The Relevance of Feminism to Social Science - Essay Example

Feminism This paper will discuss feminism. In addition, it will discuss the relevance of feminism to social science. It will also a primer for community psychologists on feminist research. Feminists epistemologists have contributed significantly to the first developing field of social science. It provides explanations difference from all perspectives to why women behave in a certain manner. These theorists investigate the role of gender in knowledge production. They are interested in how practices and norms of information production affect the lives of women, are implicated in systems of oppression, and are motivated by political nature of eliminating women oppression. They seek to learn not only how our social relations of gender have developed our knowledge practices but also how these relations will play a better role worth knowing. They have distinguished between categories of sex and gender and for decades, they have focused on gender, the analytical category capturing social and cultural aspects of sexed bodies. Gender as a category of social relations is a significant area of research for social epistemology. In its objective of providing a normative analysis of knowledge, social epistemologist differentiates itself from sociology of knowledge. It seeks to not only to describe our current social practice of knowledge production but also understand how we can improve and how ought to know our knowledge systems. If they are to support their claims for social change, feminists can ill afford to simply explain the ways in which social relations like gender shape knowledge practices. Thus, to get into deep discussion, we will define feminism. Feminism is a doctrine that advocates all other rights of women including political and social rights equal to those of men. It can be defined as a movement that grants women economic, political and social equality with men. Feminism involves philosophies and socio-political theories that concerns with issues of gender difference and campaigns for women interests and rights. Before 1970s, the words feminist or feminism had not gained widespread use. According to Rebecca Walker and Maggie Humm, feminism history may be divided into three waves; the feminist wave of 19th and early 20th century. The second one was in 1960s and 1970s, and the third one existed from 1990s to present. Feminist movements resulted to feminist theory. It has manifested in numerous disciplines like feminist literary criticism, feminist history and feminist geography. When talking about feminism gender is a crucial point since most of the discriminatory actions faced by women revolves around it. People often find it hard to distinguish between sex and gender since the two are closely related. When we take of sex, we refer to the socially constructed attributes, activities, behaviors and roles that a particular community considers suitable for men and women. Sex refers to physiological and biological traits that define women and men. Feminine and masculine are gender categories. Gender roles are culturally and socially constructed and are developed through learning where media plays an important role (Hartley et al. ). Furthermore, a gender theorist and a philosopher Judith Butler argue that gender is a performative and not a noun. Hence, gender is created by behavior in that the way we talk, speak, walk and act determines whether one is a woman or man. Young girls desire for dolls with long hair makes them reproduce those desires, thus when desires attached to gender are produced, it perpetuates circle of consumption as Mattel responds. Barbies liberation organization challenges Mattel’s reproduction of socially constructed norms. Bartky draws on the experiences of daily life to unmasking the many disguises by which intimations of inferiority are visited upon women. She critiques both the debilitating dominion held by notions of proper femininity and the male bias of current theory over women and their bodies in a patriarchal culture. Contemporary feminism has more than one face. The best attempts to deal with complexity and scope of the movement have caused division among feminists along ideological lines. To become a feminist, it involves the experience of profound individual transformation that goes far beyond that sphere of human activity referred to as political. This experience that cuts across the ideological divisions within women’s movement is multifaceted, complex and transforming. Feminism has changed predominant perspectives in the western society in a wide range of areas ranging from culture to law. Activities of feminists have led the campaign for legal rights of women like voting rights, property rights and rights of contract. They have advocated women’s right to bodily autonomy and integrity, rights of abortion and reproductive rights including access to quality prenatal and contraception. They have led advocacy in protecting girls and women from rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence. They have ensured women’s workplace rights including equal pay and maternity leave are safeguarded. They also protect women against misogyny and from other types of gender-based discrimination (Bartky et al. 1990). In the history of feminism, we see that the middle-class white women from North America and Western Europe dominated most feminist theories and movement’s leadership system. Going back to the three waves, the first wave feminism is the period of extension of feminist activity during early twentieth century and nineteenth century in United States and United Kingdom. Its original focus was to promote