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Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes, Representation, Theory

feminist critical thinking

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First Wave of Feminism – Suffrage

‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘(Michelene Wandor 1981:13

  • The formation of the Suffragettes, a women’s rights activist group, in 1903 generated a huge positive impact on the role of women in society at the time. They campaigned for votes for middle-class, property-owning women, highlighting the lack of equality between men and women.
  • Virginia Woolf’s publication of ‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929) was a key pivotal moment in feminist history. Whilst the theory she fabricated seemed basic, is laid the foundations of what feminism has evolved into today.

Second Wave of Feminism – Reproductive Rights

  • The Women’s Liberation Movement emerged in the late 1960s and proceeded into the late 1980s primarily in the western world.
  • The movement was a political alignment of women and feminism intellectualism which touched upon the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, the Obscene Publications Act (1959) and exposed the corrupt mechanisms of the patriarchy.

Third Wave of Feminism – Identity & Magnitude

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

  • Coined by Naomi Wolf in the 1990s, the third wave of feminism demonstrated a pluralism towards  race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism, rather than just the role of women in society.
  • whilst there was still some aspects of politics, it mostly touched upon the representation and identity of women and was therefore It was a lot more broad than previous waves of feminism.
  • The introduction of social media allowed ideas to be quickly widespread.
  • Ariel Levy states, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs (2005), that raunch cultures from one perspective is the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, however from another perspective it may well encourage a hyper-sexualised climate that over-sexualises women whilst also encouraging women to over-sexualise other women and themselves.

Fourth Wave of Feminism – Empowerment

  • Evolved from the third wave of feminism after the development of the technology era.
  • the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochrane 2013). As such, from the radical stance of #MeToo to the #FreeTheNimple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported the use of new media technologies has been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out in this line of critical thinking.
Feminist Critical Thinking

Second and Third Wave Feminism

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2ND WAVE OF FEMINISM:

  • 1960/70’s
  • Societal counteraction towards previous feminist ideas and positive change sparked a feminist cultural movement that began to shift societies views on abortion, homosexuality, birth control and divorce etc.
  • Singular, one dimensional. Centred around middle class, white feminists.

Naomi Wolf

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Meaning that feminism became an umbrella term for equality, not just in middle class white women, but for all women with all different expressions and even now its updated to equality for men too.

  • an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyberactivism
  • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation. -women were learning to embrace their sexuality and addressing “taboo” subjects related to sex.

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

Miley Cyrus was a representative of this.

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feminism

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Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

The meaning of feminism

intersectionality, pluralism- key words

Male and female is not set in stone and that there is no particular thing classing you as a male or a female and it is internalised

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity
Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

feminist critical thinking

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three waves of feminism, the 1960’s was the second.

1st Wave Feminism:

‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘

2nd Wave Feminism

‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’

(Barry 2017:123)

Indeed feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless,

‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘ .

(Johnathon Dollimore 1983:59)

3rd Wave Feminism -Raunch Culture

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)

Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

by Naomi Wolf , it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

  • emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyberactivism
  • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ .Ariel Levy (2006:74)

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

Intersectionality:

‘In an attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression’. Put another way, there was a tendency to be either ‘preoccupied with the experiences of white middle-class women or to ignore completely the experiences other women’ (Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013, 129)

bell hook advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’; ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation

Butler suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘Butler (2004:19)

Feminist Critical Thinking

3rd wave feminism

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Naomi Wolf intersectionality– feminism isn’t just one group of people there are different groups of feminists eg. black or gay feminists

 third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Barker and Jane (2016),

  • an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyberactivism
  • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

Ariel Levy ranch culture theory is the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation

“is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’‘

Bell Hook- advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to understand class struggle, domination, renegotiation and revolution. Put another, encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’.ethnicity and race, (intersectionality)

‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men

Queer Theory

Judith Butler- we perform an identity and suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.

Notes

Third wave feminism

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Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has following recognisable characteristics:

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity

According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation,and on the other, it may well be playing out the same old patterns of exploitation, objectification and misogyny?

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’ – Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality

As a way of exploring this notion of intersectionality ie the idea that an approach such as feminism, is NOT UNIVERSAL, SINGULAR or HOMOGENEOUS as this is a REDUCTIONIST and ESSENTIALIST way of seeing the world. Rather intersectionality highlights the way ideas and concepts such as ‘female‘, ‘feminist‘, ‘feminine‘ (Moi 1987) intersect with other concepts, ideas and approaches, such as, sexuality, class, age, education, religion, ability. A way of exploring these ideas is through the work of bell hook.

