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Understanding Feminism: Key Concepts and Strands

Radical feminism emerged in the late 1960s and pushed the limits of the feminist agenda. It was based on the belief that women's oppression originates from patriarchal social structures constructed by male supremacy. Unlike other feminist branches, radical feminism focused on completely eliminating patriarchy by transforming society and traditional gender roles. The women's liberation movement also emerged during this time and had the ultimate goal of exposing the entire gender-based system of sexism expressed across social, economic, and political structures through language, culture, and violence against women. While it gave women a voice and raised awareness of gender issues, some criticisms of radical feminism are that it may ignore wider factors like class and other social categories.

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89 views2 pages

Understanding Feminism: Key Concepts and Strands

Radical feminism emerged in the late 1960s and pushed the limits of the feminist agenda. It was based on the belief that women's oppression originates from patriarchal social structures constructed by male supremacy. Unlike other feminist branches, radical feminism focused on completely eliminating patriarchy by transforming society and traditional gender roles. The women's liberation movement also emerged during this time and had the ultimate goal of exposing the entire gender-based system of sexism expressed across social, economic, and political structures through language, culture, and violence against women. While it gave women a voice and raised awareness of gender issues, some criticisms of radical feminism are that it may ignore wider factors like class and other social categories.

Uploaded by

aldrin banday
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© © All Rights Reserved
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FEMINISM Radical Feminism- pushed the limits of the

feminist agenda. beliefs are based on the idea


-Aimed to enhance women's status and power. that the main cause of women's oppression
Feminism called into questions power relations originates from social roles and institutional
within the society, in general and between men structures being constructed from male
and women. supremacy and patriarchy. The main difference
between radical feminism and other branches is
-The belief in social, economic, and political
that they didn't concentrate on equalizing the
equality of the sexes. Although largely
distribution of power. Instead, they focused
originating in the West, feminism is manifested
their efforts on completely eliminating
worldwide and is represented by various
patriarchy by transforming the entire structure
institutions committed to activity on behalf of
of society. More specifically, they wanted to get
women’s rights and interests.
rid of traditional gender roles.
- The impact of feminism in political science was
RADICAL FEMINISM AND WOMEN'S
significant. Feminism has produced a re-
LIBERATION MOVEMENT
examination of what politics is and what ‘the
political’ means in the discipline . *The emergence of radical feminism and
womens liberation movement in the late 1960s
-Since there are many variants of feminism, it
and early 1970s ushered in a new political
would follow that there is no one form of
perspective within feminism. This new political
feminist theory. Chafetz describes the term
perspective "was grounded in women's
“feminist theory” as referring “to a myriad kinds
experience of the limitations of 'equal rights',of
of works, produced by movement activist and
their marginalization in Leftwing and radical
scholars in a variety of disciplines.
male-dominated movements and above all in
THREE STRANDS OF FEMINISM the advances of knowledge and understanding
made by women over the decades since access
Liberal Feminism- followed existing liberal to education had been opened up".
thought and its logic of individual rationality,
public-private distinction, and the reformability -Its ultimate goal was to exposed the whole
of institutions. gender- based system of sexism and patriarchial
power express in social, economic and political
-Liberal feminism conceives of freedom as structures; in language and cultural images of
personal autonomy—living a life of one's own men and women; in the alienation of women
choosing—and political autonomy—being co- from their bodies, the repression of their
author of the conditions under which one lives. sexuality and male control of women's
reproduction; and in male violence against
Marxist Feminism- built on the tenets of
women.
Marxism particularly on the critique of how
womens oppression was functional and STRENGTH
necessary to the development of capitalism.
-Gave WOMEN a VOICE.
-Marxist feminism refers to a set of theoretical
frameworks that have emerged out of the -Raised AWARENESS of GENDER ISSUES
intersection of Marxism and feminism. Marxism
WEAKNESS
and feminism examine forms of systematic
inequalities that lead to the experiences of -May be IGNORING WIDER FACTORS such as
oppression for marginalized individuals CLASS. This is a weakness because Feminists can
(Ehrenreich, 1976). Marxism deals with a form FAIL to see the BIGGER PICTURE of INEQUALITY,
of inequality that arises from the class dynamics such as the CLASS SYSTEM.
of capitalism.
-IGNORES other SOCIAL CATEGORIES such as
DISABILITY, and NATIONALITY.

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