Page 184 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 9: Gender and Stratification

primarily determine their psychology and hence their abilities and roles. Similarly the traditional Notes
notion of ‘public-private divide’ which located politics in the public sphere and family and personal
relationships in private sphere as non-political, believed that sexual inequality is natural and not
political. While the political sphere was preserved for men the private sphere was reserved for
women as housewives and mothers who were excluded from politics. These theories of male
supremacy have been challenged and opposed by feminists as they lack historical or scientific
evidence. Feminists argue that the biological difference might lead to some difference in their
roles, but the former should not become the basis of a sexual hierarchy in which men are dominant.
The dismantling of these theories enables us to acknowledge that patriarchy is man-made and has
developed historically by the socio-economic and political processes in society.
Feminism
“Feminism is an awareness of patriarchal control, exploitation and oppression at the material and
ideological levels of women’s labour, fertility and sexuality, in the family, at the place of work and
in society in general, and conscious action by women and men to transform the present situation”
(Bhasin and Khan, 1999 : 3). It is a struggle to achieve equality, dignity, rights, freedom for women
to control their lives and bodies both within home and outside. As a cross cutting ideology
feminists have different political positions and therefore address a range of issues such as female
suffrage, equal legal rights, right to education, access to productive resources, right to participate
in decision-making, legalization of abortion, recognition of property rights and abolition of domestic
violence. Thus feminism passed through several paradigms which are referred to as first wave
and second wave of feminism.
Since the origin of patriarchy and establishment of male supremacy can be traced to different
factors and forces feminists differ in their approach to understand patriarchy and adopt different
strategies to abolish it. One way to understand the various dimensions of feminist theories and
their theoretical approaches to understand patriarchy is to locate them within the broader
philosophical and political perspectives that have been broadly classified as Liberal, Marxist,
Socialist and Radical. However, despite the ideological differences between the feminist groups,
they are united in their struggle against unequal and hierarchical relationships between men and
women, which is no longer accepted as biological destiny.
Feminist theorists generally share four concerns (Jaggar and Rothenberg, 1984 in Mandell, 1995 :
4) (i) They seek to understand the gendered nature of all social and institutional relations, which
determines who does what for whom, what we are and what we might become. (ii) Gender
relations are considered as problematic and as related to other inequalities and contradictions in
social life. “Family, education and welfare, worlds of work and politics, culture and leisure are
socially structured through relations of gender, power, class, race and sexuality”.
(iii) Gender relations are not viewed as either natural or immutable but as historical and socio-
cultural productions, subject to reconstitution. In particular feminist analysis deconstructs errors
and myths about women’s empirical realities, and constructs theories by and about women, (iv)
Feminist theorists tend to be explicitly political about their advocacy about social change. They
challenge the traditional race-class-sexuality-power arrangements which favour men over women,
white over non-whites, adults over children and their struggle to embrace inclusivity continues.
Approaches to Understand Patriarchy
Liberal Feminism : Liberal feminists have championed equal legal and political rights for women
to enable them to compete with men in the public realm on equal terms. The philosophical basis
of liberal feminism lies in the principle of individualism and they campaigned for all individuals
to participate in public and political life. Several women’s movement demanded female suffrage
during the 1840s and 1850s in United States and United Kingdom. The famous Seneca Falls

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