This has been an issue since feminist thinking first started to take root in American society. Which is also why African American feminism is important for many women. American society views race and gender through the eyes of the white male, and seeing as the dominating discourse in society, usually remains invisible until it is challenged, white and male becomes the perceived norm. The power vested within the white male gaze, then allows the white patriarchy to define the meaning of womanhood. When someone else gets to define a certain group of people, which they do not belong to, the people often become wrongly presented, by inaccurate stereotypes.
According to Flax, feminist theory has several purposes:to understand the power differential between men and women, to understand women’s oppression—how it evolved, how it changes over time, how it is related to other forms of oppression and how to overcome oppression (Flax 1990: 52). Flax suggests that “feminist theory is intimately related to action: “Feminist theory is the foundation of action and there is no pretense that theory can be neutral” (Flax 1990: 52). Within feminist theory is a commitment to change oppressive structures and to connect abstract ideas with concrete problems for political action (Flax 1990: 52). Marilyn Frye addresses the theme of feminist theory in her essay “The Possibility of Feminist Theory,” where she notes that the “dominant approach to theory in Western philosophy has focused on generalization: enumerative, statistical, and metaphysical generalization, none of which is kind to particulars” (Marilyn Frye, 1983) . Frye argues that or declares that to be what-it-is of a thing, threatening the annihilation of that which does not fit its prescription (Marilyn Frye, 1983).
The literature that I have used helps to explain the background to my research question. This will include three areas of knowledge: feminist geographies, popular geopolitics and carceral geographies. I have decided to study these areas because any issues that are important to women in society such as race and ethnicity can be viewed in a certain way and OITNB is an excellent example in how the mass media capture this true representation. 2.1 Theoretical perspective Feminism is a very important theory as it involves around the relationship of women and an analysis on how societies are structured between men and women. Early feminist work within geography challenged the discipline for its failure to adequately incorporate women in profession (Mark & Hanson, 1982) (as seen by Valentine, 2007).
In reality, this community offer unique perceptions to the ways in which woman are socialized into their roles from a young age and how this manifests though out their upbringing. This is significant because in order to establish feminism that is advocating for equal rights it is important to evaluate whether women are fostering notions that prevent themselves from effectively advocating against patriarchy. This reveals that transfeminism questions what it means to be women. Gender assignment at birth does not necessarily dictate womanhood, therefore there are influences that conceive this identity. This changes the perception of feminism as it highlights the necessity to alter the gender roles and gender identity.
According to an Arizona Law Journal from 1994, “Feminism is the set of beliefs and ideas that belong to the broad social and political movement to achieve greater equality for women” (Fiss, 512). This quote is salient because feminism is a “broad social and political movement” meaning that striving for gender equality can be achieved in a plethora of ways. In the novel Sula, author Toni Morrison utilizes characters like Hannah and Sula Peace to create a feminist novel as both characters are the antithesis of conventional women who are oppressed and dependent upon men. This novel takes place in a town in Chicago referred to as The Bottom from 1919-1965 during a time of racism and sexism when women were seen as property. Sula refuses to accept
Instead they should look for the foundation for feminist amalgamation in collaboration building. Diverse movements labor to combat diverse kinds of tyranny; some movements take tyranny against women – as women – as an ordinary concern. If there is a foundation for collaboration between some subsets of these movements in a given context, then they can come to realization that foundation is an achievement, but it should not be taken lightly. Given a representation framework for considering the kinds of feminism, it should be more visible how philosophical shortcomings come about in working out the details of a feminist role. The most clear or straightforward philosophical commitment ought to be to a normative theory that articulates an account of fairness and/or a consideration of the good.
Thus, feminism sought to liberate women from androcentrism, which was prevalent in multiple aspects of life, including religion. Women’s views were not expressed in religion and theology, therefore, feminist theologians attempted to reinterpret religion based on the female experience. Feminist theologies can be divided into three categories, revolutionary, reformist and reconstructionist. The first, revolutionary feminist theology, views the bible and Christianity as patriarchal and antiwoman. Thus, women abandoned Christianity and looked to worshipping ancient female deities.
Everyone has their own version of feminism and their own idea of what it is and thats what I like about how this author explains in detail of her own opinions, topics, and ideas of the way feminism, mothers, and women in general interact in America today. Feminism relates and teaches us about the topic of our course, interpersonal communication in many ways. Feminist thought has become an important influence across many traditions of the communication theory. Feminism and women who are mothers or women in general, offers for studying and thinking about the topic of interpersonal relationships and how communication
In a third and final point, we’ll consider that both gender studies and feminism should be studied separately because gender studies goes further and takes into account sexual characteristics and oppression in general rather than only social oppression towards a biological sex, being women. Gender is something different from social movements. Indeed, in general, gender studies bring to a reflexion on what is being a male and what is being a female according to time and places. The main goal of these studies is to observe how a sex is supposed to reproduce a common thinking and acting according to its societal past. According to Joan Scott, one of the main and first theorists of gender studies: "In grammar, gender is understood to be a way of classifying phenomena, a socially agreed upon system of distinctions rather than an objective description of inherent traits.
For example, Feminism brings to life all of the inequalities women face. Women make up nearly fifty percent of the world population, so there is no reason they should not receive the same respect, pay, and recognition men do. Equality should be one of the main priorities for a state if it wants to advance in the 21st century. With that being said, I believe that the Marxism and Feminism theories deserve to be recognized as prominent theories in the field of International