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Since the beginning of history, women have not had the same rights as men. Although this has increasingly gotten better over the years to the point where some would say that feminism is not needed anymore, there are still many areas of life in which women face inequality compared to men. These discriminations that women encounter are closely related to the theories of the social construction of gender, race, and disability. These theories suggest that any woman can come across greater inequities if she is not only a woman, but of a minority race or disabled in any way.
There has been much discussion among scholars in many different disciplines as to why women are always seen as lesser than men. MacKinnon suggests two different approaches: difference and sameness. The philosophy underlying the difference approach is that sex is differences between humans, while the sameness principle tries to grant women access to the same privileges men receive (MacKinnon 244). These approaches allow for women to be looked at in two different manners. MacKinnon further explains:
Under the sameness standard, women are measured according to our correspondence with man, our equality judged by our proximity to his measure. Under the difference standard, we are measured according to our lack of correspondence with him, our womanhood judged by our distance from his measure. Gender neutrality is thus simply the male standard, and the special protection rule is simply the female standard, but not to be deceived: masculinity, or maleness, is the referent for both. (245)
This notion of the male being the ideal gender in society is prevalent in many areas of life. MacKinnon contends that in medical school the male body is the only bod...
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...the cultures of the world in terms of traditional stereotypes. Therefore, feminism is still needed to open the eyes of those that are blind to these occurrences, in the hope that one day we will all be social equals in every area of our lives.
Works Cited
Hernandez-Truyol, Berta Esperanza. “Latinas – Everywhere Alien: Culture, Gender, and Sex.” Critical Race Feminism: A Reader. 2nd ed. Adrien Katherine Wing. New York, New York University Press, 2003. 57-69. Print.
MacKinnon, Catharine. “Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination.” Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Hackett and Sally Haslanger. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 244-255. Print.
Wendell, Susan. “The Social Construction of Disability.” Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Hackett and Sally Haslanger. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 23-30. Print.
In this paper, I will discuss Wasserstrom’s arguments relating to the unimportance of gender and how differentiating people based on their gender promotes the harmful ideology of sex roles. I will then present Schlafly’s arguments which regard the differences between men and women as justifiable due to the fact that these differences are not only natural, but also practical and obligatory, and show that they are inferior to Wasserstrom’s arguments. I will argue this by elaborating on Wassertrom’s argument of how there is no such thing as “natural” while providing reasons for why this is so.
Gender has been broadly used within the humanities and social sciences as both a means to categories dissimilarities, and as a logical concept to give details differences. In both the humanities and social sciences. Disability studies has appeared partly as a result of challenges to give details gendered experience of disability and partly as a challenge to contemporary feminist theory on gender which fails to take description of disability. Disabled people have frequently been standing for as without gender, as asexual creatures, as freaks of nature, hideous, the ‘Other’ to the social norm. In this way it may be taking for granted that for disabled people gender has little bearing. However, the image of disability may be make physically powerful by gender - for women a sense of intensified passivity and helplessness, for men a dishonesties masculinity make by put into effected dependence. Moreover these images have real consequences in terms of
More specifically, the two fail to notice, according to MacKinnon, that the disparities between genders are not a product of their ontological differences, but are rather socially reinforced to appear so by the pervasive dominance of which men hold over society.
In the past there were many biases against women and their lack of abilities compared to men. Although the male perspective has changed over the past few centuries, there are many feminists who still fight for ...
