Using Feminist Theory to Study Families

1. Using Feminist Theory to Study Families

2. What is feminist theory? • “An analysis of women’s subordination for the purpose of figuring out how to change it” (Gordon 1979) • Includes theories about: • the origins and nature of inequality • the social construction of sex and gender • Evaluative AND empirical • Often used in combination with other theories of families (e.g., exchange, life course).

3. Where does it come from? • Emerged from three waves of feminist (political) movements. • First Wave – (1840s)-1880s-1920s • Second Wave – 1960s-1990s • Third Wave – 1990s-present • Developed by scholars in a variety of academic disciplines (especially anthropology, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology).

4. What is it good for? • Helping to explain: • Power relations in families. • Division of labor in families and societies. • Meaning-making in (and about) families. • How understandings and assumptions about gender influence family dynamics and public policies.

5. Three Waves of (Western) Feminism Second Wave 1960s-1990s First Wave (1840s)-1880s-1920s Third Wave 1990s-present

6. The First Wave • Heavily influenced by Enlightenment thinking • Chief goals: Women’s suffrage (right to vote), access to education, family planning • Critique of women’s (restricted) role in the home Elizabeth Cady Stanton (c. 1848) & Anna Julia Cooper (1893)

7. The Second Wave • Liberal and cultural variants • Sought to expand access to education, types of paid work, equal pay for equal work • Focus on sexual liberation and freedom from sexual violence • Aimed to free women from excessive concern with beauty and appearance Gloria Steinem & Dorothy Pitman Hughes

8. The Third Wave • Recognizes diversity among women across race/ethnicity, class, sexual orientation • Promotes breaking down/ playing with gender categories

9. Three Waves of (Feminist?) Wonder Woman

10. Focus and Premises • Women’s experience is central • Can provide a basis for knowledge claims • Feminist theory has many voices • Because different women come from different social locations (e.g., by race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, age, nationality) • Feminist theory is emancipatory • In addition to trying to predict social processes, seeks to describe, evaluate, and prescribe social action

11. Main Concepts • Sex and gender • Sex = biology • Gender = social and cultural • Three dimensions of gender: • Gender identity • Structural gender (social status) • Cultural gender (symbols and meanings) • Sexism • Harmful attributions made about everyone with a certain trait believed to be inherent or genetic (e.g., sex)

12. Main Concepts • Family and household • HH = coresidential units • F = prevailing ideologies about how/where/with whom people should live and divide labor • Public and private • Gendered spheres (c. 1830s onward) • Seen as artificial distinction that supports and maintain an inequitable gender system

13. Propositions • Gender structures our experiences. • Gender structures all societies. • Women as a class [sic] are devalued and oppressed. • As a result of sex, gender beliefs, and historical and continuing sexism and oppression, there exists a “female culture.”

14. Propositions • The family is not monolithic. • In terms of organization and in terms of patterns by race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. • The family is a central institution for the reproduction of oppression. • Via socialization and social expectations • In terms of support for work, etc. [not in book]

15. Varieties of Feminist Theory • Liberal Feminism • Marxist/Socialist Feminism • Cultural Feminism • Multicultural and Critical Race [and Third World] Feminism • Other variants: Lesbian, psychoanalytic, anarchist, etc.

16. Liberal Feminism • Rooted in Enlightenment philosophy: “All men [sic] are created equal.” • Emphasis on equality of opportunity and removal of barriers (e.g., to education, work, leisure activities) • Mostly closely associated with first (and less-radical second) wave

17. Marxist/Socialist Feminism • Rooted in Marx and Engels’ writings • Who controls the means of reproduction (as well as the means of production)? • “Sex class” underlies other social divisions (e.g., race, SES) • Employers exploit women’s free reproductive labor, “cooperate” with male employees to limit women’s paid work (even though women might work for less)

18. Cultural Feminism • Posits men and women as (inherently) different, seeks to revalue traditionally devalued feminine traits (e.g., nurturing, expressiveness) • Mostly closely associated with radical second-wave feminism

19. Multicultural, Critical Race, and “Third World” Feminism • Questions basic constructs like “women” & “female” (and “family”) • Focus on intersecting identities • Concern with exploitation of immigrant and poor women • Draws on poststructuralist and postmodernist theory • Associated with third-wave feminism

20. Empirical Applications • Understanding the gendered division of labor • Second shifts and the stalled revolution (Hochschild) • Equal vs. fair? • The role of ideology • “Capitalization” of housework (Ehrenreich) • Measuring Diversity in Feminism • Are different strands of feminism associated with age, social class, occupation, race, etc.?

21. Practical Applications • Family policy reform • To reflect facts that families are diverse and that different family members may have different interests • Examples: Sexual violence & domestic violence, wage discrimination, day care, accounting for unpaid work • Family therapy • Revising traditional family therapy to acknowledge that conflict may be useful and good. • Family scholarship and the research process • Critiquing research that presumes families are private, neglects diversity of family forms, avoids gender analysis • Incorporating reflexive methods