Domingo, Desiree Estudillo, Edralyn

 Feminism is innately political. To the extent that ‘It picks out and
problematises the fundamentally political relationship between
gender and power’. (Hojer and Ase 1999)

 Feminism however is not an approach that has grown up within

the confines of social science. It originated outside academia as
the ideology of a critical and disruptive social movement.
 Feminism emerged as a movement and body of ideas
that aimed to enhance women’s status and power.

 It called into question power relations between men

and women that were conventionally defended as
natural.
 From the start, feminists differed in the reasons they advanced
for existing inequalities, in the terms in which they framed their
objectives and the strategies they favored for realizing them.

 With the resurgence of feminism in the 1960’s, three strands

were predominant namely: Liberal, Marxist, and Radical
feminism
1. Liberal Feminism- asserts the equality of women through
political and legal form.
2. Marxist Feminism- focused on investigating and explaining the
ways in which women are oppressed through systems of
capitalism and private property. {Socialist feminism approach for
some}
3. Radical Feminism- newest, least precedented. Identifies sex war
as the most basic political struggle.
Debates within Feminism
 The different strands of early second-wave feminism took contrasting
positions on a series of questions to do with the origins and mechanisms
of inequality or oppression and strategies to oppose it.

 However, they had in common the tendency both to regard women as a

self-evident and straight forward category and to assume that while
women were clearly not the same as men-or why the need for feminism?-
the differences between them had been exaggerated and invoked where
they are not relevant, that is a tendency to stress similarity.
 Political implication of feminism strands fro
political analysis.
 Traditionally, political scientists were almost all
men and the spheres of public politics they
studied were likewise overwhelmingly male
 Political science either ignored the subject of women, or referred to
women primarily in their relationships with significant men. Most blatant
example is the American Political Scientist Robert Lane’s reflection on
the advent consequence of feminism(1959): “It is too seldom remembered in
the American society that working girls and career women, and women who insistently
serve the community in volunteer capacities and women with extracurricular interests of
an absorbing kind are often borrowing their time and attention and capacity for relaxed
play and love for their children to whom it rightfully belongs. As Kardiner point out, the rise
in juvenile delinquency (and, he says homosexuality) is partly to be attributed to the
feminist movement and what it did to the American mother”
 1970- number of women within the discipline of political
science have grown, influenced by developments in
feminism as a movement and body of thought, many have
sought to apply insights derived from feminism in their own
analysis.
 1st stage: mounting a critique of male political science for its virtual exclusion
of women as political actors.
 2nd stage: dismissively referred to as “adding women in” and entailed a much
more systematic into the extent of women underpresentation and its
institutional and uninstitutional causes.
 3rd stage: they raised more fundamental questions about their discipline about
limitations of the characteristic methodologies employed in political science,
about the way politics is conceptualized and about the gendered
characterization of political institutions and processes.
 ANTI- POST RATIONALIST
RATIONALIST (INTERPRETETIVE)

Stating that certain Nothing wrong with The tendency to

knowledge is based on feeling strongly and reactively ascribe
natural. that feelings and positive attributes
Positivism also holds that values should have a to an option one
society, like the physical priority place in has selected to
world, operates deciding what to do demote. sIt is a
according to general with the insights that distinct cognitive
laws. Introspective and more sober analysis bias that occurs
intuitive knowledge is produces. once a decision is
rejected. made.

12
STANDPOINT
THEORY

13
14
15
More recently still, and reflecting the growing interest
in post-structural analysis, Pringle and Watson
questioned the conceptualisation of interest as some
sense statistic and objectively knowable.

16
 Feminism has challenged traditional modes of conceptualizing politics, and
the ‘political’, in the discipline.
 Factor: diversity of feminist positions regarding political participation and
the state in theory and in practice.
 Radical and Marxist feminists- depict themselves as revolutionaries
 Liberal feminists- reformists
 In practice, all these groupings mounted campaigns directed at the central
or local political authorities.
 Marxists/Socialist feminists were increasingly willing to engage in
conventional politics.
 Marxist have preferred a concept of politics that associate it more
intimately with power that is generally over kind as in the “who gets what,
when, where, how?” formula.
 Radical feminism has argued for the broader conception of politics as
relationship of power but with the emphasis on power relations between
men and women.
• The state was regarded as an agent of
capitalism and patriarchy.

