GENDER EQUALITY AND EXPERIENCES OF FAMILY LIFE
UNIT 4.3.1:
Feminist Theories of the Family
Cues Notes
• What is the sociological history of • There have been four main eras of feminism which have made a
feminism? significant contribution to women’s position in society and families:
- First wave of feminism – began with Mary Wollstonecraft’s
‘A Vindication of the Rights of a Women’, argued for
• Look at Wollstone Craft’s work and life
education rights and highlighted men’s exploitation of
women’s inheritances.
• What was the suffragette movement? Wollstone’s followers in 19th Cen led to property rights, allowance to
initiate divorce and votes for women
- Second wave feminism – began in 1960’s to 1970’s with
works from Betty Friedman, Germaine Greer, and Kate
Millet
Liberal feminists argued that sociological analysis of family, economic and
educational life would put pressure on government to pass civil rights and
social policy legislation and this was quite effective leading, to what they
believed by the 1980’s, to be a retreat in patriarchy.
Radical feminists argued that women and men would always be locked in
a conflict and believed that patriarchy involved the use ideological,
economic, and physical power to oppress women and that women should
set up only women-communities and shun marriage and family life.
Socialist or Marxist feminism argue that patriarchy is an ideology
invented and employed by capitalism as its relentless search for profit and
not apparatus solely benefit men.
- Third-wave feminism was between the 1980’s and 1990’s
• What do Marxist Feminists mean by and made up of critics of the second-wave intersectional
‘search for profit and not apparatus’? feminists and post-feminists
Intersectional feminists argued that the liberal and radical feminists were
ethnocentric and guilty of theoretical imperialism. Black feminists (USA)
argue family is main site of oppression for them, but family is often a site
of refuge for women in societies characterised by white supremacy,
apartheid, and institutional racism
Post-feminists included Camille Paglia and Naomi Wolf argued women
gained much economic power and were in their prime in 1990’s. Stacy
Gillis and Rebecca Munford argued post feminists rejected idea of women
UNIT 4.3.1:
Feminist Theories of the Family
Cues Notes
• What is the sociological history of • There have been four main eras of feminism which have made a
feminism? significant contribution to women’s position in society and families:
- First wave of feminism – began with Mary Wollstonecraft’s
‘A Vindication of the Rights of a Women’, argued for
• Look at Wollstone Craft’s work and life
education rights and highlighted men’s exploitation of
women’s inheritances.
• What was the suffragette movement? Wollstone’s followers in 19th Cen led to property rights, allowance to
initiate divorce and votes for women
- Second wave feminism – began in 1960’s to 1970’s with
works from Betty Friedman, Germaine Greer, and Kate
Millet
Liberal feminists argued that sociological analysis of family, economic and
educational life would put pressure on government to pass civil rights and
social policy legislation and this was quite effective leading, to what they
believed by the 1980’s, to be a retreat in patriarchy.
Radical feminists argued that women and men would always be locked in
a conflict and believed that patriarchy involved the use ideological,
economic, and physical power to oppress women and that women should
set up only women-communities and shun marriage and family life.
Socialist or Marxist feminism argue that patriarchy is an ideology
invented and employed by capitalism as its relentless search for profit and
not apparatus solely benefit men.
- Third-wave feminism was between the 1980’s and 1990’s
• What do Marxist Feminists mean by and made up of critics of the second-wave intersectional
‘search for profit and not apparatus’? feminists and post-feminists
Intersectional feminists argued that the liberal and radical feminists were
ethnocentric and guilty of theoretical imperialism. Black feminists (USA)
argue family is main site of oppression for them, but family is often a site
of refuge for women in societies characterised by white supremacy,
apartheid, and institutional racism
Post-feminists included Camille Paglia and Naomi Wolf argued women
gained much economic power and were in their prime in 1990’s. Stacy
Gillis and Rebecca Munford argued post feminists rejected idea of women
