FEMINISM

 Not just a theoretical approach, really started as a movement

 It began as a movement, a body of ideas that aimed to challenge entrenched male power then
subsequently to enhance women’s status and power
 An approach in PS
 A political position aiming to alter the power balance between men and women (Squires)
 Differentiation – how the approach differentiation – looking at the different angles of feminism
 Questioned the natural inequalities and power relations between men and women

3 Original Strands of Feminism (1990s)

 Liberal Feminism – stems from the liberal tradition; emphasizes individual rationality, public,
private distinction, reformability of institutions (reformist), focuses more on the rights of
women, has a reformist nature, attempt to elevate the status of women in order for their rights
to be recognized.
 Marxist Feminism – is built on premises of Marxism; then focused on “sex-gender system”
(revolutionary), radical, attempt to merge class analysis with feminist approach, class and
gender, change the power dynamics in favour of the women, emphasizes the class,
 Radical Feminism – identifies “sex war” as the most basic political struggle; highlights the private
sphere where women’s oppression was founded (revolutionary), both radical and Marxist seek a
change in social relations

3 original strands evolved, leading to further differentiation due to:

 The development of the concept of gender highlighting its “historically contingent and
constructed character”
 Emergence of the pro-woman strand which celebrates the distinctive marerial and caring
qualities
 Difference-based feminism: differences between women (radical-lesbian critique of
heterosexuality) and exclusion of black from white feminist movements gave rise to “identity
politics” and these led to the post-structuralist approach to feminism (e.g., the anatomical body
is a discursive act), internal power dynamics
 Transversal politics deals with diverse varieties of women’s groups, comparing women among
their cultures, factors in cultural differences, not only in a single culture, but involves diverse
cultures.

Implications of the feminist perspective

 Increase in the number of feminist scholars – led to a critique of “male PS”

 A move to mainstream women – an interest in women’s under-representation and its
institutional and non-institutional causes.
 Participation of women in democratization
  Given its diversity, there is no single feminism. No one feminist theory hence no single
ontological or epistemological position
 Feminism has challenged conventional “politics” and the “political”; has raised the issue of
(arbitrary) boundaries of political science, thereby expanding the range of the subject matter for
political analysis.
 The “gendered state” (instrument of patriarchy, merging of class and gender analysis, more
evolved perspective) vis-à-vis “gender regime” (state is involved in the historical process
generating and transforming the basic components of the gender order)

Criticisms on feminist PS

 Universalism – for the failure of traditional feminist perspective factor in diversity among
women
 Essentialism – the tendency to equate essentialism with biological determinism in falls into a
“kind of residual essentialism that is constituted at the material or symbolic level”
 Uncritical – feminists PS has not been “bold enough” with its uncritical adoption of traditional
male (quantitative) methods.
 Restrictive – it has not gone beyond the sphere of the accepted “political”; it has not challenged
traditional boundaries between political studies and cognate disciplines
 Ineffective – gender politics has not been fully integrated into PS