Feminist Perspectives on the Self

This chapter discusses feminist critiques of the conventional conceptions of the self. They believe that these conceptions are incomplete and misleading as they ignore the multiple sources of social identity constituted by one's gender, sexual orientation, race, class, age, ethnicity, among others. They charge that Kantian and homo economicus views of the self are androcentric and masculinist. Feminist philosophical work on the self has taken three main tacks: critique of established views of the self, reclamation of women's selfhood, and reconceptualisation of the self to incorporate women's experience. Their reclamation strategies include revaluation of the 'feminine' activities of mothering and other modes for maintaining vital social bonds through the development of care ethics and eros ethics, exploration of separatist practices, rethinking autonomy to include women by moving beyond the Kantian and homo economicus models, and reclamation of sexual difference through a symbolic analysis of female identity.

Feminist Policies and Practices

This chapter presents global attempts at improving women's position, namely the welfare state, affirmative action, women in development, women and development, gender and development, gender mainstreaming, national women machineries, and the Beijing declaration. Despite all these global initiatives at solving gender imbalances, the desired results have not yet been attained. Despite good intentions and some real progress, the development community is still falling short in delivering on its promises.

Standpoint Theories of Feminism

This chapter discusses feminist standpoint theories. Feminist standpoint theorists claim that knowledge is socially situated; marginalised groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalised; and research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalised. Feminist standpoint theories emphasise the ways in which socially and politically marginalised groups are in a position of epistemic privilege vis-à-vis social structures. Drawing on Hegel and Marx, they argue that those on the “outside” of dominant social and political groups must learn not only how to get along in their own world, but also how to get along in the dominant society. Hence, they have an “outsider” status with respect to dominant groups that allows them to see things about social structures and how they function that members of the dominant group cannot see. There is, however, disagreement about standpoint theory parentage, its status as a theory, and its relevance to current thinking about knowledge.

Modern Theories of Feminism

This chapter discusses typologies of modern feminist theories. Lorber's categorisation of feminist theories distinguishes between three broad kinds of feminist discourses: gender reform feminisms, gender resistant feminisms, and gender revolution feminisms. Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley categorise the various types of feminist theories as theories of gender difference, theories of gender inequality, theories of gender oppression, and theories of structural oppression. All theories of gender difference are based on the thesis that the differences between men and women are immutable. These theories include cultural feminist theories, institutional role feminist theories, and existential feminist theories. Cultural feminism is a variety of feminism emphasising essential differences between men and women, based on biological differences in reproductive capacity. Institutional role feminist theories argue that gender differences result from the different roles that women and men come to play within various institutional settings. Existential feminist theories focus on the marginalisation of women as other in a male-created culture.

Feminist Perspectives on Sex Markets

This chapter shows that feminist debates over sex commerce extend to a number of social practices, including pornography, prostitution, trafficking in persons, and the use of sexual images of women to promote products and entertainment. The chapter establishes that feminist theorists are divided on the question of whether markets in sexually explicit materials and sexual services are generally harmful to women. Accordingly, some feminist scholars have explored and developed arguments for restricting sex markets, while others have investigated political movements that aim to advance the rights of sex workers.

Feminist Perspectives on the Body

This chapter discusses feminist theories of embodiment. The theories provide a general account of the relations between bodies and selves. The philosophy of embodiment extends outside the social and political sphere to engage with debates in philosophy of mind/body, where attention to embodiment has extended beyond a simple reductionist picture of the relation between mind and brain, to consider an embodied self, embedded within an environment. The formation of embodied subjectivity as constitutive of the self, to which feminists have paid such careful attention, and the persisting interrogation of the appropriate way of understanding biological and social embodiment, has links with these debates. Feminist theorists discussed in this chapter argue that naturalising frameworks need supplementing with phenomenological, poststructuralist, and psychoanalytic ones for a complete understanding of the embodiment of the female human body.

Gender Inequality Theories of Feminism

This chapter discusses liberal feminism, divided into liberal feminism and libertarian feminism. The liberal variant of liberal feminism sees freedom as personal autonomy and political autonomy. The exercise of personal autonomy depends on some enabling conditions that are insufficiently present in women's lives and other elements of women's flourishing. Autonomy deficits like these are due to the patriarchal nature of inherited traditions and institutions, and that the women's movement should work to identify and remedy them. Liberal feminists believe that the state should be the women's movement's ally in promoting women's autonomy. The libertarian variant of feminism sees freedom as freedom from coercive interference. It believes that both women and men have a right to such freedom due to their status as self-owners. Coercive state power is justified only to the extent necessary to protect the right to freedom from coercive interference. Feminism's political role is to bring an end not only to laws that limit women's liberty but also to laws that grant special privileges to women.

Feminist Ethics

This chapter argues that feminists accuse traditional approaches to ethics of showing less concern for women's as opposed to men's issues and interests. They view as trivial the moral issues that arise in the private world, the realm in which women do housework and take care of children, the infirm, and the elderly. Traditional approaches imply that, in general, women are not as morally mature as men. The approaches overrate culturally masculine traits and underrate culturally feminine traits. They favour male ways of moral reasoning that emphasize rules, rights, universality, and impartiality over female ways of moral reasoning that emphasize relationships, responsibilities, particularity, and partiality. Care-focused and status-focused feminist approaches to ethics do not impose a single normative standard on women. Rather, they offer to women multiple ways to understand the ways in which gender, race, and class affect their moral decisions.

Gender Oppression and Structural Oppression Theories of Feminism

This chapter discusses gender oppression theories including feminist psychoanalytic theory and radical feminism. The former explains the oppression of women in terms of psychoanalytic descriptions of the male psychic drive to dominate and the latter in terms of men's ability and willingness to use violence to subjugate women. The chapter also discusses structural oppression theories including Marxist feminism, socialist feminism, and intersectionality feminism. Socialist feminism describes oppression as arising from a patriarchal and a capitalist attempt to control social production and reproduction. Intersectionality theories trace the consequences of class, race, gender, affectional preference, and global location for lived experience, group standpoints, and relations among women. The chapter closes by briefly looking at the relationship between feminism and postmodernism.

Language and Feminism

This chapter discusses the various ways in which language portrays a negative image of women. Some of the ways in which language has been found wanting in as far as women are concerned are outlined as follows: Language creates false gender neutrality as this purported neutrality ends up showing a bias towards maleness anyway. Language generally makes women invisible and always overshadowed by men. It makes maleness the standard measure of humanity, and maturity is all about and thus maleness is seen as the norm. Sex-marking also encourages male visibility and powerlessness of women in a male-dominated world. The world is seen through an oppressive male worldview. Reform efforts have been piecemeal and as such have largely failed to reach the desired destination. The chapter closes by discussing the concepts ‘woman' and ‘generics' which have been found to be controversial in the life of women.