Queer Theory

In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissidence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141). In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/female;  feminine/masculine, man/woman.

Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

feminism

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first wave feminism, questioning why women cant do certain things. People seeking equality started about 150 years ago.

second wave feminism– 60s and about civil rights. In the 60s there was a big social change and a campaign about equal rights for women. 1960s, Jean Kilbourne and Laura Mulvey. 1867 suffragettes. Council of women in 1888.

Third wave feminism According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has following recognisable characteristics:

  • an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyberactivism
  • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, and on the other, it may well be playing out the same old patterns of exploitation, objectification and misogyny?

Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

fourth wave feminism also looked to explore these contradictory arguments and further sought to recognise and use the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochrane, 2013). As such, from the radical stance of #MeToo to the Free the Nipple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported (which may encourage you to re-evaluate your initial reading of her video Wrecking Ball above), the use of new media technologies has been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out in this line of critical thinking.

Intersectionality:

‘In an attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression’. Put another way, there was a tendency to be either ‘preoccupied with the experiences of white middle-class women or to ignore completely the experiences other women’ (Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013, 129). It is from this that the development and articulation of intersectionality began to take shape. The early ideas around intersectionality can be traced to theoretical developments from the 1980’s, see for example, the work by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) or some of the propositions asserted around Queer Theory (see below) that brings together a set of complex ideas around the ‘multidimensionality of subjectivity and social stratification’

you cannot ‘understand Black women’s experiences of discrimination by thinking separately about sex discrimination and race discrimination’

(ibid)Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013 p131

Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality

As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed ot the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’ (ibid).

As a way of exploring this notion of intersectionality ie the idea that an approach such as feminism, is NOT UNIVERSAL, SINGULAR or HOMOGENEOUS as this is a REDUCTIONIST and ESSENTIALIST way of seeing the world. Rather intersectionality highlights the way ideas and concepts such as ‘female‘, ‘feminist‘, ‘feminine‘ (Moi 1987) intersect with other concepts, ideas and approaches, such as, sexuality, class, age, education, religion, ability. A way of exploring these ideas is through the work of bell hook.

bell hook (always spelt in lower case – real name: Gloria Jean Watkins) advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to understand class struggle, domination, renegotiation and revolution. Put another, encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’.ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation‘

Queer Theory

In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141). In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/female; feminine/masculine, man/woman. Arguing, that this is too simple and does not account for the internal differences that distinguishes different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures‘ (14:2004).

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘

GENDER IS A PERFORMANCE

We perform a gender we aren’t actually one gender.

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Third wave feminism

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Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s

The shift in critical feminist studies that reconciles exploitation against empowerment illustrates the shift in feminist thinking towards the 3rd Wave of feminist thought, see for example, groups such as Third Wave Foundation.

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has following recognisable characteristics:

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity

Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’.

Intersectionality:

 It is from this that the development and articulation of intersectionality began to take shape. The early ideas around intersectionality can be traced to theoretical developments from the 1980’s, see for example, the work by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) or some of the propositions asserted around Queer Theory

Queer Theory:

In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990.

Feminist Critical Thinking

FEMINIST CRITICAL THINKING

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3rd wave feminism

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344) Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has following recognisable characteristics:

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity

Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality ‘Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

Hook-Multicultural intersectionality

As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed out the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’ (ibid).

Queer theory

In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141). In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/female; feminine/masculine, man/woman. Arguing, that this is too simple and does not account for the internal differences that distinguishes different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures‘ (14:2004).

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FEMINIST CRITICAL THINKING

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Feminist = a political position
Female = a matter of biology
Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

FIRST WAVE
‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female
‘(Michelene Wandor 1981:13)’

SECOND WAVE
the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s
‘(Barry 2017:123)’


THIRD WAVE
‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’
(344)Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has following recognisable characteristics:

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ .
Ariel Levy (2006:74)

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’
Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

Intersectionality :
The idea that the focus of struggle was based around the struggles of the average white women whereas other races and sexualities where ignored, whereas once intersectionality started to gain traction more peoples struggles where starting to be recognised.