...Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of feminist standpoint theory. Feminist standpoint theory is a theory which argues that the social science which is feminism should be practiced from the standpoint of women, or from particular groups of women, as some believe that women are better equipped to understand and comprehend certain aspects of society and the world. A feminisms standpoint epistemology proposes that it makes women’s experiences the main point of thinking, rather than it being a man’s. Nancy Hartsock is a female philosopher and is widely known for her work in feminist epistemology and standpoint theory, particularly her Feminist Standpoint essays. Hartsock came up with the theory that standpoint feminism is founded in Marxist ideology. She argued that feminist standpoint could be developed from Marx’s understanding of experience, and could be used to criticise patriarchal theories. She also adds how a standpoint view of feminism is essential when examining the systematic oppressions in a society in which standpoint feminists claim devalues and disregards women’s knowledge. Standpoint feminism draws on the idea that because women in all different types of societies all have significantly different lives and roles to those than men have, they believe that because of this, women hold a different type of knowledge. As women are a subordinated group, it allows them to see and understand the world different and in ways that differ completely and challenge...
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...------------------------------------------------- Feminist Stances on Rape ------------------------------------------------- Causes, Activism and Prevention [Author] Abstract Understanding the many different studies and work done by feminists regarding rape and sexual violence. Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………….3 Anti-Rape Movement………………………………………………4 Feminist Perspective…………………………..…………………..7 Amelioration Vs. Backlash……………………………………...9 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…11 Bibliography……………………………………………….…………12 Introduction The definition of rape has been something of dispute for the last number of years. Rape usually is understood to involve some sort of sexual penetration of a person by force or without consent. Rape is committed more by males, usually on a female. In the last three decades, feminist have worked and studied rape with the collective agenda to work towards changing rape in a social and legal manor. Feminist thought and activism have challenges the myth that rape is rape, showing that it is a common experience among girls and women. Although feminists have different theories on why rape occurs, and how to eliminate it, they share the notion that rape is wrong and work towards learning and teaching about rape prevention. This paper will touch on the anti-rape movement, the feminist perspective, and different hypothesis in learning about the different feminist theories of rape. Anti-Rape Movement Feminists have been working for decades towards raising...
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...Liberal Feminism 3.3.3 Second Wave Liberal Feminism 3.3.4 Weakness/Limitations of the Liberal Feminism 3.3.5 Contribution to the Women’s Movement 3.4 Marxist Feminism 3.4.1 Foundations of Marxist Feminism 3.4.2 Other Key Elements in Marxist Feminism 3.4.3 Limitations of Marxist Feminism 3.4.4 Contribution to the Women’s Movement 3.5 Psychoanalytic Feminism 3.5.1 The Beginnings of Psychoanalytic Feminism – Countering Freudian Theories 3.5.2 Explanation by other Theorists 3.5.3 Limitations of Psychoanalytic Feminism 3.5.4 Contribution to the Women’s Movement 3.6 Radical feminism 3.6.1 Definition 3.6.2 The influences that shaped Radical Feminism 3.6.3 What are the variations of Radical Feminism? 3.6.3.1 Radical- Libertarian Feminism 3.6.3.2 Radical-Cultural Feminism 3.6.4 Radical Feminism – Its Structure 3.6.5 The Outcomes of the Movement 3.6.6 Critiques of Radical Feminism 3.6.7 Contribution to the Women’s Movement 3.7 Postmodern Feminism 3.7.1 Postmodern Thought 3.7.2 Postmodern rethinking of psychological explanation of gender 3.7.3 Postmodern Feminist 3.7.4 Limitations of Postmodern feminism 3.7.5 Contribution to the women’s Movement 3.8 Black Feminism and Womanism 3.8.1 The Beginnings of Black Feminism 3.9 Cyber Feminism 3.9.1 Origin of Cyber Feminism 3.9.2 Definition of the 100 Anti Thesis 3.9.3 Cyber art and its relation to Cyber feminism 3.9.4 Cyber Feminism – Practical Manifestation 3.9.5 Cyber Feminism challenges and its future 3.10 Let Us Sum up 3.11 Answers to Check...
