We can continue to look at the relationship
between feminism and other ideologies.
Weíve seen that feminism cuts across all
other ideologie - most of them were propounded
by men, politics today is dominated by men
all over the world, and so on.
But of course, different forms of feminism
draw upon, theyíre informed by, assumptions,
sometimes explicit commitments, derived from
other ideologies.
Thatís hardly surprising.
Weíll start with, there are several f0rms
here, liberal, conservative, socialist and
radical feminism; that is liberal, socialist,
we will look at conservative feminism later.
Liberal, socialist and radical feminism are
the main theoretically articulated forms.
Some conservative feminism has been articulated,
we will look at that as we proceed.
Now, through the 20th century, the general
condition and position of women improved unrecognizably
in most western countries.
The changes were brought about by the vote
- undoubtedly a first wave success - by womenís
access to education, often as a result of
legislation, by vast changes in divorce law,
by the legalisation of abortion, and by vast
improvements in womenís access to safe and
reliable methods of contraception; that enabled
them to control their own fertility.
The changes of course were not uniformly spread
throughout western countries.
The Republic of Ireland, for example, was
founded in 1921 as a result of better sectarian
divisions between Catholics and Protestants,
while Ireland was a British colony, and the
Republic of Ireland was culturally and by
law, totally opposed to both contraception
and abortion.
In the Republic of Ireland, if Iím not mistaken,
there has been a change since then, if Iím
not mistaken.
But abortion has for very long time, been
illegal unless the pregnancy endangers the
mother's life or the mother's endangered by,
her life is endangered by it.
Now that condition includes women victims
of incest or rape, because they would need
to show that the pregnancy was a danger in,
a danger to their own lives.
But more recently - I wrote that text in 2016
or '17 - more recently, a referendum in the
Republic of Ireland, an overwhelmingly Catholic
country, a Catholic majority country, has
stated a public preference for significant
relaxation of the prohibitions on abortion.
We can look through, you can look through
the specifics, if you're interested.
What has also come to light in the last three
or four years is that the British province
of Northern Ireland, the six counties of Northern
Ireland, a devolved British province, has
had a blanket ban on abortion or near blanket-ban
on abortion for a very long time.
That is now a significant issue and has come
to light in the context of the possible British
exit from the European Union.
It does also mean, and this is an issue within
the [non] unwritten constitution of the United
Kingdom, that legislation on this matter in
Northern Ireland is significantly different
from legislation in the rest of the United
Kingdom, which is basically covered by the
Abortion Act 1967 and case law since then.
But what about other Catholic or Catholic
majority countries?
Spain and Portugal, for their part, were ruled
by fascist dictatorships from 1936 to 1975
in Spain's case, 1938 if I'm not mistaken
to 1974 in Portugal's case.
And these were both, both of them, both countries
were marked by rigid and conservative forms
of Catholicism.
All three societies that is, the Republic
of Ireland, and Spain and Portugal, changed
significantly as societies only after they
joined the then European Economic Community
- and that since the treaty on European Union
was signed in 1992, has been the European
Union.
Ireland acceded on the first of January 1973,
on the same date as the United Kingdom, and
I think Denmark, and Spain and Portugal acceded
in 1981, some years after both had thrown
off fascist dictatorship and had reformed
themselves into certainly seriously recognizable
democracies.
Now, most of the relevant changes in the societies
involved- we are looking here at profound
cultural changes resulting from accession
to the EEC, which meant effectively open borders
between countries, which meant significant
protections of rights throughout, throughout
the then nine members of the European Union,
made up to nine by the accession of Spain
and Portugal and Greece at the same time.
Many of the changes were social changes and
they resulted from claims to rights, such
as the right of access to education, the right
of access to contraceptive advice and services,
and such like.
In employment law, for example, the United
Kingdom's Equal Pay Act was passed in 1970.
The Sex Discrimination Act followed in 1975.
As we have already seen, in 1986, the European
Court of Justice significantly advanced women's
rights by ruling in the case of Marshall that
the employers involved had breached the European
Economic Communityís law by making Helen
Marshall, a radiographer, retire earlier than
her male colleagues.
Iíve mentioned this case before.
That decision, once reached, was binding throughout
the EC, and is now binding throughout the
European Union.
Now in ideological form, these are typically
liberal changes, even if they have very substantial
economic and other practical consequences.
They usually involve claims to rights or to
the creation of new rights within existing
democratic systems.
They often involve legislation intended to
ensure that men and women are treated fairly
and equally under existing procedures and
laws.
