Transcript for:
Feminism Overview and Development

hi my name's olle and in this politics explain video I'm going to go through everything you need to know about feminism in adxl a level politics I'm going to start by having a look at the parts of specification this video covers as well as the key past essay questions that have been asked on feminism and therefore the key things should you should prepare for the exam I'm then going to have a look at the development of feminism through time looking at liberal feminism socialist feminism radical feminism and finally postmodern feminism from there I'm going to look at the key principles of feminism and the key agreements as well as the key tensions and disagreements between the strands looking at patriarchy the person is political sex and gender intersectionality and difference versus equality feminism and finally I'm going to have a look at Key feminist thinkers including the ones named on the spec and some others you can bring in to help you in your answers the PDF you can see on your screen is part of a textbook um on feminism that you can purchase on the politics disain website which is part of a bundle with the textbook and also four feminism essay plans on Society economy human nature which should help you prepare for the exam and on the website you can also find loads of other resources to help you in your politics a level including uh updated essay plans um textbooks um and a place to sign up for tutoring if that's something you'd be interested in so yeah without further Ado let's get into it so starting off with the parts of specification this video covers so this video is going to cover the whole of the feminism part of the specification not just what you can see on the screen here so the F first part of that um kind of specification is the key principles so looking at all the ones I mentioned so patriarchy person's political sex and gender equality versus difference feminism and intersectionality that's going to be covered in the second part of the video we're going to look at those U key principles in detail look at how there's agreement in relation to them but crucially look at also U the perspectives of the different strands on them where you can bring in a lot of disagreements um into your essay another key part of the specification which you can see here is the different types of feminism we're going to start by looking at looking at this and and introducing each of the different type of feminism and it's kind of development through time and the final part of the video we're going to have a look at is the feminist thinkers and as I mentioned we kind of have both the named feminist thinkers there's five that are on the specification as well as a few extra um that can be really useful in your essays particularly um liberal F thinkers because that aren't any named on the specification so that's a specification what we're going to have a look at now is the past essay questions so effectively all of these essay questions you can see here are all of the questions that have been asked previously whether on some mock papers by Ed EXL um or on the real papers and what you get in the exam is a choice of two questions um so that's important to know that you don't need to stress too much right so it's definitely worth preparing very well but you will get a choice of questions and what I kind of recommend preparing are the questions in bold so four of these in bold are in that pack on the on the website as I mentioned so the kind of classic ones of the ideologies that you'd been doing for the core ideologies as well so Society State economy and human nature and to what extent they agree in relation to those and as you'll see they've been asked a number of times um in recent years and the other key plans I really recommend preparing and and what you'll see is there's a lot of kind of similarities um between some of these in the state economy human nature plan so you can kind of take parts of those and adapt them to the different questions and they're the key principles so you want to know kind of prepare a question in relation to or be be prepared to answer a question on to what extent there's agreement on sex and gender patriarchy um and the person is political in particular um and also you could also get asked more general questions to what I sent is is there agreement as you'll see there are also other questions that you could get asked more specific questions that are quite difficult unfortunately these are relatively difficult to predict predict these kind of different questions so I think to to be well prepared for the topic if you know the ones involved really really well he you get a choice of questions so it's relatively likely that one of those will come up but B if you know the content and those plans really well you should also know it um know the content well enough to be able to adapt um to different questions even if they are more difficult question that come up so yeah that's the um specification of the past essay questions what we're going to start having a look at then is the development of feminism through time starting with an introduction to feminism so feminism is driven by promoting equality and emancipation for women feminists argue that society and politics as they currently stand oppress and discriminate against women was favoring men and they challenges suppression and seek to create a society free of it where gender doesn't determine an individual's opportunities rights or position in society in terms of the emergence of feminism it kind of began to become prominent in the enlightenment period in the 18th century when some liberals began advocating for women's rights arguing that the oppression and inequality of women in society was an affront to the liberal principles of Liberty and equality Mary wone craft was really um important to this writing a indication of the rights of women in 1792 which is a really key figure in its emergence the form movement began to kind of really take shape in the 19th and early 20th centuries marked by the first wave of feminism which uh primarily pushed for legal equality including women's suffrage and property rights and this first wave was largely characterized by liberal feminism as we'll not kind of later in the video the metaphor of waves is used to describe the different phases of the feminist movement Each of which have different perspectives and goals and this helps to illustrate the movements evolving nature over time with each wave kind of quite specific to the specific social political context of its era and building upon the achievements but also kind of filling in the gaps and the shortcomings of the previous waves of feminism so first wave feminism as I mentioned kind of emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries focusing primarily on formal inequalities in the public sphere and advocating for legal and political rights for women and central this to this wave was the fight for women's suffrage um which has seen as crucial for participation in public and political life just achieve um in the US in 1920 and fully in the UK in 1928 with the representation of the people act the movement also addressed other important legal equalities legal and political equalities so this is all in the public sphere um rather than the Privacy which the family as as we kind of note a lot more later in the video such as property rights access to education um and yeah they short to make this step towards gender equality in the public sphere and it's associated with liberal feminism second wave feminism um from the 196 s to the 1980s expanded the debate from just the public sphere to a wider range of issues oppressing women in society including sexuality family the workplace and Reproductive Rights this challenged the traditional nuclear family model and the traditional gender roles that women were expected to play Within it the M slogan the personal is political emphasized that oppression and power dynamics in the family and private were deeply um political they shouldn't be kind of seen as a political and not not uh not an arena for kind of change or for politics instead they were very much political and needed to be addressed and needed to be challenged and it also articulated the difference between sex and gender and how gender depression upholds a patriarchal society dominated by and run in the interests of men and radical feminism was Central to second wave feminism but also you saw U Betty frieden for example who was a liberal feminist was also key to this wave as well so it wasn't just radical feminism but this this is the key wave of radical feminism emerged then you have third wave feminism which emerged in the early 1990s and it was characterized by its focus on diversity and intersectionality this wave arose as a response to the perceived failures of the second wave which focused on middle class white women and generalized their experiences so this is what um postmodern feminists in particular made this critique they emphasize intersectionality which is a concept that argues that women's lives and identities intersect with other factors including race class and sexual orientation and it must therefore be considered how oppression is different for different groups of women in society and how different forms of Oppression intersect and they saw second way feminism radical feminis feminism in particular in its idea of patriarchy as being a bit too General and generalizing women's experiences rather than recognizing the diversity and how women were oppressed in different ways based on these other um socioeconomic factors and stratifications so it broaden feminist discourse to consider multip identities and their impact on women's experiences advocating for a more Nuance understanding of gender Dynamics and as I said this wave is associated with postmodern feminism then it bringing in the 2010s um some argue that there's been a fourth wave of feminism defined by its use of social media um as tools for advocacy and mobilization this was particularly associated with the me too movement so it focused on combating sexual harassment body shaming and other forms of gender inequality both in public spaces and online and the global me too movement was particularly Central was exposed to prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood and as a result from there across the world sces includ intersectional and uses the internet to create a global movement this is kind of there's a bit of debate about whether this be should be considered um a way of feminism OB the other three are pretty um agreed upon moving on to the different types of feminism then I'm going to have a start by looking at liberal feminism and starting off by looking at his basis in liberalism so liberal feminism is based on the key liberal ideas and principles of Freedom individual rights and equality and liberal feminists made the feminist case from a liberal perspective arguing that all individuals should be equally free and have the same opportunities and rights in society and they argue that if women as they currently weren't granted these rights as men were then Society wasn't truly liberal as a result they supported political and legal reforms to achieve true gender equality and access to freedom and rights and cruly this was in the public sphere so liberal feminism is reformist in its approach that's a really good um description you can use in your assay focusing on achieving gender equality through gradual change rather than a radical over or restructuring of society it is because of the focus on legal and political equality for women in the public sphere so the public sphere is effectively society and the economy it's not the family or the home um and by advocating for equal rights and opportunities that men already have um they were kind of focusing on trying to promote the ability of women to participate equally in the economy politics and educational environments and this differs as I said from kind of radical feminism that highlights the oppression of women in the private sphere the family in the domestic environment and seeks to fundamentally challenge this power and balance to overhaul a patriarchal society it must be noted U and you shouldn't be suppose too far in kind of this idea that lials didn't completely reject the private sphere they weren't completely blind to it and did High highlight violent against women U and oppressive divorce laws and also spoke about um for example abortion Reproductive Rights um and individual rights of of women um but its focus was more on forms in the public sphere and it wasn't as radical as later strands of feminism and didn't focus on the private sphere as a site where there needed to be radical change or radical overhaul liberal fist see the end goal as removing discrimination and inequality under the law so that women can participate equally in the public sphere and once this has been achieved in the public sphere then for them so too has gender equality in terms of important reforms that were focused on by liberal feminism as we talked about kind of in terms of this um public um political and legal equality the first key one um was the suffrage movement um and this movement argued the voting rights were essential to ensuring that women could influence laws and policies that affected their lives as I kind of mentioned it was achieved in the US in 1920 with the 19th Amendment and in the UK in 1928 education was another key reform focused on by liberal feminism liberal feminist consistently championed equal opportunities for women in education seeting is essential for a nav women to participate fully in economic and political life they push for women's access um to all educational institutions and fields of study breaking barriers in higher education and Professional Training previously reserved for men and Mary warstone craft really started this and hes is a key um reform necessary um to pursue gender equality um back in the 18th century and obviously the fight continued until there was education equality there still isn't um but a lot of achievements were made um in the M to late 20th century in particular um including in relation to universities in the UK next key reform um was equal pay so economic equality is a key focus of liberal feminism which supported legislation to ensure equal pay for equal work and aiming to eliminate the um the gender pay gap between men and women the postal such laws began to have success in the mid 20th century culminating in acts