Introduction and key terms

Gender - is the cultural definition of behavior as defined appropriate to

the sexes at a given time in society. It identifies the social differences
between men and women that are learned and changeable over time
and have a variation within and between cultures. For instance,
society has considered some gender roles, conditions, activities and
tasks as feminine and masculine. They are socially constructed not
physically determined. Whereas “maleness” and “femaleness” are
biological facts, becoming a woman or becoming a man is a cultural
process. Gender is a social category that establishes, in large measure,
our life chances and directs our social relations with others.
Sociologists distinguish sex and gender to emphasizes that gender is a
cultural, not a biological, phenomenon. (Made et al, 2003)

“Sex” refers to the biological differences between men and women .It
refers to the biological identity of the person and is meant to signify
the fact that one is either male or female. One’s biological sex usually
establishes a pattern of gendered expectations.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GENDER and Gender roles

Relational: It is relational because it refers not to women or men in

isolation, but to the relationship between them and how these
relationships are socially constructed.

Hierarchical: It is hierarchical because the differences established

between women and men, far from being neutral, tend to attribute
greater importance and value to the characteristics and activities
associated with what is masculine and to produce unequal power
relationships.

Changes over time: Even though gender is historical, the roles and
relations do change over time and, therefore, have definite potential for
modification through development interventions.

Context specific: There are variations in gender roles and relations

depending on the context: ethnic group, socio-economic group, culture
etc., underlining the need to incorporate a perspective of diversity in
gender analysis.

Institutional: It is institutionally structured because it refers not only

to the relations between women and men at the personal and private
level, but to a social system that is supported by values, legislation,
religion, etc.

Social/Biological:

• Emphasizing the social, does not exclude the role of biology.

• The emphasis on social factors within the gender approach does

not imply the exclusion of the profound influence of the biological
element. On the contrary, this perspective provides for the examination
of interactions between biological factors and factors in the social
environment that lead to situations of relative disadvantage or
advantage for one of the two sexes.

GENDER/SEXUAL ROLES xxxxxxxxxx

Productive: Comprises the work done by both women and men for
payment in cash or kind.

Reproductive: Comprises the childbearing/rearing responsibilities and

domestic tasks required to guarantee the maintenance and well-being
of household members. It includes not only biological reproduction but
also the care and maintenance of the persons who comprise the
household.

Community Management Role: Comprises activities undertaken at

the community level to contribute to the development of political
organisation of the community. It is usually voluntary, unpaid work.

Men and women’s Productive roles comprise work done for cash and
kind.

Men and women’s Reproductive (or domestic) roles include those

tasks done to reproduce society, both physically and through passing
on its system of values .Reproductive labour is the work done to ensure
that workers can return to work the following day.

Both these roles are profoundly economic. Without reproductive roles,

productive roles could not be carried out, or would be critically
curtailed. Who generally carry out the tasks, responsibilities and
activities assigned under REPRODUCTIVE ROLES? Women, of course!

However in formulation of the Gross National Product, the contribution

that is made primarily by women to the national economy remains
invisible because it is not considered “work” in the economic sense of
the word, but is seen as a part of their natural function derived from
their role as reproducer .
The reproductive role is less valued socially because it is the work “of
women.” Many types of work in the area of production of goods and
services, such as in the area of health and primary school education,
have also been divided in accordance with gender roles. For example,
the work of nurses and nurse aides, work for the most part carried
out by women, is much less prestigious and well paid than the
work of a doctor, work that has been primarily carried out by men
in Western societies. Interestingly enough, in the countries which
comprised the former Soviet Union, doctors are mostly female, and
the medical profession is not a respected, sought-after profession
as it is in the West.

Community roles - women are responsible for carrying out

management, works (attending to sick neighbors, participating in
parent teachers associations involvement in church / religious
activities), while men are more likely to participate as community
leaders who negotiate with municipalities and other political
authorities. This latter work is associated with status and is
sometimes remunerated.

