Summaries
(1st reading) Topic 1: The history of feminism: first, second and third wave feminism
First wave feminism refers to the women’s right activity from the 1840s to the 1920s whose main focus is equality. One of the contemporary feminist writers that rose in the said era is Simone de Beauvoir, “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman,” is the most celebrated quoted words of the Second Sex that became the centerpiece of first – wave feminism and signature of the author. Their meaning, fleshed out in The Second Sex’s descriptions of women’s daily lives, once seemed obvious.
The second wave feminism was the period mainly concern with equality plus difference mainly of political action to improve women’s right – the right to vote. Although, the right to vote started on the first feminism wave; this has been materialized after the second – wave movement. Aside from attaining political change, women want economic equality engaging in anti – slavery movement and liberal movement.
The third wave feminism seeks to challenge and expand definitions of gender and sexuality. In particular, traits of the third wave feminism include issues such as gender, racism, nationalism and queer identity wherein, differences in the political participation of women and men and there are more women, mainly younger women, are more likely to participate in voting for left of center parties than men. Although, there was an increase in the proportion of women in leadership, they are still in small minority.
(2nd reading) Topic 2: How to be a feminist: An introduction to second-wave feminism
Marxist feminism focus concerns on working women, how the institution of family is related to capitalism in particular regarding to women’s work as domestic work rather considered as real work and that the ruling class is the patriarchal society, wherein women receive low – paying jobs as part of gender oppression. Radical feminists locate the root cause of women’s oppression in patriarchal gender relations, in contradictory to the legal systems (liberal feminism) or class conflict (socialist feminism and Marxist feminism). However, roots of liberal feminism defined by (1989) as liberalism sees humans as different from other creatures because of our capacity for ‘rationality’. There are critiques on Liberal Feminism wherein it focuses on the individual’s attitudes and on changing legislation with less or no interest to change social structures and patriarchal structures especially in the family that tends to persuade women to be more domineering like men. Psychoanalytic Feminism mainly believes on the philosophy of wherein, women’s consciousness is extremely affected by past experiences, thus shaping their future lives. It is not enough to consider only psychoanalytic explanations when examining women’s oppression; legal, political, and economic institutions and structures must also be considered. Gender identity explanations are problematic. In Existential Feminism, examined women’s status in society and subordination to men. She analyzed Freudian and Marxist explanations for the occurrence, as psychoanalytic or biological theories. But she sought a deeper answer for the question of why men named man the self and women the other.
(3nd reading) Topic 2: How to be a feminist: An introduction to second-wave feminism
provided an outline of the development of the types of western feminism which are the liberal, radical and Marxist or socialist feminism with the influences of Psychoanalysis, theories of the body, queer theory, the significance between race and ethnicity; and the postmodernism; and by that many view as one of the Postmodernism feminist. This is exemplified on her views on differences related to diversity of forms of power meaning to say, she is in favor of plurality of things rather of the union. This can be seen during the first wave feminism wherein, more of the liberal feminism wherein, women are subordinate to the male domineering society that makes it oppressive. Thus, their role is of equality between men and women particularly involving the middle class and married woman who would want to engage in good education and work. However, the second wave feminism mainly focuses on issues on sex, class and race with the challenge on dealing with the differences that became the characteristic of postmodernism. On the issue of difference, this is where the psychoanalytic feminist coincides relating to the sexes – a common denominator. noted that Freudian feminists paid special attention to the impact of women’s primary care-giving responsibilities on personality and social relations; which is the very nature of women.
Also, the postmodernist period was influenced by who proposed Swiss that there is there is a formal foundation, or underlying fixed structure, to language that came to be described as ‘structuralism.’ By means, by the word of woman, as notes that ’the meaning/truth of the term, ‘Man’, therefore arises out of an historically and culturally specific positioning in opposition to the subordinated term, ‘Woman.’