like the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which aimed to abolish wage disparity based on sex though of course um is still present very much today as I mentioned um abortion and Reproductive Rights were also focus of liberal feminism um and they viewed control over one's body as a fundamental right I'm kind of really building on that liberal perspective as well so Lark um Supreme Court decision in roie Wade was a significant Victory um legalizing abortion Nationwide and then finally political representation was another key reform um fought for by liberal feminists so they advocated for increased represent a of women in political offices at all levels um and supporting measures like gender quotas and campaigns designed to encourage and support female candidates with the goal of achieving more balanced representation they can influence public policy in favor of gender inequality and a final thing key thing to note um is social attitudes and stereotypes so liberal feminism particularly in the second half of the 20th century with key figures such as Betty frieden which we'll look at in a minute argue that gender stereotypes and societal attitudes limited women's opportunities and freedom in society reinforcing gender inequality and discrimination they highlighted stereotypes and gender Norms in the media and society which portrayed women as less capable as men and more suited to domestic roles and this results in key barriers to being able to access the same jobs and opportunities in the economy as men so kind of achieving gender equality in the public sphere wasn't just about um legal reforms it's also about social attitudes and stereotypes and liberal feminism sought to challenge this and increase the participation and visibility of women in leadership roles professions including politics business and stem what I've got now is a couple of liberal thinkers they're not included in the specification but ultimately liberal feminism is included as a key type of feminism so you're going to need a thinker to kind of um outline them and explain them luckily um these two key thinkers you've already studied um in the liberalism topic so SW stonecraft and freedom and you can bring in very much the same ideas um to illustrate or to give examples of how liberal feminism fought for gender equality and the key things they prioritized okay so starting off with Mary W stonecraft who was writing in the 18th century she was a highly important early liberal feminist and her influential work a Vindication of the rights of women um in the late 18th century set out the key principles of liberal feminism her first key idea was that women are rational and independent beings capable of reason and she challenged the prevailing societal belce of her time which depicted women as inherently inferior to men in intellect and agency and argued that women are inherently rational beings fully capable of reason and deserving of the same educational opportunities as men she argued that any perceived inferiority of women was not the result of natural differences but of inadequate and unequal access to education which stifled their intellectual development and confin confined them to subordinate roles in society um in the home in particular and she wrote The Divine Right of husbands like the divine right of kings may it is hoped in this enlightened age be contested without danger and I do not wish them to have power over men but over themselves W stonecraft advocated for a change in the way Society views and educates women emphasizing that with proper education women can make decisions independently and contribute equally to society this reflected the fact she's a liberal feminist and advocating reforms in the public sphere so that women could be made equal to men and equally participate therefore um a key thing she pushed for was formal equality under the law and equal rights for women in society she advoc advocated um not just for education but equal rights under the law including voting rights property rights and equal opportunities in employment and she argued the treatment of women was against reason and they should be treated as rational individuals and given the freedom of Rights and education develop that to develop their individual potential just as men were not only would this enable women to be free and therefore fulfill the principles of liberalism it would also benefit society and the economy as a whole as an individual pursuit of progress would benefit the whole of society next key liberal um thinker I've added that you can use is Betty feden um she was a key fig in the second wave feminist movement in the 1960s um she built one earlier thought and supported liberal feminism in the 20th century Freedom challenged the oppressive laws and societal Norms that limited women's roles continuing also fight um liberal feminist fight for women's rights she was a really important figure in advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment in the US which is aimed at guaranteeing equal legal rights for All American citizens regardless regardless of sex and it was almost passed um in the 70s she was successful in campaigning for the passage of the Equal Pay Act um which outo discrimination in SE in terms of sex when paying wages and she played a pivotal role in establishing the na National Organization for Women um in 1966 which is an influential group in the wom's right movement that focus on advocating for legal and societal changes to achieve gender equality she was a really key um figure in the second wave feminist movement and the key things she promoted um aligning with kind of her liberal perspective was equal opportunity so freeden explained how women were restrained not only by a lack of formal equality also by pervasive societal attitudes that undermined their rationality and autonomy she wrote in the feminist Mystique the problem that has no name which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any own disease and she argued these societal attitudes that the primary role of women was that of their wife and mother confine them to domestic sphere rather than being able to pursue their goals and careers and she called these attitudes the Feminine Mystique which suggests that women could find complete fulfillment and identity exclusively through domestic life and she highlighted how these prejudices were perpetuated through cultural norms and practices and these denied women true freedom and potential for self-realization that liberalism believed was innate to all humans and as a result to tackle this embodying the principles of liberal feminism she called for reforms in the public sphere so that women should could participate equally in society and the economy um advocating for the adment of laws to prohibit discrimination based on gender and supporting measures such as affirmative action to ensure that women had not only equal rights on paper but also genuine equality of opportunity to succeed so kind of both of these I think you can you can see recognize the oppression of women in society um and pointed out both the importance of uh legal spheres in causing this as well as societal attitudes and reflecting the fact that they were liberal feminist key reforms they advocated for and suggested were reforms to the public sphere to allow women to participate more equally and ultimately from a liberal perspective be as free um kind as much Freedom individualism and autonomy as mended and therefore pursue equality in the public sphere so that was liberal feminism what we're going to have a look at now is socialist feminism um and starting off before looking at socialist feminism we're going to look at how how socialists saw the oppression of women this is important because this is what some especially earlier socialist feminists largely agreed with as effective the Socialist View and marks nles belied that gender inequality stem directly from capitalism and as a result they believe that overthrowing capitalism in favor of socialism would result in the abolition of patriarchy and gender inequality in capitalist societies socialists argued that women were responsible for the unpaid labor of maintaining the household and raising children and this role was crucial for the reproduction of the labor force and therefore upholding capitalism as domestic work wasn't recognized a productive labor under capitalism women were made dependent on wom on men which confined them to domestic private sphere and limited their opportunities and further traditional gender roleso marriage in the nuclear family were direct result of private properties they're tying all of these time more depression directly to capitalism as they were required to inherent private property through male HS reinforcing patriarchy and crucially also directly linked to capitalism um was the oppression of women because they were a reserve Army of Labor which could be used when needed in low paid insecure jobs which kept over wages low and ensure capitalism never ran out of workers they saw patriarchy as a key tool of maintaining capitalism and as a result they argued that abolishing capitalism U was not only necessary um but in for for some socialists an earlier socialist fist they argue that it was also sufficient to liberate women as domestic labor would be collectivized rather than the burden being placed on women and domestic and other work would be equally valued and compensated crucially they also argued the eradication of private property and need to reproduce capitalism would result in fund fundamentally change gender relations within the private sphere and the abolition of traditional gender so socialists and earli some earli socialist feminists believe that capitalism was the root cause of all um women's oppression in society and that by removing cism you could completely remove that oppression what we're going to have a look at now is socialist feminism so as I said some earlier socialist feminists are pretty consistent um with with that kind of view of socialist in relation to um gender inequality and the impression of women in society later socialist feminists and then a lot of the key ones we the couple of the key ones we're going to look at didn't simply completely reduce women's oppression to capitalism and argue that if you get rid of capitalism you completely solve um gender oppression in society however um they were socialist feminists because they ultimately saw capitalism and continued to see capitalism and feminism as deeply inter link and they saw even if they didn't think that capitalism was kind of removing capital on would completely remove um women's oppress in society they definitely saw it as a necessary step so these later socialist feminists built on socialist thought and focused primarily on how the oppression of women in the economic sphere produced gender inequality in society they recognized that capitalism and socialism were closely linked and beli that a socialist Revolution was necessary for gender oppression to be removed so shida Ram um argued that women face dual oppression under capitalism due to having to perform poorly uh paid insecure jobs in the workforce and unpaid domestic labor so really um focusing on the economic aspect of women's oppression and linking um that economic uh linking well emphasizing the role of that economic oppression under capitalism to women's overall oppression and seeing it as Central Charlotte Perkins Gilman argued that capitalism forc women into a position where their survival and social status depended heavily on marriage which is a socioeconomic contract where women traded their domestic labor sexual availability and reproductive capabilities for survival and financial support from their husbands they that okay they recognized the role of the private sphere and recognize these kind of traditional roles and how women were um subjugated and um oppressed within the home they ultimately um articulate how they believed that this just crucially caused by capitalism or at least cism plays a central role in it and their vision of society free of gender depression also built on socialist visions of communal living and collectivism so both rolam and Gilman advocated for domestic labor to be communal which is kind of re refret key socialist ideas importantly however as I've kind of alluded to it's important to recognize that later socialist feminist in particular didn't completely argue that removing capitalism would simp simply completely remove gender depression as socialists and earlier socialist fist did argue they didn't reduce the oppression of women simply to capitalism and argue the abolition of capitalism would naturally lead to the abolition of the oppression of women they recognized the oppression of women in society wasn't just due to the economic sphere though they saw it as very much Central also buil on socialist attitudes on societal attitudes sorry um patriarchy couldn't be reduced to capitalism instead patriarchy and capitalism were closely linked and intersecting forms of Oppression Ram argued that men took refuge in the private sphere under capitalism where they held power and women had to fulfill their emotional needs and this reinforced the subordination of women so even if it was linked to capitalism um there was also these independent power dynamics with in the private sphere that wouldn't necessarily be completely removed by the removal of capitalism G also focused on how societal conditioning um subtly consc coerced girls into becoming home mothers and homemakers from a young age through toys and clothing um limited their limiting their economic independence from the young age so it wasn't just the capitalist system um that caused women's oppression and as a result they argued that gender relations in the private sphere need to be tackled as well as capitalism removed so rbon rather than suggesting that the Socialist Revolution would uh automatically remove remove women's oppression um called for a revolution within a revolution the required not only restructuring the economic system to eliminate class equality so they thought that socialist Revolution was necessary but it wasn't necessarily sufficient um so it also required radically transforming socialy relations um and institutions and power relations within the private sphere to eradicate gender oppression moving on now to radical feminism um so radical feminism emerged as part of the second W feminist movement starting in the 1970s with Kate millets uh semal work sexual politics being a particularly important