And, for example, they include things like
equal access to education, and to all occupations
and professions, at least in theory and at
least procedurally.
In substance, of course, the picture is very
different, but liberal feminism is broadly
reformist in character.
It relies on an individualist conception of
society, as does all liberalism, and in general
liberal feminism does not seek or demand radical
changes in economic or political structures
or systems.
Those demands would of course run counter
to liberal thinking in general, liberal political
thought in general.
Now, liberal feminism can therefore accept
that certain areas life, of life can be separate
for men and women.
Okay, Betty Friedan wrote as recently as 1983,
35 years or so, but not that long ago, Betty
Friedan wrote that the family is central to
women's lives.
Secondly, this kind of approach, a liberal
approach, runs a risk of failing to address
existing patriarchal attitudes.
In some parts of India, women have been employed
as bus drivers, but most of them have left
the job, and they leave the job soon, because
male colleagues often behave very badly towards
them.
In the United States military, improved reporting
and recording systems have shown that sexual
assaults by male personnel on female colleagues
are much more common than the military head
previously recognised them to be.
Even the United Nations has publicly recognised
the extent of that problem.
Though of course, the aggregate, the overall
figures, would cover male assaults on males
as well.
Any changes in attitudes may well need other
kinds of approach besides the purely punitive.
The point is changes in attitude here.
And an issue for liberal feminism is that
procedural and reformist measures may not
have that much effect on attitudes, and thatís,
thatís a familiar issue all around the world,
particularly in respect of feminism.
But an approach based on liberalism has an
inherent conceptual problem.
Liberalism, weíve seen is by definition suspicious
of the state's capacity and tendency to intrude
into the private sphere.
And therefore, legislation affecting the family
is something liberal feminists have always
found to be a problem or potential problem.
And thatís documented in liberal feminist
theory.
If the family is a woman's space, well, liberalism
can certainly recognise respectively different
spaces for men and women, or justifiably different
spaces, but that then raises the question
of whether democratic assemblies have the
right, the moral right to pass the, to pass
legislation which could significantly enter
into, intrude, and even reshape the private
familial space.
In practice, they do, but this is a conceptual
issue and a conceptual problem for liberal
theory and therefore for liberal feminist
theory.
Well, what about socialist feminism?
Socialist feminism differs from liberal feminism.
It locates women's position in the context
of the structural inequalities which shape
almost all societies.
In other words, socialist feminism sees the
position of women in the context of structural,
that is, economic and political structures,
which shape almost all societies.
Liberal feminism largely neglects class-based
inequalities among women, that is among women
themselves.
In respect of access to education or the professions
or political participation and the like.
Socialist feminism, on the other hand, is
founded on the argument that gender equality
cannot be achieved without a revolution in
the control of the means of production.
Itís the production relations that are the
issue.
This argument does have some weight.
For example, in commodity producing systems
or capitalist systems, women are expected
to, and largely do, stay at home to bring
up the children and run the house so that
their respective husbands can go out to work
as the familyís sole or main earner.
And that in turn means that women are required
by the economic system - by the economic system,
socialists would point out - to abandon occupations,
careers, and higher studies so that men can
have long working lives.
It also means that women in capitalist societies
form, in effect, a free workforce; theyíre
doing, they do, permanently do colossal, perhaps
incalculable amounts of work, without which
these economies might well collapse.
The socialist feminist response is that the
answer is certainly not wages for housework,
which have been proposed and which amount
to a form of liberalism; the answer is not
wages for housework, but a complete transformation
of the entire system of production relations.
In addition, being the main earners gives
men economic power over women within the family.
This power could also be transmitted across
generations, for example, by patrilineal inheritance
that is, inheritance through the father's
line, or by the hypocrisy involved in menís
having say far more opportunities for sexual
liaisons as well, outside the home than women
do.
This is often reinforced by cultural assumptions
about women's femininity, or about the idea
that the home is a woman's space.
And among the patriarchal assumptions which
sustain such ideas are moral codes imposing
monogamy.
Now socialist feminism goes even further at
times, for example, by analysing the ways
in which enormously profitable cosmetics and
fashion business turns women's bodies into
commodities to be exploited for profit.
Laurie Penny argues that women's flesh itself
has become a vehicle for highly profitable
businesses, which themselves propagate patriarchal
ideas of women's entire lives.
Anne Taylor Fleming concludes that what is
in progress is a cultural war that is taking
place, I quote, ëatop the female bodyí.
Penny wrote that, and Laurie Penny wrote in
2011 and Anne Taylor Fleming wrote that in
2012.