equal property and contract rights for women and to oppose chattel marriage and married women ownership by their husbands. Nevertheless, by the end of 19th century, the primary focus of activism was to gain political power especially women’s right of suffrage. The second wave feminism entails a period of activity between early 1960s and late 1980s. It was a continuation of the earlier waves of feminism that in involved suffragettes in the USA and UK. It continued to exist from that time and continues to coexist with the third wave. Freedman, a scholar, compares the second wave and the first wave feminism saying that the second one focused on equality and to end discrimination whereas first one dealt with rights such as suffrage. This second wave feminists saw women’s political and cultural inequalities as inextricably linked and urge women to understand the perspectives of their personal lives as deeply politicized and as displaying sexist power structures. The third wave happened because of a backlash against movements and initiatives established by the second wave perceived failures of the second-wave. It commenced in early 1990s. The central point of the third wave idea was to provide a post-structuralism interpretation of the sexuality and gender. It focus on micro-politics and challenging the second wave ‘s paradigm as to what is good and not good for women. Intersectional feminism refers to the view that women experience oppression in varying degrees of intensity and changing configurations. In our example, we will look at Abra Cheri. She explains how fat and succulent she is; she is overweight. During the years of anorexia, she had no weight. She had grown thin because of denying herself food and even lost capacity to care for herself not even her friends. All her events lead her to three months hospitalization. This was followed by two years outpatient psychotherapy in order for her to learn to nourish herself and to live in the body that expresses honesty and strength in its shape. All these happens because of her choice to live her life. She disregards feminist movements in new York city despite her attending an all-girls high school. They studied mostly the history of men and male authors. She embraces mainstream culture unquestioned, and she learns about womanhood from Hollywood, Madison avenue and fashion magazines. She dismisses feminist options as offensive and foreign, swathed as they were in customs that threatened her adolescent need for conformity. This shows how women themselves normal circumstances despises their selves. They are shameful of their body shapes and do everything possible to slim. Cultural patterns of abuse are not only interrelated but also bound together and affected by the intersectional systems of the society. Ethnicity, ability, class, gender and race are examples of this. Naturally, this means individual organizations of women have multi-layered aspects in life that they have to counter. No one can fit all types of feminism. In their lived spatiality and their manner of movement, women seem to be more restricted than men (Bartky et al. 1990). Looking at the example of black woman Eddo-Lodge, who faces both sexism and racism as she travels around everyday life, although this concept of intentionality in feminism has existed for decades and for the past one it has been in the limelight many people have not understood what it stands for and its meaning. This black woman talks about structural racism and intersectionality. Eddo-Lodge is not responsible for any abuse she received. Thus, intersectionality in feminism means in this context that, this black woman does not support racism. Intersectionality helps to state that feminism that is overly white, able-bodied, cis-gendered and middle class representing just one type of view and it does not reflect on the experiences of all multi-layered facets in life that a woman of all background face. Mainstream feminist movement will continue to stagnate unless it starts to listen to various organizations of women. The consequence is that the movement will fragment and becomes less active. When we talk of racism in feminism, it is wrong to say that the only privileges you get relates to skin color. This is because an individual can be privileged with religious experience, educational background, class, cis-gendered and the fact that she is able-bodied. Therefore, many black women do and can have privileges too. Many people have a problem with mainstream feminism that is feminism, which is mostly able-bodied, cis-gendered, middle class and white. In conclusion, class and racial background including life experience as stated by Pamela Aronson’s article on women’s identification with feminism, shaped attitude towards feminism. The stories of women relationships to feminisms are affected by their struggles, personal interests, different spaces they navigate and social location and are highly involved. Canada is the only country in the globe that has included multiculturalism in their constitution. Canadians are welcoming people, and they have put in place policies that encourage diversity. This diversity was celebrated by the 1971 policy, and it serves to validate the contribution of French and non-English in the nation building thus helping them preserve their heritage. Discrimination was eliminated with the passage of multiculturalism Act in 1988. References Bartky, S. (1990). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. New York: Routledge. Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. (2007). Feminist frontiers (7th ed.). Boston: McGraw-HIll. Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Read More