text radical feminism isn't a single unified ideology but rather a collection of ideas and perspectives United by the belief that Society is fundamentally patriarchal and that gender oppression affects all aspects of Life both in the P private and public spheres so Advocates of radical feminism argue the reforms of the public sphere suggested by liberal feminists are not enough instead society and the private sphere as well as the public sphere must undergo fundamental transformation to eliminate patriarchal oppression and Achieve true gender inequality and women's Liberation we're going to have look at here in a little more detail at what patriarchy is and in even more detail later in the video as well in terms of key ideas of radical feminism um the person is political was a key rallying rallying Cry Cry of radical feminists um in the second wave feminist movement this idea challenged the traditional separation of the private and public spheres it asserted that issues within the private sphere such as domestic labor sexual violence and Par relations between men and women within the home and family were political issues that needed to be addressed um and these power relationships underpinned patriarchy across Society they argue that the family unit traditionally viewed as a prival or a political space um was a Central site of women's oppression they saw the patriarchal family structure as a micross of broader social inequalities where male dominance and female subordination perpetuated and reinforced the under unpaid and undervalued domestic labor that women performed in the home such as housekeeping child raring and caregiving is Central to this exploitation and Miller in particular saw um the family not as an a political social unit which is often argued um by by most men in society um and also kind of liberal families didn't focus on the private sphere or the family as a political unit so much but she disagreed with this arguing no it was a fundamentally political system that normalized and perpetuated male dominance and female subservience both in the domestic sphere and in society as a whole as a result so she argued that stral Val was Central to enforcing patriarchy by assigning Authority and Leadership roles to men while women are relegated to submissive and dependent positions and as a result they argued that the kind traditional family structure needed to be completely removed and transformed um in order to remove patriarchy in society and focusing on the personal um radical feminists also draw attention to the widespread issues of domestic violence rape and sexual harassment which had also previously not been focused on and not being considered Central political issues rather than dis dismissing them as private matters that were quote unquote normal in society they asserted these forms of violence were manifestations of patriarchal power and control and needed to be addressed as societal issues requiring systemic change and they focused on the personal also focused on women's control of their own bodies which they saw as Central to women's Liberation so without control over their reproductive Li lives through contraception and the right to an abortion women could not achieve true autonomy and equality and they also suggested as kind of a a um a way to achieve women's Liberation and then start I suppose the uh radical revolution they thought was necessary in society to do so um they advocated for Consciousness raising groups um and these groups um provide a space for women to recognize common patterns of Oppression understand how their experiences occurred within the context of system systemic patriarchy and organized to fight this oppression I think these were really important uh they saw these as really important to bring up key issues in relation to the private sphere and how women were being treated recognize um this was kind of a shared experience Between Women recognized it was ultimately political and needed to be addressed and therefore provided a platform to organize and fight against patriarchy as say that's the person is political another key principle of um radical feminism is patriarchy and radical feminists assign patriarchy as a pervasive social structure in which men hold Authority and control over women in both public and private spheres it's systemic and it's the primary system of power that defines all of the all of Society the state and the economy upholding male power and women's oppression so unlike liberal feminists you focus on legal reforms and socialist feminists who connect women's oppression to class exploitation radical feminists du gender oppression as a distinct system of Oppression that defines po of society rather than kind of um being a consequence of capitalism or a different form of repression they argue that patriarchy is the root cause of women subjugation and that dismantling it requires a profound transformation of societal Norms institutions and personal relationships so as we kind of mentioned with person is political um Central to patriarchy is uh the family and the traditional family structure which K wrote is patriarchy's Chief institution and for her undoing the traditional family structure was essential to achieving a true sexual Revolution and the removal of patriarchy as you mentioned you saw as a political unit um that reinforced patriarchy needed to be removed also Central to patriarchy and this is why you see a bit of a agreement with liberal feminists um and also feminists like Simone Dead who we look at who came beforehand we look when we look at the feminist thinkers is how the importance of social attitudes and a portrayal of women in society so radical feminists analyze how the portrayal of women in society upholds traditional gender roles that facilitate male dominance and the exploitation of women so Naomi Wolf the beauty myth exemplifies this critique by highlighting how societal standards of beauty are used to control and op press women the media literature and cultural narratives often depict women as passive submissive and primarily valued for their physical appearance this can also see be seen in Millet in sexual politics where she explained how art and literature are vehicles for sexual politics and the perpetuation of patriarchal social values in a social order that glorified male dominance and the control and abuse of women and she did this in in her book um critically analyzing key um key kind of text of literature um written by men um and explaining how they upheld um upheld patriarchy and the oppression of women by challenging these traditional roles radical feminists aim to expose and dismantle the mechanisms through which patriarchy perpetuates women's oppression and this all very much links into patriarchy's idea that the oppression of women is pervasive and work through a wide range of of of kind of aspects and and and Arenas in society to oppress women so it's the family it's also um in culture and how women are oppressing it's also in politics it's also in the state it's also in the domestic sphere of violence it's completely across Society it's systemic and pervasive um and needs to therefore be completely removed also um important to to radical feminism is the idea that women reduced to passive position in society and have had their sexuality removed so radical feminist highlights how patriarchy reduces women to a passive position stripping them of their sexual autonomy and facilitating male dominance and violence as a result this is into the fact that from a young age women are socialized to be passive submissive and nurturing and cultural norms in media portrayals depict ideal femininity as compliant and self-sacrificing reinforcing the expectation the women should prioritize other needs of their own particular events and Men by contrast are socialized to be assertive and dominant including sexually and this is reinforced by the fact by the kind of private sphere and the economic sphere the fact that women are expected to perform unpaid domestic labor which makes them economically dependent on men and removes their autonomy women's bodies are frequently objectified in the media and advertising port traying them um as objects of male pleasure rather than as active agents with their own desires this object objectification sorry continues to be um or contribute sorry to a societal view of women as passive recipients rather than active um participants and their sexual autonomy as a result has been removed as they're socialized to believe that their sexual desire is against the traditional gender role they should be passive recipients rather than active um active agents in their own sexual autonomy um and if they were openly sexual and if women and I think it's very today if women are openly sexual women are condemned by society and kind of seeking to challenge this radical vist strongly oppose pornography and prostitution viewing them as tools of male control and sex exploitation that commodify women's bodies and perpetuate harmful stereotypes and therefore by advocating for women's sexual autonomy and opposing practices to exploit an objec by wom radical feminist seeks to reclaim women's bodies and assert their right to self determination and a final key kind of aspect of patriarchy which I kind of referred to and a key kind of belief of radical feminism I've referred to a couple of times is the belief in a fundamental restructuring of society so radical fist believe that achieving true gender equality requires a key restructuring of society they argue that patriarchal systems are deeply embedded in Social political and Economic Institutions and incremental reforms are insufficient to dismantle them so you can't just have reforms to the some reforms to the public sphere like liberal feminists suggests you can't just um remove capitalism as some earlier socialist feminist suggest and socialist suggest you need to fundamentally disant and transform um patriarchy patri patriarchal systems which are present across Society so radical feminist called for revolutionary changes that transform the underlying structures of power and this includes creating new forms of family and Community reject traditional gender roles developing economic systems that value women's labor equally and establishing legal and political Frameworks that protect women's rights and promote their participation in all aspects of life so it's not just the public sphere it's not just the private sphere it's across all of both of them many radical feminists um including difference feminists advocated for creating women's only spaces founded by and run by women only to provide safety and protection to women and they also saw these spaces as important for the empowerment of women and as a form of political resistance against patriarchy Andrea Drain argued for strong legal measures against pornography and prostitution viewing them as industries that perpetuated patriarchy um and control over women's bodies sexual exploitation and violence against women and milet for example as you've mentioned argued that the traditional family structure needs to be completely dismantled and families needs to be redefined and what they look like including accepting nonr notive relationships and family structures and redistributing roles in child drawing in the household to be more Equitable so that was Radical feminism the final point we're going to have a look at in the development of feminism over time is postmodern feminism and postmodern feminism emerged in the 199 90s during the third wave of feminism it CR critiqued the second wave predominantly white middle class perspective which often overlooked the the diverse experiences and perspectives of women of different races classes sexual orientations and cultures and postmodern feminists argue that there is no single unified experience of Womanhood and gender depression and instead emphasize intersectionality there two key aspects we're going to kind of look at in a little bit more detail and they are a less fixed understanding of gender and intersectionality so postmodern feminists promote a more fluid and less fixed understanding of gender and what it means to be a woman emphasizing the diversity and multiplicity of identities that exists within womenhood and the idea that the gender it shouldn't be fixed and it's it's in a way more a spectrum more fluid um rather than that being kind of fixed gender roles or kind of fixed ideas of a man and a woman so they reject the idea there's a single Universal experience of being woman and argue the gender isn't a rigid binary category um but spectrum of identities also insect with other aspects of a person social and political life including their race class sexuality and culture and this challenge earlier feminist Wes they argue a generalized white middleclass women's experiences as the the experience of all women um under a broad notion of Sisterhood and they argued that by through this generalization of White Middle Class M experiences as the experience of women um this marginalized those whose life didn't fit this narrative um particularly those who weren't white um and those who weren't middle class and Bell hooks a key um kind of postmodern feminist thinker argued that women's experience shouldn't be universalized but instead there should be a focus on solidarity between women and other groups facing oppression in different ways so she argued that alliances must be built between groups who have differences in order to work together and build a more inclusive movement so the systems of Oppression can be challenged and dismantled so there shouldn't be this idea that okay we should try and Define women all as one instead it should be recognized there's diversity but the way that patriarchy should be challenged um is through working together and solidarity and crucially we kind of already touched on it a little bit um but key kind of key idea um of post feminist is intersectionality so they critiqued secondary feminism focus and generalization of concerns of white middle class Western women and argued that this Universalist approach overlooked the unique and varied experiences and challenges of women of color workingclass women lgbtq plus individuals and others for example the second wave of feminism driven by white middleclass women championed women's right to work um blind to the reality that many women of color were already in the workforce frequently UN in undervalued and low paying jobs and were grappling with racial discrimination alongside sexism therefore um for many