Gender Studies

Part - I
History of Women Rights in the USA
• 1700s American colonial law held that “by marriage, the husband and wife
are one person in the law. The very being and legal existence of the woman
is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated into that of
her husband under whose wing and protection she performs everything.”
• By 1777, women are denied the right to vote in all states in the United
States.
• 1800s In Missouri v. Celia (1855), a slave, a black woman, is declared to be
property with-out the right to defend herself against a master’s act of rape.
• In 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment is passed by Congress (ratified by the
states in 1868). It is the first time “citizens” and “voters” are defined as
male in the U.S. Constitution.
• 1900s In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is
ratified. It declares, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account
of sex.”
• In 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment is introduced in Congress in the
United States.
• In 1963, the Equal Pay Act is passed by the U.S. Congress, promising
equitable wages for the same work, regardless of the race, color, religion,
national origin, or sex of the worker.
• In 1982, the Equal Rights Amendment, which had languished in Congress
for fifty years, is defeated, falling three states short of the thirty-eight
needed for ratification. (National Women’s History Project n.d.; Jo
Freeman, American Journal of Sociology, in Goodwin and Jasper 2004)
Introduction – Basic Concepts
• Definition
• “A field of Inter-disciplinary studies , devoted to gender identity, and analysis
based on gender representation”
• Included women studies (women, feminism, gender and politics), Men
Studies, and Queer studies (relating to sexual orientation, gender identity,
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender)
• Gender and sexuality studied in literature, language, arts, geography, history,
political science, sociology, anthropology, cinema, media studies
• Analyses how race, ethnicity, class, nationality, location etc intersects with
gender and sexuality
WGSS (Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies)
• It seemed all knowledge had been produced “by Men and for Men”,
from physical and social sciences to the music and literature
• Women/Gender studies, being interdisciplinary field, challenges the “andro-
centric” production of knowledge
• Androcentricism – Privileging male centric ways of understanding the world
• WGSS scholars argue – assumption that knowledge is produced by rational,
impartial scientists often obscures the ways that scientists create knowledge
through gendered, raced, and sexualized culture categories
• WGSS scholars include biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians,
chemists, engineers, economists and researchers from any identifiable field.
• WGSS facilitates communication amoung
• WGSS tries to fill in the knowledge gap with gender perspective, and
tries to reclaim a buried history, asserting knowledge production of
less recognized groups
• The study started with the perspective of white, middle class women,
and with the passage of time it encompassed the women of all color,
race and creed and LGBTQ groups
• WGSS challenges the way things are: beauty standards in the media,
child-rearing by women, gender division of labour, reproductive
issues (health, rights and justice, making healthy decisions about
body, sexuality and reproduction)
Knowledge in WGSS
• WGSS scholars gather knowledge from lived experience (media, work,
family, law, customs etc), marginalised groups are given attention
• Social phenomena seen from lens of inter-sectionality (class, creed, sex,
cultural and historical contexts)
• Socially lived Theorizing – creating feminist theories and knowledge from
day to day experiences of group of people who have traditionally been
excluded from producing academic knowledge (women, gay, lesbian, trans-
genders, poor working class people, people with disabilities)
• People at the bottom of the social system have knowledge of the power holders of
that system, the converse is rarely true.
• Development from perspective of the factory owner is a story about capital
accumulation and profit, but from a labourer’s point of view, it is working 16 hours
and struggling to feed his family
Analysis in WGSS
• Common stream within all feminist theory is Reflexivity (understanding
how ones social position influences the ways they understand the world)
• How to completely understand ourselves and multiple identitites?
• Situate ones experience within multiple level of analysis i,e micor (individual), meso
(group), macro (structural) and global. Understand how our lives are shaped by
forces larger than ourselvses
• Micro level – that individuals live as day to day, interacting in streets,
classrooms or social gathering. Focused on individual
• Meso Level – How communities, groups and organizations structure social
life. E.g how churches shape gender expectations of women, how school
teaches students to become girls and boys, etc
• Macro Level – Government policies, programs and institutions, as well
as ideologies and categories of identities. It consists of national power
structures, cultural ideas about different groups according to race,
class gender and sexuality that are shared across national media
sources
• Global Level – Transnational production, trade and migration, global
capitalism and larger transnational forces that influence the individual
What are Power Structures?
• Social Structure – Set of long lasting social relationships, practices and
institutions that are difficult to see in our social lives. Just like
buildings or skeleton, they limit possibility, but are subject to
deterioration. Elements of social structures are social institutions:
• Government, work, education, family, law, media, medicine etc

• These institutions direct and structure possible social actions. Within confines
of them, there are social rules, norms and procedures that limit possible
actions. E.g the standard definition of family includes two heterosexual
human beings with kids, and gendered division of labour. The state, law and
other social institution give this definition the legitimacy
• Power Structures – Overlaying the social structures. Power means:
• Access to and through the social structures
• Processes of privileging, normalizing and valuing certain identities more than
others
• Some people have greater access to institutionalized power that the rest, at
the higher social structures
• Discrimination in Power Structures
• Sexism – discrimination on the basis of Gender
• Racism – Discrimination on the basis of race
• Classism – Discrimination on the basis of social class
• Should men/women be treated equally or identically?
• Equality in opportunities, rights, significance, benefits and responsibilities
• Difference in biology determine the appearances, whereas social, cultural and
environmental factors give rise to personality and temperament differences
• Are household activities counted as fruitful economic activities?
• House chores not accounted for in GDP
Need for Women Studies
• Difference in priorities of Men and Women
• Women ways of knowing and their interpretation of realities are neglected,
men’s knowledge is taken as norm and natural truth. Social realities from
women’s perspective are not presented in any discipline.
• Unpaid emotional and material work of women, labour of love and care at
home, unrecognized and invisible
• Women’s absence from position of power, and policy making, decision
making necessitates a platform for their ideologies and thoughts
• To de-construct and re-construct human knowledge that includes women
as self-determining human beings, and empower women to find ways of
ending exploitation
Features of Gender Studies
• What is Gender? What is Sex?
• Sex – natural, biological, cannot be changed,
male or female
• Gender – social construct, refers to traits and
characteristics one is expected to possess by
virtue of being a male of female, concept of
masculine and feminine
• Sex lies in the biology, gender lies in the
psychology
• Gender Studies – how norms and patterns
of behaviours associated with masculinity
and femininity come into being,
development of stereotypical models of
men and women, effects of stereotypes on
men/women,
Cont.
• How world is gendered?
• Clothing, professions, food, colours, rides, sports, entertainment, scents, fears
and phobias, in short the whole life style is gendered
• Power differences between genders force the less powerful to adopt the ways
of the more powerful
• Examples – the right education for girls/boys, the right profession for
boys/girls, the right time to go out for boys/girls, the right ways for
hanging out …
• Gender studies transcends multiple disciplines and study various behavioural
outputs
Gender Stereotypes
• Gender Stereotypes –
Simplistic generalizations
about attributes,
differences and roles of
individuals or groups.
• Positive or negative
stereotypes, based on
myths or realities, can be
new or old,
Sexist Language

• Language that excludes men or women while discussing a topic that

includes both, thus showing gender bias, consciously or unconsciously. Can
be a product of society
• Examples – All men are equal. Don’t cry, be a man. Cry like a girl. Men
don’t have feelings. Boys don’t cry. Best man for the job.
• Sexist words – Mankind, Chairman, manhood, manly, manpower, man the
gates, postman, fireman, congressman, layman, mother nature etc
• More examples?
• How to avoid?
Gender Roles and Relations
• Social roles to be fulfilled based on gender, may vary depending on the
culture, classes, age and different periods in history
• Gender specific roles conditioned by household structure, access to resources etc
• Gender relations – the way in which society describes rights,
responsibilities, and identities of men/women in relation to each other.
Men/women respond differently to different situations because of the
social roles ascribed to them. They therefore possess different sets of
knowledge
• Example – Family (Figure out different roles, responsibilities and relations)
• Roles/relations depend upon region, religion, culture, climate, historical
beliefs, ideologies and experiences
 Gender
Discrimination/Empower
ment/Mainstreaming
• Discrimination faced because of one’s Gender
• Various kinds of biases based on physical, social, cultural, economic and
psychological factors
• Discrimination against women? Examples? (family, society, social institutions,
property, law, expectations etc)
• Discrimination against men? Examples?
• How to end discrimination? Empowerment
• Transformation of structures that foster discrimination, learning to deal with forces
of oppression. Individual and collective empowerment
• Greater participation in decision making, greater control over material assets, factors
of production, intellectual resources, information. Control over ideology and ability
to generate, propagate, sustain specific beliefs, values and behaviours
• Gender Mainstreaming
• Assessing the effects of different public policies (legislations, programmes)
and actions on males and females
• The concerns of women and men to become the integral dimension of any
planned activity, its implementation, monitoring and evaluation, in all spheres
so that men and women can benefit equally
Gender and Women Studies
Origin of Women Study
• Relatively Short History - Offshoot of 2nd Wave of Feminism
• 2nd wave drew attention in which academic disciplines and sets of
knowledge excluded experiences, interests and identities of Women,
and social sciences largely ignored women
• Gender Blind Sociology, where women featured only as wives or mothers
• Resultantly, number of disciplines started paying attention towards gender;
attention gravitated towards issues central to women, such as paid work,
household violence, motherhood and health issues
• In late 1960s till mid 1970s in US and UK, women studies as specialized area
of academic interest began to develop. The subject developed when more
scholars across the globe refined the contours of the course
• Interdisciplinary in perspective, WS initially resided mainly within the
disciplines of English, history and sociology, and dependent upon the
energies of isolated individuals working within a male-oriented
curriculum
• Women studies is pulled in two directions academically
• As a critique that transforms existing disciplines
• As a specialist area of academic concern
Women Studies
• Definition of Women Study
• As per US National Women Studies Association “An education strategy for change”
• It is a field in which teacher and student both follow the process of learning by
teaching and continued research. This is substantiated by Rustenburg (1980) that
during learning experience in women studies “the personal becomes intellectual and
intellectual becomes personal.
• In women study women is the core of the field where many fields like literature,
politics and health etc are discussed in women’s perspective
• It breakdowns the concept of hierarchy and bring collective interaction among
teachers & students
• Apart from women as per Klein (1980) there are many dimension that are discussed
with reference to women like defining women personality, implication of feminine
and masculine, female culture, theories of gender feminism and its ideas on race,
ethnicity, science & technology
• Women Study in Pakistan
• Creation of women’s Division in Pakistan in 1989 & subsequent funding to 5 universities
encouraging women study
Origin of Gender Studies
• Off shoot of 3rd Wave Feminism
• After the pro-feminist politics of men, body of knowledge and books
about men and masculinity emerged and ‘men’s study’ became
specialized area of academic focus.
• Later, broader theoretical developments undermined their rationale.
• In post-modernist analysis, men and women are regarded as constructions or
representations, achieved through discourse, performance and repetition
rather than being real entities
• Inequalities and diversities, not just between genders, but within genders
based on class, sexuality, ethnicity, age were attended to.
• Study of relationships within, as well as between genders emerged as Gender
Studies
• Definition of Gender study
• Gender study is the study of Gender, its construction, Queer Theory etc
• Gender study in Pakistan
• The origin of Gender Study in Pakistan could be trace in the 1989 when the center for
the Excellence of Gender Studies established wherein five universities were given task to
introduce Women and gender study.
• Difference
• As to origin
• Women's Studies was an offshoot of second wave feminism
• Gender Studies reflects a shift to the third wave and the recognition that
disempowerment and gender were more fluid concepts than previously thought
• Women Study examines Psychology of women, women's history, literature,
• Gender Study with both women and with men. So, if what you're interested in dealing
with is the broad issue of how gender affects people, and want to examine both
women's and men's experiences
• Relevance with multidiscipline
• Women's Studies address not only the need for a fuller understanding of women in society but also for new
criteria and methods of assessing the status of women.
• Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary field that concentrates on the new scholarship in women's and men's
studies. The impact of gender on all levels of experience may be addressed from every liberal arts discipline.
The struggle for gender equality in politics, education, the family, the labour force, in literature and the media
are key topics; and, in many courses, this involves cross-cultural studies of gender relations.
• As to Priority
• Gender Studies will discuss men just as equally as women, whereas Women's Studies will favor
women.
• As to Affect
• Gender Study is more preferred over Women Studies
• It is increasingly more usual to describe the field of study to which gender and
gender relations are central as “gender studies” rather than “women’s studies”,
which reflects a historical, chronological shift as well as intellectual connections
and the growth of empirical research in the field.
• GS shows a shift from the liberal, Marxist, socialist and radical strands of the
women’s movement to the wider inclusion of black feminism, ethnicization,
racialization, and issues of bodies and corporeality, disability, sexuality, class
defined and geographically located inequalities.
• The shift towards gender studies also reflects a widening intellectual base,
including psychosocial as well as psychoanalytical theories, poststructuralist,
postcolonial studies, critical studies of masculinity, queer studies and LGBTQ
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer) critical race, critiques of whiteness, ecological
feminism and materialist feminism and technoscience studies. It is a broad
church, but it is also a field that is hotly contested.
Comparison
• For some women studies proponents
• The rise of GS could make women invisible in the male/female relations, and
women’s continued social inequality could become obliterated resulting in de-
politicization of a controversial subject
• Women studies has lost its sense of direction, and GS is a dilute version of it
• There is certain bit of truth in it, as GS fits more easily within the institution, and it
better incorporates men and masculinity
• Strengths of GS
• Inter-sectional and Inter-disciplinary nature
• Penetration in main stream disciplines
• Feminism remains a central perspective, reminding that the study emerged from the
marginalized status of women
• Politics and activism of 1960s have faded and more mature intelligentsia is coming
forward
Multi-Disciplinary Nature of GS
What do we mean by Inter-disciplinarity?
• Do we look women from many difference disciplinary perspectives?