Female inequality in workplace is one of the harmful aspect that is afflicting the entire
... the Making of Identities of Disability in Hypatia Vol. 17, No. 3, Feminism and Disability, Part 2, 2002, pp. 67-88. Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
Gender discrimination is defined as prejudice against an individual due to his or her gender or sex. Discrimination against women has been occurring for years and continues to pose an issue today, especially in institutions such as the workforce. In the past, women were limited to very few rights; they were not permitted to vote and were considered as “property”. The only real jobs they had were housewives.and only a handful of women were in the labor force. In today’s society, women compose more than half of the workforce, yet they earn a significantly less amount compared to their male counterparts for completing the same tasks. Due to the subtleness of the issue, many still continue to be unaware of the discrimination which occurs. Though the issues regarding gender discrimination have gone through improvements recently, the issue at hand
Feminist Theory is an aspect of considering feminism as having been based on socio-phenomenon issues rather than biological or scientific. It appreciates gender inequality, analyzes the societal roles played by feminists in a bid to promote the interests, issues and rights of women in the society. It is also based on the assumption that women play subsidiary roles in the society. The whole idea of feminism has however experienced hurdles in the form of stereotyping by the wider society. This paper tries to examine some of the effects of stereotypes that feminism goes through, what other philosophers say and the way forward towards ending stereotyping.
America has made great advances in women’s rights over the last few decades. Women are prominent in the work place, living independently, and even running for office. However, this has not always been the case, during the course of history, women have been subjected to slavery, denied the right to vote, and have been viewed as property. Throughout all of human history women have been mistreated by men.
Through investigations of writers as diverse as Silvia Federici, and Angela Davis, Maria Mies, and Sharon Hays, Judith Butler, and Steven Gregory we have come to understand that confronting the categorization of gender differences is a complex and nuanced project. Whether one is an ontologist, exploring the metaphysical nature of gender differences (that may or may not lead down the road of essentialism) or a phenomenologist exploring how exactly it is that one “does” gender—to the extent that there even exists a concept called gender—one must employ a varied and multipartite approach. Writers such as Federici, Mies, and Davis sketched out a framework of the history of gender roles for us. From what Federici calls a time of primitive consumption through feudalism, to the time of slavery and rapid industrialization and, indeed, through our current technological revolution, we have seen the basic gender differences between the sexes evolve over time. To be sure, our notions of what is expected from both women and men have changed since prehistoric times, and they continue to evolve. Sharon Hays in the chapter “Pyramids of Innequality” of her book Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform shows us how, in the United States, poverty and access to the social safety net have been raced and gendered. She provides a springboard for further investigation.
Within the modern feminist movement much effort has been made to find the likeness between men and women. Liberal feminism has taken the stand that little or no significant differences separate genders (Maltin 6). The goal of this reasoning in feminism is equal rights the and thus the destination, gender equality. (Maltin 5) Impassioned women have take up resourceful actions to further their cause and secure these rights. However, by concentrating on the similitude women have constrained their own identity. Through recognizing differences between genders women have the opportunity to achieve not only greater equality but also create the environment to embrace their unique and exceptional undertaking with humanity.
Routledge: New York : New York, 2001. Shakespeare, T (2013) “The Social Model of Disability” in The Disability Studies Reader Ed Davis, L D. Routledge: New York.
Arianna Stassinopoulos wrote in the 1973 book The Female Woman: "It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes" (Microsoft Bookshelf). In her statement we see a cultural feminist response to the dominant liberal feminism of the 1970s.
West, Candace, and Sarah Fenstermaker. Doing Gender, Doing Difference: Social Inequality, Power and Resistance. New York; London: Routledge, 2002.
Michael Levin, a professor of philosophy and author of the book Feminism and Freedom, faults feminism for trying to impose an inappropriate equality on men and women that conflicts basic biological differences between the sexes (Levin, Taking Sides, 42). Women are not the same as men, neither physically nor psychologically. In the past, men tended to be the stronger more powerful gender, while women have traditionally been viewed as the weaker, more feeble one. The untrue assumption that men and women are the same in their ways of thinking and physical capabilities leads to the failure of the feminist message. Their agenda of eliminating all observable differences between men and women is doomed to fail and will inflict more pain than gain in the process. Recognizing the differences between the sexes and allowing each to do what they are strongest at will in the long run make society stronger, more efficient, and more effective.