radical feminism um and the ideas of radical feminism patriarchy and the second way feminist movement failed to represent them and failed to properly Advocate um for their interests um and recognize their situation so instead they promoted intersectionality which highlights how the oppression of women intersect with other social categorizations and forms of Oppression including race class gender and sexuality and they promote the inclusion of voices and perspectives from all groups who are marginalized in different ways so that the feminist movement addresses the needs and oppression of all women hooks argue that feminist should understand how race capist exploitation and class oppression are inherently linked to gender inequality and support solutions that truly address prty and racism which disproportionally impact women of color okay so that was an introduction to feminism and looking at the development of feminism over time time and introduction to all of the different types of feminism what we're going to have a look at now is in a lot more detail at the core ideas and principles of feminism um and the key uh so the key agreements within the types of feminism in relation to these core principles as well as the key disagreements and tensions so we're going to have a look at sex and gender patriarchy the person is political equality and difference feminism and intersectionality final one I've added um we're going to have a look at is just the idea of gender inequality and pursuing gender gender equality and also then the differences in how to achieve it as that's a kind of key thing that will also be useful to use in your essays so yeah starting off we're going to actually start off with gender inequality so at the heart of all feminist views lies the shared goal of tackling gender inequality which they believe is present across Society feminists of all strands despite their varied approaches and theoretical foundations are united in their commitment to dismantling the systemic barriers that perpetuate discrimination oppression and unequal opportunity based on gender this overarching objective seeks to create a society where individuals have right opportunities and freedoms regardless of their gender and where gender no longer dictates one's social economic or political status so that's the key agreement one key important thing to kind of understand and look at you can use in your essays is differences on how to achieve equality and the end goal so even though they agree that there is gender inequality in society and this be changed to pursue uh gender equality uh they disagree on how to achieve it and they disagree on okay what the exact end goal is so liberal feminism is reformist in approach in its approach focusing on achieving gender inequality through gradual change rather than a radical restructuring or overhaul of society and this is because it focused on securing legal and political equality for women in the public sphere the society and the economy by advocating for equal rights and opportunities that men already have so that women can participate equally in the economy politics and educational environments liberal feminism wasn't completely blind to the private sphere as we kind of looked at it did highlight violence against women in the pressive divorce laws but it main focus was on reforms in the public sphere this is the key kind of way emphasized on how to achieve gender equality and it wasn't as radical as lat to trans of feminism in particular radical feminism liberal feminists see the end goal as removing discrimination and inequality under the law so that women can participate equally in the public sphere key reforms as we kind of looked through include the right to vote equal access to education and pay and equal political representation in terms of socialist feminism um they focused on how capitalism and socialism were closely linked and believe a socialist Revolution was necessary for gender oppression to be removed and their vision of a society free of gender oppression also built on this built on socialist visions of communal living and collectivism with both roboam and Gilman advocating for domestic labor to be communal later socialist feminists argued that the removal of capitalism was alone wasn't sufficient to achieve full gender equality as they believed it was Central but didn't believe that that removing capitalism alone would completely remove um gender oppression as socialists and earlier socialist feminism socialist feminists did believe so they argued the societal attitudes and gender relations in the private sphere needed to be tackled as well as capitalism removed unlike earlier socialist feminists they didn't believe that this would be automatically achieved by capitalism so R bam called for a revolution within a revolution that required not only a radical restructuring of the economic system by removing capitalism but also radically uh transforming relations in society including power relationships in the private sphere and Gilman didn't only focus on the economic system but also focus on how this was underpinned um and the kind of lack of economic independence of of women was underpin from a young age through societal conditioning um through toys and clothing which coers girls into becoming mothers and homemakers from a young age in terms of radical feminists um they believe that achieving true gender equality requires a fundamental restructuring of society they argue that patriarchal systems are deeply embedded in Social political and Economic Institutions and the incremental reforms are insufficient to dismantle them they didn't seek to make women the same as men or just pursue equality they wanted complete emancipation for women from male power so you see a bit of difference from Liberal feminism in particular um so instead of these kind of reforms gradual reforms um that liberal feminism supported um and public set sphere reforms that they supported Ral feminists called for revolutionary changes that transform the underlying structures of power and this included creating new forms of family and Community reject traditional gender roles developing economic systems that value women's labor equally and establishing legal and political Frameworks that protect women's rights and promote their full participation in all aspects of life including the private and public spheres so some as we kind of already looked through we looked at radicalis at the start of the video some advocated for women's only spaces dorin advocated strong legal measures against pornography and prostitution which she VI as underpinning patriarchal control over women's bodies and sexual exploitation and violence against women and Millet argued that the traditional family structure needs to be fundamentally dismantled with new uh with redefining of what families could look like including kind of redistributing roles in childing household and and some of those being communal similar to socialist feminists but also kind of the acceptance of non-hr relationships and family structures as she ultimately saw the traditional family as patriarchy's Chief institution in terms of um postmodern feminism so postmodern feminists believe that to truly tackle gender inequality and oppression for all the voices and perspectives of all groups who are marginalized in different ways need to be included so B hooks argued that feminists kind of from an intersectional lens should understand how race capitalist exploration and class oppression link to gender inequality and support solutions that truly aggress poverty and racism which dis reporting the impact women of color books focused on solidarity as key to tackling wom's oppression as a really key um method um that that was necessary she argued that alliances had to be built between groups how have differences in ERS to work together build a more inclusive movement so that systems of Oppression could be effectively challenged and dismantled so kind of criticizing radical feminism a little bit for generalizing women's experiences through patriarchy she argu that it should be recognized that there was actually diversity in women's oppression and women's experiences um but that they should work together different groups of women should recognize these differences but work together um through solidarity to tackle patriarchy and she emphasized that structures of Oppression sought to pit aggress women oppress groups sorry against each other and to maintain status qu parad Dynamics and solidarity for hooks is key to resisting these divisions and challenging oppression hooks argue that solidarity has to be based on empathy understanding and love and individuals must actively strive to understand the experien and perspectives of those who are different from them and critically reflect on their own position within systems of power and privilege okay so now moving on to the key principle of sex and gender so the relationship between sex and gender is a central focus in feminist Theory which challenges the belief that traditional gender rool expectations and stereotypes are natural and inevitable um as a consequence of one sex they argue against this deterministic view asserting instead that gender is a social construct learned and reinforced through socialization from a young age feminists argue that from birth children are socialized into what is considered appropriate behavior for their gender including through their clothes and play boys are encouraged to play with trucks and be active whil girls are steered towards dolls and activities emphasizing nurturing caregiving and passivity these early experiences are further reinforced by parents teachers media and peers creating a feedback loop that solidifies traditional gender roles and as a result individuals grow up internalizing these gender Norms believing them to be natural and intrinsic rather than socially constructed these gender Norms constrain the opportunities of women in society justifying male dominance and female subordination and women's confinement to the domestic sphere and lack of ability to access the same jobs as men in the public sphere in reality the vast majority of feminists who are equality feminists believe that biologically biological differences between men and women are insignificant and that gender differences are determined by societal conditioning so they see this kind of societal conditioning and you see this across the Strand as really important um to um upholding gender inequality um and patriarchy in society really important to lay in the groundw to this idea was Simone DEA um who led the ground work for the distinction between sex and gender that became Central to feminist Theory as of outlined and in the second SE she outlined she asserted that one is not born but rather becomes a woman very emphasizing the importance of this societal conditioning rather than biology she argued that biological differen between men and women were undeniable but the roles and behaviors of men and women in society weren't biologically determined um instead they were socially constructed so Society turns girls into women as they internalize the roles values and Norms the society describes um as it said childhood from childhood girls are taught to EMP siiz paity nurturing and subservience and this turns them into slaves who are restricted to focusing only on motherhood and femininity rather than politics technology or anything beyond the domestic sphere deovir strongly rejected difference feminism and the idea that there was an innate feminine nature this supposing nature wasn't innate to women instead it was imposed on them through societal conditioning uh she therefore strongly disagreed with different feminists and believe that men um didn't she didn't believe that men should reject male that women sorry should reject male characteristics qualities and roles instead they she should recognize um that these two are socially constructed and women should participate in politics the economy and Society just as men do before we have a look at um equality and difference feminists in different feminism in particular how they disagree we going have a look at how the different types of feminism fundamentally agree with this key principle of um sex and gender so liberal feminism rejected the idea that gender inequality was biologically determined instead argued that women can prosper in the work place in society if they're given the same opportunities as men so you see this with W stonecraft challenging the societal belief of her time um that women are inherently inferior to men in intellect and agency and arguing this this wasn't the consequence of biology it was a consequence of a lack of opportunity um in in education in particular and you also see this in freden who explained that women were not constrained not only by a lack of formal equality but also by pervasive societal attitudes that undermine their rationality and autonomy and she called these attitudes the Fem Mystique which suggested that women could find complete fulfillment identity exclusively through their domestic life and she argued that these should be challenged they were perpetuated through cultural norms and practices and they should be challenged to enable women to be truly free you also see in socialist feminism um who supported the view that gender roles weren't biologically determined instead they emphasized that women were forced into performing domestic labor for their survival due to capitalism Gilman argued that CM forced women into position where they survived and social status depended on marriage which is a socioeconomic contract where women traded their domestic labor sexual availability and reproductive capabilities for survival and financial support from their husbands so socialist fism you see um explains um sex and gender and and traditional gender roles in society argues that these aren't biologically conditioned in fact they're in large part caused by capitalism and you also see how Gilman also similar to Liberal feminist and and similar to deboa and all feminists emphasizes societal pressure and societal conditioning as well and one of her key ideas is that from a very young age girls are subtly coerced into conforming to specific Society expectations that prepare them for traditional roles as mothers as and homemakers and this societal conditioning is reinforced through various means including the toys girls play with and the clothes they're encouraged to wear so the toys and activities designed for young girls are not merely for