The Community Management Role has particular relevance for the

health field. The voluntary participation of women in community
activities, as health workers, active participants in vaccination
campaigns (either to vaccinate their children or their animals) and as
cooks in community kitchens, has been considered indispensible for
the promotion of health. But this is based on one assumption: that
women have free time. This, as we know, is not so. Women have to
perform multiple roles in a single day (sometimes simultaneously).
Given that reproductive roles are performed for the most part by
women, multiple roles are more usually juggled by women.

Maintaining this balance has consequences in terms of time

management and its effects on the person’s mental and physical
health. This is a burden that women therefore have to bear to a greater
extent than men.

The detection of gender roles makes previously recognized work

visible. In general, in capitalist economies, only productive work, due to
its exchange value, is considered “work”. Reproductive work and
community management work are not valued because they are
considered “natural” and non-productive. This has serious
consequences for women, because it means that most of their work
continues to be invisible and, therefore, undervalued.

Biological differences – According to human biologists the human

chromosomes, XX found in females and XY in males, determines one’s
biological sex or physiological status of being male or female. In the
early weeks of prenatal development, gonads (the sex glands, the
ovaries in females and the testes in males) of the female and male
foetus are identical. During the 7th week of prenatal development, a
single gene found only on the chromosome, and known as ‘sry’ sets in
motion the forces that lead to the development of the testes in male
fetuses. If the sry gene is absent or not functioning, ovaries will
develop about 12 weeks after conception.

- Chromosomes –Normally females inherit X chromosomes , one

from each parent, XX and normal males one Y from the father and X
from the mother and so have XY. Two chromosomes are necessary for
the complete development of both internal and external structures.
Female embryos begin synthesizing large quantities of estrogen for the
development of the reproductive system. A gene on the Y chromosome
– Testis – determining factor appears to be responsible for the testis
formation and general male development.

- Gonads – refers to the sexual reproductive organs ( ovaries in

females and testes in males

- Hormones – When gonads are transformed into testes and ovaries

genetic influences cease and sex hormones take over our biological
sexual determination. The male sex hormones are called androgens,
the most important one called testosterone. The ovaries secrete two
distinct female hormones – estrogen and progesterone, males usually
produce more androgens and females more estrogens, both males and
females produce androgens and estrogens and there are no exclusive
male and female hormones.

- Internal reproductive structures- males have Wolfian ducts ,

prostate glands, sperm ducts seminal vesicles and testes; in females
there are fallopian tubes, , womb and ovaries

- External reproductive structures –males have the penis and

scrotum; females have the outer lips of the vagina( labia majora)

- Biological differences – aggression, verbal ability, , mathematical

ability,
Gender relations are accordingly defined as the specific mechanisms
whereby different cultures determine the functions and responsibilities
of each sex. They also determine access to material resources, such as
land, credit and training, and more ephemeral resources, such as
power. The implications for everyday life are many, and include the
division of labor, the responsibilities of family members inside and
outside the home, education and opportunities for professional
advancement and a voice in policy-making.

Gender Equality – voice, laws, opportunities;

It generally refers to the goal of equal sharing of opportunities, access
and power between men and women. One indicator of gender equality
is equal pay for work of equal value by men and women (SADC
Parliamentary Forum, 2002)
- The gender equality approach calls for gender analysis to
determine the needs of both women and men, followed by
interventions targeted to one or the other sex (or both) as necessary
• Gender equality implies a society in which women and men enjoy
the same opportunities, outcomes, rights and obligations in all spheres
of life. Equality between men and women exists when both sexes are
able to in the distribution of power and influence; have equal
opportunities for financial independence through work or setting up
businesses; enjoy equal access to education and the ability to develop
personal ambitions.
To empower women there has to be a focus of identifying and
redressing power imbalances and giving people autonomy to manage
their own lives.
 At family level where women’s status is low, family size tends to be
large. When women are empowered, whole families benefit and these
often affect succeeding generations.
Gender equality has many dimensions :
„„ Health and well being
„„ Educational attainment
„„ Political empowerment
„„ Economic participation
“When women have access to finances, credit, technologies, and
markets, they are likely to expand their businesses and contribute
effectively to sustained economic growth and development.”
— United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,
International Women’s Day 2008.