• Is it because women don’t fit neatly into any particular disciplinary

category?

• Is it because we integrate disciplinary perspectives, methods or

assumptions?

• Does everyone in the WS feels that it is inter-disciplinary?

Inter-disciplinarity Definition

• “Interdisciplinary activity is an enquiry which critically draws upon

two or more disciplines and which leads to a disciplinary insight.
(Newell and Green,24)
• “Interdisciplinary work draws on and integrates materials from
several disciplines through careful use of analysis and assumptions.
(Virginia Sipiro, Women in American Society)
• “Such work is problem focused and is intended to produce something
superior to that which a single discipline could achieve, although each
discipline maintains its unique identity.”
• “a critical framework, that works between, around, through, over and
under other disciplines in order to view all knowledge”
Motivation for Interdisciplinarity
• Interdisciplinarity exists because pre-existing structures failed to answers
questions about women
• WS perceived disciplines as structure inherently oppressive to women.
These sources of knowledge mask themselves as pure and objective,
whereas they propagate males’ perspective as falsely universal. Diana
Grossman Kahn identifies six basic questions motivating women's
studies: Problem-Centered
• 1. What the hell is going on here anyway?
• 2. Why are women second class citizens? approach, rather than
• 3. What is the nature of women's oppression? Discipline-centered
• 4. How did it come about? approach would
• 5. What mechanisms perpetuate it? answer these
• 6. Based upon these answers, how can it be changed?
questions.
• Cathy Lubelska argues that:
• Student should start with interdisciplinary perspective because lived experience of
women are the subject matter of WS, focusing on inter-relationship between the
emotional and the intellectual in women’s lives
• Issue is not to teach about disciplines, but to be sceptical about disciplines
“Lived realities do not fall into neat disciplinary categories, nor do the ideas
and sources through which we attempt to make sense of them. The
sheer breadth and variety of women's experiences, and the myriad of
ways and situations in which they are felt, range across and go beyond
the concerns of other disciplines.”
Principle of Interaction and Interdisciplinarity
• “Academic disciplines have a capacity to illuminate one another,
and women's studies provides the opportunity to engage in that
process.” (Diane Kahn)
• How answers to fundamental questions can be found by bringing
together that which has traditionally been kept separate, e.g in the
interaction of literature and history, psychology and linguistics,
political science and biology,
Voices for Rejection of the term
“interdisciplinary”
• Sandra Coyner, in her article “Women Studies as an Academic
Discipline: Why and How we do it?”, argues that:
• Interdisciplibarity worked in problem-focused world, outside the traditional
disciplines, it no longer performs well because:
• Forces outside the interdisciplinarity would decide when the problem was over, thus
jeopardizing autonomy
• WS is more than an collaboration, it is a completely new way of looking at humanity; it
doesn’t only apply theory and methods of other disciplines but creates its own theories
and methods
• Interdisciplinarity redirects our focus back to the disciplines, to the goal of transforming
the disciplines and away from developing WS as viable endeavour in itself
Multi-Disciplinary Nature of Gender Studies
• GS – field of interdisciplinary study, devoted to gender identity and
representation as central categories of analysis
• Includes women studies, men studies, and LGBT studies
• Gender and sexuality studied in the field of literature, language, geography, history,
politics, sociology, anthropology, cinema, media, law, medicine. Also analyses race,
ethnicity, location, nationality and disability
• Gender pertinent to many disciplines – in sociology, anthropology and
psychology gender is studies as practice, in cultural studies representation
of gender is important, in politics gender can be viewed as foundational
discourse that political actors employ in order to position themselves on
various issues
• GS – explore the ways that fam/mas affect thought process of individual
Autonomy vs. Integration Debate
Introduction
• Fundamental question – whether the WS/GS should develop as an
autonomous and separate discipline, or whether it should integrate with
the larger body of knowledge and disciplines? Some writers condemn
WS/GS as ghettos, doomed to fail. Others point out towards the integration
strategies that tend to undermine WS/GS and some feminist goals.
• Autonomy has the appeal of separatism, having freedom from the constraints
imposed by traditional disciplines and departments. Focusing all energies into
teaching about women and their issues
• Integration offers going beyond theorizing about change, to an actual attempt to
change something. Focusing on personalities and people having power to change
something.
• Integration is a moderate strategy, seeking a thorough transformation of academe
than more limited goal of single room course focusing women only
• The effort of Women's Studies to balance the curriculum began as a
relatively autonomous endeavor on university campuses in 1969,
largely in response to the "democratization of higher education," the
"entrance of women of all classes and races into the public labor
force," the "emergence of and earlier challenge to the academy and
structures of knowledge by the Black movement,“ the emergence of
1960's feminism, which brought women's issues to public as well as
academic consciousness.
• There were two conscious goals – to develop a body of scholarship
and a new curriculum about women and the issue of gender, secondly
to use this knowledge to transform the mainstream curriculum into a
co-educational one. Women studies – a two way process
History of Curriculum Integration
• First Efforts began in 1970s, and particularly since Wingspread Conference
held in October 1981 that resulted in four-fold series of recommendations:
• 1. Institutions examine their curriculum in the light of new scholarship on women
and build faculties able to teach a curriculum informed by research on women
• 2. Administrators support faculty, programs, departments, librarians, and governing
bodies at every possible level to hasten incorporation of the new scholarship into the
liberal arts curriculum.
• 3. To disciplinary groups, the conference recommended that disciplinary leaders and
feminist scholars undertake an analysis of the need for change in the methodologies
of the disciplines in the light of the new scholarship on women.
• 4. the Washington-based education associations were urged to act as resources to
their members in the effort to transform curricula and to underscore with their
constituencies the importance of the new scholarship for liberal education.
• Other conferences and workshops in 80s brought together directors
from various public and private colleges to exchange information and
strategies on integration women’s studies into main curriculum,
assess theories and practice etc.
• In early 80s, several grants were awarded by such funding sources as
Ford Foundation, Lilly Foundation etc to Gender Balance the
curriculum through course revision
• 1983, National Women Association meeting, reps of 12 universities
felt the need to form an task force on Curriculum Integration
• All such programs being closely watched; whether they will threaten
the autonomy of the women studies program
Views of Pro-Autonomy Scholars
• Concern – what effects the integration will have on women studies
• Development of body of scholarship is incomplete, and current focus on integration is
premature “...it is too early. It would take a team of us, fully funded, two years just to get the
table of contents organized -- just to imagine how we would create it. 'But don't worry, we
were 6,000 years carefully building a patriarchal structure of knowledge, and we've had only
12 years to try to correct it, and 12 years is nothing.”
• "Women's Studies is not ready for integration into 'mainstream' departments, because it is
still too focused on white, middle-class, heterosexual, young, able women; and it can never be
truly autonomous as long as it is in the academy.” (Sandra Coyner)
• Distinguish between Integration and Transformation, Transformation is a broader
and worthier goal, in that it argues for a restructuring of the patriarchal academic
hierarchies and acknowledges Women's Studies' claim to a unique focus in the
academy -- "on the gender system as a central part of human social and cultural
organization, and our parallel work to reconstruct knowledge itself from a
woman's viewpoint.“ (Coyner and Bowles)
• Peggy McIntosh adds, that in terms of curriculum integration, the
greatest problem may be resistance by a threatened, traditional
faculty, whose self defense mechanisms come into play when their
hard won disciplinary knowledge is challenged.
• Elaine Showalter, who, in an article entitled "Critical Cross Dressing:
Male Feminists and the Woman of the Year," asks if men's entry into
feminist studies through curricular integration finally legitimates
feminism as an acceptable form of academic discourse because it
makes it "accessible and subject to correction to authoritative men."
• Showalter warns that "merely having men study women as new objects of
academic discourse does not necessarily represent a transformation in men's
thinking."
View of Pro-Integration Scholars They see 'integrationist'
work as basically
uncritical, accepting of
the existing structures
• McIntosh and Munich view women scholarship as a and definitions of
continuum or spectrum on which many forms of work knowledge, and therefore
are done, all of them to varying degrees critical of to the 'autonomous' type
established modes and methods of knowing." They of Women's Studies. They
argue that because Women's Studies programs have see 'integrationist'
almost always drawn on faculty from many disciplines, teachers and scholars as
diverting resources,
rather than departments, and have depended on energy, and political
departments for pay, hiring, promotion, and tenure, strength from Women's
they have never, in fact, been "autonomous.“ Studies.
• The US against THEM thinking should go away and we need
both Women Studies and Curriculum Integration
• The use of word “mainstreaming”
How to go about Curriculum Integration
• Check commitment of college to pluralism and multi-cultural
perspective, Hiring of feminist faculty and administrators,
committed not only to affirmative action, but widespread goal
of gender balancing curriculum, Institutionalized consciousness
raising: planning process to re-examine institutional goals and
objectives
• Feminist Phase Theory of Peggy McIntosh

Women less Women in Women as Women as History redefined

History History Problem History to include us all
• Phase 1- what we have already been taught.
• Phases 4 and 5, highly placed on McIntosh's pyramid, actually correspond
to what we have been taught is the bottom, in terms of priorities for
developing the hierarchical systems of nations, institutions, governments,
universities, churches, and corporations, where winners are few and high
up on the pyramid, and losers are low down. We have been excluded from
the very exclusive, very small, so-called "mainstream."
• Phase 3 curriculum work iniolves getting angry at our exclusion from the
curriculum, at the fact that "instead of being seen as part of the norm, we
have been seen, if at all, as a 'problem' for the scholar, the society, or the
world of the powerful.“
• Curriculum transformation happens at phase-5, which is not yet complete
• Petty Lather, and Marry Kay’s theory:
• “Phase 1, Women Not Included; Phase 2, Women Worthies Added; Phase 3,
Bifocal Treatment of Women and Men; Phase 4, Women's Cultures and
Perspectives Presented on Their Own Terms; and Phase 5, A Multifocal Vision
of us all."
Summary