play but serve the purpose of socializing girls into their expected adult roles so dolls and playhouses for instance weren't just harmless fun they are part of a broader social societal mechanism to instill that the role of women in society is that of caregiving and domestic responsibility and you can see this in the cloth of women as well so the clothes designed for girls often accept emphasize Aesthetics over functionality um so dresses that restricted movement for example weren't conducive to physical activity discouraging the physical freedom and exploration that are more commonly associated with boys clothing and this difference played a key role in defining gend roles from a young age and teaching girls that their value in society is measured by their physical appearance and ability to conform to F in ideals of beauty and passivity um and G argu that societal pressure was key part of the patriarchal social order that sought to maintain women's subservience by limiting their roles opportunities and independence from the earliest stages of their life and as a result to challenge this gender neutral toys activities clothing and exploit expectations to be introduced to allow them to grow and reach their potential without being confined by gender stereotypes this would help break the cycle of gender expectations and Foster a more egalitarian in society crucially you also see in radical feminists who emphasize how socialization the portrayal of women force women subordinate positions in society and as I outlined earli in the video when looking at radical feminism um Naomi wolf outlined this um the importance of kind of standards of beauty in society to controlling and oppressing women and C sexual politics critically analyzed key um piece of litera literature showing um how literature and culture um limited women and confined them into particular particular traditional gender roles um and this was kind of shows that it was societal conditioning and done by society as opposed to um being biologically determined and by challenging these traditional roles and depictions radical feminists aimed to expose and dismantle the mechanisms through which patriarchy perpetuates women's oppression and then finally um you can also see this agreement from postmodern feminists who arguably go even further than the earlier kind of types of feminism in arguing that gender is socially rather than biologically determined they want a more fluid um or they argue that there's a more fluid and fixed understanding of gender and what it means to be a woman emphasizing that there's a real diversity and multiplicity and identities so not only they arguing socially UNC constructed they even arguing that the idea of kind of a woman and these kind of strict binary categories that in some ways they argue are accepted by earlier types of feminism um should also be broken down and these are also um Society constructed and they argued U they challenged earlier feminist waves that they argue generalize white middle class women's experiences under a broad notion of Sisterhood which tended to marginalize those who didn't fit the narrative they and really promoted this idea of intersectionality um and that you should recognize um the situation of each individual and they're not biologically determined by are determined by not only their gender but a wide range of other factors including their race class um and sexuality so that's kind of section gender and how it's agreed by the key types of feminism named in the specification um and um and kind of yeah you see how there's that agreement on societal conditioning and effectively all of those are equality feminists so that belief that um biology isn't very consequential and the traditional gender roles are created by societal conditioning is kind of known as equality feminism which they all agree with what we're going to have a look at now um is the fact that there's a small group of feminists who emerge in 1980s known as differ feminists or essentialist feminists who disagree and believe that men and women have fundamentally different biologically determined natures and many of these feminists consider themselves part of radical feminism even if the majority of R radical feminists um disagree with them in relation to this so what is essentialism then so different feminist believes in essentialism and that was that certain characteristics behaviors and roles are inherently tied to your biological sex they argue that women and men have different natures and that these different should be acknowledged and respected rather than dismissed so difference feminism for example argues that women are naturally more nurturing and empathetic than men traits that have been undervalued in a patriarchal society they argue that women should accept and respect this innate female nature and qualities and challenge the dominance of male norms and behaviors in society and different feminist argue that equality feminists wrongly encourage women to seek to replicate male behavior and a subset of difference feminism is cultural feminism which focuses on um not only emphasizing the what they believe that that um um traditional gend roles are biologically rather than socially determined but also celebrating uh and promoting women's unique nature and cultural contributions to society they argue that women's ways of knowing relating and creating a fundamentally different from Men's and that these differences should be valued and celebrated as a result they advocate for the creation of women Centric spaces and institutions um and seek to elevate traditionally feminine values and practices positioning them feminism so the majority of feminists of feminists as we looked at when we looked at kind of gender are equality feminists and reject difference feminism they arue that reinforces gender stereotypes rather than challenging them um and um they they argue that gender roles are so socially constructed rather than biologically determined they argue that emphasizing essential differences between genders undermines the feminist goal of achieving equality by suggesting that women are naturally suited to certain roles um and men to others which can entrench existing power dynamics and female subordination and instead of kind of emphasizing these biological differences which obviously they don't believe in equality feminists advocate for a focus on the social construction of gender emphasizing that gender roles are learned and can be changed thus promoting a vision of equality where individuals are not limited by traditional gender norms and can pursue opportunities based on their talents and interests rather than their sex okay so the next key principle we're going to have a look at which obviously look down in quite a bit of detail already when looking at radical feminism is p so which is a central Concept in feminism strongly promoted as we mentioned by radical feminism so radical feminists Define patriarch as a pervasive social structure in which men hold Authority and control over women in both public and private sphere so across Society it's systemic and it's the primary system of power that defines all Society the state and the economy upholding male power and women's oppression unlike liberal feminists who focus on legal reforms um to the public sphere and socialist feminists who connect women's oppress to class exploitation radical feminist view gender oppression as a distinct system of Oppression that defines all of society rather than being kind of the consequence of cism or linked to another system of Oppression they argue that patriarchy is the root cause of women's subjugation and that dismantling it unlike liberal feminists they argue that it requires a profound transformation of societal Norms institutions and personal relationships across the public and private spheres rather than being reformers and just arguing for gradual reforms to the public sphere important or kind of really useful to understanding patriarchy is um the work of Sylvia WBY um theorizing patriarchy in which she identified six inter related but kind of distinct structures through which patriarchy operates and perpetuates gender INE equality and crucially this shows how patriarch oppresses women in numerous ways across the public and private spheres and is um in view of radical feminist kind of completely pervasive and systemic so you see first key one of these is the house so as a site of patriarchal control so this is the the private sphere where women are responsible for unpaid domestic labor um and their labor is undervalued and contributes to women's economic dependence on men and this traditional family structure reinforces male Authority and limits women's economi for economic and social Independence this also translates um elsewhere in the economy into paid work where will we identifies occupational segregation and the gender pay Gap as key aspects of patriarchy women are often concentrated in lower paying less secure jobs and face barriers to advancement in metal dominated um fields and this is this economic inequalities is perpetuated by discriminated practices and societal expectations that prioritize men's careers over women the state also plays a key role in this is the the public sphere in maintaining patriarchal structures through laws policies and institutions that reflect and reinforce U male interests so legal systems Grant um men greater rights and privilege for example in marriage um and it was own property ownership and failed to to properly protect women from gender based violence and discrimination um including through kind of suggesting they're not political issues that need to be addressed and you can argue that's very much continues today if you look at the um the way in which um sexual violence um in the UK and across across the West as well is not taken seriously by the legal system and there are very low um rates of actual arrests and people being put in jail for sexual violence violence or gender-based violence is also um really key to patriarchy including domestic abuse sexual assault and harassment it's a critical mechanism of patriarchal control and will be argues that violence against women serves to instill fear and maintain male dominance and social norms that condone or minimize such violence further entren this gender inequality sexuality uh is the fifth kind of key structure um she she examines how um patriarchal Norms kind of shape and control women's sexuality so they're expected to be submissive objects male pleasure rather than having their own sexual autonomy and this control extends to Reproductive Rights with restrictions on access to contraception and abortion which limit wounds autonomy over their own bodies and finally cultural institutions including the media and education and religion play a significant role in perpetuating hedal values and Norms well be highlights points out of these institutions of and propagate stereotypical images of women um and Men reinforcing traditional um gender roles um radical feminist view of patriarch in the mid detail we've looked at these already at the start of the when we looked at radical feminism so go back to have a look at those but obviously OB just quickly recap so the family is a key site of patriarchal oppression which Kate Mill described as patriarchy's Chief institution and for her to remove patriarchy you needed um to remove um the traditional family structure in favor of for example new non-heteronormative relationships non monogomous relationship and kind of communalization of um child rearing um um and domestic labor um in order to tackle this as a key because it was key to upholding patriarchy you also see um the importance of the portrayal of women in society looking at Wolf and Millet um in particular um and how women are reduced to a passive position in society they've had their sexuality removed I'll those in a lot more detail near the start video and then finally we also looked um at the idea that that radical feminists believe in a fundamental restructuring of society um they believe that as patriarchal systems are so systemic and embedded there needs to be you can't have incremental or reformist mindset which liberal feminists have more instead you need radical revolutionary changes to transform the underlying structures of power and these come across the public and private spheres um you see the advocacy for women creating women's only spaces you see some kind of in the public sphere and dwan argues for strong legal measures against pornography and prostitution which she sees as um perpetuating and upholding the patriarchal order and Kate Millet arguing um for dismantling um the traditional family structure have we've mentioned a number of times if we look at kind of views on patriarchy of the other strands of feminism then so liberal feminism doesn't view society as fundamentally patriarchal in the same way as radical feminists do unlike R feminism um which sees women's oppression as pervasive across all aspects of society including the private sphere liberal feminists concentrate on securing equality in the public sphere through legal and political changes um to ensure that women have the same rights and opportunities as men so they're reformist and believe that gender inequality can be removed through legal and political changes including equal pay laws equal access to education employment and increased political representation and they therefore don't accept patriarchy which is the idea women's oppression is systemic and pervasive across all of society including the public and private spheres and don't believe that Society needs to be fundamentally restructured which is a view that acceptance of patriarchy leads to and this reflects the fact of they influence by liberalism which focuses on promoting freedom and equality within the public sphere in terms of socialist feminism on the one hand it can be argued that socialist feminists are strongly supportive of patriarchy firstly they recognize that women are oppressed in the economy and it consequences for the private sphere which is defined by male dominance and female subordination so you see Ram arguing that women face dual oppression under capitalism and Gilman arguing that capitalism forces women in the private sphere into position where um they're very much dependent on men um for survival and financial support and that marriage is kind of as a result a socioeconomic contract um where women traded their domestic labor sexual availability and reproductive capabilities for this survival