(4th reading) Topic 3: Pornography: Does pornography hurt women?
had distinguished herself as the leading feminist anti-pornography campaigner in the world. Her book Pornography: Men possessing women is often cited as a source for facts, figures and theories in support of the belief that pornography is vital to woman’s oppression. Later, in Intercourse, she outlined the view that copulation itself — fucking – is the basis for the oppression of women ( 1994). suggests that women do not, cannot and should not enjoy sexual intercourse; this position is at the foundation of many anti-pornography feminists’ theories that recreational sexual materials misrepresent women because they depict women as enjoying sexual acts — acts which we are presumed to detest. Plus, surrendering to sexual desire to a man is demeaning since, if the woman takes good at copulation, then she is now became the possession of the man thus the act of giving herself to the man is losing her dignity; however, if she hates the act of copulation then she is of not a possession of man.
says she sees no difference between ‘erotica’ and ‘pornography’. Erotica, she says, ‘is simply high-class pornography’. In this she agrees with most anti-censorship women, who would make the same point: the distinction is not one of content, but rather one of class-derived values displayed with higher-priced resources. That is why many of her supporters believe that pornography or any sexual representation are humiliating and demeaning the value women ( 1994).
(5th reading) Topic 3: Pornography: Does pornography hurt women?
Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice ( 1974). The availability of pornography and the effects it may have on the public, men in particular continues to be controversial. Anti-pornography feminists argue that pornography teaches men to despise women. Through pornography, these feminists believe, men learn that women are to be abhorred, seen as less human than themselves; and used like objects that men desire in their sexual fantasies.
Pornography and men’s attitude about violence and women are clearly linked on the possible effects of pornography makes it very controversial especially to that of men in particular that makes them become insensitive to the realities such as infliction of pain, to violence against persons, more specifically the abuse on women.
Pornography teaches men to hate a woman that is why many cases of rape is happening since they regard women as sex objects rather as partners or equally rank as them. Pornography as a means to maintain the male domineering aspect; which in turn encourage sexual abuse on women. The harm on which pornography creates is not of just physical harm but more of the emotional aspect; it gives a negative impression to the public about women. It erodes the dignity that women has and the respect that they have for themselves that is why it is crucial for many feminist and among others to speak out and to pursue laws that is against pornography.
(6th reading) Topic 4: Reproduction: The abortion debate and reproductive rights
“The women I interviewed, no matter what side of the abortion fence they were on,” writes (1998) in The Abortion Myth, “were clear that the fetus is alive, and abortion kills it. None of them, however, believed these facts proved that abortion was wrong.” (1998) disapprove of those feminists who would go for abortion denying the fetus in an effort to bring the woman back into focus as the locus of pregnancy and the agent of decision-making. It argues that feminism must look to a broader concept not just to the time when abortion wasn’t safe and legal. In her view, women are moral persons for whom the decision to abort derives less from a sense of rights or privacy and more from a broader evaluation of what the “right” thing to do is. This appraisal would like to speak in their minds and hearts regarding their attitudes towards pregnancy and motherhood, and the real difference between being against and in favor towards abortion; wherein many feminists justifies that women must “act morally.” However, to act morally is not always the ideal or maybe abortion itself, is already acting morally. It is having the right to choose as a woman, the right to celebrate motherhood yet being sensitive enough to the responsibilities that are brought about by the fetus in the womb. It is a hard choice to go for a pro – abortion or to go against it, in the many experience of women, sometimes it justifies the means not just because a woman would like to terminate pregnancy due to the reason that it is not planned, but it is her right to control whatever decision she has to make.
(7th reading) Topic 4: Reproduction: The abortion debate and reproductive rights
Abortion and birth control became the topics for ethical, moral and legal debates since it is not just about the advancement of medical technology but “the fulcrum of a much broader ideological struggle in which the very meanings of the family, the state, motherhood and young women’s sexuality are contested (1986). Women have always wanted to gain full access of abortions that has been restricted them due to legal and ethical issues that is constantly changing from time to time. Regardless of which, no laws or ethico – moral issues that completely restrained women from shaping or taking in control of their sexuality neither their capability to reproduce. But not even one issue took notice of women’s right on their sexuality and the right to determine their fertility. One can assume that sexual behaviour or the premise of a woman that is to bear a child must be controlled by men or by law, thus it somehow pertains that the rights of a woman are much lesser to that of a man.