• Pro autonomy – women studies still focussed on white, middle class,

heterosexual, young, able women, can it cannot be truly autonomous as
long as it is in academy. Integration will divert resources and energy and
political strength from women studies. Save the appeal of separatism,
freedom from traditional disciplinary and departmental constraints
• Pro – Integration – mainstream the women study, with more sensitise
towards multi-cultural and plural disciplines, more gender balancing, hiring
feminist scholars, faculty development. Going beyond the theory of change
and actually changing something. Make impact on people outside the
women study
Part-II
1. Historicizing Constructionism
2. Queer Theory, Is Sex Socially determined too
3. Masculinity, Femininity
4. Nature vs. Culture
Social Constructionism
• Definition
• Theory of knowledge that argues that concepts that are typically thought to be immutable and
biological – such as gender, race, class and sexuality – are products of human definition and
interpretation, shaped by cultural and historical contexts
• theory of knowledge that examines the development of constructed understanding of the world, on
the assumption that understanding and meaning don’t develop individually but socially
• It highlights the ways in which cultural categories like men, women, black, white are
created, changed and reproduced through historical processes within institutions and
culture.
• Social constructionist perspective is concerned with the “meaning” created through
defining and categorizing people, experience and reality in cultural contexts
• Social constructionist approaches to understanding the world challenge the essentialist or
biological determinist understandings that typically underpin the “common sense” ways in
which we think about race, gender, and sexuality.
• Human beings rationalize their experience by creating a model of social
world. Many things are taken as reality that are partially or wholly socially
constructed, they exist because people believe that they exist. Language is
most essential system through which humans construct reality. How
individuals and groups participate in construction of their perceived social
reality. Since this reality is not given by nature, it must be maintained and
affirmed in order to persist.
• Example“This thing could not have existed had we not built it; and we need
not have built it at all, at least not in its present form. Had we been a
different kind of society, had we had different needs, values, or interests,
we might well have built a different kind of thing, or built this one
differently. The inevitable contrast is with a naturally existing object,
something that exists independently of us and which we did not have a
hand in shaping.”
• SC focuses on how meaning is created, it is a theory of knowledge
• Knowledge is a social product, an account of reality produced by
community of knowers, knowledge is not only a social product, but a
product of a specifically situated society; various accounts of reality
depend on place and time – in order to study knowledge as a social
product, one has to historicize and contextualize the given description of
reality.
• Power and reality make the foundations of SC.
• language has a huge influence on how we perceive reality and, as a result,
is the creator of this reality.
• SC is a dynamic process, knowledge and meaning are constructed,
modified, shifted in interaction with others
• The individual and society are indissoluble.
• Examples of social construction? (news, media, political events, celebrity
making, Martial race? Class, gender,
• Exp. What does it mean to be heterosexual in contemporary US
Society? Has its meaning changed?
• Heterosexual was coined by Dr. James Kiernan in 1892, he thought of them as not defined
by their attraction to opposite sex, but their inclination to both sexes. Furthermore,
heterosexual was someone who betrayed inclination to abnormal methods of
gratification, they engaged in sex for pleasure and not for reproduction. This definition
lasted upto 1920s and then went through reformation.
• First, social construction occurs within institutions. Here, a medical doctor, created a new
category to describe a particular type of sexuality, based on available medical knowledge;
a medical term defining a deviate sexuality.
• Second, the meaning of a term change over time. Typically, in the United States in
contemporary usage, “heterosexuality” is thought to mean “normal” or “good”—itis
usually the invisible term defined by what is thought to be its opposite, homosexuality.
• Third, cultural and historical contexts shape our definition and understanding of concepts.
In this case, the norm of reproductive sexuality—having sex not for pleasure, but to have
children—defines what types of sexuality are regarded as “normal” or “deviant.”
• Fourth, how categorization shapes human experience, behavior and interpretation of
reality. Earlier, being heterosexual was not desirable. The very definition of “hetero-
sexual” as deviant, because it violated reproductive sexuality, defined “proper” sexual
behavior as that which was reproductive and not pleasure-centered.
• Constructionist claim can be directed towards things or facts,
amounting to metaphysical claim that something is real, but for our
own creation. Constructionism can be directed at the beliefs, to the
epistemic claim that the correct explanation for why we have some
particular belief has to do with the role that that belief plays in our
social lives, and not exclusively with the evidence adduced in its favor.
• Simone De Beauvoir, and other feminist scholars since, have
illuminated the extent to which gender roles are not inevitable but
are rather the product of social forces.
• Money, citizenship, nationalities are socially constructed
Essentialism
• The characteristics of persons or groups are largely similar in all human
cultures and historical periods, since they are significantly influenced by
biological factors. A key assumption of essentialism is that “a given truth is
a necessary natural part of the individual and object in question”. In other
words, an essentialist understanding of sexuality would argue that not only
do all people have a sexual orientation, but that sexual orientation does
not vary across time and place.
• Biological determinism can be defined as a general theory holding that a
group’s biological or genetic makeup shapes its social, political, and
economic destiny. For example, “sex” is typically thought to be a biological
“fact” divided into two categories, male and female. These categories are
often thought to be dictated by chromosomes, hormones, and sex
characteristics. However, “sex” has been defined in many different ways,
depending on the context within which it is defined.
Social Construction of Sex
• Sex has been defined differently over various eras. when reproductive
function was considered one of a woman’s essential characteristics,
the medical community decided that the presence or absence of
ovaries was the ultimate criterion of sex. In the 20th century, courts
have defined sex differently based on the purpose for the sex
designation being sought. For instance, over one-half of states in the
United States allow postoperative transsexualsto change the sex on
their driver’s licenses. These states assume that sex is centrally
defined by genitalia, not by chromosomes or gonads. However, in the
case of transsexuals seeking marriage licenses, most courts have
ignored surgical or hormonal alterations and defined sex primarily bya
combination of gonads, chromosomes, and genitals
• Different definition of sex points out:
• how even the things commonly thought to be “natural” or “essential” in the
world are socially constructed. Understandings of “nature” change through
history and across place according to systems of human knowledge.
• the social construction of difference occurs within relations of power and
privilege.
• Example: social construction of race
Problematizing Category of Sex
Problematizing the Category of Sex
• Many people, including many feminists, have ordinarily taken sex
ascriptions to be solely a matter of biology with no social or cultural
dimension. It is commonplace to think that there are only two sexes
and that biological sex classifications are utterly unproblematic. By
contrast, some feminists have argued that sex classifications are not
unproblematic and that they are not solely a matter of biology.
• In order to make sense of this, it is helpful to distinguish object- and
idea-construction (see Haslanger 2003b for more): social forces can
be said to construct certain kinds of objects (e.g. sexed bodies or
gendered individuals) and certain kinds of ideas (e.g. sex or gender
concepts).
• Object Construction of Sexed Bodies:
• Secondary sex characteristics, or the physiological and biological features
commonly associated with males and females, are affected by social
practices. In some societies, females’ lower social status has meant that they
have been fed less and so, the lack of nutrition has had the effect of making
them smaller in size (Jaggar 1983, 37). Uniformity in muscular shape, size
and strength within sex categories is not caused entirely by biological
factors, but depends heavily on exercise opportunities: if males and females
were allowed the same exercise opportunities and equal encouragement to
exercise, it is thought that bodily dimorphism would diminish
• Physiological features thought to be sex-specific traits not affected by social
and cultural factors are, after all, to some extent products of social
conditioning. Social conditioning, then, shapes our biology.
• Idea Construction of Sex Concepts:
• Our concept of sex is said to be a product of social forces in the sense that
what counts as sex is shaped by social meanings. Standardly, those with XX-
chromosomes, ovaries that produce large egg cells, female genitalia, a
relatively high proportion of ‘female’ hormones, and other secondary sex
characteristics (relatively small body size, less body hair) count as biologically
female. Those with XY-chromosomes, testes that produce small sperm cells,
male genitalia, a relatively high proportion of ‘male’ hormones and other
secondary sex traits (relatively large body size, significant amounts of body
hair) count as male.
• This understanding is fairly recent. The prevalent scientific view from
Ancient Greeks until the late 18th century, did not consider female and male
sexes to be distinct categories with specific traits; instead, a ‘one-sex model’
held that males and females were members of the same sex category.
Females’ genitals were thought to be the same as males’ but simply directed
inside the body; ovaries and testes (for instance) were referred to by the
same term and whether the term referred to the former or the latter was
made clear by the context (Laqueur 1990, 4). It was not until the late 1700s
that scientists began to think of female and male anatomies as radically
different moving away from the ‘one-sex model’ of a single sex spectrum to
the (nowadays prevalent) ‘two-sex model’ of sexual dimorphism.
• Fausto-Sterling has recently argued that this ‘two-sex model’ isn’t
straightforward either (1993b; 2000a; 2000b). She estimates that 1.7% of
population fail to neatly fall within the usual sex classifications
possessing various combinations of different sex characteristics (Fausto-
Sterling 2000a, 20). In her earlier work, she claimed that intersexed
individuals make up (at least) three further sex classes: ‘herms’ who
possess one testis and one ovary; ‘merms’ who possess testes, some
aspects of female genitalia but no ovaries; and ‘ferms’ who have ovaries,
some aspects of male genitalia but no testes (Fausto-Sterling 1993b, 21).
(In her [2000a], Fausto-Sterling notes that these labels were put forward
tongue–in–cheek.) Recognition of intersexes suggests that feminists (and
society at large) are wrong to think that humans are either female or male.
• Example of Maria Patin̉o – a female athlete
• Insofar as our cultural conceptions affect our understandings of sex,
feminists must be much more careful about sex classifications and rethink
what sex amounts to (Stone 2007, chapter 1). More specifically, intersexed
people illustrate that sex traits associated with females and males need
not always go together and that individuals can have some mixture of
these traits. This suggest to Stone that sex is a cluster concept: it is
sufficient to satisfy enough of the sex features that tend to cluster
together in order to count as being of a particular sex. But, one need not
satisfy all of those features or some arbitrarily chosen supposedly
necessary sex feature, like chromosomes (Stone 2007, 44). This makes sex
a matter of degree and sex classifications should take place on a
spectrum: one can be more or less female/male but there is no sharp
distinction between the two. Further, intersexes (along with trans people)
are located at the centre of the sex spectrum and in many cases their sex
will be indeterminate (Stone 2007).
Transgender vs Intersex
• transgender people go through a process of changing their social
genders, while intersex people have biological characteristics that do
not comply with the dominant sex/gender system. One term refers to
social gender (transgender) and one term refers to biological sex
(intersex).
• While transgender people challenge our binary (man/woman) ideas
of gender, intersex people challenge our binary (male/female) ideas
of biological sex.
• Gender theorists, such as Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin, have even
gone onto challenge the very notion that there is an underlying ‘sex’
to a person, arguing that sex, too, is socially constructed.
Queer Theory
Queer Theory - LGBT
 A field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the
fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies.
 Explores and challenges the way in which heterosexuality is
constructed as normal.
 And the way in which the media has limited the representations of
homosexual men and women.
 Challenges the traditionally held assumptions that there is a binary
divide between being homo sexual and heterosexual
 Suggests sexual identity is more fluid.
• The process of ascribing new, positive meaning to the word “ queer,“ though, has
to be seen within the context of the ever-changing terminology that same-sex
sexual communities use to describe themselves. In general terms, we have
moved from the “homosexuals“ of the first half of the twentieth century to a
small number of “homophiles“ in the 1950s: from “gay liberation“ in the early
seventies to the lesbian and gay movements of the mid-eighties and early
nineties to contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender or “queer“
activism. These changes reflect the dynamic nature of both sexuality and the
political organizing that has developed around it. (Introduction to Queer Studies.
Ed. Brett Beemyn and Mickey Eliason 5)
• Queer theory emerges from gay/lesbian studies' attention to the social
construction of categories of normative and deviant sexual behavior. But while
gay/lesbian studies, as the name implies, focused largely on questions of
homosexuality, queer theory expands its realm of investigation. Queer theory
looks at, and studies, and has a political critique of, anything that falls into
normative and deviant categories, particularly sexual activities and identities.
• Judith Butler
• Suggests gender is not the result of nature, but is socially constructed.
• Male and female behaviour roles are not the result of biology but are constructed and reinforced
by society through media and culture. Sees gender as a PERFORMANCE.
• She argues that there are a number of exaggerated representations of masculinity and femininity
which cause “gender trouble.”
• (Any behaviour or representation that disrupts culturally accepted notions of gender.)
• Broadly speaking, queer describes those gestures or analytical models
which dramatise incoherences in the allegedly stable relations between
chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire. Resisting that model of
stability—which claims heterosexuality as its origin, when it is more
properly its effects—queer focuses on mismatches between sex, gender
and desire. Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction
• History
• 1950s – police actively enforced laws that prohibited sexual activities
between men.
• Sexually ‘abnormal’ and ‘deviant’.
• 1967 – homosexuality is decriminalised in UK (2009 for India)
• In parts of Africa and Asia today it is still punishable by death
• 1977 – World Health Organisation refers to homosexuality as a mental
illness (removed in 1990)
• Civil partnerships legal in UK from 2004.
Myths
Essentialism
Social Constructivism
Key Terms
Part-III _ Feminism

• Waves of Feminism • Psychoanalytical Feminism

• Liberal Feminism • Men’s Feminism
• Radical Feminism • Postmodern Feminism
• Marxist/Socialist Feminism
Feminism
• “A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women
and men.”
― Gloria Steinem
• There is no easy and single answer on what feminism is. Moreover, many modern
feminists believe that no single theory can account for all aspects of the
domination and oppression of women and some deny the usefulness of general
theories,
• As provided by Deborah Rhode: “At the substantive level, it implies a
commitment to equality between the sexes. At the methodological level, it
implies a commitment to gender as a focus of concern and to analytic approaches
that reflect women’s concrete experiences. Underlying these commitments are
certain core values of broader scope
• Feminism is a multi-disciplinary approach to sex and gender equality understood
through social theories and political activism. Historically, feminism has evolved
from the critical examination of inequality between the sexes to a more nuanced
focus on the social and per formative constructions of gender and sexuality.
 Basic Premise of Feminism : Women are
disadvantaged because of their sex, and this
disadvantage must be overthrown

