CRITICAL SOCIAL

SCIENCES
CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
• an analytical method of investigation
that attempts to expose surface
illusions to uncover the real
structures in the material world in
order to help people understand
their situation and then transform
the world for the better (Neuman,
1997)
CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
• to uncover surface reality in order to expose
underlying structures so that people may
improve the society to which they belong.
Therefore, the goal of critical social science is not
only to discover laws that explain human behavior
and social phenomena but to help people
understand why social inequalities exist so
that they can do something to address these
inequalities.
 Critical social
science aims to
evaluate and alter
social relations.
CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
• Critical social science rejects the idea of
alienation or giving the creations of your own
activity a detached existence. It advocates
the idea that people should not remove
themselves from their creations so that
they will recognize them as something they
helped bring about, giving them a sense of
achievement and a sense of control over
their own destiny
CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
• It tries to bridge the object-
subject gap, that is, the facts of
material conditions exist
independent of subjective views,
but that facts themselves are
theory-based, hence they are not
neutral or objective.
CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
• often adopted by people's
organizations, political
associations, and even social
movements
CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
MARXISM
aims to eliminate class conflict through class
struggle

CRITICAL SOCIAL PSYCHOANALYSIS

SCIENCE aims to understand human behavior by making the
Critical process of inquiry unconscious conscious
that attempts to uncover
surface illusions to reveal
real structures in the FEMINIST THEORY
material world for social aims to eliminate gender inequality by analyzing
transformation. the status of men and women in society

