Feminisms

Why feminisms?

Feminism is not a single theory it has various approaches from all the fields. It has literary, political, socio-cultural, post-structuralists, psychoanalyst, Marxist approaches. I will be discussing all these approaches in the essay and they are important even from the exam point of view. Conflicts in feminism also changed it to feminisms.

Feminism very simply put, is against the patriarchal society and not against men in particular. It is for liberation of women rights and their respectable position in the society.

Patriarchal structure of the society: The general understanding of the society that men are better and superior to women. For women home is the world and for men world is the home.

Gender is not solely dependent on the biological composition rather it as the intersecting point of history, race, society, nation, class etc. Even religion has a great role to the play in deciding gender roles and stereotypes. Like the 3 main gods Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh are male and Laxmi is seen pressing Vishnu’s leg.

There are three kinds of writing:

Female writings: Writings by female writers

Female writings according to Elaine Showalter: It is located 1920 onwards and refers to writings originally written by women expressing their emotions and feelings and narrating their experiences. Eg. Virginia Wolf

Feminine writings: Writings which have feminine characteristics like a very sentimental tone. It can be written by a men or women.

Feminine writings according to Elaine Showalter: It is located during 1820 to 1880 and refers to imitation of male writing. Eg. Emily Bronte

Feminist writings: These are the writings claiming equal right and position for women in the society. It is not necessarily against men but definitely against the patriarchal society. (To fight the gender bias)

Feminist writings according to Elaine Showalter: It is located during 1880 to 1920 and refers to an age of protest. During this are all the feminist writings were protesting against the patriarchal society or the male writers included in the canon. Eg. Charlotte Perkinson’s yellow wallpaper.

Simone De Beauvoir, author of “The Second Sex” written in 1949 came up with the line: ‘One is not born a woman, but rather becomes a woman’. Her main idea was to liberalize the woman, but in the process of doing so she universalizes the concept of suppression. She also brought the concept of existentialism. It means there are no pre-oriented human natures, it is the freedom and responsibility of each person to create him or herself as a self governing individual. She takes this route for the posed questions in her book.

She uses this argument of existentialism even to answer Hegel’s concept of being which states, each conscious being enters into a struggle for recognition with the other and concludes that he or she is the ‘essential self’ and rest are the ‘non-essential others’ and how in today’s patriarchal society women are considered the non-essential others, men being the essential self. Why always men are the speakers and women are spoken about? Why women and their beauty is always the subject of poetry? Why women are only passive bodies and men are the active thinkers?

Now this raise questions and ideas like roles given to a woman are not natural, it is all because of social conditioning which is naturalized over time, then what is woman in reality, where is her being and identity?

Effeminate

This talks about how we are used to a patriarchal language. There is a he in she, his in history, man in woman, only Bachelor’s and master’s degree for both girls and boys etc. how can women fight with such a male oriented for their rights and freedom. Then should we resort to silence, but silence is often misinterpreted as acceptance. Then the only possible was out is to very consciously opt for a more neutral language which is neither male nor female oriented.

Literary approach taken by woman to fight for their rights made many woman authors write on the suppressions and problems faced by them. Earlier, even when woman were writing, their works were classified under diaries, letters or sentimental fictions and were not included in the canon. But the scenario changed a lot during the waves of feminisms. Mary Wollstone Craft in her book ‘Vindication of rights of women’ also posed rebellious questions like only why should women give birth to children etc. Betty Friedan wrote ‘The feminine mystique’ (1963). She stressed on “equal pay for equal work”. She starts an organization called NOW i.e. National Organization of Women. Elaine Showalter author of ‘A literature of their own’ talks about ‘gynocriticim’. She points out that women have only been seen as readers and not as writers. Her second argument is even if women are considered as writers they are never credited with the post of critics as it needs intelligence and it is assumed, women rely more on experience. It’s time that these assumptions are given way and women are accepted as writers and critics. It also includes writings of Simone De Beauvoir, Luce Irigarary, Judith Butler which have been discussed in other sections of this essay.

There is psychoanalytic view to feminism which says that according to Lacan this gender identification is formed in the symbolic stage i.e. from 6 to 18 months and it is done through the structure of language that we develop the sense of gender. According to Freud male is essential because he has (present) a phallic and in women the same is absent which makes them non-essential. This also throws light on the concept of binary oppositions like presence and absence (of the phallic); essential and non-essential where one is superior to the other. Freud also pointed out that “Anatomy is Destiny” i.e. our biological sex decides how we think and shapes our life. Feminist psychoanalysts discarding Freud’s view says that anatomy does not really affect our psychotic functions. Whereas some other feminists argue anatomy does influences our mind but we cannot categorize it as superior or inferior. The post-structuralists questioned the humanist theory of author being the original creator then how gender shapes our language? And they take Lacanian view into consideration for answering these arguments.

