In Which Ways Do Feminists Take Relations Between Men And Women To Be Uequal - Essay Example

In which ways do feminists take relations between men and women to be unequal? Date of Submission: A better place to situate the start of the theoretical debate regarding women, work and class is at the intersection with the Marxism and feminism. Most of such debates were not only shaped because of academic inquiries but as well as the questions about the relationship between feminine’s oppression and liberation in the class of politics. Such debate has sprung up with the formation of feminist movements and the trade unions in the late 19th century, particularly in USA, and Europe. The relevance of feminine as a social group for economic class analysis has sparked political debates within both the feminists and Marxist circles. It allude whether women movements that are challenging the male domination can ultimately assume a universal set of all feminine interest across ethnicity, race and class. A considerable research done in the last three decades has been attributed to women and work in the major context of shifting several division of labour globally. Some of the feminist works have proceeded from the development perspective, which are promoted by the UN and other policy-making bodies (Brush 2012) . The public-private divide has been one particular concern of many feminist. The private and public divide has been divided between the public sphere of politics and work that is usually dominated by men. And private place of family and home that has a majority of feminine yet it is an area that needs both gender roles. The divide has been blamed for the creation of the gender inequality as women are being pushed to being housewives in relation to the society norms. As well as being discouraged from joining, the public sphere and pursue an alternative career. In that, way patriarchy was created making women stay traditionally at home and men becoming the money earners. In general, feminists believe that the gender inequality that was created should be overthrown altogether (Pieratt-Seeley et al. 2002). Most liberal feminist in the push for obtaining their quest should keep private and public spheres separate. They do not want to expunge the divide completely between the two since they believe in maintaining the freedom of choice for a woman in domestic and public role. In addition, the liberal feminist thought that men and women have a different purpose in nature, in that women tend to have a natural affinity towards motherhood and other domestic life rather than the male-dominated public career. However, they tend to uphold the fact that there should be reforms in the entire public sphere. For example, if a woman decides to pursue a career outside the private sphere she should be accorded the necessary support (Eisenstein 2005). Radical feminist are very critical regarding the private and public divide. These feminists believe that the traditional role of women in the private sphere is long gone and should be abolished. They argue that the patriarchal power that was based on men in the public sphere is deliberately shielding women out and preserving the men dominant status. One of the major critiques of radical feminist was Key, who believed that “the personal is political” and that all the relationship that exist between men and women is political. He further state that the role of women in performing the housework was politically instigated. The radical feminist have come up with several suggestions to stop this divide. For example, women can develop their consciousness, form their communities and live in the androgynous world. Another method is to abolish the traditional nuclear family and introduce the communal type of living so as children to be raised without the patriarchal men influence (Levins 2007). Socialist feminist, on the other hand, have a high view regarding the public and private divide. They purport that traditional nuclear family is inherently patriarchal, and it serves the interest of the capitalist. When women stay at home and perform housework men get the freedom to go out and look for jobs. This put men in a better place as the sole breadwinners thus providing a chance for men to exploit women. The continued traditional household has perpetuated extreme gender inequality and capitalism, a contrast by the socialist feminist (Barrett & McIntosh 2005). The culturally instituted gender ideologies continually define the responsibilities and rights that are appropriate for both men and women in the society. Such ideologies influence the access and control over resources and participation in making decisions on matters of development. In essence, these gender ideologies usually reinforce male dominance and the idea of women’s inferiority. Culture has been narrowly interpreted as the traditions and always assumed natural. However, culture is fluid and always changes with time. It is imperative to state that the dominant culture asserts the position of those individuals with social, economic and political influence in the society thus reinforcing male power. Feminist argue that the use and defence of culture are often employed by the male gender to justify their practices that occasionally constrain the life of women. Several interventions to challenge the imbalance of power as proposed by women organisations and other nongovernmental organizations are often treated futile as well as denied legitimacy. This has put male dominance and unequal treatment to their female counterparts (Zheng 2010). Radical feminist analyse the situation of women in the history of different modes of economic production. Women are taken as equal to if not much powerful than men in the communal form of production in line with the matrilineal organization of the family. Women usually lose power when there is an existence of a private property as a mode of production. Men’s control of all the private property and their ability to generate surplus brings a twist to the family form to a patriarchal one where women are usually taken as slaves, and property of their husband (Calasanti & Bailey 1991). The rise of capitalism provided an avenue in separating all the family households from commodities that are produced. Furthermore, it solidifies the control of men over women in the family arena since the latter become economic dependent of the former mostly in a nuclear family form. However, capitalism creates a possibility for women to work and become economically independent from their husbands. Engels stressed that because of the problem of unpaid housework, full women liberation can only be achieved with the socialism development. That is why many contemporary Marxists have always argued that the liberation