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT SYSTEMS
aims to promote sustainability by understanding
how human and environment systems interact
FEMIN
ISM
Feminism is the radical
notion that women are
people.
It means that in society, women have
traditionally been treated as
subordinate to men, and that
feminism can help in granting women
their rightful status in society.
There are various feminist theories
that try to explain the nature of
women's subordination and strategies
that can be used to elevate women's
status in society.
Feminism promotes the belief
that women and men should
be treated equally and that
steps have to be taken to
realize the goal of gender
equality.
HISTORIC
AL
CONTEXT
Women have been fighting for their
rights to achieve equal status with men
as early as the 19th century.
The so-called first wave feminism was
characterized by initiatives taken by
women to fight for women suffrage or
the right to vote and be educated, as
well as labor rights and other privileges.
The 1960s saw the emergence of
second wave feminism which was
characterized by the so-called
women's liberation. In this period,
feminists realized that the gains of first
wave feminism were not enough.
Second wave feminists realized that
giving women the right to vote was not
enough to solve the problem of
women's oppression.
The goal of second wave feminists was
women's liberation and not merely
political emancipation.
Betty Friedan's The
Feminine Mystique was
considered an important
work for this period because
it tackled the issue of what
Friedan called "the problem
with no name," or the sense
of not being able to do
something for themselves
and not having a sense of
self-fulfillment which kept
women from truly enjoying
their womanhood because
they continued to remain
oppressed.
Women's oppression is said to be
primarily based on gender
ideology or attitudes regarding
the appropriate roles, rights, and
responsibilities of men and
women in society.
dominant
feminist
theories
Liberal feminism
• the oldest of all feminist theories, dating back
to the nineteenth century and advocated for
political and social rights for women. It argues
that since women are rational like men, they
should be given equal opportunities with men
like access to education, the right to vote, and
be elected in public office
SOCIALIST feminism
• was born in the twentieth century, which
served as a critique of Marxist feminism's
gender-blind approach to women's
subordination by emphasizing that other
factors such as race, age, religion, ethnicity,
and disability need to be considered in
analyzing women's oppression.
RADICAL feminism
• believe that women's oppression is the most
basic feature of society and all other forms of
oppression are only secondary, and that
biology is destiny: women, by virtue of their
physical make-up, are meant to be oppressed
that is why patriarchy must be abolished by
liberating women from male domination.
Key Concepts in
Feminist Theory
sex, gender, gender ideology, and
gender oppression
SEX anD GENDER
• Sex refers to the biological
differences between males and
females while gender, on the
other hand, refers to the
sociocultural attributes associated
with being a man and a woman
and the different roles that society
assigns to men and women.
GENDER IDEOLOGY
• Our knowledge about gender ideology
is primarily based on certain institutions
we have been exposed to in the process
of growing up, like family, school,
church, mass media, and peers. These
institutions provide us with the basis for
our gender ideology, which refers to
attitudes regarding the suitable roles,
rights, and responsibilities of men and
women in society.
GENDER IDEOLOGY
• Traditional gender ideologies
emphasize the value of
unique roles for men and
women.
• For example, traditional gender
ideology would value men for
being the breadwinners and
women for being homemakers.
GENDER IDEOLOGY
• Gender ideology legitimizes
gender inequality, or the
unequal treatment or
perceptions of individuals
based on their gender. Gender
inequality leads to gender
oppression, or the manner in which
certain groups are privileged or
disadvantaged because of gender.
GENDER OPPRESSION
• gender ideology shapes our
views about how men, women, and
other genders should behave in
society, and more often than not
this gender ideology becomes the
gender
basis of
discrimination and
oppression.
Thinkers and their
Contributions
Mary
WollsAtonecraft
• a social theorist and feminist
from the United Kingdom.
• Her feminist view was based on
reason and equality.
• She was the second of six
children of Edward John
Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth
Dixon.
• She was married to the
anarchist William Godwin and
died giving birth to her
daughter Mary.
Mary
WollsAtonecraft
• In 1792, she
published "A
Vindication of the
Rights of
Women" which
became a ground-
breaking work in
feminism.
Mary
WollsAtonecraft
• In this work, she stressed that
women should have equal
rights with men and scorned
the widespread impressions on
the helplessness and
uselessness of women. She
believed that women should
be educated in order to
achieve a sense of self-
worth.
Betty
Friedan
• considered the mother of
women's liberation.
• Her work The Feminine
Mystique stimulated the
emergence of second wave
feminism.
• She was born in Illinois to Jewish
parents Harry and Miriam. As a
young girl, Friedan was active in
both Marxist and Jewish groups.
Betty
Friedan
• She attended an all-female Smith
College in 1938 and graduated
summa cum laude in 1942 with a
degree in psychology.
• In 1943 she went on a fellow- ship
for graduate work in psychology at
the University of California,
Berkeley. In 1966 she founded the
National Organization of
Women (NOW) and became its
first president.
• She died at the age of 85 of
congestive heart failure in 2006.
Betty
Friedan
The Feminine Mystique
(1963),
• Friedan explained how female
domesticity causes a sense of
frustration and despair among
women. She labeled this
phenomenon as "the
problem with no name,"
the unhappiness many women
experienced as a result of
being confined to the roles of
homemaker and mother.
Simone de
Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir was a
French novelist, playwright,
and social critic who taught
philosophy at the Sorbonne
and later became an
independent writer and
social theorist. Her long-time
companion was Jean Paul
Sartre.
Simone de
Beauvoir
Her book The Second Sex
(1949) intensified the issue
of gender politics, foretelling
the themes later developed
by radical feminists.
Simone de
Beauvoir
She stressed that women's
subordination was caused by
social, not natural factors, thus
her classic line "women are
made, not born." She also
highlighted the idea of men being
"the one" and women being "the
other," meaning the masculine
was represented as the
positive of the norm, while
the feminine is portrayed as
the exact opposite of the
masculine.
Feminism Theory:
Strengths and
Criticism
STRENGHTS
1. recognition that social science research in
predominantly conducted by men and focused on men;
hence analyses the past was made were not inclusive of
women.
2. the realization that both the public (production) and
private (reproduction) spheres of life are socially
constructed
3. can be utilized using both macro and micro analysis of
society; it focuses on how institutions and structures
became patriarchal, how they result to gender
inequality, and how it can be challenged to promote
gender equality (macro); and it also sees society as
CRITICISM
1. feminists tend to be too disapproving of the gender
roles women play in society, to the point that they
already look down on these roles
2. the view that certain strands of feminism cater only to
the middle class women, for its seeming lack of
analysis of issues on race and class as factors in
shaping gender inequality
3. feminist theory is seen by some critics as being too
focused on women, ignoring the fact that men can
also experience discrimination and oppression in their
daily lives
DISCIPLINE AND IDEAS
IN THE SOCIAL
SCIENCES