4.1.4. Gender Equity

• Recognizes that both women and men have different needs e.g.
reproductive health.
• Equity approaches meet strategic gender needs by linking
development with equality – prisons, education, politics
• Goal is the redistribution of power e.g. land
4.1.5. Gender bias – is there any bias towards one gender in life?
Gender discrimination – who is discriminated mostly?
Gender neutrality usually ignores women’s basic needs like cheap pads
for menstruation
Gender mainstreaming is a tool used to ensure gender equality and
equity. Gender mainstreaming is a process to ensure that both men and
women have equal access to and control over resources , decision
making , and benefits at all stages of the development process and
projects
History of gender Studies
The academic study of gender has a relatively short history.
- Its emergence can be dated as recently as the late 1960s, and its
development triggered by second wave feminism.
- Along with developing a critique of gender inequalities, in both
personal relationships and in social positioning (especially
economically and politically), second wave feminism began to draw
attention to the ways in which academic disciplines and sets of
knowledge acted to exclude the experiences, interests and identities of
women.
- For example, prior to the 1970s, the social sciences in general,
and sociology in particular, largely ignored gender. The ‘people’ it
studied were mainly men and the topics it focused on were aspects of
the social world especially significant for men, such as paid work and
politics.
- Women were almost invisible in pre-1970s’ gender-blind sociology,
only featuring in their traditional roles as wives and mothers within
families.
- Differences and inequalities between women and men at this time
were not recognised as an issue of sociological concern and were not
seen as problems to be addressed.
- In the context of second wave feminist critiques, however, a
number of disciplines across the social sciences, the arts and
humanities began to pay increasing attention to gender.
- Thus, in sociology during the 1970s, differences and inequalities
between women and men came to be regarded, especially by women
sociologists, as problems to be examined and explained.
- Initially, studies were focused on ‘filling in the gaps’ in knowledge
about women, gaps left by the prior male bias. Attention gradually
moved to those aspects of experiences especially significant to
women, including paid work, housework, motherhood and male
violence.
- Women Writers had begun to contest the hegemony of a ‘canon’
of great works of literature, which practically excluded them altogether
and had nothing to say about the material and social conditions that
prohibited the emergence of ‘great’ women in this arena.
- Kate Millett’s path finding Sexual Politics (1971) moved
effortlessly from literary criticism to a critique of Freud and Marx
(perspectives that were later to become very much the ‘business’ of
literary studies).
- At this time in the 1960s and early 1970s, the sheer number of
women concentrated in the humanities in comparison to other
academic fields made it an area ripe for feminist critique, since
women’s existence in such numbers here was itself the result of the
gendered logic of the workplace.
- It is at this stage, during the late 1960s in the US and from the
mid- to late 1970s in the UK, that women’s studies as a specialised
area of academic interest began to develop, with the first British
women’s studies programmes all taught MAs, emerging first in Kent
(1980) and then York and Warwick). Thus women’s studies as a
discrete area of study was born, even though the early days were
 characterised by a huge rush of energy, where ‘such courses began to
be taught, quite spontaneously and without substantial prior
organisation, at many US colleges and universities beginning in 1969’
(Tobias 1978: 86).
And spread to the UK and elsewhere.
- the first national women’s studies conference in the UK took
place in 1976).
- Many women’s studies and courses contained a consciousness
raising (CR) component where the experiences and identities of the
students themselves determined the dynamics of the classroom.
- Started with the disciplines of English, history and sociology,
and was dependent upon the energies of sometimes isolated
individuals working within a generally male-oriented curriculum.
- Broadly speaking it is still centred around the social sciences, arts
and humanities rather than the physical sciences and related
disciplines such as engineering and medicine, but the presence of
women’s studies in the academy has had wider ramifications as the
core practices and prejudices of the latter come under scrutiny.
- Consequently, books (both popular and academic) on men and
masculinity proliferated in the 1990s, to the extent that ‘men’s studies’
is now recognised as a specialist area of academic focus.
- ‘Gender studies’ is seen by many to further open up the field of
women’s studies, beyond its beginnings in the politics of the Women’s
Liberation Movement.