secondly they do recognize that so Society needs to be fundamentally transformed to tackle their oppression and they argue that Captain needs to be abolished and that to liberate women domestic neighbor needs to be collectivized and communal and thirdly later socialist feminists in particular um including Gilman and Ron and didn't simply reduce women's oppression to capitalism and economics alone instead they recognize the importance of societal attitudes and that gender relations in the private sphere needs to be tackled as well as capitalism removed so Ram argued there needs to be a revolution within a revolution requiring not only um the restructuring the economic system to eliminate class inequality but also radically transforming social relations and institutions to eradicate gender oppression so capitalism wasn't removing capitalism isn't the only step to removing U women's oppression gender inequality you need to go further than that as well but on the other hand it can be argued that socialist feminists don't fully recognize that Society is patriarchal due to their focus on capitalism so rather than seeing patriarchy as a distinct form of Oppression that's the primary way that Society is shaped socialist feminists see capitalism as key and believe that gender equality is strongly linked to capitalism they therefore focus on the abolition of capitalism is highly important rather than the dismantling of patriarchy at all levels and this also links to the fact that socialists in earlier socialist feminists believe that removing capitalism alone would remove the oppression woman in society failing to recognize the pervasive nature of patriarchy in all areas of society that must be directly challenged therefore in some ways we can argue that socialist fists support patriarchy but in other ways it's not a kind of full support and especially from earlier socialist feminists and then finally looking at postmodern feminism so though postmodern feminism agrees that the oppression of women is widespread and systemic it critiques the traditional concept of patriarchy by rejecting the notion that there's a single kind of overarching system of male dominance instead it used patriarchy as a complex and fragmented sex set of um Power relations that vary across different cultures context and individual experiences and this results in the experience of patriarchy being very different from women of different ethnicities sexualities classes Etc they argued the earlier feminist theories including those that focusing on patriarchy and including radical feminism often oversimplify women's experiences and generalize the experience of white middle class women as the experience of all women um and as a result they fail to represent all women and patriarchy fails to be completely useful as it doesn't recognize diversity so for example second wave of feminism um Champion women's right to work this was blind to the reality that many women of color were already in the workforce frequently in undervalued and low paying jobs and were grappling with racial discrimination along with sexism therefore this idea of patriarchy um as pervasive and this one system may have helped some women marginalized um other women in society fail failing to recognize that diversity so by deconstructing this idea of a kind of Monolithic U generalized P patriarchy postmodern feminism highlights the importance of intersectionality and understanding how different forms of power and oppression interlinks and manifests in different contexts this challenges Universal narratives and cuse for a more Nuance inclusive understanding of gender and power dynamics okay so moving on now um to the next key principle of feminism and that's the personal is political which we looked at already a little bit of radical feminism because it's a key kind of slogan of the radical feminist movement and its emergence in the second wave of feminism this idea challenged the traditional separation of the private and public spheres and it asserted the issues within the private sphere such as domestic labor sexual violence and power relationships between men and women within the home and family were political issues that needed to be addressed these power relationships underpinned patriarchy across Society so they argued the family unit traditionally viewed as private and an apolitical space was a Central site of women's oppression they saw the patriarchal family structure as a microcosm of broader social inequalities where male dominance and female subordination were perpetuated and reinforced and the unpaid and undervalued domestic labor perform by woman in the whole in the home um is Central to this exploitation so milet was really important to setting out this view um and she saw the stal family not as an a political social unit but as a poli school system that normalized and perpetuated male dominance and female subservience both in the domestic sphere and in society as a whole and therefore to to remove um patriarchy you needs to fundamentally transform the family as well in terms of the person's political rist also brought attention to the widespread um issues of domestic violence rape and sexual harassment rather rather than dismissing them as private matters that were normal they asserted that these forms of violence are manifestations of patriarchal power and control and needs to be addressed as societal issues requiring systemic change whil they also focused the kind of personal and political also lets them focus on women's control over their own bodies which they St is Central to women's Liberation because without control over their reproductive lives lives through contraception and the right to an abortion women could not achieve true autonomy and equality and as I kind of mentioned Consciousness raising groups were seen as really key to connecting um and kind of kind of kind suppose raising the idea that these kind of issues within the private sphere are political and other person is political so through Consciousness raising groups um women were able to kind of recognize patterns of Oppression um similarities in their oppression and recognized that their oppression within the private sphere was ultimately political and needed to be fought and was key um and this was key to fighting patriarchy and organizing against the suppression in ter of looking at um the the perspective over the different types of feminism um on um the person is political so instead of highlighting the private sphere the idea that the person is political liberal feminism focused on securing legal and political equality in the public Sphere advocating for equal rights and opportunities that men already have it wasn't completely blind to the private sphere did highlight violence against women and oppressive divorce laws but his Focus was much more on the public sphere and reforms in the public sphere and it wasn't as radical as latest trans of feminism um therefore it can be kind of be argued that they didn't kind of really focus on the idea that um the person is political and the kind of the idea of the person is political in a way um was was one of the critiques from radical feminist of liberal feminism because liberal feminism mainly focus on the public severe and believe that once you had um equality in the public sphere then um this would kind of move you much closer towards gender equality and there didn't need to be a fundmental transformation in the private sphere socialist feminists um had more of a focus on op oppression within the private sphere than liberal feminism it's all capitalism is Central to women's oppression and argue this led um to subordination um within the family in domestic sphere so they connected the personal um they saw as political um but argued that it was very much connected to capitalism so women were forced into marriage um for survival and financial support due to the capitalist um economic system and argued um that the fact that men took refuge in the private sphere under capitalism led to um women being depressed being being oppressed as well um as kind of women were forced to to kind of fulfill men's emotional needs and that was another form of unpaid labor um some socialists and early socialist feminists argued this oppression in the private sphere would be removed Captain was removed as was directly um caused by capitalism and it can therefore be argued that socialist feminists only supported the idea that the person is political to an extent as they didn't recognize the private sphere and family as an independent site of Oppression that was Central to underpinning patriarchy as radical feminists did but on the other hand it must be recognized that some later socialist feminists argue the gender Rel in the private sphere needed to be tackled as well as capitalism removed so robathan for example called for a revolution within a revolution um when you needed a socialist Revolution you needed the abolition of capitalism but also then a revolution to um transform social relations and institutions to eradicate gender oppression finally looking at postmodern feminism so the the person is political wasn't a rallying Cry of postmodern feminists who criticized radical feminists in the second wave for generalizing women's oppression as that of women middle class white women um but they certainly did accept the idea that women's oppression wasn't just in the public sphere and that feminism should challenge oppression across Society including in the private sphere this can be seen in their kind of emphasis on a fluid and diverse understanding of gender and what it means to be a woman recognizing that each wom situation is different um and that they kind of face a different oppression due to um kind of an intersectional analysis due to the fact that um gender oppression interacted with other aspects of kind of social and personal life um and other social categorizations including race class sexuality and culture so that's the person is political um the final key princip we're going to have a look at is intersectionality which is a central idea of postmodern feminism it highlights how the oppression of women interacts with other forms of Oppression um that lead to different experiences of patriarchy for different women so postmodern feminists critique second W feminism for its tendency to generalize women's experiences and focus on the concerns of white middle class and Western women they argued that this Universalist approach overlooked the unique and varied experiences of women of color workingclass women lgbtq plus individuals and others B hooks argued that liberal and radical feminism failed to advocate for women of color or address the challenges they face as a result of this generalization um of of women's oppression so for example as I've kind of mentioned a couple of times in this video um second wave of feminism kind of champion women's right to work failing um to recognize um that women of color were already in the workforce frequently undervalued and low-paying jobs and therefore by by generalizing this this experience of white women they failed um to to see how uh the oppression of women manifests in different ways for different women based on an intersection um and that's what an intersectional approach recognizes so intersectionality um highlights how the oppression of women intersects with other social categorizations such as race class gender and sexuality and they promote inclusion of voices and perspectives from all groups who are marginalized in different ways so that the feminist movement addresses the needs and oppression of all women and hooks argued that the feminist movement should be far broader and more radical rather than just focusing on the goals that aligned with white middle- class interests such as a p for gender in equality in professional and educational spaces which kind of liberal feminism in particular supported so it should really truly tackle poverty and racism um and recognize how race capitalist exploitation and class um oppression are inherently linked to gender inequality in terms of intersectionality in the other trans of feminism so is very much a post modern view that criticize um earliest trans of feminism failing to recognize it or critiqued um so it's very much kind of postmodern feminism um that supported it and it can therefore be argued that the other strands didn't support it but it could be argued that to an extent socialist L inter seuality by recognizing the oppression of women interacted with uh class oppression but this can be seen as limited as they didn't recognize diversity in women's experiences of Oppression and recognize how it interacted with race sexuality and other social categorizations okay um before we have a look at um the feminist think is just a wrap up the final the final thing we're going to have a look at before that um is looking at State Society economy human nature and the key principles um and then kind of just summarizing the key agreements and disagreements within them before looking at some kind of example evaluation in terms of the state the key agreement is that the state should be promoted should be changed to promote gender inequality whil as key disagreements are about whether the state and public sphere should be the focus of changes to pursue gender inequality that's in particular between liberal feminists who really focus on that public sphere in the state um as opposed to radical feminists in particular who focus on the private spere as well and they also disagree over the whether the state is patriarchal and needs to be completely transformed and replaced actually in that first one as well dis whether the state and public sphere should be the focus of changes you can also bring in socialist feminist there and now they disagree and really focus on capitalism in particular in terms of the economy there's agreement that the economy upholds gender inequality um and agreement between socialists and radical feminists um of the importance of women's place in the economy and UNP unpaid domestic labor to women's oppression but there's also disagreement over whether the economy is patriarchal including liberal feminism disagreeing with radical feminism in relation to whether the existing economy needs to be fundamentally transformed or whether women need to be given equal status to men within it and post modern feminism's intersectional critique of patriarchy generalizing women's experiences and finally there's disagreement over the importance of abolishing capitalism to achieve gender