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Within the broad given context multiple theories of feminism are advanced
in understanding the location and the status of women, causes of their
subordination or oppression and thereby providing solutions to overcome
it. No single theory is exclusive or wholesome. There is overlapping or
extension and each theory contains a partial truth. On the whole, multiple
theories enrich our understanding and provide a critical insight in order to
change the world in directions deemed more just and humane. The
discourse has gained momentum cutting across disciplines and moving a
step ahead beyond the interdisciplinary, which may be called as ‘non-
disciplinary’ where both the natural sciences and social sciences converge
together.
Introduction
The word ‘feminism' reflects both the diversity and validation of multiplicity
of approaches, positions and strategies formulated by feminist
understanding and advancing the cause of women, feminist theories are
viewed as critical theories which radically challenge & after the
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Feminism's basic questions being (i) "and what about the women?' (ii)
why then is all this as it is?" (iii) "and what about the differences among
women?" and (iv) "how can we change and improve the world?" The
single most distinguishing feature of feminist scholarly work has been its
overtly political nature, and feminism's commitment to material and social
change has played a significant role. George Ritzer has presented an
overview of the varieties of feminist theory as follows:1
Gender difference
Women's location in, and Cultural feminism
experience of, most situations is Biological
different from that of men in the Institutional and socialization
situation Social - psychological
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Gender inequality
Women's location in most situation Liberal feminism
is not only different but also less Marxian
privileged than or unequal to that of Marx and Engel’s explanations
men. Contemporary Marxian explanation
Gender oppression
Women are oppressed, not just Psychoanalytic feminism
different from or unequal to, but Radical feminism
actively restrained, subordinated, Socialist feminism
molded, and used and abused by
men.
Third-wave feminism
Women's experience of difference, Diversity
inequality, and oppression varies Critique
by their social location Vectors
1. Cultural Feminism
basic premise of the patriarchal discourse is that women were inferior and
subservient to men. It entered the feminist discourse in the second wave
in the 19th century as extolling the positive aspects of female character or
“feminine personality". This view was advocated by Margaret Fuller,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Jane Addams. They argued that society
needed in the governing of the state such women's virtues as cooperation,
caring pacifism, and nonviolence in the settlement of conflicts.
2. Liberal Feminism
3. Marxist Feminism
Women’s subordination results not from her biology, but from social
arrangements that have a clear and traceable history, arrangements
that presumably may be changed.
Rise of capitalism led to the world histories defeat of the female sex.
To protect the private property requires a compliant labour force be
it of slaves, captives, women-wives, or children. Inheritance of
property is to be made on male line; hence preference for a male-
child.
While treating economy separate from both the state and kinship, Marxist
feminism was challenged by the feminists. The most important factor for
Marx is productive labour that is geared to create material objects bought
and sold, i.e. commodities. He counted family as a component o
economy. This creates problem in Marxist economic theory. Marx has not
included reproductive labour as productive labour. Man is also ‘made’
reproductively by the parturitive labour of women. But in so far, Marxism
as theory treats the 'economic' as autonomous. it loses sight of the ways
in which even capitalist economies grew out of and continue to be affect
the non-economic aspects of human existence.
Iris Young describes and labels it as 'double systems theory'.5To her, such
traditional women's tasks as bearing and rearing children, caring for the
sick. cleaning and cooking etc. fall under the category of labour as much
as the making of an object in the factory. Gender has been a significant
variable along with other activities concerned with the making of food and
objects.
4. Socialist Feminism
The second variant sets out to describe & explain all forms of social
oppression, using knowledge of class and gender hierarchies as a
base from which to explore systems of oppression centering not
only of class and gender but also on race, ethnicity, age, sexual
preference and location within the global hierarchy of nations. The
term they use is 'domination'. These socialist feminists are
concerned with all experiences of oppression, either by women or
by men. They even explore how some women, themselves
oppressed, and may yet actively participate in the oppression of
other women. So the strategy is to confront the prejudices and
oppressive practices within the community of women itself.
5. Psychoanalytical Feminism
Freud has acknowledged gender differences and gender inequality but not
gender oppression.
(i) The fear of death - Feminist theorists argue that women, because
of their intimate and protracted involvement with bearing and
rearing new life, are typically far less oppressed than men by the
realization of their own mortality. But men, however, respond with
deep dread to the prospect of their individual extinction and adopt
a series of defenses. Men are driven to produce things that will
outlast them art, architecture, wealth, weapons science, religion.
Men also are driven - partly by envy of women's reproductive
role, partly by their own passionate desire for immortality through
offspring-to seek to control the reproductive process itself.
6. Radical Feminism
The central feature of radical feminism is the belief that sexual oppression
is the most fundamental feature of society and that other forms of injustice
class exploitation, racial hatred and so on-are merely secondary. Gender
is thought to be the deepest social cleavage and the most politically
significant more important for example, than social class, race or nation.
Radical feminists have therefore insisted that society be understood and
described as 'patriarchal' to highlight the central role of sex oppression,
just as socialists use the term 'capitalist' to draw attention to the
significance of economic. exploitation. In Sexual Politicos, Millet described
patriarchy as a ‘social constant' running through all political, social and
economic structures and found in every historical and contemporary
society, as well as in all major religions. The different roles of men and
women have their origin in a process of 'conditioning': from a very early
age boys and girls are encouraged to conform to very specific gender
identities. This process takes place largely within the family, 'patriarchy's
chief institution', but it is also evident in literature, art public life and the
economy. Millet proposed that patriarchy, be challenged through a
process of 'consciousness raising', but it is also evident in literature, art,
public life and the economy. Millet proposed that patriarchy be challenged
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Violence practiced by patriarchy (men) has two forms (i) overt physical
cruelty and (ii) covert hidden form in the standards of fashion & beauty
motherhood monogamy, chastity, and heterosexuality, in sexual
harassment in the work place, in the practices of gynecology, in unpaid
household drudgery and underpaid wage work.
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8. Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism, a new term for ancient wisdom 'grew out of various social
movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This term was first used by
Francoise D' Eaubonne. The first eco-feminist conference-‘Women’ and
Life on Earth': A Conference on Eco-feminism in the Eighties' was held in
March 1980, at Amherst.
9. Cyber-Feminism
There is a theory which propounds that there is only one human species,
and it is male homo-sapiens. There are no other sapiens. Woman is a
virtual reality (VR: the simulation of space, the pixelled manifestation of
another zone). Sold in the streets, VR is still crude: cyberspace is too jerky
and as yet, the programmes are self-contained and over determined.
Even within these limits, the VR machine begins to allow its user to
choose their disguises and assume alternative identities, Imitation and
artifice, make up and pretense: they have been role-playing for millennia:
always exhorted, to act like a women, to be lady like: always to be like
something, but never to be anything in particular, least of all herself. There
is as yet no such thing as being a real woman. To be truly human is to be
a real man. Woman does not yet exist, except as she appears on the set:
wife & mother, sister & daughter; always performing duties, keeping up
appearance, the acting head of the house-hold.
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Conclusion
Notes
5. Young Iris, "The Ideal of impartiality and the Civic Public", in Justice
and the Politics of difference (Princeton University Press, Princeton.
1990).
10. Maria Mies & Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism in the book W. Ritzer
Sociological Theory, 1996, pp-497-499.
11. Sadie Plant, Beyond the Screens: Folm, Cyberpunk & Cyber
Feminism in the book W Ritzer, Sociological Theory, 1996, pp-503-507.
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References