-
 TOPIC 2: PATRIARCHY
Patriarchy is a social system in which adult males hold primary power
and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social
privilege, and control of property. The word is derived from Greek word
for rule of fathers.
Emergency of Patriarchy
There are certainly many who believe that early civilizations existed
that were matriarchal. But no anthropologists or archaeologists,
feminists included, have found evidence of such societies. “The search
for a genuinely egalitarian, let along matriarchal, culture has proved
fruitless,” concludes Sherry Ortner. [3]

• From the beginning of the human race, circa 200.000 BC, there arose
only matriarchal [1] societies. They reflect the initial and most natural
behavior of women, men, old and young.
• They started in Africa and spread over the whole planet. And on their
way they left behind wonderful art and symbolic language - in caves,
on objects - that tell us their story. Some of them continued with their
lifestyle until today - using the same patterns and symbols on their
pottery, clothes and so on.[2]
• The Neolithic people refined their cultures from 10.000 BC in North and
South America (east coasts), in Near East, East Asia and Middle East.
In these places the later Advanced Cultures independently evolved.
• Matriarchies lasted until all the time to about 2500 BC when
conquerors moved West, East and South East from Inner Asia.

• Those conquering hordes, called Indo-Europeans, had to leave their

fertile land that became dry prairies. The climate changed during
 centuries and when the Indo-Europeans wandered and came to good
soil they had to re-establish their daily life and social structures. After
some decades of increasing dryness and lack of rain they had to move
again and again. This happened for generations and in cases of
privation, humans tend to return to a previous state of civilization. The
females and children lived together and the males built their own
groups, who moved forward to find water and food. [6]
• At last, those already patriarchal organized men-groups (maybe some
with women) bumped into to wealthy matriarchal cultures. (Their own
skills of civilization were long lost in the fight of pure survival.)
• Matriarchal societies consist of peaceful people. That means: they
have no violence at all, no crime, no war and no weapons to defend,
nor walls to protect their cities.

Some matriarchal cities or tribes could probably integrate the aliens,

others became simply subdued. But nobody could withstand the
dominating, scrupulous people who came wave after wave.[7]

• From now on it went downhill.

• There are still many living peoples with matriarchal structures on all
continents, except in Europe.

