1) Socialist feminism (Mitchell and Young)
a. The bottom line of socialist feminism is the believe that “capitalism interacts with patriarchy to oppress women more egregiously than men.” 119
b. We can think of it as a combination of radical feminism and Marxist feminism.
c. Many socialist feminists combine other kinds of feminism in their work.
2) Mitchell – sex and psychology
a.
Sex
i. We can see an influence of radical feminism on M. because in that one of the foci of her research concerns sex and sexuality.
ii. Many people think that the sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s resulted in the sexual emancipation of women.
iii. M argues that legislating too much sex can be as oppressive as legislating no sex.
iv. It is still a part of the virgin whore dichotomy, but is saying that one should be a whore and not a Promoting sexual freedom can be oppressive because:
1. It is still not allowing women to name themselves, or to construct their own version of their sexuality.
2. Women can still be thought of as being pushed to conform to a stereotype, it is just that the stereotype is a different one than has been in place in the past.
3. This can also have implications for justifications of sexual violence towards women.
i. Patriarchy has infiltrated the very way that we think, our psychology, so that we, both women and men, need to liberate our minds before we can be equal.
ii. Question, is this the same thing as consciousness raising?
iii. With this in mind, M argues that:
1. Liberal feminism is bad, because it is just a band aid; it changes superficial expressions of femininity in terms of legislations about equal employment and daycare but it doesn’t do anything to change our psyches.
2. Radical feminism is bad, because biological (reproductive) changes don’t influence psychological factors.
3. Marxist feminism is bad, because making men and women work together does not influence what they do and the way that they think after work.
3) Iris Young -- Looks explicitly at link between capitalism and patriarchy.
a.
“Marginalization of women and thereby our functioning as a
secondary labor force is an essential and fundamental characteristic of
capitalism” 122-123.
i. Capitalism needs a surplus of workers.
ii. Men provide the primary work force. They are the ones who get jobs first and who do most of the work outside of the home.
iii. Women are a secondary work force. If there is ever a shortage of men, rather then allow workers to gain bargaining power, capitalists bring women, the secondary work force, out of the homes and into the factories.
iv. For example -- Women did factory work during WWII and then were expected to go back home when the men came back.
v. The presence of women ensured that there was not a shortage of workers.