Acc to post-structuralists: Meaning is fascist in nature i.e. any kind of meaning is an idea constructed by the people in authority. E.g. caste structure. Secondly there is no meaning or meaning is arbitrary in nature. For every meaning there is a contradictory understanding or multiple meaning...... hence what is arguable is right. Example: Classmate which has a different meaning as we understand and something else when understood as class and mate separately. Hence as Derrida said ”Neither God, Nor Master”, to defy hierarchy and power structure. Post structuralists also take context sensitivity into account.

There is also a political approach to feminism. Anything that has set rules, theories laws are political in nature. In the same way even feminism has political interventions.

Difference between post structuralism (ps) and structuralism(S).

Ps is about nothing concrete and operates in philosophical way. It takes a sceptical route look at the depth unlike progress by structuralists.

Structuralists say that language constitutes reality and ps looks deeper into it thinking how it has affected us in education, politics etc. We have to see reality thru the lens of language which will be distorted, coz the lens can be convex or concave.

S is factual, scientific where as ps can be playful with the scope of subjectivity. Example eccentric can be spelled as ex-centric by ps. Character of joker in dark knight is another example of the playfulness of ps.

Ps will question any kind of truth .rule and norm acknowledging plural understandings or views of the above 3.

There is a difference between history which is chronological and talks about events (singular opinion) and genealogy which can takes any route, upsetting our sense of time and explains concept. Genealogy is a tool of ps.

Simone De Beauvoir also pointed out that how the institution of marriage is economically exploitive and brings in sexual inequality. Women working after marriage are not well appreciated even if they are capable and are vehemently made economically dependent on their husbands. Not only so social structures are so designed that women are also emotionally dependent. Men-men relationships as friends, colleagues are always encouraged where as women-men relationships are preferred over women-women relationships. In other words institution of marriage perpetuates female oppression where marriage assigns biased gender roles.

We need to realize that it is not only about happiness but liberty. We all are socially conditioned and thus function within these decided boundaries. It is important for women to transcend from the sense of body and beauty. We all are immanated but have to aim for transcendence.

Conflicts in Feminisms

Equality vs difference: Feminists advocating for equality would say men and women should be assumed equal in all aspects of life and thus be given equal rights, pay etc. but some feminist argue that there are obvious differences between men and women which should be accepted. But these differences do not make one superior than the other. Their respective differences should be respected. Using same yardsticks to compare men and women would be unfair. For eg if men have speed women have grace.

Cultural feminism vs post gender feminism: Cultural feminists say patriarchy is not natural but a socially and culturally constructed idea. Judith Butler (post structuralist gender theorist) author of ‘Gender Trouble’ deals with the idea that nothing is fixed, not even gender. Why we only consider sex organs to mark the difference between both the genders and not take eye, nose, and hands as the markers of similarity. It is only because we consider heterosexual normal we channel our ideas in this particular fashion.

Feminism national vs international: this argument is based on whether feminist problems should be seen at national or international level. But today both these ideas are not used. Generalization of problem over nation is not practical as women of different regions face different problems. The problem of physical abuse that a Dalit woman is facing is not the same that of an urban woman, who is under the pressure to make a perfect balance her work and household. Thus today feminism movements are very ethnic specific and at local and regional levels.

Essence vs fluidity: Feminists tend to argue that there in womanness in all women that should be respected. It is unique to her, a woman’s body tends to influence the way she thinks and functions like motherhood. We take the help of Derrida’s ‘differance’ which says we know things because of their difference with other things and this difference helps the object to make its essence.. Whereas few others say gender is socially constructed and thus the idea of gender changes with society. Luce Irigaray’s author of ‘This sex which is not one’ arguments are based on the sexual organs of both the genders. She says male sex organ is individualistic and so is he where as a female sex organ is bi in nature which makes her more concerned about others and thus she can bond well with other people. Even Judith Butler supports the point that gender is fluid and highlights the politics of gendering. Genders is just an performance where you exhibit your gender characteristics.

Marxist feminism: In our patriarchal society all the social concerns involves men and only value their ideas and decisions. They revolve around and are led by men. Thus feminists took this area of concern. Marxist feminist stands at the intersecting point of class and gender. They also deal with issues such as economic suppression, problems and inequality in workplace, why often men are given the higher posts in any organization and so on. Later ever Marxism incorporates female sensitivities. Bama’s Sangati is a feminist Dalit writing including three aspects class, caste and gender.

Note: Inputs from P.K. sir's classes on feminisms.