Socialist feminism extends socialist thinking
by introducing such significant additional
issues - and by requiring socialism to address
patriarchy as a social and cultural matter,
as well as a key element in capitalist economic
systems.
Now this greatly strengthens the revolutionary
or transformative potential of socialism.
You had a question.
Thatís a really important point.
We touched upon it in our in our earlier lecture,
but youíve added to it, and thank you for
the contribution.
The point is, yes, youíre quite right, Kollontai
does, Alexandra Kollontai does point out that
if women go out to work in commodity producing
or capitalist systems, theyíre almost always
paid less.
The fact that they are paid less enables the
men's wages to be kept down or to be forced
to lower levels as well.
Of course, all kinds of casuistical claims
are often entered, or highly convoluted claims
are entered that the women arenít doing the
same work, which is not necessarily true and
we can see that on construction sites around
the world, but or in much of the developing
world certainly.
But youíre absolutely right.
The point is that women's work for lower wages
in capitalist systems creates a form of competition
not only between men and women, but also among
women themselves, and serves to keep wages
low.
Thatís a really important point about the
consequences of commodity production systems
for women.
And that is - that strengthens the conclusion
I have offered, which is that socialism has
to address patriarchy, not just as a matter
of economic structure, but as a social and
cultural matter.
And thatís what in that sense, socialist
feminism strengthens the revolutionary potential
of socialism.
Thank you for the contribution.
Thatís absolutely right.
Remarkable, a very, very good point to make.
There have been other responses to this.
Quite a lot of feminist theory has said, there's
no point expecting conventional socialism
to change; the bulk of it is male dominated,
industrial trade unions around the world are
heavily male dominated, for example, both
in the reach, in membership and in the posts
held by the, by the senior elected officers.
It is, for example, I mean, there have been
changes of a, if you like of a first-wave
kind.
The European Convention on Human Rights has
recently been confirmed as providing a right
to trade union membership under Article 5,
the right to freedom of association.
Now, I understand thatís a case in English
law, but itís quite likely to have parallels
in, virtually in all other European Union
countries, all of which are signatories to
the European Convention on Human Rights, a
separate document by the way, produced by
the Council of Europe, not the then Coal and
Steel Community or the EC.
But the question then is, whatís the substance
of trade union membership?
If we look at it around the world, we find
that trade union membership is overwhelmingly
male.
The senior posts are almost always held by
men.
And until relatively recently, the idea that
women's work was not only deserving of union
membership, of union formation, but significant
in the workforce was something a lot of male-dominated
unions simply didnít realise.
I hope that has changed, but my guess is that
it hasnít changed nearly as much as it should
have done.
Now, in response, a lot of feminists have
said there's no point trying to adopt socialism
uncritically.
Itís itself a patriarchal form and in practice
is deeply patriarchal.
What we need is something much more radical,
and radical feminism has had considerable
currency.
Radical feminists regard patriarchy not class
or any other organizing principle, as the
central problem in existing human society.
Patriarchy is the issue.
One result is that women have been portrayed
as inferior to men; thatís a result of patriarchy.
Then natural sexuality has been suppressed
by highly oppressive male systems of conditioning
- well documented.
The radical feminist response has been to
advocate various forms of independence from
men and from male-dominated organizations.
There is evidence to support the likely benefits.
For example, in the various British school
education systems, girls get better examination
results in girls-only schools than they do
in mixed schools; the evidence is very clear.
Now, in radical feminist thought, gender is
therefore the deepest of all divisions in
society, because gender is the source of patriarchy;
all gender divisions are the source of patriarchy.
Patriarchy pervades society, perhaps even
all societies, and radical feminists are absolutely
clear about that.
Susan Brownmiller, for example, holds that
men dominate women by physical and sexual
abuse.
Not at all surprising.
All over the world, when women speak frankly
about physical spaces, how buildings are designed,
how cities are laid out, whether areas are
well lit or not, whether there are any other
people around in case they need help.
The minute they say so, we do something we
should have done all the time, and look even
at the nature of our physical spaces.
Here in this institution, weíre not far from
the from the city's mass rapid transit system,
where as a man I have found some of the physical
spaces dark and intimidating, particularly
the mezzanine floors or intermediate floors,
or if youíre nautical, ítween-decks.
These are often very poorly lit, hardly ever
occupied by anyone.
And if they were occupied by someone, I'd
be a bit cautious about going anywhere near
them, go straight down the stairs and out
again, either up to the platform or out into
the street.
But a great many women say they will not use
the MRTS and say it publicly, wonít use the
MRTS because the structures are so intimidating,
and they're very much on their own even in
the middle of the day.
