Week 11 Feminism

• Feminist epistemology


  Challenges established beliefs and values
• Modern science has misrepresented women


  Because of its male-dominated bias, rather than because of its scientific nature
• Feminist should struggle to enter science and correct the partiality and bias which stems from their current lack of representation in research communities
• Male bias within scientific theory and organisation is empirically challenged and "corrected" but the idea of science as a potentially objective knowledge-form is left unscathed since it is empirically correctable
• Female Empiricists remain trapped in a male-dominated epistemological framework
• Feminist Empiricism fails to account for the socio-historical specificity of the knowing Subject
• Standpoint feminism


  Committed to generating knowledge from the standpoint of women's experience
• Standpoint feminism favours (postmodern) perspectivism/relativism over (modern) empiricism/realism
• It is contradictory to assume that experience is a source of both subjective and objective (general) knowledge
• Why should the standpoint of oppressed social groups necessarily be more insightful than the standpoint of other social groups?
• Postmodern feminism


  Recognise the intersectionality of different social positions, struggles and identities (class, race, ethnicity, gender)
• Elective affinity between Feminism and postmodernism: Politics of difference, Politics of identity, Politics of recognition
• Cross-fertilize intersectional social struggles (new social movements)
• By emphasising women's commonality, feminists run the risk of marginalising or suppressing the important differences between the life experience of women in different social positions
• Types of feminism


  • Marxist feminism
  • Liberal feminism
  • Radical feminism
  • Eco-feminism
  • Postmodern feminism
• Waves of feminism


  • First-wave feminism
  • Second-wave feminism
  • Third-wave feminism
  • Fourth-wave feminism
• First-wave feminism


  Emphasis on legal and political dimensions of gender discrimination (e.g. suffragettes)
• Second-wave feminism


  Emphasis on socio-cultural aspects of gender discrimination, distinct between sex and gender
• Third-wave feminism


  Emphasis on performative constitution of gender, deconstruction of sex/gender distinction, gender is naturalized through repetition and beliefs in the performances of gender
• Fourth-wave feminism


  LGBTQA+, empowerment of marginalized groups, internet activism, intersection of class, race
• Social reality is not a given but is continually created through language, gesture and all manners of signs
• Gender is a daily, habitual, learned act based on culturally specific definitions of femininity and masculinity
• Anti-essentialism: if the "reality" of gender is constituted by the performance itself, then there is no recourse to an essential and unrealized sex or "gender" which gender preferences express
• Emphasizing women's commonality


  The act of focusing on the shared experiences and challenges faced by women
• Radical feminists believe that patriarchy oppresses both men and women, with men benefiting from male privilege while women suffer under female subordination.
• Difference feminists argue that women have unique qualities and perspectives due to their biology and socialization, leading them to prioritize caring and nurturing over competition and power.