In the context of the hunter-gatherer or foraging societies,

anthropologists like Eleanor Leacock, Patricia Draper and Mina
Caulfield have described a generally equal relationship between men
and women. [6] In such settings where the person who procures
something also distributes it and where women procure about 80
percent of the sustenance, it is largely women who determine band
society movements and camp locations. Similarly, evidence indicates
that both women and men made the stone tools used by pre-
agricultural peoples. [7]
With the matrilocal Pueblo, Iroquois, Crow, and other American
Indian groups, women could terminate a marital relationship at any
time. Overall, males and females in band society move freely and
peacefully from one band to another as well as into or out of
relationships. [8] According to Rosalind Miles, the men not only do not
command or exploit women’s labor, “they exert little or no control
over women’s bodies or those of their children, making no fetish
of virginity or chastity, and making no demands of women’s sexual
exclusivity.” [9] Zubeeda Banu Quraishy provides an African example:
“Mbuti gender associations were characterized by harmony and
cooperation.” [10]
We know that division of labor led to domestication and civilization
and drives the globalized system of domination today. It also appears
that artificially imposed sexual division of labor was its earliest form
and was also, in effect, the formation of gender.
The Family
-- As feminist knowledge developed and became more sophisticated
throughout the 1970s, the family came to be an important object of
analysis.
--In the domain of the family, fathers (or father figures) hold
authority over the women and children.
--Some patriarchal societies are also patrilineal, meaning that
property and title are inherited by the male lineage and descent is
reckoned exclusively through the male line, sometimes to the point
where significantly more distant male relatives take precedence over
female relatives.
--It has created systemic societal structures that institutionalize
male physical, social and economic power over women. Patriarchy’s
defining elements are its male dominated, male identified and male
centered character.
- family is one institution created by patriarchy – eg dowry/lobola
-For many, it was the crucial site of women’s oppression, the space
where, unheeded by the world outside, women were at the mercy of
fathers or husbands; where the law of ‘patriarchy’ held its most
primitive form.
- Feminism’s scrutiny of the ‘private’ sphere was one of the things it
considered to be unique about ‘sexual politics’; that social
arrangements notionally based on kinship and romantic love could be
viewed askance as part of patriarchy’s repressive regime.
- The bonds of kinship make family relationships potentially more
oppressive than anything else we experience; family both protects us
from the outside world and socialises us into it.
--It is generally through our parents and siblings that we come to
understand the meanings of gender difference and where messages
about morality and normality we learn at school are reinforced (or
not).
--As Freud made clear, the family is also the place where we receive
our neuroses and phobias; where we grow up sexually well- or mal-
adjusted.
--A happy family life can provide an individual with a long-lasting
cushion against periods of alienation in social and professional life; --
but it is also the case that most sexual abuse takes place within the
family and that most murder victims are killed by someone they are
close to.
Unpalatable or difficult as it is, feminists asked questions about the
so-called ‘private’ sphere which had previously remained more or less
taboo, and in doing so suggested that there might be other ways of
arranging family life – or at least of adjusting relations of power
within the existing dominant family form.
--The head of the household is generally still unthinkingly presumed
to be a man, supposed to be capable of catering for the material
needs of wife and children, while the wife and mother provides
nourishment and nurturing
--Needless to say, many feminists went beyond offering critiques of
the family and proffered alternative arrangements as more desirable
such as communal living – something which lies at the heart of
Firestone’s radical treatise (1970).
-- Feminists of all political persuasions were clear that the sheer
volume of domestic labour necessitated by the maintenance of the
nuclear family was exhausting, repetitive, lacking any spiritual
and, more to the point, financial rewards.
-- In addition, it is clearly wasteful for every family unit to be doing
laundry, cooking and cleaning for a small number of people on a daily
basis.
--Again, it was suggested that domestic labour of this kind could be
‘socialised’ among a wider community group, along with childcare and
other activities.
--Feminists were inevitably keen to disaggregate domestic labour with
women’s roles, or else to have it financially rewarded, but the latter
‘wages for housework’ movement became unpopular, because of the
risk of associating housework with women’s work.
--A liberal view of the family still remains dominant and sees it as the
from the public sphere and closed to interference. This makes it
difficult to analyse how women remain disempowered within their
families or become victims of domestic violence, and precludes
discussion about the real structures of changing family forms across
cultures. This view appeals to us as individuals and encourages us to
view any challenges to the family as unnatural, personally threatening
and possibly a threat to our privacy.
--While successive governments are still reluctant to acknowledge the
value to society of childrearing, the material significance of what for
many is painted as a choice based on love and kinship remains
obscured. (Melissa Benn 1998:245).
-Religious interpretations, practices and their institutionalized
structures have played an important role in creating and perpetuating
the patriarchal ideology and the justification for it in social behavior
and socio-economic structures.
-While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit
and so beyond identification with either male or female sex, yet the
daily language of preaching, worship, catechesis and instruction
conveys a different message.” The Images of God used by the church
are mostly male: father, king, lord etc. reinforces indirectly the
male model of leadership.

-Media and even some educational institutions continue to spread this

ideology by showing men in strong decision making positions and women
as voracious consumers, decorative pieces or as sex objects. The
media can also influence and perpetuate gender stereotypes. TV,
movies and books often portray male figures as aggressive and in
leadership roles while portraying females as domestic and obedient.

