Gender could be used as a power that derives from social institutions and morality. There are relations to power that illegitimately revolve around what can be morally justified in feminist ethics. And it is shown in Hilde Lindmann’s chapter in, What is Feminist Ethics. Throughout the beginning of Lindeman’s chapter, she begins with defining feminism, considering two kinds of definitions commonly used for this subject. However, initially rejects both in favor of a third. The first is her observation that shows that people often view feminism as a movement that motivates woman to have the social equality that men have “Men remain the point of reference, theirs are the lives that woman would naturally want.” (137) The confliction that comes from …show more content…
this is that women and men are treated as abstractions, constructing a standard woman find they need to measure up to. Her solution to this problem is attending a woman directly. It is difficult to define what makes one a woman.
Gender is not defined as a biological property compared to the definition of sex. Provisionally: ‘sex’ denotes human females and males depending on biological characteristics such as (chromosomes, sex organs, hormones and other physical features); ‘gender’ denotes women and men depending on social factors (social role, position, behavior or identity).. So, defining what makes a woman, in fact a woman, is to not reference to men. And this causes another problem vice versa, if feminism is attempted be a framework on a positive difference between men and woman then difference itself divide the power elation between genders. Her conclusive definition of feminism is primarily the disproportionate power distribution between men and woman. “It’s about power. Specifically, it’s about the social pattern, widespread across cultures and history, that distributes power asymmetrically to favor mean over women.” ( 139) “This asymmetry had been given many names…. Theorist simply call it gender …” (139) In the 1960s, ‘gender’ was used solely to describe to masculine and feminine words, like le and la in French. However, some people felt that they were ‘trapped in the wrong …show more content…
bodies’. To explain this the psychologist Robert Stoller (1968) began using the terms ‘sex’ to pick out biological traits and ‘gender’ to distinguish the amount of femininity and masculinity a person exhibited. Feminists create a new socially constructed accounts of sharing femininity through the attempt of undercutting the biologically deterministic ways that define what it is to be a woman. Gender then gets it’s power from the distinctly from the personality with the implications that one is not really a member of a category nor does anyone qualify for a political representation. Consequently, Lidmann uses gender to identify the power distribution.
Gender is primarily normative, its yields prescriptions for what behaviors are expected for someone and does so through a variety of channels. Most important gender operated simultaneously with other power-relations in order to yield what is a fairly complex final power distribution. She defines her feminist ideas as one that attempts to understand, criticize, and correct how gender operates within our moral beliefs and practices. The domain of the feminist ethicist is the domain of power relations that are both legitimate and illegitimate. To understand the domain, the feminist view of ethicist is concerned with creating an appropriate description of how power differences work in our
lives. Furthermore, the ethics in feminism can be seen as a normative argument, that shows the distinction on it being unintelligible. This normative argument is not directly focused on a metaphysical perspective of gender realism, but more about its political identity that Lidmann discusses. “ ..It’s why it’s hard to separate feminist ethics from feminist politics is that feminists typically subject the ethical theory they produce to critical political scrutiny” ( 145) Gender realism is then surpasses feminist identity, politics, and is said to move around woman as a group where they experience women sharing a definition of gender as a whole. Yet, there is a problem that arises with this. Unitary gender notions fail to take differences with woman into account therefore failing the diverse social, cultural, and political intersections that woman are than constructed upon. In conclusion, feminist arguments such as Lindmann’s argue against the claim that gender through biological determinism is created socially, and how power comes from it. What is it to be a woman or a man?
Gender is not about the biological differences between men and women but rather the behavioral, cultural and psychological traits typically associated with one sex. Gender is socially constructed meaning it 's culturally specific, it 's learned and shared through gender socialization. What it means to be a woman or man is going to differ based on the culture, geographical location, and time. What it meant to be a woman in the US in the 19th century is different than what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. As cultures evolve over time so are the ideals of what it means to be man or woman.
The word gender refers to a general classification of human beings into male and female with socially and culturally constructed characteristics, behaviors, attributes and roles preconceived and labelled as appropriate for each class. The society and culture today have placed human beings in a box which to a large extent dictates how we act in the world.
