FEMINISM
From Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) to Madonna (1958 - ) Feminism has had many advocates and exponents.
Whilst it is common to discuss first (19th & early 20th century), second (1960s and 1970s) and third (1990s onwards) wave feminism this typology does perhaps give a false impression of seamless progression and leaves out some key early voices. Mary Wollstonecraft, for example wrote the Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 and her demands for an end to double standards in male and female behaviour, for women’s rights to education, independent work and equality in civil and political life form the basis of all feminist thinking.
Feminism has received impetus from other social movements such as the French Revolution, Anti-Slavery and Civil Rights movements in the United States, World War II, and anti-colonial struggles worldwide. And amongst feminists themselves differences of ethnicity, political beliefs, socio-economic class, and sexual preferences have also been influential in the formation of separate roads to feminism: Black, Chicana, Lesbian, Socialist, Post-colonial etc.
So-called ‘Post-Feminism’ has co-existed with Feminism since the late 1960s and developed from the deconstruction of patriarchal discourses by such analytical strategies as psychoanalysis, post structuralism, postmodernism and post colonialism with Freud, Simone de Beauvoir,& Michel Foucault making important contributions.
The belief that all human beings are equal… a thought which seems unexceptionable enough to many of us, and which is enshrined in the national constitutions of most countries…is the foundation of feminism.
In their efforts to materialize this belief feminists have focused on de-constructing & trying to reverse differences in ‘power’ (legal, political, economic, social etc) which are usually justified with reference to supposedly innate capacities of women and men. Women’s innate capacities fit them for example for lower paid and lower status jobs (e.g. primary school teacher, nurse-not-doctor); or sometimes the same capacities evinced by women and men are given different social weighting (as in cook vs. chef!).
Another important thread in this discussion relates to its assumption of a simple binary distinction between ‘women’ and ‘men’. Where does this leave individuals who are not comfortable with either of these polar positions? People who have the physical attributes of a man for example but the sexual preferences and gender identity of a heterosexual woman. The simple binary division makes no provision for the increasingly visible, vocal and organized GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender) constituency. Again there is a vigorous debate as to whether nature or nurture is responsible for this variety. If homosexuality for example is only learned then it can be un-learned it is sometimes argued.
Vigorous support for a non-binary view has come from historians, anthropologists, ecologists and medicine. Many contemporary as well as historical societies are not so attached to the binary model as contemporary Western society has been. It is also recognized that a large number of babies are born each year with indeterminate or ambiguous internal or external organs which must be ‘assigned’ to one or other sex by the attending physicians. Homosexuality & bi-sexuality is also found in other species & therefore may be ‘natural’ as opposed to or as well as ‘nurtural’.
There have been many different approaches towards changing the perceived inequalities between men and women. Marilyn French, the academic and author of the best selling ‘The Women’s Room’ (1977) memorably put the words in the mouth of one of her characters that ‘all men are rapists and that’s all they are’. Many feminists have focused on the ‘tyranny’ of the patriarchy and regarded men as their natural & inveterate enemy. (Lesbian feminists have therefore accused heterosexual feminists of sleeping with the enemy – literally!) Others have preferred to approach the issues from the point of view that both women and men are shaped by the social order and therefore both of them need to work together on the modification of that order which would be to everyone’s benefit.
When people (including women) insist that they are not feminists they can be reacting to the perceived style rather than the content of some aspects of feminism. The perceived requirements of bra-burning and hating men have alienated many women who are fully prepared to be CEO or Prime Minister but who appreciate a good hair cut and a nice pair of shoes and also happen to like the ‘opposite sex’. The television drama ‘Sex and the City’ seems precisely calculated to resonate with them. And there is also a growing realization that an interest in personal adornment is not the monopoly of heterosexual women!
Despite the two recent category-defying cases of women who had surgery to become ‘men’ but retained their reproductive organs and gave birth, motherhood & maternity remains an area of contention. The advent of contraception has to the distress of some interest groups…primarily the conservative and/or religious….. made safe and non-reproductive sex a reality. Even more contentiously foetuses can now be aborted safely and hygienically & also legally in many societies thus extending a woman’s control over her own body. The use of ultra-sound technology has resulted more controversially in selective abortion of (usually) female foetuses and a consequent imbalance of males in several societies including those giants China & India.
