminist?” ANN FERGUSON “Is Feminist Philosophy Still Philosophy?” OFELIA SCHUTTE “Feminist Ethics and Transnational Injustice: Two Methodological Suggestions” JEFFREY A. GAUTHIER “Feminism and Philosophy: Getting It and Getting It Right” SARA BEARDSWORTH “A French Feminism” © 2005 by The American Philosophical Association ISSN: 1067-9464 BOOK REVIEWS Robin Fiore and Hilde Lindemann Nelson: Recognition, Responsibility, and Rights: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory REVIEWED BY CHRISTINE M. KOGGEL Diana Tietjens Meyers: Being Yourself: Essays on Identity, Action, and Social Life REVIEWED BY CHERYL L. HUGHES Beth Kiyoko Jamieson: Real Choices: Feminism, Freedom, and the Limits of the Law REVIEWED BY ZAHRA MEGHANI Alan Soble: The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings REVIEWED BY KATHRYN J. NORLOCK Penny Florence: Sexed Universals in Contemporary Art REVIEWED BY TANYA M. LOUGHEAD CONTRIBUTORS ANNOUNCEMENTS APA NEWSLETTER ON Feminism and Philosophy Sally J. Scholz, Editor Fall 2005 Volume 05, Number 1 objective claims, Beardsworth demonstrates Kristeva’s ROM THE DITOR “maternal feminine” as “an experience that binds experience F E to experience” and refuses to be “turned into an abstraction.” Both reconfigure the ground of moral theory by highlighting the cultural bias or particularity encompassed in claims of Feminism, like philosophy, can be done in a variety of different objectivity or universality.
    [Show full text]
  • Women in Philosophy: Problems with the Discrimination Hypothesis
    Log In WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY: PROBLEMS WITH THE DISCRIMINATION HYPOTHESIS Dec 10, 2014 | Neven Sesardic, Rafael De Clercq Your Email Address Neven Sesardic is professor of philosophy at Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, NT, Hong Kong; [email protected]. He is the author of Making Sense of Heritability (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Rafael De Clercq is associate professor and head of the Department of Visual Studies, and adjunct associate professor of philosophy, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, NT, Hong Kong; [email protected]. The authors thank these individuals for useful comments on earlier drafts: Tomislav Bracanović, Stephen J. Ceci, Andrew Irvine, Paisley Livingston, Darrell Rowbottom, Nosson ben Ruvein, David N. Stamos, Matej Sušnik, Omri Tal, Daniel Wikler, Wendy M. Williams, and Jiji Zhang. None of these people, however, should be assumed to agree with the main claims of this paper. Editor’s Note: This is the complete version of an article with the same title adapted for the Winter 2014 Academic Questions (vol. 27, no. 4) A number of philosophers attribute the underrepresentation of women in philosophy largely to bias against women or some kind of wrongful discrimination. They cite six sources of evidence to support their contention: (1) gender disparities that increase along the path from undergraduate student to full-time faculty member; (2) anecdotal accounts of discrimination in philosophy; (3) research on gender bias in the evaluation of manuscripts, grants, and curricula vitae in other academic disciplines; (4) psychological research on implicit bias; (5) psychological research on stereotype threat; and (6) the relatively small number of articles written from a feminist perspective in leading philosophy journals.
    [Show full text]
  • FEMINIST and GENDER THEORY for HISTORIANS: a Theoretical and Methodological Introduction
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of History History/WMST 730 (graduate course) (Cross-listed with the Department of Women’s Studies) FEMINIST AND GENDER THEORY FOR HISTORIANS: A Theoretical and Methodological Introduction SPRING 2018 DRAFT SYLLABUS Instructor: Karen Hagemann Time of the Course: Wednesday, 5:30 – 8:00 pm Location of the Course: HM 425 Office Hours: Tuesday 1-3 pm or by appointment Office: Hamilton Hall 562 Email: [email protected] SHORT DESCRIPTION After more than forty years of research, it is time for a critical stocktaking of the theoretical and methodological developments in the field of women's and gender history. The course will therefore acquaint students with the major development of the field since the 1970s and consider the texts of authors such as Judith Bennett, Gisela Bock, Judith Butler, Kathleen Canning, R.W. Connell, Natalie Z. Davis, Evelyn Brooks Higginbottam, Joan Kelly, Gerda Lerner, Joan W. Scott, Sonya O. Rose, and John Tosh, in a chronological and systematical order, to understand how and why the theoretical and methodological debates developed in a specific direction. AIMS AND AGENDA OF THE COURSE Recovering the lives of women from the neglect of historians was the goal of women's history from its inception. Its methodology and interests have evolved over time as it has become established as an academic discipline. From its early origins in cataloguing great women in 15 September 2017 2 history, in the 1970s it turned to recording ordinary women's expectations, aspirations and status. Then, with the rise of the feminist movement, the emphasis shifted in the 1980s towards exposing the oppression of women and examining how they responded to discrimination and subordination.