• A political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing equal

rights and legal protection for women
• Involves political and sociological theories and philosophies concerned
with issues of gender difference, as well as a movement that advocates
gender equality for women and campaigns for women's rights and interests
• Feminism has altered predominant perspectives in a wide range of areas
within Western society, ranging from culture to law.
• Women's legal rights (rights of contract, property rights, voting rights); for women's
right to bodily integrity and autonomy, for abortion rights, and for reproductive
rights (including access to contraception and quality prenatal care); for protection of
women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape;for workplace
rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; against misogyny; and against other
forms of gender-specific discrimination against women.
Feminist Movements - History
• Feminists and scholars have divided the movement's history into three "waves".
The first wave refers mainly to women's suffrage movements of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries (mainly concerned with women's right to vote). The
second wave refers to the ideas and actions associated with the women's
liberation movement beginning in the 1960s (which campaigned for legal and
social rights for women). The third wave refers to a continuation of, and a
reaction to the perceived failures of, second-wave feminism, beginning in the
1990s.
• Feminist history is part of a larger historical project that draws on the experiences
of traditionally ignored and disempowered groups (i.e. factory workers,
immigrants, people of color, lesbians, etc.) to re-think and challenge the histories
that have been traditionally written from the experiences and points of view of
the powerful (colonizers, representatives of the state, the wealthy and powerful)
—the histories we typically learn in high school textbooks.
First Wave Feminist Movement
First Wave Feminism
• History
• The women were not given right to vote in the USA. Coverture Laws still prevailed
• Under coverture laws, the husband and wife were one person (the entirety) and that one
person was the husband in the eyes of the common law. Therefore, as to her personal and
property rights, the wife's legal existence was suspended during the marriage and merged
into that of the husband.
• Women were barred from
• owning property, executing wills or signing legal documents, serving on juries (even if
the defendent was a woman), voting in elections (or even local meetings), refusing to have
sex with their husbands, attending university (or depending on race, class, and region,
attending school at all), having legal custody of their children (both wives and children were
legally owned by husbands), divorcing their husbands
• FWM Began in the mid 19th century and lasted until the passage of 19th
Amendment in USA in 1920, which gave women the right to vote
• Major activists included white, middle class feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B Antony etc
Objectives of First Wave Feminism
• Rights Of Contract,
• Property Rights
• Voting Rights
• Women's Abortion Rights, And For Reproductive Rights
• Protection Of Women And Girls From Domestic Violence, Sexual
Harassment And Rape
• Workplace Rights, Including Maternity Leave And Equal Pay; Against
Misogyny; And Against Other Forms Of Gender-specific
Discrimination Against Women.
• Elimination Of Color Discrimination
Evolution of First Wave
• As per Simone de Beauvoir, Christine de Pizan was the first women, who wrote (Epistle to the God
of Love) in defense of her sex in the 15th century.
• First feminism aroused in the context of Industrial society and liberal politics. It was the
movements of both early socialists and later liberal feminist. It not only influenced the west but
also to the rest
• Despite many objectives, however, by the end of the nineteenth century, activism focused
primarily on gaining political power, particularly the right of women's suffrage.
• Yet, Feminists such as Voltairine de Cleyre and Margaret Sanger were still active in campaigning
for women's sexual, reproductive, and economic rights at this time. In 1854, Florence Nightingale
established female nurses as adjuncts to the military.
• One of the earliest manifestations of liberal first-wave feminism in Europe is Mary
Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), was written in the wake of the
French Revolution and is still read as a seminal text. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929)
and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949), both authors were also laying the groundwork
for radical second-wave feminism. Woolf introduced the notion of female bisexuality and a
unique woman’s voice and writing,
• Seneca Falls Convention 1848
• Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848, during which more than 300 men and
women assembled for the nation’s first women’s rights convention. The Seneca Falls
Declaration was outlined by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), claiming the
natural equity of women and outlining the political strategy of equal access and
opportunity. This declaration gave rise to the suffrage movement
• First-waver Elizabeth Cady Stanton called together a bunch of women in bloomers at
the Seneca Falls Conference and issued a Declaration of Sentiments, expressing many
of the ways in which women's rights were being limited. The clearest political
success of the First Wave was of course the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
• “The world has never seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in
the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their
source (Stanton)
• Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great
precept of nature, and of no validity; for this is "superior in obligation to any other.
• Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which
place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority.
• Resolved, That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she
should be recognized as such.
• Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they -live, that they may no
longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting
that they have all the rights they want.
• Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is
pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak, and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.
• Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state,
should also be required of man, and the same tranegressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.
• Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public
audience, comes with a very ill grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert,
or in the feats of the circus.
• Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application
of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has
assigned her.2
• Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.3
• Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and
responsibilities.
• Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility
for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause, by every
righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate
with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be
used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted principles
of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be
regarded as self-evident falsehood, and at war with the interests of mankind.
 “We shall show that the ballot will secure for
woman equal place and equal wages in the world
of work; that it will open to her the schools,
Analysis colleges, professions, and all the opportunities
and advantages of life; thatin her hand it will be a
moral power to stay the tide of crime and misery
• Quite radical demands at the time. on every side”

