Print Email Download Reference This Send to Kindle Reddit This
submit to reddit

Comparison of the theories of feminism


Liberal Feminism


Liberal feminism is an individualistic form of feminism because it is generally based on women’s ability to assert their equality through their own actions and choices. This is what Eleanor calls ‘faith in rationality’’ (Eleanor, 1996). Accordingly, the starting point for promoting such equality is based on individual interaction between men and women and that women can change their circumstances. Liberal feminism looks at the personal interactions of men and women as the starting ground from which to transform society into a more gender-equitable place.




Radical Feminism

Using Mackinnon, (1987:16), Eleanor observes that that radical feminism is not one form of feminism, but simply feminism ‘unmodified’. Therefore, many others forms of feminism was only a response to ‘male psyche’ modification of feminism as it were. (Eleanor, 1996)

Feminism in its radical sense has it that society is a patriarchy that primarily oppresses women thus radical feminists seek to disband patriarchy. In this, they recognize that women’s oppression is the ‘fundamental oppression’. They further assert profoundly that ‘sexism is at the heart of patriarchy’’ especially in the family. Willis (1981), for example, in an essay ‘Lust Horizons: Is the women’s movement pro-sex’ argues against making alliances with the political right in opposition to pornography…’’ In a way they in this sense, echo the Marxist belief that if women wanted to deal with the shackles of patriarchy, then they must deal with the issue of reproduction. (Willis, 1981)






A crowd can be defined in a number of ways but the widely accepted definition of crowd is that of ‘’large groups of individuals in the same physical environment, sharing a common goal. Usually such individuals act in a different way than when they are alone’’. (Reading, 1996):


Common Stimulus between crowd participants


Imitational behavior

Using Festinger ideas, Muse and Thulman (1986) explains that ‘’the existence of a discrepancy in a group with respect to opinions or abilities will lead to action on the part of members of that group to reduce the discrepancy’’



Q3. Use sociological theories or concepts to help explain ‘Listening to music on a portable music device’’



While there should be a number of theories that can explain this phenomenon, system theory, does that at best in trying to justify the tight schedules that the contemporary society puts on people and the dilemmas therein. In so doing it zeroes on ‘multitasking’ as the issue or as a prime causality to this.

System theory

System theory may be traced back to the ideas of George Hegel (1770-1831), who saw the world as operating within the push of different poles, in the process creating a conflict which negates a ‘solution’ for the functioning of the whole system. Hegel imagined that the world was controlled by two opposing poles pulling towards opposite direction. He called one pole the ‘thesis’ and the opposing side the ‘antithesis’. According to him, these two struggle to create an agreed position he called the ‘synthesis’, which interestingly also come to create the thesis, the antithesis and the cycle goes on and on. In a way, one would argue that this corresponds directly to the conflict theory, but for the purposes of looking at the phenomenon as a response to holistic demands, the perspective is tied to system theory. (Pippin, 1989)

Notably, the person who qualified system theory as we know it today (within a structural functionalism paradigm) is Von Bertalanffy is a book titled ‘’General system theory: Foundations, Development, Applications’’ in 1968. He, as a biologist, endeavored to employ organismic knowledge to use the word system to describe those principles which are common to a general system.



To qualify this theory in understanding the portable music system public use phenomenon, it is important to relate it to the numerous issues that today’s human responds to, within the confluence of multitasking and not able to respond to other demands of life. Therefore, listening to portable music while responding to other systems, not only works to perpetuate interrelatedness of demands of today but also in satisfying his/her needs.

Print Email Download Reference This Send to Kindle Reddit This

Share This Essay


Request Removal


Request the removal of this essay.

More from UK Essays