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...Matt Klaus Professor Firestone Com 4030 4 March 2012 Feminist Criminology, Aileen Wuornos, and the Future of Third Wave Feminism Crime committed by women is on the rise, especially in the area of violent crimes such as murder (Balfour’ 739). This has produced a new form of feminist studies in an area called feminist criminology. What hasn’t been studied as extensively is the question of why women kill. I argue that by using the individuality concept of third wave feminism and doing more research in the field of feminist criminology, patterns of criminal behavior may be established which may prevent severe female crime such as murder. This paper seeks to explain how advancing the study of feminist criminology is good for the U.S. legal system and could have changed the outcome for Aileen Wuornos. In this paper I will discuss what third wave feminism is, then I will discuss what feminist criminology is and how it applies to the Aileen Wuornos case, and lastly I will show that with advanced studies into the field of feminist criminology, odds of severe crimes committed by women could decrease. The third wave of feminism is not easily describable. However, it can be framed by saying that it is a movement that continues to advance the women’s rights agenda of the second wave (Zimmerman et al. 77). Unlike the second wave which was intended to give a voice to all women, the third wave tends to reflect more on the individual. By focusing on personal narratives, responsible...
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...Jaggar Alison M. Jaggar (PHD, 1970--) is a feminist philosopher and a professor who works for University of Colorado at Boulder. Jaggar was born in Sheffield, England. Jaggar’s early work was in England. Jaggar got her Bachelor’s degree in 1964 from University of London (Bedford College) and her Ph D from State University of New York at Buffalo in 1970. In 1990, she joined the faculty at University of Colorado Boulder, and she was awarded Gold Teaching Award by CU boulder. Besides teaching, Jaggar joined many research and academic appointments. Since 2007, she’s been research coordinator at Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo, Norway. Jaggar has around ten books published; most of them discuss the topic about feminism and social, moral and political philosophy. Besides, her teaching accomplishment and her research got her 16 awards during the past three decades. Unlike the long history of other schools of philosophy, the history of feminist philosophy is relatively short. The first emerge of feminism dates back to 18th century. However, the first boost of feminism started in the 20th century, along with political movements and black and postcolonial ideologies. Different from traditional views of epistemology, Jaggar pointed out that emotion is an important part of gaining and processing knowledge. According to Freud’s psychosexual development, gender identity is formed related to the social environment. Females are usually emotional and independent...
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...This paper examines leadership practice in Nigeria from a feminist perspective. The paper briefly x-rayed Nigeria’s problems from a feminist perspective and come to the conclusion that, majority of these problems are caused by the default androcentric social practices allowed by patriarchy and masculinism, it is important to proffer solution to these problems using the same feminist theoretical frame-work. Hence, this paper attempts long lasting solution to the problem of leadership as it confronts Nigeria. FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON SOME NIGERIA NATIONAL ISSUES This section looks at some of the issues that concern Nigeria leadership and development problems and try to look at them from a feminist perspective in order to chart a new paradigm at...
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...interests of their state. J. Ann Tickner, commenting on the primacy of power in Morgenthau's writings, explains that what he considers to be "a realistic description of international politics is only a picture of the past and therefore not a prediction about the future", and proposes what she considers to be a feminist alternative: a world in which state actors think of power in terms of collective empowerment, not in terms of domination over one another, could produce more cooperative outcomes and pose fewer conflicts between the dictates of morality and the power of self-interest (Art & Jervis, 2005). Emergence of Feminism Most of the early feminists in IR were IR theorists, researchers, and policy practitioners, who read syllabi full of scholarly articles by mainly or only men, and seen IR as a scholarly place often hostile to women and femininity. Feminist scholarship came into the discipline of International Relations(IR) around the 1980s and 1990s. It was not IR that produced the feminist insight, for feminism is, according to Daddow (2009), "a wider social and intellectual movement that has had a big impact in politics, society, and education" (p. 145). IR Feminist scholars began looking for...