-Language - to a large extent, not only is expressions of our thinking

but also the medium that shapes our thinking. Often the use of
masculine word is set as the standard. One example still valid would be
the use of the term ‘mankind’ instead of ‘humankind’. There are hosts
of names that are not gender ascriptive, but it is assumed that they
refer to a man or woman. For example the jobs of secretary, nurse,
kindergarten teacher are naturally assumed to refer to women
whereas boss, pilot, manager, surgeon or farmer refer to men. Even
words like pretty, beautiful, handsome, strong, and gigantic? The
vilest words that are used are parts of a female.

-Normally, the following areas of a woman’s lives are under patriarchal

control. Productivity and labor, reproduction, sexuality, mobility,
economic resources, social and cultural spheres and at times even
their way of dressing.

-The patriarchal system is so well knit and entrenched that it seems

so natural that women themselves would perpetuate the system.
Often, women are accused of working against other women
themselves precisely because of this reason.

-(A rural woman explained this phenomenon of women oppressing

other women this way. “Men in our families are like the sun, they have
a light of their own (they own resources, are mobile, have freedom to
take decision, etc.) Women are like satellites, without any light of
their own. They shine only if and when the sun’s light touches them.
This is why women have to constantly compete with each other for a
bigger share of sunlight, because without this light there is no life.” )

-The male control over women does not necessarily mean that it leads
to violence of all forms all the time under which women suffer. It
could be so very subtle that it can almost become invisible and
therefore invincible.

--That is called ‘paternalistic dominance’. It has mutual obligations

and therefore is not perceived as oppressive to women nor to men.
It could be seen simply as allocation of duties between men and
women which would offer stability to the family and orderliness in
society and not seen as oppressive to women.

 It is about standards of feminine beauty and masculine

toughness, images of feminine vulnerability and masculine
protectiveness; about the ‘naturalness’ of male aggression,
competition and dominance and female caring , cooperation and
subordination. It is about the acceptability of anger, rage and
toughness in men but not in women; of caring, tenderness and
vulnerability in women but not in men, about being breadwinners while
women are homemakers.

 Above all, patriarchal culture is about the core value of control

and dominance in almost every area of human existence.
 the ability to control others, events, resources, or oneself in the
face of hardships or even death of loved one, even emotions – rather
than to give freely of oneself, to feel and act in harmony with nature.

 Feminists use the concept of patriarchy to explain the systematic

subordination of women by both overarching and localized structures.
These structures work to the benefit of men by constraining women’s
life choices and chances.

 There are many differing interpretations of patriarchy. However,

the roots of patriarchy are often located in women’s reproductive
role and sexual violence, interwoven with processes of capitalist
exploitation. The main ‘sites’ of patriarchal oppression have been
identified as family and housework, paid work, the state, culture,
sexuality, and violence.

 Behaviors that discriminate against women because of their

gender are seen as patriarchal ‘practices’; for example occupational
segregation, unequal pay, exclusion, sexual harassment/violence at the
workplace, by police and in courts and everywhere where men meet
women.

 The concept of patriarchy has been drawn into gender and

development theorizing; in order to challenge not only unequal gender
relations but also unequal capitalist relations, sometimes seen as
underpinning patriarchy (Mies, 1986; DAWN, 1995).

 Feminists who explain gender inequality in terms of patriarchy

often reject male-biased societal structures and practices and
propose greater female autonomy or even separatism as a
strategy.

 There is a tendency to assume that gender oppression is uniform

across time and space. More recent thinking has therefore rejected
such a universal concept, identifying the need for detailed historical
 and cultural analysis to understand gender-based oppression. Neither
are women a homogeneous group constrained in identical ways.

 Gender inequalities are crosscut by other social inequalities such

as class, caste, ethnicity and race, which could be prioritized over
gender concerns in certain contexts.

 A rigid and universal concept of patriarchy denies women space

for resistance and strategies for change.

