AQA AS Sociology Feminism Essay

Feminism Essay

Feminism examines society particularly from the viewpoint of women, and argues that mainstream sociology has been focused on the concerns of men, and failed to consider the unequal position of women. It is a conflict theory, and the basic assumption is that women suffer certain injustices on account of their sex.
There have been two waves of feminism over the past 100 years. The first wave was in the early 1900’s, and was women protesting for basic legal and political rights to be the same for women as they are for men. The second wave was in the 1960’s, and they argued against male dominance and for female liberation.
There are 5 main concepts to Feminism; these are patriarchy, discrimination, emotional work, economic dependency, and gender stereotyping. Patriarchy is the dominance of men in society and oppression of women for men’s gain, for example, the family is patriarchal because women must do housework without pay. Discrimination is unfair or unequal treatment, such as by the law. An example of this is women being paid less than men until the Equal Pay Act of 1970. Gender stereotyping is when negative generalisations or misconceptions are perpetuated in the media or education system. An example of this is when people say that men are better drivers than women. Economic Dependency is where women give up work to take care of children, or to do housework, therefore becoming dependent on their husband for money. Emotional Work is where women are expected to do the majority, if not all, of the emotional care in the house, on top of their job and housework, this is known as the “triple shift”.
There are three main movements of Feminism, Radical Feminism, Marxist Feminism and Liberal Feminism. Radical Feminists see gender exploitation as the essential social division in society, and that patriarchy is all pervasive and extremely damaging. They also believe that the family leads to female oppression. Mary Daley says that “The position of women is due to male aggression. They believe the solution is self help groups and to abolish the family. Marxist Feminists say that gender inequality is rooted in the capitalist system and female oppression benefits capitalism as women provide cheap labour. They also believe that the family rears a healthy workforce for capitalism. Liberal Feminists say that we have to understand the unique position of women, and that women should have equal rights. They believe this can happen through changes in society, as socialisation is the main cause of subordination of women. They also say that men and women have equal potential, and that by hanging attitudes and laws, the world will be fairer for women.
Difference feminism however, believes that every woman will have a different experience in life, so we cannot generalise experiences. Feminism is praised for bringing the “dark side” of families to the attention of the media. They also bring about more family choice, so women do not feel they have to stay with their husband, they can either stay single, or find another husband, or even not get married at all. They also focus on female problems that were once ignored by mainstream society, such as the effect giving birth can have if you do not want to, and because of this, in the UK, abortions are easily accessible providing you can justify emotional or financial reasons for not having the child. However Feminists get accused of only looking at the negatives, and ignoring that some women do want to stay at home to look after the children or do housework. Society has also changed and it is said that women should be celebrating that some things have changed, instead of dwelling on the past. Criticisms of Radical Feminism, are that heterosexual attraction will always keep the nuclear family going, so is unavoidable that the family cannot disband, and it also makes huge generalisations about men.