unit 4b politics feminism QUEST FOR EQUALITY

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Report Thread starter 3 years ago
Hi guys, hope you are all well and exams are going great. I'm revising politics right now and I hit the deep end when I got to this question.
Any help?

To what extent is feminism defined by the quest for gender equality?
Babs Posh
Badges: 13
Report 3 years ago
This might have been better suited in the politics section as we have a thread for this exam haha but here's what I'd plan to do with this question. Start with the obvious and split your paragraphs up in arguing yes, feminism is defined by the quest for gender equality and no, they're not.

For yes, I would talk about the difference(s) between sex and gender, arguing that human nature is androgynous (possessing both male and female characteristics) to eliminate any logical difference between men and women. Another paragraph can be what the strands take on it, and what their main aims. This is perhaps the easiest when talking about liberal feminists about wanting equal access to the public realm and legal equality. You can argue as well for this that socialists seek gender equality by their fundamental commitment to combating capitalism so this can be achieved. For radicals you can say they want women to have equal power within the family which is symbolic of power relationships in a larger society. To criticise this line of argument, you could say however these strands of feminism have a different definition of what constitutes gender equality eg legal rights for liberals but socialists define equality in terms of social and economic factors.

For no, the main paragraph I would write would be on difference feminists who seek to liberate women on being different to men, talking about essentialism and the pro-woman stance of celebrating women's attributes. This is the only paragraph I can think of for this side of the argument, so your overall judgement could be something like on the whole, feminism's quest is for gender equality because only a small proportion of the ideology, difference feminists, disregard equality as something to achieve.

I hope this helps and good luck in the exam!

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