• Demands confronted the ideology of the cult of true womanhood,

summarized in four key tenets – piety, purity, submission and domesticity –
which held that white women were rightfully and naturally located in the
private sphere of the household and not fit for public, political
participation or labor in the waged economy.
• the cult of true womanhood was an ideology of white womanhood that
systematically denied black and working-class women access to the category of
“women,” because working-class and black women, by necessity, had to labor
outside of the home.
• Activists like Stanton made NWSA, to break from other suffrage
movements that supported 15th amendment (giving voting rights to black
men). They saw voting rights as end to women’s rights movement
• As opposed to white, middle class women, the working women and
women of color knew that mere voting rights were not sufficient to over
turn class and race inequalities
• Angela Davis (1981) writes, working-class women “…were seldom moved by the
suffragists’ promise that the vote would permit them to become equal to their
men—their exploited, suffering men”
• Overlap between First wave and Abolitionist Movement (having self
ownership and control over body)
• For slaves, abolition meant freedom from unpaid toil. For black slaves, it meant
freedom from sexual assault of their masters
• White women compared marriage to slavery, FWM meant being recognized as a
person, and saying no to sexual advances of husbands
• “The wife owes service and labor to her husband as much and as absolutely as the slave
does to his master” (Brown, qtd. in Cott 2000: 64).
• Black activists moved between abolition(racial justice) and feminism
arguing for inclusion in the FWM.
• Sojourner Truth, a black activist, critiqued the exclusion of black women from
FWM
• That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and
lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps
me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't
I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and
gathered into barns, and no man could head me!….I have borne thirteen
children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my
mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Conclusion
• The argument that voting rights would give women access to power institutions was
proven wrong
• Legal endorsement of doctrine of “separate but equal”, Jim Crows Laws, violence of Ku Klux Klan
prevented black women and men from accessing education, employment and public facilities
• The white women could not gain any further recognition in the public sphere
• Accomplishments of FWF
• 19th amendment to US Constitution in 1920
• The Equal Rights ACT in US
• Women voting Act in UK
• Drawbacks of first wave
• Negation of lower class women
• Absence of clear objectives
• Voting right only to married not single
• black women were sometime denied in meetings
• Violent tactics
2nd Wave Feminism
Introduction
• The term second-wave feminism refers mostly to the radical feminism of the women’s
liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970
• After a brief period of inertia, the women's movement gained momentum with the onset
of the 1960s. Betty Friedan's book “The Feminine Mystique”. It helped pave the way for
the new phase of women's liberation. President John F. Kennedy organized the
Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, which helped usher in change such as
the Equal Pay Act of 1963, making wage discrimination a federal crime, and the end of
gender discrimination in the federal workplace. Moreover, women were included in the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 when gender discrimination was outlawed in addition to race
discrimination.
• The 2nd wave was the struggle of two factions of feminism one was liberal whose aim
was to grant equal rights to women and the socialism who have two aims to make
women equally to men not only at jobs but also at home
• The movement proved far more effective than its predecessors in changing both laws
and institutional practices.
History
• Following women’s suffrage, more efforts launched through
institutionalized channels for change in labor laws etc
• Federal Women Bureau – agency to craft policies acc. To working women
needs
• Other agencies like American Association of Universities Women, national
foundation of Business and professional women, lobbied for end of workplace
discrimination, though the idea of equality was not yet clear. (Differences
over Equal Rights Amendment)
• WW-II – many women of all races found well paid jobs at factories.
Black men fought at segregated units at different fronts. After the
war, they returned to a segregated society and were forced to accept
lower subordinate positions
…continued
• The landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954, “separate
but equal” educational facilities illegal, provided legal basis for
activism against the institutionalized racism.
• Civil rights movement inspired 2nd Wave. (The gender gap in the civil rights
movement). Casey Hayden and Mary King critiqued this reproduction of
gendered roles within the civil rights movement and called for dialogue about
sexism within the civil rights movement in a memo that circulated through
SNCC in 1965, titled “Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo.” The memo became an
influential document for the birth of the second wave feminist movement, a
movement focused generally on fighting patriarchal structures of power, and
specifically on combating occupational sex segregation in employment and
fighting for reproductive rights for women.
• Personal is Political - women’s participation in the civil rights
movement allowed them to challenge gender norms that held that
women belonged in the private sphere, and not in politics or activism.
• Limited jobs
• The 38 percent of American women who worked in 1960 were largely limited to jobs
as teacher, nurse, or secretary. Women were generally unwelcome in professional
programs; as one medical school dean declared,
• “Hell yes, we have a quota...We do keep women out, when we can. We don't want them here — and they
don't want them elsewhere, either, whether or not they'll admit it."
• As a result, in 1960, women accounted for six percent of American doctors, three
percent of lawyers, and less than one percent of engineers.
• Low wages
• Working women were routinely paid lower salaries than men and denied
opportunities to advance, as employers assumed they would soon become pregnant
and quit their jobs, and that, unlike men, they did not have families to support
• Presidential commission on status of women
• President John F. Kennedy's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
released its report on gender inequality. The report, which revealed great
discrimination against women in American life,
Intellectual Sphere - Simone de Beauvoir and
The Second Sex
• Examined the notion of women being perceived as "other" in the patriarchal
society.
• Went on to conclude that male-centered ideology was being accepted as a norm
and enforced by the ongoing development of myths, and that the fact that
women are capable of getting pregnant, lactating, and menstruating is in no way
a valid cause or explanation to place them as the "second sex".
• Book was translated from French to English and published in America in 1953.
Her analysis focuses on the social construction of Woman as the other. This de
Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women's oppression. She argues women
have historically been considered deviant.
• Contends that even Mary Wollstonecraft considered men to be the ideal toward
which women should aspire. De Beauvoir argues that for feminism to move
forward, this attitude must be set aside.
• One is not born a woman, but becomes one.
The Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedan)
• Criticized the idea that women could only find fulfillment through
childrearing and homemaking.
• Women are victims of a false belief system that requires them to find
identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children.
Such a system causes women to completely lose their identity in that of
their family.
• She locates this system among post-World War II middle-class suburban
communities. At the same time, America's post-war economic boom had
led to the development of new technologies that were supposed to make
household work less difficult, but that often had the result of making
women's work less meaningful and valuable.
• The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions of American
women alive. (Betty Friedan)
• "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want
something more than my husband and my children and my home.'“
• Women Magazines, authored by men, created the feminine mystique,
the idea that women were happy being housewives
• Friedan argues that the problem is women must find their human
identity.
• Criticism of Social Functionalism, that thought institutions to be part
of a social body. Study of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and place of
women
• Unmotivaed children because of unfulfilled mothers
Objectives of 2nd Wave
• Objectives of 2nd wave feminism as per Estelle Freedman
• End of Sexual violence
• Equal Legal rights
• Political empowerment
• Access to jobs
• Equal salaries
• Access to education
• “Be a whole new person “and “get a whole new life.”
— Protest sign carried during the 1969 Miss America Pagean
• Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We’re not inherently
anything but human.
— Robin Morgan (1941–)
Proponents of 2nd Wave
• National Organization for women
• In the summer of 1966, Freidan launched the National Organization for
Women (NOW), which went on to lobby Congress for pro-equality laws and
assist women seeking legal aid as they battled workplace discrimination in the
courts. Betty Friedan's generation sought not to dismantle the prevailing
system but to open it up for women's participation on a public, political level.
• Women Liberation Movement
• Completely overthrow the patriarchy that they believed was oppressing every
facet of women's lives, including their private lives. Popularized the idea that
"the personal is political" — that women's political inequality had equally
important personal ramifications, encompassing their relationships, sexuality,
birth control and abortion, clothing and body image, and roles in marriage,
housework
Famous Publications
• Women like Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer attracted media attention through both their popular
writings and their appealing image. Played a key role representing feminism to the public and the media —
providing attractive examples of women who were feminists without fitting the negative stereotypes of
humorless, ugly, man-hating shrews
• In 1971 Susan Griffin published an essay in the radical press explaining that the fear of rape was a “daily part
of every woman’s consciousness.” She exploded each of the myths about rape in American culture,
addressed the legal obstacles to prosecuting sexual violence, named white male privilege as the heart of the
problem, and recognized the particular vulnerability of women of color and the costs of the myth of the
black rapist. Several years later journalist Susan Brownmiller elaborated many of these points in “Against Our
Will: Men, Women, and Rape.” This best-selling book explored the power dynamics of rape in history, law,
and culture; set an agenda for legal change; and alerted the public to the nascent feminist anti-rape
movement.
• A public “speak out” during a conference on rape held in New York City in 1971 jump-started the process.
Rape, the women attending agreed, was a crime of violence, rather than a sexual act, and both law
enforcement and women’s groups needed to address the problem.
• in the 1890s, they established rape crisis centers, which soon became a cornerstone of the movement. By
1976 over four hundred centers provided counseling, social services, and legal support for women who had
experienced sexual violence. The anti-rape movement re-defined women as “survivors” rather than
“victims” and renamed behaviors once associated with the masher as “street harassment.” While they often
targeted men as the source of the problem of sexual assault, they also called on male allies to organize to
help change gender conventions that contributed to sexual violence
Achievements
• Equal salaries
• Equal Pay Act of 1963, which made gender-based wage discrimination illegal
• Laws against gender discrimination
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964, an achievement of the civil rights movement begun in the
mid-1950s, was also an early success of the feminist movement. Title VII of the act
prohibited employers from discrimination on the basis of gender, as well as race, color,
religion, or national origin.
• Reproductive rights
• One of the struggles of second-wave feminism was for reproductive rights for women.
Two landmark cases which expanded women's reproductive freedom took place during
this era. Griswold v. Connecticut invalidated a law that prohibited contraception by ruling
that it violated the "right to privacy" of married couples. This case was cited as precedent
in the famous Roe v. Wade ruling which declared that a woman's choice to have an
abortion is private decision between her and her doctor.
• Many other smaller legislative changes contributed to expanding women's rights during
the second wave of feminism, including the first marital rape laws in the United States,
and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed in 1978.
• Development in academia
• Women Studies being included as an interdisciplinary field of study
• Growth in feminist organizations
• National Organization for Women (NOW), was founded in 1966 by 28 people
who were unsatisfied with the lack of action to address issues the Presidential
Commission on the Status of Women had found. Today, NOW has over 50,000
members in all 50 states, and uses lobbying, rallies, marches, and conferences
to address issues such as violence against women and constitutional equality
for women. Another organization founded just a few years later in 1969 was
the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. Now known as
NARAL Pro-Choice America, the organization lobbies for women to have
unrestricted access to abortions.
Shortcomings and Gaps in 2nd Wave
• Ignoring racism, class oppression and homophobia
• Although the second wave feminist movement challenged gendered
inequalities and brought women’s issues to the forefront of national politics in
the late 1960s and 1970s, the movement also reproduced race and sex
inequalities.
• feminism cannot just be a fight to make women equal with men, because
such a fight does not acknowledge that all men are not equal in a capitalist,
racist, and homophobic society. Sexism cannot be separated from racism,
classism and homophobia, and that these systems of domination overlap and
reinforce each other. Therefore, she argued, you cannot fight sexism without
fighting racism, classism, and homophobia. (Bell Hooks, a black feminist)
3rd Wave Feminism
Introduction
• The term Third-Wave-Feminism was coined by Rebecca Walker in his essay
in My Magazine in 1992.
• Third-wave feminism refers to several diverse strains of feminist activity
and study, whose exact boundaries in the history of feminism are subject of
debate, but are generally marked as beginning in the early 1990s and
continuing to the present.
• The movement arose partially as a response to the perceived failures of
and backlash against initiatives and movements created by second-wave
feminism during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and the perception that women
are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and cultural
backgrounds".
• This wave of feminism expands the topic of feminism to include a diverse
group of women with a diverse set of identities.
• Contemporary Third wave feminism, in many ways, a hybrid creature. It is
influenced by second wave feminism, Black feminism, transnational and Third
World feminism, and queer activism.
• 1st and 2nd waves did well to create legal changes for equal rights; they thought
world supposedly did not need social movements because “equal rights” for
racial minorities, sexual minorities, and women had been guaranteed by law in
most countries.
• The gap between law and reality—between the abstract proclamations of states
and concrete lived experience— however, reveals the necessity of both old and
new forms of activism.
• The dream is gender equality is still a distant dream for transgenders, lesbians,
gays, and bisexuals, people of difference races and colors etc
• Feminists realized that a coalitional politics that organizes with other groups
based on their shared (but differing) experiences of oppression, rather than their
specific identity, was absolutely necessary.
Characteristics of 3rd Wave
• Coalition politics in place of Identity politics - Identity Politics refers to
political movements organized around the experiences and needs of
people who share a particular identity. The move from political association
with others who share a particular identity to political association with
those who have differing identities, but share similar, but differing
experiences of oppression (coalitional politics), can be said to be a defining
characteristic of the third wave.
• Development of New Tactics to Politicize Feminist Issues
• AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) – street struggle for establishing
affordable drugs for AIDS victims, a militant wing of which identified themselves as
queer (confrontational tactics)
• Queer Nation formed in 1990 by ACT UP activists, and used the tactics to challenge
homophobic violence and heterosexism in mainstream US society.
…continued
• Sex-Positive Feminism
• sex-positive feminists argued that sexual liberation, within a sex-positive culture that
values consent between partners, would liberate not only women, but also men.
• Drawing from a social constructionist perspective, sex-positive feminists such as
cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin (1984) argued that no sexual act has an inherent
meaning, and that not all sex, or all representations of sex, were inherently
degrading to women.
• In fact, sexual politics and sexual liberation are key sites of struggle for white women,
women of color, gays, lesbians, queers, and transgendered people—groups of people
who have historically been stigmatized for their sexual identities or sexual practices.,
• A key aspect of queer and feminist subcultures is to create sex-positive spaces and
communities that not only valorize sexualities that are often stigmatized in the
broader culture, but also place sexual consent at the center of sex-positive spaces
and communities.
…continued
• Cultural Production through Media
• some commentators have deemed the third wave to be “postfeminist” or
“not feminist” because it often does not utilize the activist forms (i.e. marches
and vigils, policy change) of the second wave movement, the creation of
alternative forms of culture in the face of a massive corporate media industry
can be understood as quite political.
• Creation of musical records(Their lyrics often addressed gendered sexual
violence, sexual liberations, heteronormativity, gender normativity, police
brutality, and war.)
• Feminist news, websites, magazines a step towards creating alternative
culture and a symbol of feminist resistence
• Transnational Feminism
• Highlighting the relation between sexism, classism, racism and imperialism
• Including 3rd world global south women (western feminists should be ca
• feminists should be wary of any Western project to “save” women in another
region—especially if that project is accompanied by Western military
intervention (Afghanistan etc)
Agenda of Feminism
• Gender Violence
• Gender violence has become a central issue for third-wave feminists. Organizations such as
V-Day have formed with the goal of ending gender violence, and artistic expressions such as
The Vagina Monologues have generated awareness and action around issues relating to
women's sexuality. Third-wave feminists want to transform the traditional notions of
sexuality and embrace "an exploration of women's feelings about sexuality that included
vagina-centred topics as diverse as orgasm, birth, and rape."
• Reproductive Rights
• According to Baumgardner and Richards, "It is not feminism's goal to control any woman's
fertility, only to free each woman to control her own"
• South Dakota's 2006 attempt to ban abortion in all cases, except when necessary to protect
the mother's life, and the US Supreme Court's recent vote to uphold the partial birth
abortion ban are viewed by many feminists as restrictions on women's civil and reproductive
rights
•
• Censorship of derogatory words
• In this advocacy, feminists have argued that language has been used to create
binaries (such as the male/female or heterosexual/homosexual binaries). Post-
structuralist feminists see these binaries as artificial constructs created to maintain
the power of dominant groups. Its aim is to eliminate words like bitch etc
• Individualism
• Proponents of third-wave feminism claim that it allows women to define feminism
for themselves by incorporating their own identities into their belief system of what
feminism is and what it can become.
• Changes in stereotype
• third-wave feminists felt a need for further changes in the stereotypes against
women and in the media portrayals of women as well as in the language that is used
to define women
Summary
• third wave feminism is a vibrant mix of differing activist and theoretical traditions.
• Many commentators have claimed third wave feminism to be “apolitical”,
“postfeminist” or “not activism.” However, third wave feminism’s insistence on
grappling with multiple points-of-view, as well as its persistent refusal to be
pinned down as representing just one group of people or one perspective, may
be its greatest strongpoint.
• In a way similar to how queer activists and theorists have insisted that ‘queer’ is
and should be open-ended and never fixed to mean one thing, “third wave
feminism’s” flexibility and adaptability becomes an asset in a world that is marked
by complexity, rapidly shifting political situations, and multiple inequalities.
• Finally, the third wave’s insistence on coalitional politics as an alternative to
identity-based politics is a crucial project in a world that is marked by fluid,
multiple, overlapping inequalities.
Types of Feminism
1. Liberal Feminism
• Conceptual Roots
• Safeguarding individual rights, provided others are not deprived of theirs (protection
of fundamental rights)
• Minimal State interference and intervention in private matters (classical vs. welfare
liberals (intervention in economy such as education, housing, healthcare, social
security etc))
• Susan Wendell described liberal feminism as “committed to major economic re-
organization and considerable redistribution of wealth, since one of the modern
political goals most closely associated with liberal feminism is equality of
opportunity, which would undoubtedly require and lead to both.”
• Overall goal of liberal feminism is the worthy one of creating “a just and
compassionate society in which freedom flourishes.” Only in such a society can
women and men thrive equally.
• Important names - Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor, Betty
Friedan
• Asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform.
• Individualistic form of feminism, focuses on women’s ability to show and
maintain their equality through their own actions and choices.
• Uses the personal interactions between men and women as the place from
which to transform society. According to liberal feminists, all women are
capable of asserting their ability to achieve equality, therefore it is possible
for change to happen without altering the structure of society.
• Important issues include reproductive and abortion rights, sexual
harassment, voting, education, "equal pay for equal work", affordable
childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of
sexual and domestic violence against women, equality in the public sphere
,Gender equality in political sphere, Struggle against racial discrimination,
Equal access to education, equal pay, ending job sex segregation, Better
working conditions -- won primarily through legal changes.
1.1 Equal Education (18th Century)
• Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Industrial
revolution in 18th century kept most middle class women at home.
They were forbidden outdoor exercises, liberty in decision making,
denied to develop rational power (Rousseau considered ‘rational
man’ as complement to ‘emotional woman’, men to be educated in
virtues such as courage, temperance, justice, and fortitude, whereas
women to be educated in virtues such as patience, docility, good
humor, and flexibility.)
• Society owes girls the same education that it owes boys, simply because all
human beings deserve an equal chance to develop their rational and moral
capacities so they can achieve full personhood.
1.2 Equal Liberty (19th Century)
• John Stuart Mill & Harriet Taylor Utilitarianism – Equality is not a
moral obligation but also a prudent one.
• the ordinary way to maximize aggregate utility (happiness/pleasure) is to
permit individuals to pursue their desires, provided the individuals do not
hinder or obstruct each other in the process.
• if society is to achieve sexual equality, or gender justice, then society must
provide women with the same political rights and economic opportunities as
well as the same education that men enjoy.
• Giving choice to women will increase the overall well being of society
• Mostly biased in favour of affluent women, who could work outside yet could
afford household workers
1.3 Other Issues
• 19th Century Suffrage
• 20th Century – Equal Rights under the organizations like National
Organization for Women, National Women Political Caucus, Women
Equity Action Leage etc. General purpose of these groups was to
improve women’s status “by applying legal, social, and other
pressures upon institutions, in contrast to radical groups who didn’t
want to reform the system but to replace the system with more
egalitarian norms
1.4 National Organization for Women
• Civil Rights Act 1964 – end of discrimination on the basis of sex, race,
etc. but the courts were not enforcing it.
• NOW established in 1966. NOW supported the notion of organizing
small chapters for women to meet and discuss the issues of the
period. The discussion of issues surrounding women became known
as consciousness raising, which is the ability for women to relate the
issues of their personal lives with larger national issues of gender
discrimination.
• 1967 – Bill of Rights of Now
• Equality of rights under law shall not be denied by any state
• Equal employment opportunities be guaranteed
• Paid maternity leaves
• Revision of tax laws to permit home and child care expenses for working
parents
• Child care facilities be established by law
• Rights of women to be educated as per their potential
• Poor women to get job training, housing and family allowance equal to men
• Rights of women to control their own productive rights, access to
contraceptive devices and abortion
• Role of The Feminine Mystique & The Second Stage
1.5 Critique of Liberal Feminism
• 1. Reason, freedom and autonomy are not as good as they sound.
(Normative Dualism – Functions of mind have been prioritized over bodily
functions)
• 2. Women as Men? Jean Elshtain countered Friedan, Mill etc on points such
as the claim that women can become like men if they set their minds to it;
claim that most women want to become like men; and, its claim that all
women should want to become like men, to aspire to masculine values.
• Women cannot be like men until they are socially engineered
• Motherhood is more sacred than mere “role” as liberal feminists would like us to
believe
• 3. Racism, Classism, Heterosexism – many black women consider
housewife role as liberating, rather than oppressing. Initially, classism
prevailed because leading liberal feminist were upper middle class women,
1.6 Conclusion
• Can be dismissed as bourgeois, white movement, but, liberal
feminists now believe that gender equality required whole society’s
efforts rather than individual one
• Sexism, even if it doesn’t result in oppression, is morally and
fundamentally wrong
• Women owe to liberal feminism many civil, fundamental,
reproductive, educations, occupational rights; ability to walk freely in
public,
2. Radical Feminism (Crush Patriarchy)
• 1960s/70s groups like NOW believed in change through reforming
system
• The revolutionaries feminist groups like Red Stockings, the Feminists
and the NewYork Radical Feminists, supported a more revolutionary
and militant agenda in regard to women's liberation.
• Radical feminists, such as Shulamith Firestone and Judith Brown,
believed that men, and the institutions created by men, had
oppressed every aspect of the woman. The radical feminists
overwhelmingly rejected the liberal feminist's pursuit of
socioeconomic and gender equality. Instead, radical feminists called
for a total revolution against men.
• Introduction of Consciousness Raising - Women came together in small groups and
shared their personal experiences as women with each other, discovering that their
individual experiences were shared by many women
• Realizing that women fate was linked, they raised the slogan of “personal is political”,
and sisterhood.
• Insisted that men’s control of women’s sexual and reproductive lives, their identity is
fundamental of all oppressions
• Women Oppression
• 1. That women were, historically, the first oppressed group.
• 2. That women’s oppression is the most widespread, existing in virtually every known society.
• 3. That women’s oppression is the hardest form of oppression to eradicate and cannot be removed
by other social changes such as the abolition of class society.
• 4. That women’s oppression causes the most suffering to its victims, qualitatively as well as
quantitatively, although the suffering may often go unrecognized because of the sexist prejudices
of both the oppressors and the victims.
• 5. That women’s oppression . . . provides a conceptual model for understanding all other forms of
oppression.
2.1 Libertarian and Cultural Views
• Radical Libertarian Feminism - Claim that a feminist gender identity limits
women’s development as full human person.
• Encouraged women to be more androgynous, embodying both good masculine and
good feminine characteristics.
• ‘A bitch is blatant, direct, arrogant, at times egoistic. She has no liking for the indirect,
subtle, mysterious ways of the ‘eternal feminine.’
• Women are destined to be no more passive than men are destined to be active; sex
is different from gender
• Radical Cultural Feminism – Better for women to be strictly female
• Females to be more feminine, emphasizing the values and virtues culturally
associated with women (“interdependence, community, connection, sharing,
emotion, body, trust, absence of hierarchy, nature, immanence, process, joy, peace
and life”) and deemphasizing the values and virtues culturally associated with men
(“independence, autonomy, intellect, will, wariness, hierarchy, domination, culture,
transcendence, product, asceticism, war and death”)
2.2 Libertarian Radical views
• Sexual Politics of Millet
• Patriarchal ideology exaggerates biological differences between men and
women, making certain that men always have the dominant, or masculine,
roles and women always have the subordinate, or feminine, ones
• Objectification of women in literature, media, pornography pressurized
common women to emulate the so called perfect image portrayed
• Dialectics of Sex by Shulamith Firestone
• Female submission and male domination rooted in reproductive role
• Solution in dual parenting system, giving men equal role in child rearing was
insufficient. A social and major biological revolution, replacement of natural
reproduction with artificial reproduction. Replacement of biological families
with intentional families culminating in the whole society to be androgynous
2.3 Radical Cultural Views
• Marilyn French
• Attributes male-female differences more to biology (nature) than to socialization
(nurture). Speculates that earlier societies were closer to nature, hence matriarchal.
With progress, humans not only conquered nature but women. Feminine values
must be integrated in to male society
• Mary Daly
• God as paradigm of all patriarchs; unless he is dethroned, women cant get liberation.
The God of Judaism, Christianity, Islam is aloof and distant. Since God created this
world, women who reproduce become an object and man a subject. Men not only
twist female minds, they destroy their bodies as well (Hindus’ Satti custom, African
female circumscion, European witch hunt)
• The good traits of femininity and the bad ones, both are created by patriarchy, hence
both may be rejected by women.
• Commonality between Daly and Friedrich Nietzsche – Master and Slave Morality,
transvaluation
• To be good is to be on top of the world, to be bad is to be oppressed, suppressed (Master)
• To be good is to be kind, humble and sympathetic, to be bad is to be assertive, aloof and
proud (slave morality). Fearful of conflict, the slaves wish to be complacent in their mediocrity
 • Sexuality
• Women should experience difference kinds of sexuality (libertarian)
• Because men want power and pleasure from it and women want reciprocity, the only
sex good for women is monogamous lesbianism (cultural radicals). Patriarchal
heterosexuality must be repaired.
• Pornography
• Women to use pornography to overcome their fears about sex and to stimulate
sexual desires, explore more (libertarian)
2.4 Debates