So thatís an example.
And letís consider for example how our physical
spaces, even shopping centres, are laid out
or shopping areas are laid out.
If weíve ever taken small children round,
either in a pram or carried children round
or taken small children round, weíll know
just how very difficult such spaces are to
navigate to navigate and negotiate.
Now these are issues that occur all around
the world.
And itís not just about the physical space,
itís about the atmosphere and climate that
women face in any kind of interaction and
any kind of engagement with even the physical
space.
Brownmillerís point is that men dominate
women by physical and sexual abuse.
Everyday forms of sexual harassment are very
widespread and occur around the world all
the time, even in the Nordic countries.
And groups campaigning, such as the End Violence
Against Women group have brought this out
repeatedly.
Official agencies around the world can be
part of the problem.
The police and the judicial system have long
been documented all around the world as not
taking women's complaints of abuse, including
sexual abuse, seriously.
One result is that the extent of sexually
motivated violence against women is very seriously
underreported.
Susan Brownmiller also holds that all men
benefit from the fear and anxiety the very
possibility of sexual violence generates among
all women.
Itís a very comprehensive claim, but she
doesnít make it lightly and thereís a great
deal of evidence to support it.
Those are three major, weíve looked at three
major ways of theorising feminism in response
to and in engagement with other major ideologies
- liberal feminism, socialist feminism and
radical feminism.
What are the current prospects of feminism?
Weíí weíll look at these, and weíll than
look at more recent developments, identifying
the conditions women face and articulating
them in greater detail.
But weíll start by looking at the current
prospects of feminism.
Yes, there have been enormous advances in
legislation and vast improvements in women's
position in many societies in the last century
or so.
But the global, the overall global position
of women has not improved nearly as much as
it could have done.
And in some respects, itís even worsened.
The evidence is very bleak.
I canít remember the exact figures, but if
I am not mistaken, women's participation in
the global workforce has declined somewhat
in the last decade or so.
And secondly, I understand there is some research
evidence to show that in the poorest classes
women's position is even worse than it was
a decade or more ago.
Weíd have to look up the evidence particularly,
just to be sure of our facts there.
But in addition, movements in all faiths extreme
and even less extreme fundamentalist movements
in all faiths and in many countries have openly
asserted rigid divisions in gender roles.
And theyíve attempted to confine women to
the home, restated roles for women that we
might have thought had gone out if not, why
with the dinosaur or the dodo certainly gone
out with the end of the last war and perhaps
with the, with the development in recent decades.
But some of the movements concerned, some
of the extreme fundamentalist movements concerned,
have even banned women's education.
Secondly, even within feminist theory, well
- it hardly needs saying that fierce and significant
controversy continues.
It is right that it continues, because thatís
what illuminates our situation.
What is said in this space of fierce and significant
controversy is often highly illuminating.
For example, many of the issues had to do
with what it is to be a writer at all, particularly
of fiction.
Toril Moi, for example, has provided very
clear expositions of some of the questions
involved.
Among other things, Toril Moi, Moi notes here
that the impact of poststructuralist literary
theory on the ways we locate or characterise
women's writing has been immense.
Weíll meet post structuralism and post modernism
later on, in I think our ninth or tenth topic.
But the impact of this kind of literary theory
on the ways we characterize women's writing
has been immense and Toril Moi is right about
that.
But itís caused its own problems and Moi
comments on this.
She remarks on the difference between Beauvoir's
accounts, Simone de Beauvoir's account of
how society creates the feminine gender, with
the implication that those processes can be
changed - Moi notes the difference between
Beauvoir and Judith Butler's apparent elimination
of any sense of human agency in the process
of gendering, because strong strands in poststructuralist
theory regard authorship as irrelevant or
meaningless.
Now, that is a kind of risk that, weíll see,
runs through poststructuralist thinking and
itís not surprising that it emerges in feminist
thinking today.
We shouldnít be surprised, but itís right
that this controversy is addressed.
Itís absolutely right that it is addressed
because that amplifies our sense of the issues
and develops them further.
Now Moiís concerns, Toril Moiís concerns
are mainly with literature, but the implications
are obvious.
If becoming a person of a particular gender
is a social process, then the implication
is that we can do something about it.
And then, we would see - if we thought we
could do something about a social process,
we would see the whole world indescribably
differently from anyone who sees human agency
as a fiction or as non-existent, or an enlightenment
conceit or something of that kind.
