Feminism

Within a debate round when someone is bringing up feminism, the answer is to respond with feminism!

Liberal Feminism: mostly exposed to this type.

  1. Get rid of the division between public and private (getting jobs). They are acting double duty because they are still in charge of the home as well as having a job.
  2. working within the system. We have to bring women into the public. Hurray to masculine values and being power driven and capitalism.

Authors: Seneca Falls Convention, Betty Friedan

Radical Feminism

  1. We need a radical change and to overthrow the current system
  2. Cultural feminism-there’s power in reproducing and they are against any type of reproductive technology (birth control, abortion), against porn, for lesbian communities,
  3. Liberal Feminism-reproduction is a part of repression (like rape and having to take time off when you have a child). Solution is reproductive technology.

Both have a broad based revolution. Authors: Joleen “Bitch Manifesto”, “theory of sexual politics,” Lorde’s “Master’s Tool”.

Marxist Feminism

  1. Advocates capitalism works with patriarchy and repression.
  2. Women constitutes a class
  3. Wages for housework-we have to have women in the house and teaching others how to do their work. Wanting government to pay them to train others.

Problems with this: Based on male theories and ignores psychological repression.

Authors are Delphy, Nancy Chodorow, Mackinnon, Hartman.

Psychoanalytical Feminism

  1. Freud and Mitchell. (Based on family drama)
  2. Freud-Oedipus complex and threat of castration
  3. Mitchell critiques Freud and says that Freud describes patriarchy. Also helps with their identity complex.

Gender Feminism

  1. Ethic of care-women and men reason differently over moral dilemmas. Heinz story with the man and the sick wife and he can’t afford the medicine that will cure her. Should Heinz steal the medicine to save her life.
  2. Men reason from an abstract complex and men can take themselves out of the box and evaluating what is going on; women put themselves within the web of relations and realize what is going on. It is rare that people look at problems from both view points. The ethic of Justice is the man’s view point; the ethic of Care is the woman’s view point. The woman’s is the better way to look at it.

Authors: Gilligan, Noddings, Virgina Held.

Post Modern Feminism

  1. Lacan-Imaginary. We experience things differently. At some point, you realize that you are not your mother. Imaginary is essentially interconnection. We are trying to get back to the imaginary. Truth is multiple
  2. Derrida talks about deconstructing the binary. Language and our conceptions of language in our world. If my conception of elephant is a concrete picture; cartoon or real, gray or brown. Our concepts are plural and when we talk about the concept of woman is different around the world.
  3. Foucault: power of knowledge web/grid. You don’t actually own power, you exist within it. You can only understand where you fit within the power knowledge grid. This also means that truth is plural-tugging within the web. Truth is relative to a certain spot in the web. People are in different places on the web. How we perceive truth is contextual.

Authors: Irigaray: “writing your body”, Cixous: “sex is multiple”.

Multicultural feminism

  1. Differs from global feminism because it is more US based. Most of the previous feminists defined women. When they define what a woman is, they leave out a lot of people.

Authors: Bell Hooks, Dill focus specifically on black fem.

Global Feminism

  1. We have to pay attention to context and where the woman is.
  2. Cultural imperialism
  3. Embrace our racism-we can’t stop our first impulse so embrace it and understand it. Come to understand your discomfort when speaking about racism and get over that uncomfortable feeling. It is only then that we can do something about it.

Author: Spivak, Patricia Hill Collins, Spellman (no essential woman or voice).

(Essential versus subjective female identity)

Subject matter Dichotomy: valued or devalued/masculinity or femininity/public or private/rational or irrational/protector or protected.

All the devalued are the feminine related.

Eco Feminism

  1. parallel dichotomy through women and the environment. “Lands are barren” or “lands are fertile” so within our language we have feminine words.
  2. We all want to dissect our environment, but we litter it like in pornography and not seeing a woman as a whole person.
  3. PROBLEM: really fragmented as a set of ideas

Authors: Mary Mellor

Judicial Feminism

  1. Advocate Feminine jurisprudence.
  2. Change the rule of law to incorporate changing interests of women.
  3. Distinction of pornography and freedom of speech

Authors: Gilligan and Mackinnen

IR Feminism (International relations/third world feminism)

  1. Talk about a dichotomy about us/them. Us would be the United States and them meaning foreign governments. The way we yield power is similar to how men have power over women.

Authors: Tickner, Enloe, Steans, Petersen and Runyan

Women’s Health Feminism

  1. Public Health systems have disadvantaged women because women’s bodies are different than men. Some diseases that kill women don’t kill men.
  2. It is also both physical and mental health. Doctors may write the women off because they are considered irrational.
  3. Hate PoMo Fem because there’s so much emphasis on the body.

Women who deal with feminist education

  1. Problems of patriarchy are rooted in education. Children pattern what they learn from their parents and usually mother.
  2. Different teaching methods and what are women teaching and what grades. Should women teach only younger grades, subject matter with math and science.

Military-male model of soldiers and war (IR fem). The Desire to be macho and instills violence.

Objectivity-as long as we value men as rational, we ignore all alternative view points.

The State-we can never dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. Domestic violence, as well as systemic violence (media, govt, exclude women)

Security-the way things are working out now, we secure the world of terrorists but not the individual women from violence in their home.