 Restrictions of women;, to protect the honor of men and the

community and in order to maintain the purity of the race, many
women are restricted in their mobility and way of dressing, given
fewer opportunities for education and employment. Women who
remain within the household, being dependent or in seclusion are
considered as a symbol of social status in many patriarchal societies.

 Difference in power relationships -Gender relations not only

influence the behavior between men and women but also between men
and men themselves. One example is the bride’s father and family is
considered inferior to the bridegroom’s father and family in the
Indian sub-continent even if they have a better economic and social
standing. Gender relations are therefore relations of dominance and
subordination with elements of cooperation, force and violence
sustaining them. Based on these inequalities, several social scientists
see the family as a place of bargaining and contestation where power
is negotiated.
Feminist Theories
Radical Feminists have exposed and condemned built in masculinity in
what has largely been accepted as social practice in institutions. It
also uncovered the extent of violence against women leading to
initiatives that are deemed to be bent on reclaiming the entitlements
and rights of women. It views the world from the subjected with a
view to uncover women’s knowledge and experiences and recount them
 in their own words. Examples are works of Tsitsi Dangarembga,
Yvonne Vera.
Ahmed argues that Black and Postcolonial feminisms pose a challenge
"to some of the organizing premises of Western feminist thought."
During much of its history, feminist movements and theoretical
developments were led predominantly by middle-class white women
from Western Europe and North America. However women of other
races have proposed alternative feminisms.]
This trend accelerated in the 1960s with the civil rights movement
in the United States and the collapse of European colonialism in
Africa, the Caribbean, parts of Latin America, and Southeast
Asia.
Since that time, women in developing nations and former colonies and
who are of colour or various ethnicities or living in poverty have
proposed additional feminisms emerged after early feminist
movements were largely white and middle-class.
Some of the tenets of radical feminism that derive from questions
relating to women’s sexuality, personal relations, marriage, the family
and violence against women are:
• That women are oppressed and that their oppressors are men
• The whole of gender order is socially constructed and has no basis in
differences between sexes
• That male oppression takes primacy over all other oppressions
(Andermahr 2000:2.23f)
It views the world from the point of the subjected to uncover
women’s knowledge and experiences and recounts them in their own
words. For example Tsitsi Dangarembga’s works, Tsitsi Vera, Some
Zimbabwe Women writers and Haralambos and Holborn’s Sociology:
Themes and Perspectives(2004).
Achievements of radical feminism
• Influenced other feminisms from the 1960s
• Credited with radical social transformation and legal reforms in many
institutions and organizations in many countries

Marxist Feminism
• Its major task was to open up the complex relations between gender
and the economy and to expose the structural control of patriarchy
with all its guises, exerted on women’s reproductive functions.

• It also exposes women’s double oppression of the sexual division of

labour in the home and at work.

• The theory sets out to uncover and understand women’s oppression in

different modes of production from the standpoint of women as a
working class contribution towards mainstream capital.

• It draws principally from Marxist theory in its efforts to

conceptualize sexual oppression and gender differentiation, beginning
with discussing the family.

• As a feminist theory its major contributions towards women’s

emancipation and women’s recognition and acknowledgement in
employment especially domestic labour which had gone unnoticed and
unrewarded.

Liberal Feminism - gender identity is learnt through traditional

patterns of gender role socialisation. Liberal feminism is grounded in
liberal philosophy developed by Lock, Rousseau, Bentham and Mill for
equal rights, individualism, liberty and justice. French feminist
Olympe de Gouge in revolutionary France, her contemporary in Britain
Mary Wollstonecraft and later Harriet Taylor campaigned to have
same rights extended to women. It acknowledges the interlink of
everything in nature and reforms have to be made around the
existing social structures. Central to liberal feminism was the idea
that women’s disadvantages stem from stereotyped customary
expectations held by men and internalised by women and promoted
through socialization process. The disadvantages, in principle, could
be broken by giving girls better education and training and more
role models, by introducing equal opportunity programs, and anti
discrimination legislation.
There was little focus on men or on power relations between men and
men.