AQA A Level Sociology Themes and Perspectives: Year 2 (Haralambos and Holborn AQA A Level Sociology)

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The creation of equal opportunities through policy is the main aim of liberal feminists – e.g. the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act. Marxist Feminists are more sensitive to differences between women who belong to the ruling class and proletarian families. They believe there is considerable scope for co-operation between working class women and men to work together for social change.

The concept of patriarchy has been criticised for ignoring variations in the experience of oppression. The primary goal is the eradication of capitalism. In a communist society gender inequalities should disappear.Radical feminists have often been actively involved in setting up and running refuges for women who are the victims of male violence. Some alternatives suggested by Radical Feminists include separatism – women only communes, and Matrifocal households. Some also practise political Lesbianism and political celibacy as they view heterosexual relationships as “sleeping with the enemy.” The disadvantaged position of women is because of the emergence of private property and the fact that women do not own the means of production. This post summarises the key ideas of Radical, Liberal, Marxist and Difference Feminisms and includes criticisms of each perspective. Introduction – Feminism: The Basics Rape, violence and pornography are methods through which men have secured and maintained their power over women. Andrea Dworkin (1981)

Patriarchy is the main cause of gender inequality: women are subordinate because men have more power. Liberal Feminists do not seek revolutionary changes: they want changes to take place within the existing structure. Socialisation into gender roles has the consequence of producing rigid, inflexible expectations of men and women.

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It focuses too much on the negative experiences of women, failing to recognise that some women can have happy marriages for example. Radical-cultural feminists believe in the superiority of the feminine. According to Tong radical cultural feminists celebrate characteristics associated with femininity such as emotion, and are hostile to those characteristics associated with masculinity such as hierarchy. Chapman et al (2016) – A Level Sociology Student Book Two [Fourth Edition] Collins. ISBN-10: 0007597495 Difference Feminists argue it is an ethnocentric perspective – based mostly on the experiences of middle class, educated women.

The explanation for gender inequality lies not so much in structures and institutions of society but in its culture and values.Based upon male assumptions and norms such as individualism and competition, and encourages women to be more like men and therefor denies the value of qualities traditionally associated with women such as empathy.

Postmodern Feminism is concerned with language (discourses) and the relationship between power and knowledge rather than ‘politics and opportunities’.Under Capitalism the nuclear family becomes even more oppressive to women and women’s subordination plays a number of important functions for capitalism: Society is patriarchal – it is dominated and ruled by men – men are the ruling class, and women the subject class. Radical-libertarian feminists believe that it is both possible and desirable for gender differences to be eradicated, or at least greatly reduced, and aim for a state of androgyny in which men and women are not significantly different. The traditional nuclear family also performs the function of ‘ideological conditioning’ – it teaches the ideas that the Capitalist class require for their future workers to be passive. Criticise preceding feminist theory for claiming a ‘false universality’ (white, western heterosexual, middle class)