• Distinction between the state and

society is formal rather than
substantive, suggesting that the state is
not necessarily a very revealing focus of
analysis.

20
• It drew on developments allowing the capitalist state degree of relative autonomy from
capitalism and recognizing that rather than being monolithic the state consisted of
multiple arenas in which political struggles could be waged.

 Helping legitimize socialist feminists growing involvement in mainstream political

institutions.

• Radical feminists the state was simple a site of patriarchy, not necessary the most
important.

• Marxist feminism offered a similarly functional account of the state’s role in maintaining
capitalism.

21
Judith Allen (1990)

22
Connell (1990)

23
WESTERN WELFARE
STATE (1990-1997)

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 Postmodernist feminists, queried the opposition of (given)
sex and (socially constructed) gender are both actual and
potential usage admit of variation. (Carver 1998)
 Feminist political scientist said that growing dissatisfaction
with the analytical utility of the concepht of sex have taken
up as an organizing term which exposes the meaning of
gender according to class, race, history, unmasking
defferences among women. (Lovenduski 1998

25
 “GENDERED”
(ACKER 1990)
“
Gender is a distinction between male and female, masculine
and feminine. It is not an addition to ongoing process,
conceived as gender neutral, rather, it is an integral part of the
process.

26
 Universalism- “too universalistic” conception of
woman, that insufficiently recognized the diversity
amongst women, the fact indeed that there could
be profound conflicts of interest and perception
between groups of women.
 Essentialism- closely related has been the charge of essentialism, although, as
Squires discusses, in feminist theory, this term is much overused and confused.
Those favoring a social constructionist account of identity tended to equate
essentialism with biological determinism but they have been criticised by post
structuralists in turn for a kind of residual essentialism constituted at the
material or symbolic level . Within the canon, essentialism remains a term still
uttered in a tone of contempt. This raises the question to be returned to in the
final section of how far, so long as we are feminists, we either can or should
want to escape all hint of essentialist thinking.
 Uncritical- feminist political science has not been
bold enough. It has not pursued the feminist
political science to its most radical conclusions.
 Restrictive- related to this is the criticism that while feminist political
science has raised important questions about the relationship between
private and public political spheres, as these affect participation,
policy-making and content, and so forth, in practice it has concentrated
its attention too narrowly on that sphere or level of activity
conventionally equated with the political. By the same token, it has not
sufficiently challenged the traditional boundaries between political
studies and cognate disciplines.
 Ineffective- feminist political science’ main failing has been in bringing
about significant change in the mainstream discipline. Political science,
unlike sociology, say, or history, remains remarkably undented by the
feminist perspective. This is true in Britain but even in the US, despite
the size of the gender politics community, and despite the fact that
most political science department now offer atleast one course in the
area, gender politics has not been fully integrated into political science
: its theories, questions and conclusions have not been fully
“mainstreamed” to any significant degree. (Sapiro, 1998)
 Squires summarizes the feminist impulse as a political position
aiming to alter the power balance between men and women in
favor of women, complicated by the perception that there are
power balances between men and women that the category of
women may itself be a product of patriarchal relations.
 Despite its internal diversity and debates, the feminist
perspective is badly needed in political science.
 The achievements of feminist political science in ensuring a full and
discerning amount of women as political actors have been substantial
and while the limitations of this approach are increasingly recognized,
it will go on being necessary.
 The ambiguous position of feminist political scientists questioning
central elements of an established discipline both enables and
encourages them to look outside for perspective and a language in
which to construct and express an alternative viewpoint.
THANK YOU FOR NOT
SLEEPING DURING
THE REPORT!