• Pornography is objectification of women, patriarchal propaganda about proper role

of women as man’s servant
• Reproduction
• Women should substitute artificial, for natural mode of reproduction (libertarian)
• It is in women’s best interest to procreate naturally (cultural)
• Motherhood
• Libertarian feminists are against biological motherhood (challenge “all women need
to be mothers, all mothers need their children, all children need their mothers.”)
• Cultural feminists urge women to play active role in child rearing (the decision of
mothering should come from women, not men)
3. Marxist and Socialist Feminism
• Conceptual Roots of Marxist Economy
• Men differ from animals because of ability to produce means of subsistence
• View capitalism as system of exploitative power relation
• Value of commodity is equal to direct labour of worker, plus indirect labour (tools, machines
used)
• All commodities are equal to the labour necessary to produce them. Value of workers labor is
the cost to maintain them (food, shelter, clothing). But there is difference in what employers
pay to the workers, and the value that workers actually create when they put their work
capacity to use in producing commodities
• This difference is the surplus value, creating profits. Because of monopoly of employers,
workers have to opt between being exploited and having no work at all. Workers are
alienated from the fruits of their labor, from themselves and from other human beings, and
nature
• Social Theory of Marx
• Classism, Class consciousness vs. False Consciousness
• Do women constitute a class? Can they achieve class consciousness? Women also suffer from
alienation because they experience themselves not as selves but as others.
• Marxist and socialist feminists aim to create a world in which women can experience
themselves as whole persons, as integrated rather than fragmented beings, as people who
can be happy even when they are unable to make their families and friends happy
• Marxist View of Politics
• Marxist theory of politics offers feminists insights to help liberate women
from oppression. Class struggle evolves as workers’ and employers’ interests
differ. Class consciousness will results in control over means of production,
giving way to revolution. Marxism promises to make people (women)free.

• Marxist view of Family Relations

• The origin of the family, Private Property and the State (promiscuity to
structured conjugal relations) – monogamous family a product of economic
exigency and not love (wife sells her body into slavery)
3.1 Classical Marxist Feminism
• Evelyn Reed’s “Women: Caste, Class, or Oppressed Sex?
• Capitalist economic forces and social relations brought oppression of one sex
• Not all women are oppressed, oppressed women to join oppressed men to wage a
class war; enemy of proletariat women is not patriarchy but capitalism
• Communist Russia and Women
• Invited to join productive workforce, Practically women found less meaningful, less
waged work than men
• Women brought into productive work force without socializing jobs of cooking, house
cleaning, child care
• Wage for Housework Campaign (Maria Dalla Costa and Selma James)
• In capitalist society, women should demand wages for productive work done at home
(it also creates surplus value)
• Practical difficulties (lower wages for men, quality of labour)
• Many marxist feminists considered it undesirable, as it would keep them in homes
3.2 Contemporary Socialist Feminism
• Women’s sex class and economic class plays role in oppression (the
second sex serves the first sex)
• Two System Theory – Either class, or sex is the source of oppression
• Interactive system Theory – capitalism and patriarchy equal partners in
women oppression
3.3 Women Labour Issues
• Women work either unpaid, underpaid, or under valued
• The value of GDP could jump to 25-30% is household work was accounted for (ILO).
Women working the “double day”, outside and inside home
• Globalization affected women disproportionately, (migration, reproduction, work),
making Marxist analysis still relevant in capitalist economy
• Gender Pay Gap
• Reasons - (1) the concentration of women in low-paying, female-dominated jobs; (2) the
high percentage of women who work part-time rather than full-time; and (3) outright
wage discrimination against women
• Solutions – Legislation, Comparable worth approach (knowledge and skills,
mental demands, accountability, working conditions)
• A Marxist revolution cannot guarantee gender equality, just because women
enter work force; the methods of Marxist analysis remain useful
4.0 Psycho-analytical Feminism
• Conceptual Roots
• All previous feminists see the root of oppression in social, economic and
political structures, or in sexual relationships, roles practices
• Psychoanalytical feminists dig roots of oppression in women’s way of thinking
about themselves as women. Gender identity and inequity rooted in
childhood experiences
• Sigmund Freud
• Psycho-sexual development of children – Oral stage(infancy), anal stage (2-3
years), phallic stage (3-4 years, resolution of Oedipus Complex), Latency
period (6- puberty), Genital stage.
• In ‘normal’ development, the person’s libido is directed to opposite sex
• Oedipus Complex (Male)
• stems from natural attachment of boy to mother, who wants to possess her and to
have sexual relation with her, wants to kill his father who is a rival
• Boys hatred for his father is modulated by his coexisting love for him; boy competes
with his mother to gain father’s attention, experiencing increased antagonism
towards mother. But still he wants to possess mother, but cant do so because of fear
of punishment from father. Seeing that females lack penis, he thinks they have been
castrated by his father. He fears he will be castrated too. The boy distances himself
from mother, entering latency period.
• During latency, the boy develops super-ego, son internalizes the father’s values that
are patriarchal.
• Oedipus Complex/Electra (Female)
• the girls realizes having no penis, think she is castrated. Seeing penis in males, she
thinks it as superior counterpart of her own, and fells victim to penis envy
• Because her mother also lacks penis, she looks up to her father to make of this
deficiency. Freud claimed that the girl having lost a love object, tries to become a
love object herself, and rivals her mother for father’s attention
• Gradually she desires a baby – a substitute for a penis
• Penis Envy
• Leads women to shame, vanity, narcissism, traits that are in direct
contradiction of the male “superego, which gives rise to the traits marking a
civilized person
• a woman’s lack of penis is causal of her inferiority as a sex in a society driven
by men’s fear of castration which motivates his tendency to civilize and
“become obedient rule-followers whose ‘heads’ always control their ‘hearts.
 Feminist Critique of Freud
• Women’s social position and powerlessness relative to men had little to do with
female biology and much to do with the social construction of femininity
• Alfred Alder.
• Men and women are alike “born helpless.” Inferiority and/or powerlessness “are the sources
of our lifelong struggles against feelings of overwhelming impotence.” Alder says that the
“patriarchal society is sick,” and that is the reason why or why not any human is able to
empower their “creative selves.”
• Karen Horney.
• “Women’s feelings of inferiority originated not in women’s recognition of their ‘castration’ but
in realization of their social subordination.”
• Suggests that women are believing the lie ingrained in them by men that they like being
feminine. The healthy woman then is one who will move beyond her femininity to create an
“ideal self that will include masculine as well as feminine traits.” “As soon as women learn to
view themselves as men’s equals, society will have little if any power over them.”
• Clara Thompson.
• “Male authority causes women to have weaker egos than man do.” The cross-cultural
tendency of societies to favor male superiority is the impetus of women’s self-hatred and
inferiority. “Thus, the transformation of legal, political, economic, and social structures that
constitute culture is a necessary step in the transformation of women’s psychology.”
The case for Dual Parenting
• Advocates of Dual Parenting
• During the pre-Oedipal stage, a child sees his or her mother in her weaknesses
and shortcomings, thus creating an unwarranted preconception of female
inferiority in the infantile mind, whereas the father is seen but little, his
shortcomings are hidden, and therefore he represents strength, power, and
flawlessness.
• With the implementation of dual parenting (and simultaneous dual enterprising)
gender roles and arrangements may be forgotten. Man will no longer be the sole
“mighty world-builder” or breadwinner, nor will woman be the sole nurturer, or
“mother-goddess” answerable to anything that goes wrong. (Dorothy
Dinnerstein)
• Critiques of Dual Parenting
• “women’s biology as well as psychology equips women to perceive their infants’
needs so as to better serve them [than men].
• “to insist that dual parenting is the solution to human malaise is to elevate men
once again to the status of ‘saviors.
5. Post Modern Feminist (3rd Wave)
• postmodern feminists reject any mode of feminist thought that aims to
provide a single explanation for why women are oppressed, or the steps all
women must take to achieve liberation.
• These theorists criticize the conflation of sex and gender, essentialist
generalizations about men and women, and the tendency to view gender
as fixed, binary, and determined at birth, rather than a fluid, mobile
construct that allows for multiple gender expressions.
• Reject a dualistic view of gender, heteronormativity, and biological
determinism, pointing to the inseparability of the body from language and
social norms. Defy identity politics
• Multiple truths, multiple roles, multiple realities are part of its focus. There
is a rejection of an essential nature of women, of one-way to be a woman."
Gender and Development
• Colonial and Capitalistic Perspectives of Gender Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD),
Gender and Development (GAD); Gender Critique of
• Gender Analysis of Development Theories; Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs).
Modernization Theory, World System Theory,
Dependency Theory, Structural Functionalism. • Globalization and Gender
• Gender Approaches to Development: Women in
1. Capitalist Perspective of Gender
• Capitalism main economic, and political system in the world today
• Combination of free trade economy, private ownership and workforce
creating profit for employers
• Colonialism has transported capitalism to indigenous and autonomous
societies.
• The advent of capitalism in these societies has affected gender roles
• .While men are often expected to contribute more significantly to the
economy at large, women have been given the responsibility to directly
provide for the family,
Impact of Capitalism on Women
• Women Oppression
• Gender relations in both the workplace and in the domestic sphere contrast from
region to region. The capitalist system inflicted upon indigenous people by the west
has led to increased oppression of women.
• Division of Labour
• the women of the Kalahari were not bound by strict sexual division of labour, and
hence maintained their independence. The women did not feel constrained, as
gender roles were, on balance, more equally divided. For example, the men in
society took an active role in child care and hence reduced the double burden
frequently enforced upon women.
• a subsistence society could be described as somewhat affluent, since there is no
employer and therefore no motivation to produce surplus value or profit by
exploiting a workforce which doesn’t exist. This shows that rigid capitalism has
gendered division of labour by prioritizing men’s work over women.
• Lower Position of Women at Workplace
• Either unpaid, underpaid or under valued work. Care work given to women
• Occupational Segregation
• Work of little value accorded for women, like nurses, secretaries, customer care
• Pink Collar Jobs – more emotional labour (where employees must control their
emotions)
• No compensation/ wages for domestic work, Lower wages
• Glass ceiling – Unable to get promoted beyond certain level
• Appearance vs. competence
• whether fashion is ‘female oppression or self expression’?. Freeman believes that
fashion is simultaneously oppressive and liberating towards local and corporate values.
• Within the work place, the culture of appearance and dress encourages competition
between women to have the right clothes and hairstyle, and this competitive
environment is what employers want in order to create a hardworking and obedient
workforce.
• The jobs which these women hold are part of their image, and the company attempts to
create staff loyalty by giving them an increased feeling of importance.
• No influence in Worker’s Unions
• A clearer example of this is in the Dominican Republic, where although it is
not illegal for women to be involved in union activity, companies frequently
fire those who get involved and ‘blacklist’ plants which begin to politicize.
• Double burden, double day work for women
• “Not only must women be the at-home mom. They must also be the
business-saavy, child-transporting, non-aging, trim and slender sexual vixen
who does it all and more. Every magazine, every film and television show
demands absolute perfection in every regard.
• Men can be lazy, unshaven, overweight and under-dressed, yet women must
constantly be painted and powdered, fit and well dressed, line-less and
wrinkle-less.
• Monetary productive economy, non monetary reproductive economy
2.0 Globalization and Gender
• Multinational Corporations and profit maximizing
• Labour laws in developed countries force them to outsource labour in Global
South
• Workers rights are less protected in Global South
• Emergence of Sweatshops where workers work long hours
• Alienation of labours from the produce of their labour, the commodities are
shipped to Global North
• factories predominantly employ young, unmarried women workers in Asia,
Latin America and the Caribbean because they are considered the most
docile and obedient groups of workers; that is, corporations consider them
less likely to make demands of employers or to unionize (Kirk & Okizawa-Rey,
2007)
• Global Economy
• A shoe corporation based in Country A may extract resources from Country B,
produce goods in Country C, sell those goods in Countries D, E, and F, and deposit
waste in the landfills of Country G. Meanwhile, the profits from this production and
sales of goods return largely to the corporation, while little goes into the economies
of the participating nations.
• Creation of International Institutions - to monitor abuses and assist in the
development of less developed nations through loans from more
developed nations
• The World Bank provides monetary support for large, capital-intensive projects such
as the construction of roads and dams.
• (IMF) provides loans and facilitates international trade relationships particularly
through structural adjustment programs (SAP).
• Wealthier countries lend money to poorer ones in exchange of resources. Loan may be given
for harvesting grapes and wines, and in exchange grapes and wines might be acquired at
discounted rates. The loans may lead to circular dependency
• Consequences of SAPs are devalued currency, privatized industries, cut social
programs and government subsidies, and increasing taxes to fund the development
of infrastructure.
• WTO – challenge restraints on free trade
• Free trade describes a situation in which corporate bodies are permitted to
deal only with each other without having to answer to government
restrictions or regulations. (Environmental aspect when pollution quota is
ignored)
• NAFTA – relocation of factories from US to Mexico
• Neo-Liberalism
• market-driven approach to economic and social policy.
• the profit motive of capitalism is applied to social policies like welfare and
taxation for social programs by cutting them to further profits, resulting in
downsizing of public sphere and social welfare programs
• Feminist historian Lisa Duggan (2003) argues that neoliberalism is more than
just the privatization of the economy, but is an ideology that holds that once
marginalized groups (GLBTQ people, people of color, the working-class) have
access to mainstream institutions (like marriage and service in the military)
and consumption in the free market they have reached equality with their
privileged peers (straight people, white people, the middle- and upper-
classes).
Racialized, Gendered, Sexualized Labour
• Neo-Colonialism
• Predatory trade relationships between countries create political situation
similar to colonialism in Global South Countries, through exploitation of
resources
• Women of Global South are disproportionately affected due to low paid job,
migrations. Human trafficking for sexual labour and migration for domestic
labour distances mothers from their own children
• Undocumented immigrants work in the informal, underground economy
rather than the formal economy like sex worker, domestic workers, beauty
salon worker, incorporating more physical and emotional labour
3. Women in Development - WID
• The term "women in development" came into use in the early 1970s,
after the publication of Ester Boserup's Women's Role in Economic
Development (1970)
• View of sexual division of labour in agrarian economies. Concluded that in less
populated regions, women did more work than men; whereas in populated
regions having advanced agriculture, men did more. Used gender as
independent variable
• WID began to be used by liberal feminists advocating legal,
administrative changes for better integration of women in economic
system
• Egalitarianism, and elimination of discrimination in productive sector
• Closely linked with Modernization Paradigm
• "modernization," which was usually equated with industrialization, would
improve the standards of living of the developing countries. It was argued
that through massive expansion of education systems, stocks of well-trained
workers and managers would emerge; this in turn would enable the evolution
of static, essentially agrarian societies into industrialized and modernized
ones. With the growth of the economies of these countries, the benefits of
modernization, i.e. better living conditions, wages, education, adequate
health services, etc. would "trickle down" to all segments of the society.
• Women were not considered as separate unit of analysis in this theory,
assuming all would benefit equally from modernization. Results suggested
otherwise, women situation didn’t improve. Exp. New technologies in
agriculture were directed to men. Role of supplementary wage earner in
industry
• WID studied position of women in various sectors vis a vis men
• Assumptions in WID
• Embedded in modernization theory, saw development as a linear progress

