2nd Wave Feminism
Termed "Womens Liberation", began as a popular, mass movement (much 2nd-wave feminist literature circulated in photocopy form, like the Radicalesbians handout)
2nd wave feminist react in part, as Beauvoir did, to Freudian prescriptions:
Biology is destiny, only becoming mothers will fulfill women, heteronormative gender roles positioned as defining mature, healthy adulthood, 1950s homemaker that Friedan describes is seen as epitomizing the well adjusted female.
Contrary to all historical precedents, as the US became more affluent:
Birth rate skyrocketed "baby boom", marriage age dropped into the teens, and women educational attainment declined.
Suburban life meant privilege, but also isolation; women's lives were arranged around family commitments. As in the 1st wave, this version of femininity was unavailable to women who couldn't afford it:
Poor women & women of color were being sterilized without their knowledge or consent
Kelly: even in cases when consent appeared to be given, women were often coerced:
Misinformed about the procedures, denied other forms of birth control, threatened with loss of public assistance
The Feminine Mystique:
American women were portrayed as "having it all" - luxuries women in other times & places never dreamed of; therefore if a woman had a problem, it must be her problem. 2nd wave feminism emerged through consciousness raising: the personal is the political,
Friedan conveys frustration over the inability of doctors & psychiatrists to diagnose "the problem", Weiss fills in some of the gaps by analyzing what medical textbooks say about women:
Physical symptoms experienced during childbirth are all in her head, women are inherently narcissistic & masochistic, menstrual pain is equated with hysteria - women are merely acting out of resentment of their role - rape is an inherent element of sex
Heteronormativity
Dehumanizes women by defining them as supportive/serving caste in relation to master caste of men
Emotionally cripples men by demanding that they be alienated from their own bodies and emotions in order to perform their economic/political/military functio
In popular thinking, there is really one one essential difference between a lesbian and other women: that of sexual orientation - which is to say,
when you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the essence of being a 'woman' is to get f*cked by men
Separatism:
A marginalized group's withdrawal from the dominant society to form a distinct socio-political space, based on the belief that attempts at integration so consistently compromise the identity or potential of the marginalized that a separate space is necess
Only women can give to each other a new sense of self. That identity we have to develop with reference to ourselves & not in relation to men.
This consciousness is the revolutionary force from which all else will follow.
Our energies must flow toward our sisters, not backward toward our oppressors, tremendous energies continue to flow into trying to fix each particular relationship with a man.
This leaves us unable to be committed to the construction of new patterns which will liberate us.
Catherine MacKinnon "Sexuality
Sexuality is a social construct of sexism. What is called sexuality is the dynamic of control by which male dominance - in forms ranging from intimate to institutional, from gaze to rape - eroticizes & defines sex & gender identity & sexual pleasure. Sexu
Hierarchy is sexualized in patriarchy, such that practices like rape, pornography, battery & prostitution express & actualize the power of men over women in society
Sexuality is not pre-social; it is constructed in social power relations, through which process gender is also produced (our use of the word "sex" refers to both gender & sexuality is no accident)
The inextricability of sexuality from the field of male dominance is evident in the hegemony of "desire", wherein the female role is to be dominated & her powerlessness is eroticized
The only way to change this would be to eradicate patriarchy entirely.
Men are women's material conditions:
All women live in sexual objectification the way fish live in water. With no alternatives, the strategy to acquire self respect and pride is: I chose this
Important points raised by MacKinnon
The object (woman) is allowed to desire as long as she desires to be an object
Its a mistake to view women sexuality as somehow existing "outside" patriarchy
Sexual meaning is made in social relations of power - the process which also produces gender
Prac
Sex Wars" are:
An ongoing debate among second wave feminists about the value - especially of potentially positive aspects - of women sexuality within patriarchy. While some feminists agree with MacKinnon that sexuality is fundamentally problematic under a system of male
Psychoanalytic Feminism
Feminism has battled Freud on many levels historically, including:
recognizing the male bias in Freud's theory
offering political analyses of women psychology and social situation
proposing a unitary theory of human development that doesn't set men and women on separate paths toward different goals
asserting that the sel
Freudian premises include:
Children go through distinct psychosexual developmental stages
Their gender identity as adults results from how well they weather this process
Masculinity and felinity are products of sexual maturation
"Normal" development = conformity to sic ally approve
Psychoanalytic Feminists argue that gender identity:
is rooted in a series of early childhood experiences that cause people to view themselves as masculine or feminine, society privileges masculine
A non-patriarchal society in which gender would be constructed and valued differently would require:
altering early childhood experiences and transforming the symbolic order
Symbolic Order
System of interrelated signs, roles, and rituals (including language) that regulates society and constructs the identity of human subjects who enter it; originated by Claude Levi-Strauss who used the term to group the many different codes which constitute
Lacan's Stages of Psychosexual Development -
The process by which a child is incorporated into the Symbolic order by undergoing 3 stages
The 3 stages of Lacan's Stages of Psychosexual Development -
1. Imaginary phase - without language, the infant lacks a sense of self (& other) including gender
2. Mirror phase - child sees herself reflected through her mothers gaze (as separate from the mother)
3. Oedipal phase - the maturing child uses language to
Poststructuralism explodes basic tenets of Enlightenment ideology and leaves us without:
a stable, coherent self that can know how and why it thinks as it does
a universal truth the mind can access through reason
language that corresponds directly to the real world we observe
Neoliberalism:
late-20th-century development of liberalism into a philosophy supporting free trade & the free market on a global scale & the destruction of barriers to international trade & investment.
panopticon
a type of prison that allows an observer to serve all without the prisoners knowing if they are being watched or not, the patriarchy functions this way in that women are constantly policing themselves and their bodies.