inequality including whether domestic word should be communal that's especially between for example socialist feminists and liberal feminists um as well as radical feminist so socialist feminist really emphasize the importance of capitalism in terms of social in terms of society sorry there's agreement that Society is defined by gender inequality that must be challenged and there's agreement in relation to the importance of social attitudes and gender roles to women's oppression but there's disagreement about how Society should SE to change to achieve gender equality and how radically it needs to be transformed and also disagreement about whether Society is patriarchal um including whether the private sphere should be focused on and if the person is political and that's in particular disre between liberal and radical feminists and also postmodern feminism is intersexual critique of patri in terms of human nature there's a key agreement between most types of feminism so between liberal socialist radical and modern postmodern feminist that human nature and traditional gender roles are socially not biologically determined but there's some tensions and differ disagreements uh particularly with difference feminisms belief the human nature and traditional gender roles are biologically determined and equality feminism rejection of this you also talk about how postmodern feminists go further than radical feminists in arguing that gender is fluid and that wom experiences shouldn't be General ized through their focus on intersectionality and disagreement between radical feminists and liberal feminists about whether personal relationships in the private sphere are political which you can kind of shape in a way as as as a human nature point in terms of the core principles the sex and gender ones are very similar um to the human nature points so um there's agreement between liberal feminist socialist feminists radical feminists and post modern feminists the human nature and traditional General roles are not so are not biologically determined in such social determined and agreement that gender equality inequality is present across society and needs to be tackled but again um the differences are exactly the same in related to human nature over kind of difference versus equality feminism postmodern feminists going further and arguing gender is fluid and women's experiences shouldn't be generalized and the disagreement over whether the personal is political in terms of patriarchy you see very similar to society there's agreement that Society is defined by gender inequality and that must be challenged an agreement in relation to the importance of societ attitudes in doing so but there's crucial disagreements about whether the economy and Society are patriarchal including especially disagreement between liberal feminism and radical feminism there a former not believing in patriarchy and focusing more just on the public sphere and postmodern feminism criticizing patriarchy for its generalization of women's experiences there also disagreement over whether the person is political and the centrality of the private sphere and family to the oppression of women and then finally looking at the person is political there's agreement between socialist and radical feminists on the importance of women's unpaid domestic IC labor in home to their oppression I think you can also bring in um some kind of General kind of idea that that the private sphere does play some role so even if liberal fists don't focus on it um they do recognize that there is oppression within the private sphere there's key disagreement though between liberal feminism and radical feminism in terms of how much they focus on the private sphere whether the person is political and postmodern feminist um intersectional critique of radical feminist generalization of women's experiences in the private sphere final thing we going have a look at before we look at the feminist thinkers is some kind of overall arguments on to what extent feminists agree and you should kind of think about which argument you find more persuasive overall and which you find more persuasive in relation to State Society economy human nature as well um as the key principles of feminism again you don't have to agree with these they just some examples of ways you can make the argument in the essays so in interpretation there's more agreement than disagreement is that on the one hand it can be argued that um I've put Lial I should should say feminists that feminists are more united than they are disunited they're all driven by the critique that Society promotes gender inequality and this needs to be changed even if they believe um this to different extents and support different methods of doing so the vast majority of feminists except different feminists um recognize that gender is socially determined rather than biologically determined and all feminists recognize that women's unpaid domestic labor is a key aspect of female subordination so therefore you see fundamental agreement on some key principles um and kind of key aspects of feminism on the other hand it could be argue that feminists are more disunited due to a number of central disagreements between the strands in their analysis of women's oppression in society and the solutions they suggest radical feminists view society as patriarchal a distinct source of Oppression that pervades all of society um including the public and private spheres this can be seen as very different from Liberal feminism in particular which focusing on public seor reform and doesn't advocate for such transformational radical restructuring of society and for all so from socialist feminism we sees capitalism as Central the central power structure in society rather than patriarchy whil postmodern feminism also criticizes U second wave feminism is generalization of women's experiences and suggests that an intersectional lens should be taken um and you see that critique of patriarchy through that as well what there's also a key difference between equality feminist and difference feminists in relation to whether human nature and gender traditional gender roles are socially or biologically determined so that's some examples kind of interpretations and arguments um on either side of course you can kind of make up your own mind about which you agree with um we're going to have a look now um at before we um finish the video is the key feminist thinkers okay so the final part of the video is going to have a look through the feminist thinkers we've referred and gone through a lot of these um already earlier in the video so some of them it might be going through relatively quickly um in some where we haven't looked at in detail we're going to go through in more detail so we're going to look at the kind of five key thinkers name in the specification Gilman uh deoa Millet Ral Botham and hooks as well as a few extra ones which I think are necessary um or really helpful to do well in the exam particularly to articulate liberal feminism so starting off from the first one is actually Mary W W stonecraft I'm going to go through this really really quickly um just because we actually looked at pretty much everything in here um in a lot more detail when we looked at liberal feminism at the start of the video so W Craft was an English writer and philosopher and was a pioneering figure in feminist thought and during the 18th century with her keyw work of indication of the rights of women um she laid the kind of foundational principles of liberal feminism by arguing that women are not naturally inferior to men but only appear so due to a lack of Education in societal opportunity so she really challenged um the the belief that of her time that women were inferior to men in intellect and agency and argued that it wasn't due to biological differences um but it was fundamentally due to a lack of opportunity and of inadequate unequal education for women and she also a key kind of argument of hers was was arguing for formal equality which a key kind of liberal perspective so arguing not just access to education equal rights under the law including voting rights property rights and uh equal opportunities and employment as I said look at the kind of start the video we liberal feminism um for me going through that in more detail the next um key thinker um is a socialist feminist and this charl Charlotte Perkins Gilman again she's come up a lot of times throughout the video and she was a prominent American writer and sociologist associated with socialist feminism her influential book women in economics published in 19 in 1898 advocated for women's economic independence and social reform and through her writings and advocacy Gilman challenged traditional gender roles in capitalist structures promoting a vision of society where women enjoyed equal opportunities and rights in terms of her key ideas the first one was the idea that domestic economics and sex um are hand in go hand in hand kind of real relationship between capitalism um and women's oppression so she argued that the Place women in the economy and Society where they were confined to the home and were economically dependent on their home on their husbands effectively re reduce women to Commodities where their value was directly tied to their sexuality and reproductive capabilities and she argued therefore that the capitalist economic system um forced women into a position where the survival and social status depended on marriage and this marriage was not a personal um or romantic Union versus socioeconomic contract where women traded their domestic labor sexual availability and reproductive capabilities for survival and financial support from their husbands and the current capitalist economic system was Central to the systemic oppression of women it limited women's role to the domestic sphere and prevented them from contributing to societal development and the public sphere in order to remove um the systemic oppression of women Gilman believed that the economic system of women's place in it needed to be fundamentally changed so she advocated for the communalization of domestic house work and child rearing so that women could be economically independent like men rather than confined to the home and depend dependent on their husbands of survival so this would mean um that there could be marriage and companionship without women having to stop being economically independent and domestic slaves um another key kind of one of her ideas which we've already looked at um in the kind of sex and gender um section of the video um is the idea that societal pressure oppresses women from a young age um so she kind of set out how societal conditioning in societ expectations um kind of force girls into traditional gender roles um and oppress them and limit their opportunities and this is including through um kind of the toys they play with but also their clothes which restrict movement um and effectively um tell women for a young age that their value in society is measured by their physical appearance and ability to conform to feminine ideals of beauty and passivity um rather than anything else um and she thought this was key to the patriarchal social order that sought to maintain women's subservience by limiting their roles opportunities and eate independence from the earliest stages of life and believe that should be challenged through gender neutral toys activities clothing and expectations that would allow them to grow and Reet potential without being confined by these gender stereotypes Simone de DEA um who's quite difficult to put into a strand um she's a French um philosopher and writer was a foundational figure in the feminist thought her great groundbreaking book The Second Sex published in 1949 critically women's oppression and became a seminal text in feminist literature she's difficult to put into one in some ways um she's quite aligned with um radical feminist views but I think it's more that she often be brought into the kind of agreement paragraphs um to support kind of key feminist beliefs rather than necessarily have to shoehorn her into one of the strands a key belief which we've already looked at one of them um is the idea of sex versus gender and the she really set out the idea that sex is biologically determined but gender is socially determined and this became Central to feminist Theory it's actually the key quote one is not born but rather becomes a woman so more detail on that look when we looked at sex and gender earlier in the video another key idea of hers with otherness um and effec de's idea of otherness argued that in a patriarchal society men are considered the default and the norm whil women are viewed as other and a deviation from this Norm she argued the society constructed man as the autonomous subject whilst women were constructed as objects defined through their difference to men rather than through their own independent nature or identity and she argued that women internalized this otherness as they're taught that they're different from an inferior from a young age and that's due to their sex and it's biologically determined and this is then reinforced through institutions like marriage family media and the law which all perpetuate male Supremacy and female subordination in a way you can see this a kind of quite kind of foundation also supporting a kind of patriarchal view this internalization of otherness constrains wounds autonomy and opportunities as they're always defined by external expectations rather than their own abilities um resulting their roles and contrib tions to society being undervalued compared to those of men and she argu that women need to become aware of their domination and the societal construction of otherness before they could fight against it and a final key thing um to know about deovir is um that she believed socialism was not enough to bring about women's uh Liberation so she initially described herself as a socialist and believed that class struggle was necessary to fix society's problems rather than a woman's movement and her later analysis also agreed with feminism in a number of ways so she acknowledged the importance of economic factors um to women's oppression in creating women's economic dependency on men and she believed that um struggle was necessary to fight their oppression similar to the class struggle advocated in in Marxism so in the second set she wrote man is defined as a human being and woman as a female whenever she behaves as a human being um she is said to imitate the male however um