feminism is not monolithic

The Oxford English Dictionary defines feminism as the advocacy of the rights of women
based on the theory of equality of the sexes.
Though the definition provides one with a basic principle underlying feminism, it does not
reveal the diverse perspectives within feminism itself. Feminism is not a monolithic
movement with a unified theoretical base. It encompasses a variety of approaches,
methodologies and political objectives. At the heart of it, it a movement to end sexism, sexist
exploitation and oppression.

Through history, feminism as a movement has had trouble incorporating the voices of
minority groups of women. At several stages, women of color, queer women, and low-
income women have all broken from the mainstream feminist movement, unconvinced that
their issues were being appropriately prioritized on the social and political agenda by leaders
who were typically white, heterosexual, and middle-to-upper class. Furthermore, the
globalisation and spread of feminism through the world resulted in the emergence of new
strands of feminist thought and theory. There is no one monolithic feminist movement
because it is difficult to build a social or political movement that adequately addresses the
concerns of any group as diverse as women.

While, some scholars have rejoiced at this idea, and have even chosen to use the plural
feminisms, others have viewed it with skepticism. They feel the inability to arrive at a
single universally acceptable definition of feminism is a hinderance to the movement. They
believe that a definition that is accepted by everyone could be a point of unification.

Addressing the polysemous nature of feminism and its lack of unification, Kimberl
Crenshaw in 1989, coined the term intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism
examines the overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination that women face, based
not just on gender but on ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, economic background, religion and
various other reasons. It calls for a reflection of experiences of the multi-layered facets of life
that women of all backgrounds face. The critic bell hooks rightly said, Feminism is for
everybody.
 biological determinism + gender/sex distinction

In her seminal book The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir wrote, One is not born, but rather
becomes, a woman. This is what Judith Butler put down as the root of the conflict between biological
determinism and the social construction of gender. According to Butler, The distinction between sex
and gender has been crucial to the long-standing feminist effort to debunk the claim that anatomy is
destiny.

People tend to use the words sex and gender interchangeably, however they are not synonyms. Sex is
defined as the observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human beings,
females and males, needed for reproduction. Gender refers to the cultural, socially-constructed
differences between the two sexes. It refers to the way a society encourages and teaches the two sexes
to behave in different ways through socialisation. Gender identity is the extent to which one identifies
as being either masculine or feminine, which in itself, are terms that may be expressed and practiced
in different ways. Gender identity is our internal experience and naming of our gender.

Kamala Bhasin writes that the distinction between gender and sex was introduced to deal with the
general tendency to attribute womens subordination to their anatomy. Thus, the position of
individuals in society, their status, their characters was merely seen as a natural fact of their sex. The
purpose of affirming a sex/gender distinction was to argue that the actual physical or mental effects of
biological difference had been exaggerated to maintain a patriarchal system of power and to create a
consciousness among women that they were naturally better suited to domestic roles.

Modern feminism from the outset drew a distinction between biological and cultural differences
biological ones having been so important in the subordination of women in the past and focused
much more on the cultural. Thus in early feminist debates, sex was taken to refer to biological
differences and gender to those constructed by society this was useful as a way of showing that
masculinity and femininity said very little about essential qualities of sexual difference but rather only
about the ways they are used to encourage people to take up appropriate forms of behaviour

Often people think that sex exists as a binary opposition of male and female, however, there also
exists intersex conditions, or differences or disorders of sex development. Similarly, gender exists as a
spectrum of identities. A Cisgender person has a gender identity consistent with the sex they were
assigned at birth. For example, a child whose sex was assigned male on their birth certificate and who
identifies as a boy is cisgender (you may hear this term shortened to cis). If a child has a binary
gender identity, that means they identify as either a boy or a girl, regardless of the sex they were
assigned at birth. But gender is a spectrum, and not limited to just two possibilities. A child may have
a Non-binary gender identity, meaning they do not identify strictly as a boy or a girl they could
identify as both, or neither, or as another gender entirely. Agender people do not identify with any
gender. A Transgender person has a gender identity that does not match the sex they were assigned at
birth. So, a child who was assigned male on their birth certificate and who identifies as a girl is
transgender (sometimes this term is shortened to trans).

Recent writings on sex and gender suggest that feminism has relied upon too great a polarisation of
the sex/gender distinctions,observing that the meanings attached to sex differences are themselves
socially constructed and changeable,in that we understand them and attach different consequences to
these biological facts within our own cultural historical contexts.More recent gene research also
attempts to argue that biology does contribute to some behavioural characteristics. . Judith Butlers
theorisation about gender introduces this notion of performativity the idea that gender is
involuntarily performed, is crucial to understanding gender.
 masculinities

Masculinity is the set of social practices and cultural representations associated with being a man. The
plural masculinities is also used in recognition that ways of being a man and cultural representations
of/about men vary, both historically and culturally, between societies and between different groupings
of men within any one society.

From the academic perspective of the social sciences, masculinities are understood as a form of power
relation, both among men themselves and between men and women. Masculinities are argued to arise
from the social contexts in which men live, for example, from their positions in the various
institutions and organisations of their society and/or in the context of the socially available discourses
about gender.

For Connell, gender is the end-product of ongoing interpretations of and definitions placed upon the
reproductive and sexual capacities of the human body. In Connells account, masculinities occupy a
higher ranking than femininity in the gender hierarchy characteristic of modern Western societies.
At the top of the gender hierarchy is hegemonic masculinity, the culturally dominant ideal of
masculinity centred around authority, physical toughness and strength, heterosexuality and paid work.
This is an ideal of masculinity that few actual men live up to, but from which most gain advantage
and so Connell calls the next level complicit masculinity. Below this in the hierarchy are
subordinated masculinities, the most important of which is homosexual masculinity. More generally,
this form of masculinity includes a range of masculine behaviour which does not fully match up to the
macho ideals of hegemonic masculinity. At the bottom of the gender hierarchy are femininities which
may may take a variety of forms.

The ideas of masculinites are presented to children at a young age. The messages that come from
family, peers, the media and elsewhere, present a particular image of what it means to be male. This is
very often limiting, confining, stereotypical and very powerful, especially because they are not
typically articulated as such. These messages contain information about how males have to behave
and feel, relate to each other and girls/women, what their role and stature is in society. Some of
these messages are harmful and have short and long-term consequences for themselves, their families,
their community and society as a whole. Masculinity dictates activities that men and boys engage,
making some acceptable and other activities not acceptable.

For instance, in the classroom, the issue of fear of failure is particularly pertinent to boys and their
construction of gender. For boys, fear of failure operates across a number of domains. It relates to fear
of not living up to popular images of masculinity, fear of being labeled a sissy or seen as feminine in
any way, fear of powerlessness, and fear of having their sexuality questioned. Thanks to the societal
stereotypes men can not show emotion, mental and physical weakness and playing of his role in
society often leads to the cultivation of practices, which often negatively affect men's health directly,
such as excessive competition, alcoholism, risky demonstration of masculinity through dangerous
sport activities, etc.