However, the society would still want to decide the sexuality and fertility of a woman, as what says, “Legal abortion plays a (more) symbolic function in the formation of a right wing constituency… antiabortion presents an aura of religiosity more than actual theology, separating the Godly from the Ungodly, the innocent from the damned… providing a banner to the claim of absolute morality… The foetus becomes the most potent symbol of helplessness…” It support the idea that society would want to control the very essence of a woman in the shadow of morality; a failure to recognise as women as equal beings.
(8th reading) Topic 5: Work: Women at work. Equal pay for equal work
It mentioned of the Feminine Mystique that continue to dehumanize women for not having the courage and the determination to continue to yearn for learning and freedom beyond family, a buyer of products, and away from everything else, that defined her as the plain housewife. It occurs that women became imprisoned at their own homes giving up their careers and good education just to become a plain housewife. Young girls who marry at a young age and bear a child become the vessel of the progressive dehumanization making itself vulnerable to the plagues of a capitalist society that has come to hunt women at very corner even at the safest place called home. Housewives forget how to think for their own self, to revitalize what they’re learning from the previous knowledge that has now been in the deepest recesses of their minds – that is their sense of self, the sense of living again. They become robots idly bored with the mundane task that blocks their growth and freedom.
A New Life Plan for Women therefore, concerns of the predominant strata of females in the society who got trap and of nowhere to escape from the present condition. Friedan suggests that that more serious good education and study, match with appealing, well-paying jobs, will open the door of the cage. This is the same kind of limited, individual solution that the feminists formerly proposed — and that consequently proved so ineffective. Women are urge to become the modern woman as what the author has done, the modern feminist. To make new life plans as well as shape their lives as to what they think is livable and interesting, and escape the comfortable concentration camps.
(9th reading) Topic 5: Work: Women at work. Equal pay for equal work
It has always been the role of a woman or rather the role that got the society for woman is motherhood. Though, it has always been the celebrated moments of a woman’s life, one cannot always guarantee itself for the happiness she will be having once she resume to the role of a housewife not the career mother she opt herself to be. The author blames the Howard government for such discrepancies against working mothers that implemented laws that shows the traditional family arrangements wherein, the father as the breadwinner and the mother remains a plain housewife taking care of the kids and keeping self busy with the dull and routine task to keep the house organize as possible that which prohibit from implementing policies that will reduce the stress for working women specifically the mothers. The ’s policy is more of social conservatism that leads to the inequality issue between the men and women that discriminates families of which both parents are working by under – funding childcare and implementing tax that robs them of with their wages compared to those of only one member of the family works. It also shows that young women are as willing as young men to say on high – paying job yet, some are generously willing to give up career or to be part of the paid workforce for the sake of family – these become constrained choices that becomes the trend of the liberal democratic Aussie society. Nonetheless, it urges women to uphold for justice against gender inequality. One of which, is to appoint a female Governor General but as oppose by the Prime Minister that no one is capable of doing the job. Hence, the government blatantly had shown oppression against women.
(10th reading) Topic 6: Culture: Identity politics and the impossibility of a universal feminism
The plight of feminism initially catered the white – educated women who would want to get out of their ordinary life and start careers promoting their own interest leaving America as a racist, sexist and a capitalist that is governed by white dominant males. It is greatly observe that white women see themselves as oppress, victim of a cruel society thus, needing attention which preceded their image of their willingness to control others as part of a male dominated state. That by virtue of their race they can act as exploiters to the blacks but by virtue o gender they can only render as the oppressed by the males. This gives them the tendency to disregard class, gender and sex of the many women in the United States; probably they were focusing only the group of working mothers who want to set aside the household chores undermining the Black, who as a group has not experienced what must become of being oppress or be the oppressor for they have belonged to the atypical function in the society wherein, they could never experience the joys of being part of the top jobs nor they belong to a specific class that as been the effect of racism.
It is always part of the American society that the ruling class are the white men who are capable of oppressing by virtue of gender and race thus, needing white females to overcome struggles against sexism while the male blacks against racism. Thus, it is the predisposition of the Black women to struggle against the views of racism, sexism and the capitalist ideology to share the responsibility in changing feminism to a liberal movement.
Reference:
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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