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...Feminism is the “theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” (Merriam-Webster). Feminism is combatting all of the notions and systems of oppression against women, such as the Glass Ceiling, to advocate in the ideas and validity of women. Most advocates of Feminism have become Feminist critics. Feminist critics are more “concerned with the ways in which literature [, or roles in society,] reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (The OWL at Purdue 2010). Feminist critics call their practice, reading through “Feminist Lens”, which is the idea of reading literature and “striving to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women” (Richter 2016). The Feminist lens are feminist critics way to expose the negative perceptions of women that is expressed by...
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...Theories of Development-Empowerment a)WID,b)WAD,c)GAD Ever since the formation of the United Nations Commission on the Status for Women in 1946, it had been proposing a U. N. Women’s Conference with little success. Gradually with pressure from the American Women‟s Movement, the U.N. General Assembly declared 1975 as the International Women’s Year and 1975-1985 as the International Decade for Women. This declaration led to a growing awareness of women‟s issues and an acceptance of their demands as legitimate issues for policy making, both at the national and international level. The major themes of the International Women’s Year and Conference were-- Equality, Development and Peace. Equality, however, had been a dominant issue for the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and it came primarily from the feminist movement of the Western industrialized nations. Peace was increasingly considered to be a women issue by the countries of the Eastern block. Development, on the other hand, was a recent issue put forward mainly by the newly independent “Third World” nations as a key to improving women’s lives. During the Decade, the important but previously invisible role of women in the social and economic development of the poorer countries was highlighted. The declaration of the International Decade for Women (1975-85) signified the new visibility of Women in Development (WID) in international forums. During the past few years, the term "women in development" has become...
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...Socialist Feminist Criticism: You Dropped the Bomb on Me, Baby Feminism and gender studies have been described as having the ability to “challenge literary and culture theory to confront the difficult task of assimilating the findings of an expanding sphere of inquiry” (Contemporary Literary Criticism 567). This area of study has taken center stage during the last fifty years, not only in our society, but also in literary criticism. Although the terrain Feminism traverses can hardly be narrowed down to one single definition, the exploration of the genre can, at times, be the most intriguing feature of the criticism itself. While feminism has undoubtedly changed the way women and gender roles are considered in society today, it has also had an impact on the way that I, too, read literature, look at American culture, and view the world. Walter Ong suggests that “‘literature’ itself is the product of—or completely wound up and ‘imbricated’ in—the social contexts out of which it grows” (CLC 461). The social contexts that exist in our society have not only affected our societal systems themselves, but also have changed the way we view our class systems, gender roles, and sexual choices. Viewing society from a Marxist perspective can also help us decipher the unspoken rules that govern us. “Not only do Marxist critics want criticism to be constantly aware of history—both present and past history—in reading and literature, they also demand that the criticism become more overtly...
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...Feminists study society today through the viewpoint of oppressed women who are seen to be subordinated by men. Their main aim is to liberate women from men, patriarchal society and the socially constructed stereotypes of women. In order to do so, there are different strands of Feminism, which are, Liberal, the least extreme or violent, Marxist, who link in capitalism to Feminism and Radical Feminists, the most extreme. These groups seek to bring about equality through different means and on different levels of severity. In addition to these, there are smaller and more modern groups of Feminism which are Dual Systems Feminists, who are similar to Marxist Feminists and Poststructuralists who believe other Feminists disregard differences between women. Liberal Feminists are concerned with the human civil rights, therefore they seek legal reforms and changes in attitudes and socialisation to bring about gender equality, which does not require a violent revolution. They are the closest Feminist theory to a consensus view on today’s society even though it focuses on the conflicts between men and women. Liberal Feminists reject the idea that biological differences make women less competent or rational than men or vice versa. They distinguish between sex and gender; whereby sex refers to the biological differences such as their reproductive role and physical differences and gender refers to culturally constructed differences between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ roles. As gender is culturally...