The decline of the Y chromosome noted in some species (including some ants who have eliminated the need for sexual reproduction) and the possibility of human cloning are also expected to have an input into feminist & gender debate. We can only say ‘ Watch this space’.
Beyond conception, gestation and parturition we enter a territory more amenable to re-shuffling roles and there is increasing acceptance of sharing parental responsibilities more equitably so that both parents can also have a fulfilling occupation beyond the home.
Judith Butler is one of the most interesting recent contributors to feminist thinking and her book ‘Gender Trouble’ has been very formative though not because it is an easy read. Her writing is famously difficult and she has been the recipient of an annual international award for having produced the most obscure academic text. ‘Queer Theory’ which is developed in ‘Gender Trouble’ is not just about homosexuality though it does address that ,but is an approach to sexuality and identity overall.
Very helpfully media guru David Gauntlett (theory.org.uk/david) has summarized the main elements of Butler’s thought as follows:
Nothing within your identity is fixed
Your identity is little more than a pile of (social & cultural) things which you have previously expressed, or which have been said about you
There is not really an inner self. We come to believe we have one through the repetition of discourses about it
Gender like other aspects of identity, is a performance (though not necessarily a consciously chosen one).Again this is reinforced by repetition.
Therefore, people can change.
The binary divide between masculinity and femininity is a social construction built on the binary divide between men and women – which is also a social construction
We should challenge the traditional views of masculinity and femininity and sexuality, by causing ‘gender trouble’.
We do not know whether Butler is a Buddhist or not. She is normally regarded as a feminist thinker and indeed associates herself with feminism but her thinking (helpfully?) undermines the defining feature of many ‘feminisms’ which is the unique focus on the condition of women.
Sexual and gender issues have of course fascinated painters, poets, & writers through the ages.
The depiction of the female body is central to art & popular culture and has given rise to much debate about the ‘male gaze’. As the art critic John Berger put it in the 1960’s ‘Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’.
Along the same lines Laura Mulvey, feminist film maker and film critic sought to analyze and destroy the pleasure in watching Hollywood films which encourage women to see themselves as objects of desire and promote narcissism. Whilst it is an interesting point it is this kind of kill-joy effect which discourages converts. One could also argue that Hollywood films are as much about gorgeous men as about gorgeous women & that there are also some non-traditional portrayals of women by Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davies, Lauren Bacall and others.
The photographer Cindy Sherman (cindysherman.com) has also been inspired by 50’s movies initially portraying herself in the roles emphasizing the sexualized role of the female subject in art showing how women have been objectified in art. And the British potter Grayson Perry demonstrates the fluidity of gender identity not only in his ceramics but also by dressing both as a man and as a woman.
Writers who have taken up issues of gender identity are legion and include Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Annie Proulx, & Amy Tan
Feminists and media theorists have been quick to spot that pop icon Madonna seems to be the living embodiment of Butler’s manifesto for ‘gender trouble’… with her blurring and confusion of identities and sexuality, and transgression of masculine and feminine stereotypes…. at least in her public performances. She has also married and divorced an English country gentleman and adopted a son from Malawi so she isn’t slowing down though she seems to be focusing less on ‘troubling’ gender specifically and more on some other equally fluid aspects of her identity.
Despite many generations of feminist thinking and action….Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 … ‘essentialist’ thinking is still alive and well. ‘Essentialism’ holds that the identities of men and women are biologically, psychically and socially fixed and manifests itself strongly from time to in such books as Laura Doyle’s ‘The Surrendered Wife’ (2001) which still enjoys a huge following and is the practical Guide for establishing Surrendered Circles ‘to bring women the romance, harmony, and intimacy they crave’ … within the bounds of matrimony of course. The discussion provoked by Larry Summers in 2005…. the former President of Harvard who had to resign…….. on the innate inability of women to become top scientists and mathematicians demonstrates that this is a debate which will run and run!