Feminist Theories

1. Feminist Theories Goldner, V. (1993). Feminist theories. In P.G. Boss, W. J. Doherty, R. LaRossa, W. R., Schumm, & S. K. Steinmetz (Eds.). Sourcebook of family theories and methods: A contextual approach (pp. 623-626). New York: Plenum Press.

2. Introduction • Provide an overview of the range of feminist perspectives and of recurring themes. • Review the historical origins of feminism and review feminist critiques of other family theories. • Discuss feminist frameworks for thinking about the family. • Working Definition of Feminism: • Emphasize the experience of women. • Recognize that women, under current conditions, are subordinated or oppressed. • Work toward ending the subordination of women. • Gender and gender relations are fundamental to all social life, including the lives of men and women. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

3. Themes in Feminist Scholarship • Assume the centrality, normality, and value of women’s (and girls’) experiences. • Gender is a basic organizing concept. • Gender relations are best understood in sociocultural and historical context. • Emphasize family diversity and challenge any unitary notion of “the family.” • Emphasize social change and utilize methodologies that are value-committed. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

4. Feminist Schools • Liberal Feminism • Historically emphasized that women and men are equal so gender should not be used as a barrier to rights and opportunities. • Commitment to social and legal reforms which will create equal opportunities for women. • Radical feminism (two major branches): • Sexual and reproductive oppression: demonstrate and change men’s control of women’s sexuality. • Cultural feminism: • Celebrates women’s cultural, spiritual, and sexual experiences. • Goal: fundamentally reorganize society around values of community and nurturance, sometimes called “womanculture,” rather than encourage women to achieve at the same level as men. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

5. Feminist Schools(cont.) • Socialist feminism • Suggest that oppression of women is due to both patriarchy and capitalism (e.g., social class is a fundamental source of oppression). • Women’s work is often ignored or undervalued. • Equal opportunity is impossible in a class-based society. • Interpretative approaches • Focus: nature of personal experience, patterns of consciousness, and everyday life. • Modified conceptual frameworks in order to examine the social construction of gender in everyday life. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

6. Feminist Schools(cont.) • Feminist psychoanalytic theories: • Criticisms of Freud: • sexist concepts (e.g., penis envy) • belief that biology is destiny • views of sexual abuse. • Useful tools: • emphasized gender as a central category of analysis • examined conflict and power • promoted areas of experience often associated with women. • recognized the value of personal experience as a valid way of knowing. • Feminism and postmodernism: criticize theories which claim universality by examining their assumptions. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

7. Origins and Initial Sociocultural Milieu • Pioneer feminist theorists in the late 1800s and early 1900s • The reemergence of feminism in the 1960s • Family sociology in the 1960s and 1970s Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

8. Feminist Critiques of Other Theoretical Perspectives on Families • Role theory • There is an overemphasis on social determinism (individuals are shaped by their roles) which often blames the victim rather than social structures. Thus, it does a poor job of explaining or predicting social change. • Fundamental weakness: does not examine power, inequality, and conflict in gender relations. • The theory is flawed because of internal contradictions: it tries to combine a biological term with a social one which implies that society is pursuing natural tendencies. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

9. Feminist Critiques of Other Theoretical Perspectives (cont.) • Exchange theory • Focuses exclusively on the interpersonal and ignores larger social forces (e.g., religious structures that legitimate male power within families). • Inappropriate assumption: people enter all relationships voluntarily. People in dominant positions may see the relationship as voluntary but subordinates may feel coerced. • Benign view of power and resource obscures the impact of social resources on access to them. • Criticisms of “family power” studies: emphasize complementarity and a top down approach (e.g., suggesting that access to resources exclusively affects access to power) instead of a bottom up approach (e.g., why don’t women have access to resources?). Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

10. Feminist Critiques of Other Theoretical Perspectives (cont.) • General systems theory • Ignores sociocultural and historical contexts. • Ignores it’s own basic premise: limited attention to the power of larger systems. • The suggestion that all members of the system are responsible for dysfunction is a form of victim blaming. • Suggests that women and men have equal access to power. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

11. Conceptualizing Gender • Biological sex and cultural gender • Distinction between terms “sex” and “gender” • Biological sex: refers to biological fact of being male or female. • Cultural gender: learned and cultural phenomenon associated with sex. Gender is socially constructed. • Criticism of sex versus gender dualism: biology and culture are interactive influences. • Different dimensions of gender • Individual or personal gender • Individual gender identity is socialized from birth; it shapes individual notions about acceptable behavior. • Personal gender identity influences interpersonal dynamics (e.g. expectations about child-rearing). • Structural gender: gender divisions of labor influence personal and professional settings. • Symbolic or cultural gender: specific sociocultural prescriptions about gender. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

12. Conceptualizing Gender(cont.) • Summary of African-American feminist thought: • Promote the validity of their experience (e.g., Bell Hooks’ book From Margin to Center). • Emphasize the interlocking influence of gender, race, and class on oppression. • Emphasize connections between African-American women and men because they both experience race and class discrimination. • Promote African-American family strengths. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

13. The Debate Over Difference Versus Equality • Dilemma of dualistic thinking: “Do women want equality with men or do they want their differences recognized and more highly esteemed?” (p. 608). • Non-binary response: “‘equality that rests on differences . . . differences that confound, disrupt, and render ambiguous the meaning of any fixed binary opposition’ between women and men” (p. 608). Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

14. Demystifying the Dichotomy Between “Public” and “Private” • Preindustrial societies and the division of labor: prior to the industrialization revolution, an economic division of labor valued the work of both women and men. • Early industrialization and separate spheres: industrialization produced different experiences for women from different classes. • Working-class experiences • Varied responses to the ideology public -- private spheres • Beyond the public -- private dualism • Work within and outside families are shaped both by patriarchal gender system and a capitalist economic system. • Reject family-linked stereotypes (e.g., men are breadwinners, women are economically nonproductive and dependent). • Women and men are influenced by both their professional and personal experiences; these forces are not separate. • Gender is distinct from any single system; it links, however, all major institutions. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

15. Substantive Applications: Motherhood and Sexuality • Motherhood • Motherhood as institution versus experience: • Motherhood is a social institutions; personal experience is influenced by cultural ideology. It is founded on the subordination of women. • Experience: the ways women are affected by patriarchal institutions. • Motherhood and the engendering of personality: men should be as fully involved in child care as women; this would be a crucial first step for the emancipation of women and healthier identities for both women and men. • Sexuality: heterosexuality has been assumed to be natural. • The tension between pleasure and danger in women’s experiences of sexuality: sexual violence (e.g., rape, domestic violence) against women is ignored Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson

16. Feminist Theorizing: Limitations and Challenges • Important paradox: families are both a site of conflict and oppression and a source of strength and solidarity. • Feminist theory is often ignored or ridiculed. • More work is needed on the interaction of gender and generation on women’s experience. Dr. Ronald J. Werner-Wilson