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...Feminist Theories and Uttar Predash Sociology 100 McLaughlin Thesis In the world, men and women are treated differently. Men and women have different roles and responsibilities, relations, and identities. Men are perceived as the dominant and in-charge person of the two. Men are usually the head of household and make the important decisions for the family. Women are perceived as the submissive person and are under-appreciated. Many women realized this and began to stand and fight against the stereotypical view of women. From this, the feminist theory derived. The feminist theory is a generalized, wide-ranging system of ideas about social life and human experience developed from a woman-center perspective. The feminist theory has four main subgroups, consisting of gender difference, gender inequality, gender oppression, and structural oppression. These theories are evident in the world, especially in the small Himalayan village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh described by Manjari Mehta in “Our Lives Are No Different From That of Our Buffaloes.” Feminist Theories Gender difference is a theory of feminism that argues that women’s perspectives of most situations are different from that of men’s perspectives of the same situation. Gender difference strives to answer the question “And what about the women?” by simply trying to show that women’s location in and experience of situations are different from that of men. Gender difference can be broken down into...
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...stereotypes and assumptions about females in the criminal justice system, saw feminist perspectives challenge the theories, concepts and assumptions of those involved in the study of crime (Bryant, 2014). This essay begins by firstly providing a brief description and its origins, how feminist theories causes crime, how its theory defines crime, the multiple feminist perspectives within feminism and how feminist criminology attempts to combat crime. It will then discuss the relevance and how feminist theory influences the criminal justice system, such as women’s role as professionals, as well as women as offenders and victims (Schram & Tibbetts 2013, p. 285). Finally, this essay will examine the applicability to Australian society by exploring if the suggested causes of crime apply to Australian society. It will lastly draw on the criticisms of feminist criminology and how the different types of feminist perspectives lessons the relevance of this theory in Australian society. Outlining the theory Feminist criminology first developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s which was closely associated with the emergence of the Second Wave of Feminism (White, Haines & Asquith 2012, p. 143). The Second Wave of Feminism saw the advent of many issues such as social, political and material inequalities (White, Haines & Asquith 2012, p. 143). Because men were mostly privileged as a group by society, the development of feminist criminology emphasised and raised concerns of the problem of discrimination...
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...Feminism or Igbo Culture? Feminism is a body of social theory and political movement primarily based and motivated by the experiences of women. Feminist theory tries to understand the nature of gender inequality and focuses on gender politics and relations. Subjects explored in feminism range from discrimination to stereotyping and many more. As the history of feminism has been studied, feminist movements began in the late 1800’s. Feminist ideas were not only observed in the work place or social life, but also in readings. In Things Fall Apart, there is clearly a feminist point of view. There are certain behaviors that women do not attain, they serve a specific role in the community, have arranged roles in the family, and are limited by the extended family. Although women are “Mother Supreme”, they were looked upon differently by the Igbo because of their feminist views. The opening sentence in Things Fall Apart begins with the description of an alpha male. It is hard not to have a feminist view when a role of masculinity is observed as early as the first sentence. Okonkwo is a self-made, well-respected member of the clan. He has become a wealthy farmer through his own hard work. Behaviors and attitudes that he considers masculine are to have a patriarch mindset, not show love and affection, have a great sense of personal pride, work hard, provide for your family, and being brave. Okonkwo believes that any slight show of weakness is feminine. For example...
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...notion of sexism is a very recent idea in our society. The idea that men were superior to and different from women was so deeply integrated into much thinking that most people never thought to question it. Throughout the history of ideas, female inferiority has been seen as the natural order of things. This is where feminism comes into place... feminism is the view which examines the world from the viewpoint of women, hence this 'traditional' view that men dominate women is challenged by feminists, as feminism believes that women are disadvantaged relative to men and that female interests are ignored or devalued by society. Feminism is therefore the movement which essentially campaigns for equality for women in society; examples of feminist groups which have campaigned for equal rights are the suffragettes and suffragists who protested for the right to vote for women in the 20th century. As Paula Trelchler herself put it... feminism is the radical notion that women are people. Liberal feminist Gavron suggested that women are trapped by the traditional roles within the family and that they should have more choice with regards to marriage and family life. Oakly further argued that the mother housewife role has been responsible for the subordination of women in the workforce. Female professional workers are three times less likely to be married than their fellow male workers. Oakly criticized Young and Wilmott, who in their 1972 study suggested that men were doing more in the home...
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