Ideologies of Gender

CHAPTER 4 IDEOLOGIES OF GENDER Introduction In the previous chapter we saw how early feminist utopian writers challenge the dominant ideologies of femininity by providing different visions what it means to be a woman. For Astell this vision was of women as scholars, for Scott, women as social conscious agents, for Wollstonecraft, women as citizens. These different visions illustrate that what it means to be a woman is not a simple unchanging idea but is a dynamic concept, the meaning of which is contested. The debates about what it means to be ‘a woman’ are various: is, for example, the concept of ‘woman’ a social construct or is derived from a set of essential qualities whether biological or psychological or even, whether the concept of ‘being a woman’ is a useful notion on which to base political action. This debate raises questions not just about how we deal with gender in education of girls and women, boys and men but also questions whether we should be even using the construct of gender as a basis for shaping educational policy and practice. In this chapter I examine different ideological constructions of gender found in feminist utopian writing. The purpose of this book is to explore feminist utopian writings and consider critically the implications for policy and practice in relation to gender and education. Julia Kristeva’s essay Women’s Time (1991), in which she explores the development of feminist thought and politics, is especially pertinent to a discussion about gender and education within feminist utopian thinking because it is itself an example of a feminist non-fictional utopian work. Kristeva examines the relationship in feminist thought between the process of social change and the conception of what it means to be a woman by identifying three phases: (1) the struggle for equal rights (2) the development of woman-centred approaches (3) the creation of a sociopolitical order where gender is no longer significant. In this chapter I will, firstly, consider whether Kristeva’s hypothesis of three phases or positions within feminist thought can be used productively in relation to discussions about the educative process in feminist utopian writing. It is also important to remember that debates about what it means to be a woman within feminism are set against the backdrop of patriarchal ideologies of masculinity and femininity. As a preliminary, therefore, I will consider, patriarchal ideologies of femininity and masculinity before moving on to explore in detail each of the three broad positions identified by Kristeva and then consider their use as a framework to examine the discussions about gender and the educative process in feminist 47 CHAPTER 4 utopian writing. The examination of each of these three positions will draw on material from a range of theorists representative of particular positions. It is important to indicate that the intention at this point is not to advocate for a specific position or argument proposed by any one theorist but instead to outline the underpinning ideas of each phase, because it is from these discussions that feminist utopian writers draw their ideas in the construction of the good society. KRISTEVA’S THREE PHASES OF FEMINISM The first and second phases, the struggle for equal rights and the development of woman-centred approaches were evident when Kristeva wrote her essay in 1979 but the third phase was just beginning to be developed. In this third phase the founding idea of the preceding phases, that is, the notion of ‘woman’ as the basis of a radical politics, is questioned: “…the very dichotomy man/woman as an opposition between two rival entities may be understood as belonging to metaphysics” (p 458, italics in the original). Kristeva begins the essay Women’s Time by arguing that considerable attention has been focussed on the issue of space in relation to gender but little has been considered in relation to time. Kristeva proposes that feminism can be viewed profitably in terms of ‘generations’; feminist thought is dynamic, with ideas evolving and being debated over long periods. These phases, though, can only to some extent be placed chronologically: the emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) around 1968 is cited as the divide between the first and second phases and the third phase is said to begin emerging in the mid-1980s. It is more productive to view each ‘phase’ as a “...signifying space...” (p 458) with all three phases able to co-exist as competing positions within contemporary feminism. As we saw in the previous chapter early women writers adopted different positions with Wollstonecraft claiming equality with men while Scott suggests an alternative woman-centred community. Viewing each approach as a concurrent ideological position rather than a specific historical phase fits Kristeva’s focus in this essay. The first phase, the demand for equal rights, and the second phase, the development of woman-centred approaches have been concurrent positions throughout the development of feminism. These phases mark a continuing debate with one or the other more dominant at a particular period while the possibility of a third position Kristeva suggests was only beginning to be conceived at the time she wrote Women’s Time in the late 1970s and is now articulated in the theoretical works of writers such as Judith Butler (1990, 1993). In Kristeva’s first phase, women, by claiming equal rights, are rejecting the limiting effects of becoming a woman: of becoming ‘feminine’. The different behaviours and characteristics of women and men, evident in patriarchal society, are seen as the result of differential patterns of socialisation that place women in subordinate roles. Women are socialised to become ‘feminine’, that is, acquire those characteristics such as nurturance and passivity which lead women to being placed in powerless positions. The task, therefore, is to reject any notions of femininity, these being inherently oppressive. In contrast, in the second phase, ‘being a woman’ is reclaimed as a positive role; being a woman means to have as part of your identity a set of essential qualities, which differ from the qualities men 48 .

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