Feminist theory

Outline  What is feminism?  Liberal feminism  Radical feminism  Poststructuralist and postcolonial critic

Question Do we need men in politics? Google: Se översatta engelska resultat för: behövs män i politiken? (need for women in politics?) behövs män i politiken? (need for women in politics?)

”Kvinnorna styr Sverige i sommar” ”Sverige är troligen världens enda matriarkat.[…] Det blev ett lättsamt möte, sa justitieminister Beatrice Ask.” AB

What is feminism?  Politics in theory and practice have formed and reproduced the subordination of women.  Gender is a historical, social and political category.  Seeks to politicize the practices and technology of power in relations to the body, reproductive labour and sexuality.

Dividing Questions  Social construction?  Subordination of women? Exercise of power?  What sorts of political methods and ideas of freedom?

Liberal feminism Wollstonecraft, JS Mill, Wendt/Åse, Moller Okin Liberal feminism; liberals who are critical of the exclusion of women from the liberal project and the modern democracy.

Unfinished democracy  Autonomy and individual freedom for women!  The rights for everyone to be regarded as an entity of one’s own.  No female essence, apart from social norms - biological sex differences are irrelevant  The personal is political  Social and political reforms  Gender neutrality  Sovereign women - Sapere Aude

Binary oppositions  Individual  Culture  Independent  Reason  Order  Mind  Woman  Nature  Dependent  Emotions  Chaos  Body

"We have been asked by many people to accept that women are making progress, because one sees our presence in these places where we weren't before. And those of us who are berated for being radicals have been saying: 'That is not the way we measure progress. We count the number of rapes. We count the women who are being battered. We keep track of the children who are being raped by their fathers. We count the dead. And when those numbers start to change in a way that is meaningful, we will then talk to you about whether or not we can measure progress.'” Andrea Dworkin 1997

Radical feminism  MacKinnon, Rich, Pateman, Wendt Höjer & Åse.

Sexuality and Power  Sexual violence as the core of Patriarchy  Universal male dominance  Women oppressed as women  Consciousness raising  The state - a male apparatus  Sovereign women

Gender  Gender socialization is the process through which women come to identify themselves as sexual beings, as beings that exist for men. It is that process through which women internalize (make their own) a male image of their sexuality as their identity as women. It is not just an illusion.” MacKinnon 1996  Ideology on gender differences and compulsory heterosexuality.

Poststructuralist och Postcolonial feminism  Butler, Spivak, Mohanty

Gender etc.  Gender/Sex as fiction regulated by compulsory heterosexuality  Also constituted by class, etnicity, race och sexuality. A/ B, but also A/ -A Gender Sexuality Sex

Feminism without essence  The idea of ”women” in modern feminism excludes lesbians, racialised and workingclass women from women’s movement  The idea of universal patriarchy exploits ”the Other Woman” and reinforce capitalism and imperialism.

Strategic essentialism One cannot decide in advance what is revolutionary or liberating. Each situation must be carefully considered in terms of the present operating power relations and techniques. We can not stop using categories, therefore we must constantly criticise them and use them strategically.