of women require the active participation of feminist to struggle against capitalism (Cypress 2010). The debate surrounding the social and economic function in housework and the relation of women oppression is an old feature most of the feminist work USA, Britain and Europe. The underlying issue in the debate is how best to handle the public split of capitalism in which the function of women were limited to housework and children care. In Europe, the public housekeeping aspect of the movement in 1890s advocated that women were to bring positive values that were associated with motherhood. Keys, who was a feminist, argued that women were superior human being in the society because of their mothering nature. Nevertheless, Gilman stated that women are people who were restricted and were made socially unequal to men because of their unpaid mothering and housework (Chen 2003). The second wave feminist movements argued that housework made women gullible and depended on men since the work they were doing was outside the public sphere of economic production. Other feminist stated that women housework is a part of the broader social reproduction of capitalism. It is the sexual division of labour in reproductive work making women unequal to men, and this allows men who are capitalist to exploit the unpaid labour of women. Recently, Federici has done a study of the transition to capitalism in U.K. She argues that the emerging class of capitalists that need that need to control the working class reproduction and to eliminate the working class women over biological reproduction control. This is achieved by ensuring their unpaid reproductive work at home and restricting abortions (Donnelly 2000). Some philosophical problems are raised by the housework debate and where to draw the line between work, play or leisure activity and when the activity is not paid. For example, is a mother playing with her baby or working? If it is the former then the hours spent in such an activity should be compared to those of her husband to verify if there is an exploitation relation present. In addition, if the husband total time of reproductive and productive work is for the family are less than hers. The extent of childrearing whether as play or as an activity should be held intrinsically valuable, and no exploitation is involved. Moreover, childrearing and other activities involved in caring should be taken as both work and play. However, the only portion that is necessary for psychological growth of the child should account as work. The provocative question is that who determines that the line has been crossed? Since non-market, activities do not have explicit criteria that distinguish the work from non-work. An arbitrary element seems to crop in thus making it very difficult for the standard of fairness to apply in the gendered bargains for households between women and men (Combahee River Collective 2003). One of the solutions to such problem is to take all the activities involved in the household that could be done by the wage labours like domestic servants, nannies among others. And their comparable work is worth figured. Another way is to reject the attempts by basing on the women oppression in social relations to work by generalizing the discrete meaning of such theories that kinship activity exists for women in a different context. Some feminist argue that the thin line between leisure and work changes historically, therefore, those individuals involved in the activities should provide a decisive procedure to state whether their activities can be accounted for as work. Looking at the contingency of the arguments, it can be concluded that the human care involved in childrearing creates a public good. And it should be categorised as work and those who are the stakeholders, primarily women, should be fairly compensated by the society or the state they live (Chadwick & Tong 2012). Violence against women, for example, the rape cases have not been perceived as a social problem, but rather it is taken as a private matter. When a person is raped, the society is always quick to lay blame on the individual and people as several questions. For example, what did she wear? Why was she there at that time? Such comments connote that men see women as people who should not have assay in the community but should be seen and not heard. Therefore, unequal treatment of women in the society emerge. I agree with some feminist when they assert that domestic violence should be taken as a private matter. This is because criminalization of all the domestic violence has transformed into warranting interventions and punishments. However, the low reporting levels to the judiciary or police and patterns of victim blaming has suggested that several people including the victims involved in always viewing domestic violence as a private problem (Fodor 2002). In conclusion, it can be stated that several feminist have worked hard by publishing articles, books and other journals to argue their cases regarding unequal treatment of women because of their gender. Cultural factors can be blamed as one of the major factors that have purported the masculine authority over the feminine. However, some of the feminists have believed that women are naturally created to be in the private divide because of their reproduction nature. Women give birth and thus get tasked with the responsibility of childrearing at home. This natural phenomenon provides men with the freedom to explore the public divide by looking for jobs and becoming the bread winners of the family. Such situations make men be dictators since they have economic power in the traditional nuclear family. To come out of the private divide, women must endeavour to start being autonomous by selecting their careers well to fit in the job market. Political, social and economic powers held by an individual shall ultimately lead to self-autonomy; therefore, women should strive to achieve those elements of power. Reference Barrett, M. & McIntosh, M., 2005. ethnocentrism and socialist-feminist theory. Feminist Review, 80, pp.64–86. Brush, L.D., 2012. Book Review: The Problem With Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Work and Occupations, 39, pp.230–232. Calasanti, T.M. & Bailey, C.A., 1991. Gender Inequality and the Division of Household Labor in the United States and Sweden: A Socialist-Feminist Approach. 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Continuing Sources of Marxism: Looking for the Movement as a Whole. Monthly Review, pp.34–43. Pieratt-Seeley, C. et al., 2002. Marxism and Social Science. Contemporary Sociology, 31, p.234. Zheng, W., 2010. Creating a Socialist Feminist Cultural Front: Women of China (1949–1966). The China Quarterly, 204, pp.827–849. Read More