In addition, Moi has more recently expressed
severe criticism of the extent to which feminist
theory has, I quote, has become so, I quote,
ëabstract and overgeneralised that it no
longer says anything relevant about women's
livesí - end of quotation, that was said
by Moi in an interview in 2015.
Itís not an issue I should address here,
but the important thing is that Moi has put
it on the public agenda.
This has been said about a lot of literary
and other academic criticism, that itís become
so wordy or so, as Moi says, abstract and
overgeneralised that it no longer says anything
relevant about our lives.
Itís a significant point for Moi to make,
and other people have no doubt said the same
thing about various forms of, I should say,
various forms of recent feminist theory.
But this matter isnít that easily, it isnít
easily resolved, and for example, Maitrayee
Chaudhuri has shown additional difficulties
facing anyone who attempts to give an account
to feminism in a formerly colonised country
such as India.
In India, just as in, as happens in many other
former subject cultures, issues which maybe
marginal or insignificant in the west are
central in the non-west.
Gandhi recognises that and Chaudhuri cites
Gandhi is saying that.
Chaudhuri concludes, Maitrayee Chaudhuri concludes
that Indian feminists have to, I quote, ëconfront
the question of western feminismí, precisely
because India's path to modernity has been,
as Chaudhuri says, mediated through colonialism.
So have Indian encounters with nationalism,
democracy, socialism, the free market and
other ideas and institutions.
Now that in turn means that as an essential
element in our grasping such ideas - democracy,
socialism, nationalism, feminism and so on
- in grasping such ideas, we have to articulate
and recognise the contexts in which those
ideas originated, in which they were produced
and circulated and received, if weíre to
grasp them at all.
That may sound like stating the obvious, but
itís a clear warning against uncritical acceptance
of the terminology and methods of undoubtedly
major, major theories, major ways of understanding
the world.
Nationalism, democracy, socialism, the free
market - yes, these are major ideologies,
theyíve all had an impact on the world, all
over the world, but Chaudhuriís point is
that we need to arrange, we need to understand
the context in which they arose and think
about how to understand them through the lens
of colonialism, in other words, how our colonially-created
encounter with these or colonially-run encounter
with these needs to be understood in its own
right, if we are to understand these ideas
clearly in the sense, in the context, of our
own historical and cultural background.
Never an easy issue, absolutely never an easy
issue.
It carries with it the risks that we, the
risk that we reject significant areas of such
ideologies in favor of an often equally unexamined
sense of what it is to inherit a culture at
all.
And thatís something we encountered last
time as well - in multiculturalism.
But the third idea in contemporary feminism
is that of - or the third major issue it faces
- is, is that of material inequality, that
is, of structural disadvantage in the system
of production relations.
And that seems to remain largely unaddressed
at present or seems, it seems to be much less
fashionable.
This may be a result of the apparently global
dominance of an ideology, neoliberalism, according
to which and we've already seen this, human
agency is irrelevant to market outcomes.
Theyíre themselves as inexorable as natural
laws, or so neoliberalism sees them anyway.
It may be impossible to change that state
of affairs without vast changes in our modes
of production, and therefore our entire political
economy.
But without that kind of change, we as humanity
may well not face up to the task of bringing
about global improvements in womení situation
and condition.
That failure will only compound our continuing
failure to accept that women are full members
of the human species.
It sounds ridiculous, that we even have to
say that.
Itís a measure, I hope, of the continuing
obscenity of our condition and itís a measure
- that we even have to say it - is a measure
of how far we still have to go.
Now the point for us to remember here is that
feminism will, rightly, engage with, draw
upon and in turn inform other major ideologies.
Itíll cut across all ideologies enter into
them, participate in them, draw from them,
and influence them; thatís absolutely right.
What feminism does is make us think about
how these ideologies are to be understood,
and how they are to inform our understanding
of the world.
And in that sense, feminism has made an enormous
contribution to our sense even of the term
ëideologicalí.
We shall stop here, but in our next lecture
I shall go on to look at the kinds of issues
raised by Maitrayee Chaudhuri, for example,
the idea that things like nationalism and
democracy and socialism, feminism too, have
to be understood in the context and in the
light of the experience of colonial subjecthood.
We shall look at intersectionality, which
sounds like a social-scientific jargon term,
but nevertheless means a very great deal - what
is it to articulate a feminist sense of the
world in the light of sexual, economic and
political, and racial and cultural subjecthood
in many different forms.
We shall look at that next time around.
Weíll stop there and we shall look at intersectionality
next time, and then proceed to a worked exercise,
looking at relatively recent texts and evaluating
them in the light of other texts, thatí for
next time.
So weíll stop there.
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