Feminism

A Brief Introduction

Sex and Gender

Sex and Gender

• Before we start discussing feminism, a quick distinction is in order:– Sex refers to one’s biological makeup, by which one is defined

as being male or female. By and large it is the sexual organs that define one’s sex (although there are individuals who possess organs proper to both sexes).

– Gender refers to a set of ideas associated with men and women. The genders of masculine and feminine are sets of ideas that vary greatly between different cultures (what it means to be male is very different in cosmopolitan London compared to Texas or the upper Amazon basin, for example)

• The association of the colour blue with boys and pink with girls has no biological basis. Instead, it is a cultural practice developed in some Western cultures.

• Some feminists see gender as the most important factor in how women are treated, but other feminists will argue that it is the inherent biological difference between men and women that makes women different to men.

What is Feminism?

• Feminism as a term developed in France in the late C19 (although there have been women throughout history who sought to rethink how women are represented).

• It came to prominence in C20 when it was used to described a social movement which sought to advance women’s political and social rights to a level equal with that of men.

• Early feminist movements, such as the suffragettes, demanded voting rights for women, but later movements, such as radical feminism, attempted to re-think the idea of woman in ways that were entirely independent of men.

Why Feminism?

• Central to the argument for feminism is that society is constructed around the male: it is patriarchal (power and wealth pass from father to son) and phallocentric (centred around the penis);

• Because of this, women have been subjugated to men, reduced to being status symbols, child-rearing animals or servants (and often all three).

God creates Adam (Genesis 2:7)

Power and Control

• Feminists argue that the patriarchy has, over millennia, assembled a wide range of means of controlling women and legitimising that control.

– Physical force;– Social codes such as the promise to obey in the marriage ceremony; – Social conventions, such as the pejorative references to sexually

promiscuous women in contrast to high social status accorded to men who; controls and

– Legal means: denying women the vote, property rights, the belief that rape was legitimate within marriage (i.e. a woman had no right to deny her husband sexual intercourse. This remained part of British law until the 1990s)

– Marriage bargain: the woman provides sexual and child-rearing services in return for the male’s breadwinning;

– Foundation myths and religious stories, such as the Adam and Eve story (it is worth noting that the earliest religions appear not to have shared this trait);

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Always and everywhere: perpetuating male power

• Following the logic of the Marxist theories of ideology, feminists argue that masculine power is pervasive in almost all cultures (i.e. that it invades every aspect of our existences, from birth to death);

• Language and culture play central roles in perpetuating male power. For example:– “man” used to mean the whole human race;– The use of the pronoun “he” for any child or person of

non-specific gender (now much more commonly replaced with “they”)

The Idea of Woman

What exactly the female is has long been a subject of debate. Simone de Beauvoir (wife of the existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre) argued that the female has almost always been construed as the opposite of the masculine in what has been termed binary oppositions:

Masculine FeminineStrength Weakness

Rational Emotional

Sun Moon

Fire Water

Boldness Timidity

Independent Dependent

Stability Mutability

The Feminine “Lack” or Absence

The qualities assigned to the feminine (instability, mutability, weakness) are all characterised by the idea of a lack, whereas the masculine qualities of strength and power are very much present.

Some feminists argue that this stems from the simple anatomical difference between men and women: the penis is, when erect, undeniably present, whereas the vagina remains hidden, dark, at once terrifying and fascinating.

Female Stereotypes

Salome

A Feminist Reading

• Feminist responses to literature fall by and large into two different groups:– Texts can be read to understand how women

are represented by the society that produced that text, often by exploring the unspoken acts of subjugation and repression at work in a text.

– Look at the poem on the following slide and see how women’s bodies and identities are controlled by the poet (who here speaks for the whole of masculine experience)

Discussion Point

• Analyse one of the two following texts (She Walks in Beauty, Byron and a speech from Macbeth) from a feminist perspective;

• How do the writers use language to construct gender?– What stereotypes are employed?– What assumptions about gender does their language

imply?– How do the texts function within the systematic

repression of women?

She walks in Beauty

   SHE walks in beauty, like the night  

  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;  

And all that 's best of dark and bright  

  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:  

Thus mellow'd to that tender light        

 5

  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.  

One shade the more, one ray the less,  

  Had half impair'd the nameless grace  

Which waves in every raven tress,  

  Or softly lightens o'er her face;   10

Where thoughts serenely sweet express  

  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.  

 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,  

  So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,  

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,   15

  But tell of days in goodness spent,  

A mind at peace with all below,  

  A heart whose love is innocent!

The other side of Gender – a Male Fantasy?

Sergeant

Doubtful it stood;

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together

And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald--

Worthy to be a rebel, for to that

The multiplying villanies of nature

Do swarm upon him--from the western isles

Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;

And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,

Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:

For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave;

Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,

And fix'd his head upon our battlements.