• WID began as acceptance of existing social structure, focused on how women could
be integrated in ongoing development work; a non confrontational approach without
challenging the sources of oppression (class race and culture)

• WID focused on the productive aspect of women work, ignoring the reproductive
side; their projects were income generating activities where women were taught a
certain skill or craft. Assuming that access to income will stimulate women to move
on to other economic activity, neglecting that they might already be over burdened

• Liberal feminist approach that gender relations will change of themselves as women
become full economic partners in development.
• Approaches
• Welfare – focus on poor women in the roles of wife and mother
• Equity – focus on equality between men and women and fair distribution of
benefits of development
• Anti Poverty – emphasis on income generating activities, access to productive
resources such as micro finance
• Efficiency – emphasise women participation for success, effectiveness for
development, assuming increased economic participation results in equity
• Empowerment – increasing womens capacity to analyse their own situation,
and determine their own life choices
• The momentum to integrate women into development programs emerged
from the priorities and interests of two different groups of women in the
1970s:
1 . The UN Commission of the Status of Women. And national women’s
movements, particularly in the US.
• Some of the specific concerns addressed were
* Nutrition
* Health
* Education
* Access to resources, such as land and credit
These needs are now referred to as practical needs…the basics for survival.
Limits of WID
• Limits of WID
• 1. Accepted traditional liberal economic theory about the nature of
development;
• 2. Assumed women were not already integrated into economic production;
• 3. Influenced by American feminism: accepted existing social and political
structures;
• 4. Assumed women all had common problems and interests;
• 5. De-emphasized the family and community contexts affecting women’s
activities;
6. Often resulted in separate projects for women apart from broad
development programs;
7. Non-confrontational, thus failed to transform the fundamental status of
women.
4. Women and Development - WAD
• Emerged in the mid 1970s, from critique of modernization theory and WID
approach
• Theoretical basis is Dependency Theory
• Assuming that women had already been part of development, but this
integration only perpetuates the existing inequality
• the notion of "integrating women into development" was linked to the
maintenance of economic dependency of Third World and especially
African countries on the industrialized countries (1977).
• WAD perspective recognizes that Third World men who do not have elite
status also have been adversely effected by the structure of the inequalities
within the international system but it has given little analytical attention to
the social relations of gender within classes.
• WAD fails to undertake a full-scale analysis of the relationship
between patriarchy, differing modes of production and women's
subordination and oppression.
• WAD perspective implicitly assumes that women's position will
improve if and when international structures become more equitable.
• WAD preoccupies itself with productive role, and ignore the
reproductive role. WID/WAD intervention strategies have tended to
concentrate on the development of income-generating activities
without taking into account the time burdens that such strategies
place on women.
5. Gender and Development GAD
• GAD approaches emerged as alternative to WID focus in 1980s
• It finds its theoretical roots in socialist feminism and has bridged the
gap left by the modernization theorists
• linking the relations of production to the relations of reproduction and taking
into account all aspects of women's lives

• Social construction of production and reproduction as central to women

oppression
5.1 Key Aspects of GAD Approach
• A holistic perspective, looking at "the totality of social organization,
economic and political life in order to understand the shaping of
particular aspects of society"
• Not concerned with women per se but with the social construction of
gender and the assignment of specific roles, responsibilities and
expectations to women and to men.
• In contrast to the emphasis on exclusively female solidarity which is
highly prized by radical feminists, the GAD approach welcomes the
potential contributions of men who share a concern for issues of
equity and social justice
• Rejects public private dichotomy
• dose not focus singularly on productive or reproductive aspects of women's
(and men's) lives to the exclusion of the other.
• It analyses the nature of women's contribution within the context of work
done both inside and outside the household, including non-commodity
production
• Participation of the State
• GAD also puts greater emphasis on the participation of the state in
promoting women's emancipation, seeing it as the duty of the state to
provide some of the social services which women in many countries have
provided on a private and individual basis.
• A GAD perspective leads to the design of intervention and affirmative
action strategies, ensuring that women are better integrated into ongoing
development efforts. It leads to a fundamental re- examination of social
structures and institutions and, ultimately, to the loss of power of
entrenched elites, which will effect some women as well as men.
5. Gender and Development GAD
• GAD approaches argued that:
• Development processes in poor countries or less-developed countries (LDCs) were deeply
influenced by the inequitable structures of the international economic system.
• Women have always been integrated into development processes, but those processes
essentially flawed.
• Men, as well as women, a WID/WAD intervention strategies therefore have tended to
concentrate on the development of income-generating activities without taking into
• Account the time burdens that such strategies place on women re hurt by development
programs that do not alter repressive class, ethnic, and racial structures.
• One cannot assume women’s solidarity across class and racial lines, but patriarchal values
and institutions may oppress women in every social-economic category.
• Development policies should not isolate women’s productive or reproductive roles: they are
intertwined in women’s lives.
• Women are agents of change and must organize politically.
• Successful development does not “target” women, it empowers them.
• Features:
• GAD rejects the public/private dichotomy .
• It gives special attention to oppression of women in the family by entering the so
called `private sphere’
• It emphasizes the state’s duty to provide social services in promoting women’s
emancipation.
• Women seen as agents of change rather than as passive recipients of development
assistance.
• Stresses the need for women to organize themselves for a more effective political
voice.
• Recognizes that patriarchy operates within and across classes to oppress women
• Focuses on strengthening women’s legal rights, including the reform of inheritance
and land laws.
• It talks in terms of upsetting the existing power relations in society between men and
women.
Gender Analysis of Development
Theories
Modernization Theory
• Theoretical Background
• Gives model of progressive transition from pre-modern or traditional society
to Modern society
• Recognizes that in the transition from “tradition‟ to “modern‟ societies, some
of the traditional values deemed necessary to modern society, were
maintained by women in the family
• Believes that modernization will be emancipator for women as
industrialization, technology and modern values would undermine the
patriarchy of traditional society giving women increased access to economic
resources
• Argues that if modernization theory is followed in the Third World, Third
World societies will catch up with the West.
Sexism and Modernization Theory
• Gave a universal model of modernization process, based on the version of
masculine modernity. Women were either invisible, discussed
paternalistically, or used as a litmus test for determining backwardness in
3rd world country.
• Decade of development, given by UN from 1961-70 was devoid of specific reference
to women
• Rostow assumed that beyond last stage of development, the high mass
consumption, the onset of pervasive boredom will happen for men.
Women will not feel boredom because of their child rearing role.
• Feminist movements pointed out that modernization theory had not
benefited the women the way it was expected. Technology had not
liberated them domestic drudgery; gender-neutral outcomes had not been
led by market forces; in spite of the forces of modernization, prejudice and
preconceptions about women persisted in society.
• About the impact of modernization of women by this time in the Third World,
more generally, there was a growing perception of the failure of development.
This perception was combined with the unhappiness of the first world women,
and was influenced by the second wave of feminism.
• These factors culminated in the emergence of the women in development
movement which was inspired by liberal feminism. Remaining largely with the
paradigm of liberal feminism, WID was in part a response to the inadequacies of
the modernization approach. It was argued that the process of economic
modernization marginalized women economically and socially and increased their
dependence on men (Boserep,1970).
• Women were not benefited from modernization and development because of a
lack of proper access to a process, which was fundamentally a beneficial one.
Development Project largely benefited men, often at the expense of women,
displacing women from their traditional productive functions and diminishing the
power, status and income they had previous enjoyed (Moser, 1993).
Development planners ignored women's productive activities party because
national accounting ignored much of women's work within the household and
subsistence economy, assuming them to be housewives, credit and other forms
of assistance to men (Rogers,1980).
World System Theory
• Dependency model, a key element of underdevelopment theory arose from a growing
disillusionment with economic strategies of development, especially as they had been
applied in Latin America.
• Underdevelopment theory was developed, in part as a direct challenge to modernization
theory. Underdevelopment theory arose as much as reaction to classical Marxism as
from deeply held objections to modernization theory.
• Dependency theorists like Frank (1969), Harrison (1988), Emmanuel (1972) argue that
development and underdevelopment are the aspects of the same system, the world
capitalist system.
• Indeed, both development and underdevelopment are regarded as part of the world
process of accumulation, a process that commenced in the mercantile period, carried
through into industrial capital and culminated in imperialism.
• The colonies, the semi colonies and the neo-colonies existed primarily for the benefit of
capitalist metropolis throughout this process and, as a direct result, became
underdeveloped.
• The Core
• The core regions benefited the most from the capitalist world economy. For
the period under discussion, much of northwestern Europe (England, France,
Holland) developed as the first core region. Politically, the states within this
part of Europe developed strong central governments, extensive
bureaucracies, and large mercenary armies. This permitted the local
bourgeoisie to obtain control over international commerce and extract capital
surpluses from this trade for their own benefit. As the rural population
expanded, the small but increasing number of landless wage earners provided
labor for farms and manufacturing activities. The switch from feudal
obligations to money rents in the aftermath of the feudal crisis encouraged
the rise of independent or yeoman farmers but squeezed out many other
peasants off the land. These impoverished peasants often moved to the
cities, providing cheap labor essential for the growth in urban manufacturing.
Agricultural productivity increased with the growing predominance of the
commercially-oriented independent farmer, the rise of pastoralism, and
improved farm technology.
• The Periphery
• On the other end of the scale lay the peripheral zones. These areas lacked strong
central governments or were controlled by other states, exported raw materials to
the core, and relied on coercive labor practices. The core expropriated much of the
capital surplus generated by the periphery through unequal trade relations. Two
areas, Eastern Europe (especially Poland) and Latin America, exhibited characteristics
of peripheral regions. In Poland, kings lost power to the nobility as the region
became a prime exporter of wheat to the rest of Europe. To gain sufficient cheap and
easily controlled labor, landlords forced rural workers into a “second serfdom” on
their commercial estates. In Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese conquests
destroyed indigenous authority structures and replaced them with weak
bureaucracies under the control of these European states. Powerful local landlords of
Hispanic origin became aristocratic capitalist farmers. Enslavement of the native
populations, the importation of African slaves, and the coercive labor practices such
as the encomienda and forced mine labor made possible the export of cheap raw
materials to Europe. Labor systems in both peripheral areas differed from earlier
forms in medieval Europe in that they were established to produce goods for a
capitalist world economy and not merely for internal consumption. Furthermore, the
aristocracy both in Eastern Europe and Latin America grew wealthy from their
relationship with the world economy and could draw on the strength of a central
core region to maintain control.
• The Semi-Periphery
• Between the two extremes lie the semi-peripheries. These areas represented either
core regions in decline or peripheries attempting to improve their relative position in
the world economic system. They often also served as budffers between the core
and the peripheries. As such, semi-peripheries exhibited tensions between the
central government and a strong local landed class. Good examples of declining cores
that became semi-peripheries during the period under study are Portugal and Spain.
Other semi-peripheries at this time were Italy, southern Germany, and southern
France. Economically, these regions retained limited but declining access to
international banking and the production of high-cost high-quality manufactured
goods. Unlike the core, however, they failed to predominate in international trade
and thus did not benefit to the same extent as the core. With a weak capitalist rural
economy, landlords in semi-peripheries resorted to sharecropping. This lessened the
risk of crop failure for landowners, and made it possible at the same time to enjoy
profits from the land as well as the prestige that went with landownership.
• According to Wallerstein, the semi-peripheries were exploited by the core but, as in
the case of the American empires of Spain and Portugal, often were exploiters of
peripheries themselves. Spain, for example, imported silver and gold from its
American colonies, obtained largely through coercive labor practices, but most of
this specie went to paying for manufactured goods from core countries such as
England and France rather than encouraging the formation of a domestic
manufacturing sector.
• As a mark of this, towards the end of 1970s an “anti-poverty‟ emphasis emerged
as the second WID approach. In part , it was a toning down of the equity
approach „which had required agencies to interfere in the relations between
men and women (Buvinic, 1983).
• An important part of this reorientation was the “basic need strategy”. The new
focus on women could be accommodated within the development agencies by
linking women to poverty alleviation and basic needs. Low-income women could
be identified as a part of this new emphasis, as one important group to be singled
out for particular attention. This was mainly, because the existing projects had
ignored their needs and women generally played the important role in fulfilling
basic needs within the household.
• This anti-poverty approach stressed income generating projects for poor women
often ignoring their reproductive roles and their interconnection with productive
roles and without the emphasis on increasing women's autonomy which was
implied in the “equity approach”
Gender Analysis of World system theory
• These analyses tended to place gender emphasis on the widen global
processes of accumulation involved in the spread of capitalist social
relation along with their impact of gender relation as well as their looking
at the impact of particular policies and projects.
• These studies incorporated a much needed gender perspective to the
analysis of dependency, under development and the new international
division of labor. Often utilizing ideas developed by social feminists for the
analysis of gender relations in the first world these studies also developed
a much more complex and sophisticated theoretical framework.
• Rather than simply concentrating on women, the emphasis of analysis
shifted towards the study of gender relations. A more detailed examination
of the roots of women‟s subordination was done through the analysis of
the global working of capitalism in combination with patriarchy.
Status of women in Pakistan
Women’s Health
• Status of women in Islamic world in general and in Pakistan in particular is
often debated in the west. It is blamed that women in Pakistan do not
enjoy such rights which Human Right of Declaration confer upon them. The
society of Pakistan is no different from any other parochial and male
obsessed country, where the dominant patriarchal set-up seldom gives a
chance to the other half of human population to flourish and stand up for
its own cause. Such trend therefore, leads to a society that accord
derogatory position to women in practice, Pakistan being the classical
example. Pakistan ranks 121 on the Gender Inequality Index ahead of India
and Afghanistan but trailing behind Bangladesh, according to United
National Development Programme’s latest Human Development Report
(HDR) 2015.
• Pakistan as per the analysis of reports proved failed to provide basic health
facilities to women.
• Pakistan Policy Institute has warned Pakistan in its report that the health care
system of Pakistan is about to collapse
• UNICEF on emergency basis treated 7 million women in 2013 which were about
to die.
• As per UNICEF 2013, 182,000 women have no direct nutritional facility
• HIV most attacked disease during pregnancy contributing 7% as per UNICEF
• 30000 die before giving birth to baby
• Pakistan ranks third highest in the world with the number of maternal
deaths. There are many factors responsible for such problems. However, more
important is the lack of resources even for those who wish to seek treatment.
Health profile