DEA ultimately came to the conclusion that a socialist Revolution wasn't suff to bring about the emancipation of women she argued the oppression of women couldn't be removed simply by dismantling capitalist structures instead it also required radical changes to how Society perceived of and condition women and how men and women saw themselves a second key kind of liberal feminist thinker um is Betty frieden again she was really important to the second wave feminist mutant in the 20th century um with a key ground baking work the feminist Mystique which ignited a revolution feminist thought and advocacy um challeng alling the prevailing notion of women's fulfillment solely through domestic roles and motherhood sparking a national conversation about gender roles and women's rights as with W stonecraft looked at this a lot in a lot more detail and all of these these kind of her key ideals in more detail in the start of the video we we the liberal feminism so have a look at that for me explaining it um in more detail but key ideas were kind of real belief in legal equality including equal pay and and these reforms in the public sphere as well as the importance of equal opportunity and this was not only through legal reforms also through through changes to um societal attitudes and expectations because these were really important um to maintaining traditional gender roles and the subordination of women in society um and she called these kind of societal expectations The Feminine Mystique um which was kind of the expectation um that women should kind of um gain fulfillment from the domestic sphere rather than fully being able to kind of realize um their their potential um and and have equal opportunity to men in society next key thinker is Kate Miller um so she is come a lot in this video right um and she's a radical feminist she's a key thinker of feminist thought with her book sexual politics published in 1970 effectively giving birth to radical feminism in it she dissected the power dynamics of gender and sexuality positioning literature and culture as pivotal areas for feminist critique and also setting out the traditional family structure was Central to the upholding of patriarchy and advocating for its complete dest destuction as a result so milet saw the traditional family as a Cornerstone of patriarchal society maintaining and perpetuating gender inequalities for her um to get rid of patriarch and get rid of gender inequality in society you needed to remove patriarchy so it's really key to a sexual Revolution um so she saw it not as an apolitical social unit but as a fundamentally political system that normalized and perpetuating male dominance and female subserviant both in the domestic sphere and as a result in society as a whole so she believed it was Central because the family asserted kind of assigned Authority and Leadership roles to men Al women were relegated to submissive and dependent positions M therefore was strongly supported with the view that the person is political and she argued that true emancipation needed to go beyond just changes to laws and attitudes that liberal feminist suggested but um to a fundamental transformation in society by dismantling the traditional family structure which would involve redefining what families could look like including the acceptance of non-heteronormative relationships and family structures and redistributing roles in child rearing and household duties to be more Equitable and she also supported an ENT monogamous marriage and traditional family which he saw ultimately um as society's Chief um institution and WR wrote complete destruction of traditional marriage and the nuclear family is the Revolutionary or utopian goal of feminism as um we kind of noted on earlier in the video um another key kind of thing she did in sexual politics um was uh analyze um how the portrayal of women in art and literature so in culture upheld patriarchy and she did this in Seal politics um by applying a feminist analysis to traditionally celebrated works of literature and she analyzed them to show how how art and literature not only reflected but perpetuated patriarchal views that demean women so she showed how um these it's lit was were vehicles for sexual politics and the perpetuation of patriarchal societal values and a social AUD that GL glorified male dominance and the control and abuse of women this normal normalized his behaviors and attitudes in society so she demonstrated how literally narratives objectified women betraying them as inferior beings and glorifying their subjugation and sexual exploitation and milet therefore showed that cultural channels systematically constructed and disseminated uh deaminated patriarch ideology rather than simply being passive reflections of it this was key in opening the field of feminist literary criticism which encourage readers to scrutinize not only the avert content in themes of literary works also the underlying power structures that informed them reflected in them and were perpetuated by them um a thinker I've added um is Mary Daly just as a kind of difference feminist thinker just because difference feminism particularly in kind of essays on sex and gender or essays or human nature is something you're definitely going to be bringing in and daily kind of part of a radical feminism but kind of a different feminism part of it um believe that women possess possess an essential biological nature that's distinct from Men this was more nurturing and holistic than the aggressive and hierarchal traits of men and she argued that patriarchal society undervalued and suppressed these essential feminine qualities marginalizing women in society so in this she disagreed with the vast majority of feminists who are equality feminists um and belied that um so equality F believe that um women's traditional gender roles aren't biologically determined they're socially conditioned and daily disagreed with this so she argued that these biological differences should be recognized and valued rather than being ignored and advocated for radical separatism as a solution to the corruption of patriarchal society so she believed that women could create a new reality and reclaim their power through forming separate spaces physically and intellectually from men okay um the penultimate thing we're going to have a look at is Sheila roboam um who was a socialist feminist um so she's a British historian and writer is a key figure in the development of socialist feminism in her book women resistance Revolution published in 1972 she offered a profound critique of cap ism's role in shaping the gender structure of society she argued that seism sexism and capitalism are closely linked advocating for a revolution within a revolution to overcome both gender and class oppression so firstly the idea that capitalism and sexism are closely linked um she argued that women were doubly oppressed by capitalism so they're often forced into poorly paid insecure jobs which reflect and reinforce their subordinate States in society and additionally um kind of the double oppression comes to the fact that their their labor in the home is paid and undervalued yet it supports the entire structure of the capitalist economy by reproducing the workforce and maintaining the well-being of workers and this is the kind of socialist feminist idea um that women's oppression reproduces capitalism this limits there again kind of reinforces this dual oppression by re limiting their opportunities in the workforce as they often seem as less available or committed compared to men who don't have to Dam uh balanced domestic duties um women are workers who are forced to sell their labor to survive but also forced to perform unpaid domestic labor for their husband and family and Rabon calls for a revolution within a revolution which requires not only um restructuring the economic system to eliminate class inequality um removing capitalism but also radically transforming social relations and institutions to eradicate gender oppression so for her therefore feminist struggle is not separate from class struggle but an essential part of it Ram are advocated for practical strategies to address these issues including the establishment of Social Service such as childcare and Community kits to alleviate the domestic burden of women enabling them to persist participate fully in both the workforce and political life um and um finally um kind of one of her key ideas is the idea that family is a place where women were subjected to capitalism but men took Refuge from capitalism um so her analysis of C family and capital societ is complex seeing is not only a sight of Oppression of women but also a refuge for men from the alienating effects of capitalism so she argues that the family as traditionally structured under capitalism plays a key role in the discipline and subjugation of women it subjugates them by forcing them to perform domestic labor which is important for the perpetuation of capitalism by maintaining the workforce and this is of course unpaid um but the family is also a place where women where men sorry escape from the alienation and oppression of capitalism within the family they hold power and receive emotional care and support um from women that they don't get in the workforce and this further reinforces traditional gender roles and the support nation of women and that's why you see so feminists really link these traditional gender roles to capitalism as a result she argues that any attempt to transform Society must both change the economic subordination of women the unpend of family structure and the emotional and psychological needs of men that of men that the family currently meet uh meets reforms must therefore reshape how care and emotional labor are valued and shared in society by moving towards a communal approach because if it's done through the traditional family um It ultimately puts uh the burden on women the final key think we're going to have a look at is um the key thinker for postmodern or intersectional feminism and that's Bel hooks who's an American author and professor and a social activist who is a transformative figure in feminist Theory her pivotal book ain't I women black women and feminism published in 1981 analyzed the intersection of race and gender highlighting the unique challenges faced by black women and the mainstream feminis movement's failure to represent women of color she advocated for an intersectional approach that re recognize how different forms of Oppression intersected with each other and emphasize the importance of solidarity to challenge these intersecting oppressions so first key idea was intersectionality so she argued that the main stre feminist movement focus on the plight of white college educated middle or rle class women and failed to advocate for women of color or address the challenges he's faced as I've mentioned a number of times throughout the video for example second wave feminism um championed a right of women to work uh blind to the reality that many women of color were already in the workforce frequently under Val and low paying jobs and grappling with racial discrimination alongside sexualism and this put women in of coloring a double bind with neither the Civil Rights Movement nor the mainstream feminist movement recognizing how they were oppressed by both patriarchy and racist oppression she argued as a result for an intersectional approach that recognized how the oppression of women intersected with race and class and other social categorizations and this emphasized that an individual's experience of gender oppression is not uniform and that feminism must adopt an intersection approach to truly address the overlapping oppressions faced by dis groups of women she argued that the feminist movement should be far broader and more radical rather than focusing on goals aligned with white middle class interests such as the post for gender equality in professional and educational spaces it should understand it's rather than just kind of narrow Focus that kind of could be potentially associated with liberal feminism um feminism she argued should understand how race capitalist exploitation and class oppression are inherently linked to gender inequality and support solutions that truly address poverty and racism which disproportionately impact women women of color and finally um her key idea to kind of tackle this intersecting oppression that face women of color in particular um is solidarity so she argued that alliances must be built between groups who have differences in order to work together build a more inclusive movement so the systems of Oppression can be effectively challenged and dismantled she emphasized that the structures of Oppression sought to pit oppressed groups against each other to maintain status quo power dynamics solidarity for hooks is key to resisting these divisions and challenging oppression and she wrote solidarity is not the same as support to experience solidarity we must have a community of interests shared beliefs and goals around which to unite to build Sisterhood support can be occasional it can be given and just as easily withdrawn solidarity requires sustained ongoing commitment so she criticized kind of radical feminism and for this idea of patriarchy that oppresses all women in the same way she believed it was generalized U but that doesn't mean she shouldn't didn't believe that should they should be kind of working together between different women she believed that ultimately she be recognized that different groups of women are um oppressed in different ways and face different forms of Oppression due to intersectionality but they should fundamentally come together in a feminist movement um through solidarity to tackle patriarchy um and to tackle um women's oppression in society so she argued that solidarity has to be based on empathy understanding and love and individuals must actively strive to understand the experience and perspectives of those who are different from them was also refle reflecting on their own position within systems of power and privilege so yeah that's a pretty long video um so that's hopefully gone through everything you need to know um for feminism as I mentioned at the start of the video you can purchase um the PDF you can see on the screen on the politic expain website there's also um key essay plans um to help prepare you um for the feminism topic um let me know in the comment section below if there's any questions or comments or anything I can help with and I'll see you in the next video e