    [Show full text]
  • Discipline Course – I Semester
    Traditions in Political Theory: Feminism Discipline Course – I Semester - II Paper : Feminism Lesson Developer: Pushpa Kumari College: Miranda House, University of Delhi 1 Traditions in Political Theory: Feminism Table of Contents Chapter : Traditions in Political Theory: Feminism Introduction Origin and Development First Wave of Feminism Second Wave of Feminism Third Wave of Feminism Approaches in Feminist Studies Liberal Feminism Marxist Feminism Socialist Feminism Radical Feminism Psychoanalytic Feminism Black Feminism Post Modern Feminism Eco Feminism Central Themes in Feminism SexGender Differentiation Nature/Culture The Public/Private Divide Patriarchy and Violence Contemporary Engagements Gendering Political Theory Conclusion Exercise Bibliography Traditions in Political Theory : Feminism 2 Traditions in Political Theory: Feminism The new critical insight such as feminism has expanded the horizon of our understanding in political science. It offers crucial reflections and new ways of looking and making sense of the world around us. It can be observed that such developments have contributed to further evolution of the discipline by making it more inclusive, accommodative and open to new ideas and interpretations. Discourses such as feminism and postmodernism carry great emancipatory potential and have redefined the notion of freedom itself. Whereas feminist endeavours have radically changed the lives of millions of women, postmodernism has unleashed a new spirit to question the conventional ways of understanding and revealing that there can be multiplicity of truths. The dominant universalistic views as projected by white male, Christian, industrial class has been negated. These critical perspectives can lead the effort to dismantle conventional hierarchies and conceptualise a more plural and equal world. Introduction : Women all over the world face inequality, subordination, and secondary status compared to men.
    [Show full text]
  • The Eye of the Crocodile
    The Eye of the Crocodile The Eye of the Crocodile Val Plumwood Edited by Lorraine Shannon Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Plumwood, Val. Title: The Eye of the crocodile / Val Plumwood ; edited by Lorraine Shannon. ISBN: 9781922144164 (pbk.) 9781922144171 (ebook) Notes Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: Predation (Biology) Philosophy of nature. Other Authors/Contributors: Shannon, Lorraine. Dewey Number: 591.53 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Cover image supplied by Mary Montague of Montague Leong Designs Pty Ltd. http://www.montagueleong.com.au Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2012 ANU E Press Contents Acknowledgements . vii Preface . ix Introduction . 1 Freya Mathews, Kate Rigby, Deborah Rose First section 1 . Meeting the predator . 9 2 . Dry season (Yegge) in the stone country . 23 3 . The wisdom of the balanced rock: The parallel universe and the prey perspective . 35 Second section 4 . A wombat wake: In memoriam Birubi . 49 5 . ‘Babe’: The tale of the speaking meat . 55 Third section 6 . Animals and ecology: Towards a better integration . 77 7 . Tasteless: Towards a food-based approach to death . 91 Works cited . 97 v Acknowledgements The editor wishes to thank the following for permission to use previously published material: A version of Chapter One was published as ‘Being Prey’ in Terra Nova, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Rights for Women: an Argument for ‘Deconstructive Equality’ Economy and Society Volume 31 Number 3 August 2002: 414–433
    Nash, Kate (2002) Human rights for women: an argument for ‘deconstructive equality’ Economy and Society Volume 31 Number 3 August 2002: 414–433 http://eprints.goldsmiths.ac.uk/archive/00000199 Goldsmiths Research Online is an institutional repository hosting the full text of published research done at Goldsmiths. Material stored in the archive is freely available to anyone over the Internet, to read, download and print for personal study and research use, unless noted otherwise. Material has been made available by the authors, using their right to self- archive, with permission of publishers. Existing copyrights apply. Goldsmiths Research Online http://eprints.goldsmiths.ac.uk Human rights for women: an argument for ‘deconstructive equality’ Kate Nash Kate Nash, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, London SE14 6NW. Tel: 020 7919 7734; E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The status of universalism has been much debated by feminists at the end of the twentieth century. Poststructuralist feminism is readily positioned in these debates as antagonistic to normative universalism. It is criticized as such: how is injustice to be judged and condemned if contestation and the openness of ungrounded universalism are the only ideals? This paper is a ‘sub-philosophical’ enquiry into the normative commitments to equality implicit in poststructuralist feminism and its relationship to ‘actually existing’ human rights for women as they have been re-worked by the international feminist movement. It argues that poststructuralist feminism can be used to provide support for one possible understanding of equality encoded in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
    [Show full text]