Liberal feminism’s reliance on the legal system and the state to distribute and open up revenues of equal opportunities for women is ineffectual for MacKinnon, since it is still trying to operate within a framework that is inherently patriarchal. These institutions are incapable of enacting the necessary changes, as they themselves are constructed from a male perspective that perceives the inequality of women as the norm. As MacKinnon summarizes, the apparent absence of explicit laws enforcing gender inequalities is not due to a lack of negligence, but a lack of necessity. An unequal society will undoubtedly have laws that are unequal, even if it is not at first obvious. In other words, for women to be truly equal to men in law, they must first be equal in society. Liberal feminism seems to suggest opposite, as it believes that equality in general will be achieved once women possesses the same personal legal rights and political opportunities as men. This for MacKinnon, would be naïve (as a tool of the patriarchy cannot be used to change it) and ignorant of the more fundamental problem—that the domination of men over women is inescapable and permeates every sphere of society, and is so prevalent that inequalities are misconstrued and reconstructed as gender
Patricia Hill Collins outlines the existence of three different dimensions of gender oppression: institutional, symbolic, and individual. The institutional dimension consists of systemic relationship of domination structured through social institutions, such as government, the workplace or education institutions. In other words, this dimension explains “who has the power”. This is completely related to a patriarchal society. Patriarchy is the manifestation and institutionalism of male dominance. This means that men hold power in all institutions, while women are denied the access to this power. The symbolic dimension of oppression is based on widespread socially sanctioned ideologies used to justify relations of domination. It reflects inequality
Margaret Urban Walker’s Moral Understandings is most certainly a feminist study in ethics. The main purpose of her writings is to “account for the gender inequality in the socially constructed relationship between power—the political—on the one hand and the knowledge of truth and reality—the epistemological—on the other" (Walker 1998, 20). However, her approach is quite different than some of the feminist theorists that have come before her. Instead of taking what I call a “care-focused” approach where the primary task is to rehabilitate culturally associated “feminine” values, Walker takes “power-focus” approach in which she expresses an acute sensitivity to the fact that moral life and social life are intertwined. This power-focused perspective insists that our moral responsibilities flow from our social position, which as Walker notes, depends on our "gender, age, economic status, race, and other factors that distribute powers and forms of recognition differentially and hierarchically" (1998, 22). She explores the ways in which our power, or lack thereof, shapes our moral understandings and determines whose ethical vision is privileged as authoritative. To date, the economically and socially powerful have been largely responsible for setting the moral agenda for everyone. Walker regards this state of affairs as inequitable; as moral understanding is not the exclusive property of the privileged few, but the home turf of everyone.
Whitbeck, Caroline. Theories of Sex Difference. Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing Company: California. 1986. 34-51.
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
Feminist Theory is an aspect of considering feminism as having been based on socio-phenomenon issues rather than biological or scientific. It appreciates gender inequality, analyzes the societal roles played by feminists in a bid to promote the interests, issues and rights of women in the society. It is also based on the assumption that women play subsidiary roles in the society. The whole idea of feminism has however experienced hurdles in the form of stereotyping by the wider society. This paper tries to examine some of the effects of stereotypes that feminism goes through, what other philosophers say and the way forward towards ending stereotyping.
The most related terms when women’s right is brought up are feminism and feminist. A feminist, by definition, is someone the fights for feminism. The definition of feminism, one the other hand, is very complex. Throughout history, the word has continuously had bad images and connotations thrown its wa...
Feminism is a perspective that views gender as one of the most important bases of the structure and organization of the social world. Feminists argue that in most known societies this structure has granted women lower status and value, more limited access to valuable resources, and less autonomy and opportunity to make choices over their lives than it has granted men. (Sapiro 441)
Arianna Stassinopoulos wrote in the 1973 book The Female Woman: "It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes" (Microsoft Bookshelf). In her statement we see a cultural feminist response to the dominant liberal feminism of the 1970s.
Feminism can simply be defined as a range of movements and ideologies in which share a common ground in terms of defining, establishing and achieving equal opportunities to that of males, in regards to economic, cultural and social rights. It is a critique of male supremacy with efforts in changing this to end the social oppression of women. (Hooks, 2000)
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives. Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women.
The word feminism is sometimes misinterpreted and associated with female superiority and hatred of men, although most people probably agree that feminism can mean the desire for social and economic parity. There is so much baggage surrounding this term that clarification of what feminism is and is not, is essential. Indeed, the way feminism has developed has not been pretty. “Feminism over the years have [sic] evolved away from its noble purpose of creating awareness and defending women rights to creating new ridiculous ‘belief systems.’...feminism has become more like a medium for angry women to vent their hatred and frustration towards man”(“Feminism is Chauvinism”). This definition goes completely against the true meaning of what feminism entails. Feminism can be defined as a fundamental respect for others and the desire for equality between men and women.
Michael Levin, a professor of philosophy and author of the book Feminism and Freedom, faults feminism for trying to impose an inappropriate equality on men and women that conflicts basic biological differences between the sexes (Levin, Taking Sides, 42). Women are not the same as men, neither physically nor psychologically. In the past, men tended to be the stronger more powerful gender, while women have traditionally been viewed as the weaker, more feeble one. The untrue assumption that men and women are the same in their ways of thinking and physical capabilities leads to the failure of the feminist message. Their agenda of eliminating all observable differences between men and women is doomed to fail and will inflict more pain than gain in the process. Recognizing the differences between the sexes and allowing each to do what they are strongest at will in the long run make society stronger, more efficient, and more effective.