• Maternal Mortality
• The overall Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) for Pakistan is
280 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UNICEF,126
or 276 per 100,000 according to the 2006-07.
• In rural areas the ratio is 319 per 100,000, more than 80 per
cent higher than the ratio of 175 per hundred thousand
found in urban areas, where a continuum of antenatal care
and assisted delivery is more likely to be available
• 23 per cent of deaths of rural women of reproductive age
are due to pregnancy-related and childbirth-related
complications, as compared to 14 per cent among urban
women
• Obstetric bleeding (postpartum and antepartum haemorrhage) is
responsible for one-third of all maternal deaths in Pakistan
• MNCH
• A national MNCH programme has been developed to fill gaps in maternal and child
health care by training and deploying 12,000 community midwives, particularly in
rural areas, to increase the skilled birth attendance rate
• This programme is training health care providers across the country in Integrated
Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness (IMNCI), Emergency Obstetric and
Neonatal Care (EmONC), Essential Newborn Care (ENC), Integrated Management of
Pregnancy and Childbirth (IMPAC), family planning counselling and family planning
surgical methods.
• In addition it is upgrading 112 District Headquarters (DHQ) and 122 Tehsil
Headquarters (THQ) hospitals in the country to provide full emergency obstetric and
neonatal care services, and another 15 DHQ and 48 THQ hospitals and 599 rural
health centres (RHCs) and civil hospitals to provide basic services.
• Maternal Health
• The trend of mothers seeking antenatal care has increased (lowest percentage in
FATA). The survey found that 62.3 per cent of pregnant women in Pakistan consult a
gynaecologist for ANC, while 11.9 per cent consult nurses, 3.6 per cent consult LHVs
and 1.9 per cent consult LHWs.
• Where 80 per cent of pregnant women in the target districts had access to these
services, the proportion of women aged 15-49 years actually receiving ANC by a
skilled health person at least once during their last pregnancy rose from between 16
and 47 per cent in the baseline year of 2003-04 to between 30 and 63.5 per cent in
various services through 2010. The proportion of births attended by a skilled birth
attendant rose from 31 per cent (20 per cent rural and 48 per cent urban) in the
baseline year of 2005 to 45 per cent (34 per cent rural and 67 per cent urban) in
2010
• Government hospitals are underutilized due to Lack of female staff in government
healthcare facilities • Poor access to medication and equipment • Distance
(especially in rural areas of Sindh, Balochistan and KP)
• Attendance at birth
• Skilled birth attendance rates continue to show very deep rural/urban : disparities, at
77 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.139 The provincial trends show the
following:
• Sindh (urban and rural) has seen increased attendance rates. Punjab has the highest
attendance rates for rural areas across Pakistan. Balochistan has the lowest
attendance among rural areas.
• 74 % rich women give birth at health facility as against only 12% poor women.
Uneducated and poor mothers are less likely to be prepared for complications during
pregnancy and childbirth, are less likely to seek care and thus are more likely to die
of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
• Women stay at home for delivery for a variety of economic, cultural and access
reasons – this is unlikely to change in the short or medium term.
• The government’s efforts to reach the women in the household need to be stepped up.
Currently, trained dais (traditional community midwives) and TBAs are the dominant
assistants at delivery.
• This could possibly be altered by: o Increasing the number of trained dais in rural
communities; o Offering training and equipment to TBAs; o Training LHWs and LHVs in
prenatal care and delivery assistance.
• The most common causes of death, haemorrhage and sepsis are closely related to poor
hygiene conditions, and are thus easily preventable through improved conditions at delivery.
• Lady Health Worker Program
• More efforts are required to ensure that the LHWs are being utilized
effectively as the main source of health access to for many of the women
unable to access any other facility. LHWs can lead the way to improved MMR
and child mortality ratios through simple changes:
• Effective ANC.
• Identify problems (e.g., breech position; high blood pressure) that would require medical
intervention;
• Ensure the coverage of TT immunization for pregnant women;
• Educate pregnant women and their families about the need for skilled birth attendant and/or
institutional deliveries.
• Maintaining health records of children’s immunization.
• Improving immunization in rural areas where children are born in the home.
• Improving the rate of birth registration.
• Other Issues
• Sexually transmitted diseases
• Reproductive Freedom
• Cancer (Breast cancer, ovarian cancer etc), Anemia
• Violence against women
• Early marriages
 Women and Education
• Education is a universal, fundamental human right, recognized as such by the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, and reaffirmed in international human rights conventions. Pakistan has committed to
achievement of equality of access to education at the national level and is also a signatory of international
declarations and agreements upholding equality in access to basic education, including the World
Declaration on Education For All (1990, Jomtien, Thailand) and the Dakar Framework for Action for EFA
(April 2000, Dakar, Senegal).
• Pakistan’s Constitution, framed in 1973, declared the country’s commitment to providing education for all.
According to Article 37, “the State shall … (b) remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary
education within the minimum possible period; (c) make technical and professional education generally
available and higher education equally accessible to all on the basis of merit”. Recently, through a
Constitutional Amendment No 18, free and compulsory education for the children aged 5 to 16 years has
been declared a fundamental right. Article 25-A of the Constitutions provides that: “The state shall provide
free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be
determined by the law.” (Article 25-A, Constitution of Pakistan).
• This is consistent with Article 26 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which states
that “Education shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages ... Technical and
professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible
to all on the basis of merit”
• National Education Policy 2009 recognizes rural urban and gender based
disparities
• International Commitments
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,
Pakistan signed it in 1996
• Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action - “people-centred sustainable
development ... through the provision of basic education, life-long education, literacy
and training ... for girls and women” (Article 27), and ensuring “equal access to and
equal treatment of women and men in education” (Article 30)
• World Declaration on Education For All (2000)
• Dakar Framework for Action – Education for ALL
• Millennium Development Goals
• Basic Education is Pakistan
• Schools - According to the Pakistan Ministry of Education, there are a total of
146,691 primary schools in Pakistan. Of these, 43.8 percent are schools for
boys, 31.5 percent are schools for girls and the remaining 24.7 percent are
schools with Mix enrolment of both boys and girls. Thus Pakistan has fewer
schools for girls than for boys. At the provincial or regional level, there are
also more boys’ schools than girls’ schools.
• Teachers - In Pakistan, girls are often not permitted to attend school unless
they have a female teacher. It is therefore very important that there is gender
parity in the teaching staff. According to the Ministry of Education, there are
425,445 teachers in Pakistan. Of these, 53 percent are male and 47 percent
are female. While most provinces/Areas have more male teachers than
female teachers, in three provinces/Areas: Punjab, AJK and ICT, there are
more female teachers than males.
• NER – 54% for girls and 61% for boys uptil 2010. lowest among all SAARC,
excluding Afghanistan
• Literacy - the female literacy rate is consistently lower than the male
literacy rate in both urban and rural areas and across all provinces and
regions of Pakistan. Gender disparity in literacy rates is higher in some
provinces ( Khyber Pakthunkwa and Balochistan) than others (Punjab and
Sindh).
• Level of Gender equality in education access
• Disparity more in rural areas, less in urban areas
• School attendance higher in boys than girls
• Around half of women never attend schools
• Reasons
• Poverty
• Absence of free and compulsory education for all
• Spending on education as percentage of GDP
• Accessibility issues of girls
• Gendered division of labour
• Shortage of schools and teachers,
• Impact of terrorism
• Middle and Secondary Education Gender Disparity
• Higher disparity than primary education
• Gender inequality in education increases chances of poverty
• Pro-male bias in families to enrol the male child, and spend more on males
• More disparity in rural areas
• Gender disparity at Higher Education Level
• Co education at higher education bars culturally traditional women
• Inter relationship between poverty, livelihood and investment decisions
• Security issues for women are still relevant and present
• Early marriages and household labor
• Recommendations ?