“Feminism is an awareness of patriarchal control, exploitation and oppression at the material and ideological levels of women’s labour, fertility and sexuality, in the family, at the place of work and in society in general, and conscious action by women and men to transform the present situation” (Bhasin and Khan, 1999: 3). It is a struggle to achieve equality, dignity, rights, freedom for women to control their lives and bodies both within home and outside. As a cross cutting ideology feminists have different political positions and therefore address a range of issues such as female suffrage, equal legal rights, right to education, access to productive resources, right to participate in decision-making, legalization of abortion, recognition of property rights and abolition of domestic violence. Thus feminism passed through several paradigms which are referred to as first wave and second wave of feminism.
Since the origin of patriarchy and establishment of male supremacy can be traced to different factors and forces feminists differ in their approach to understand patriarchy and adopt different strategies to abolish it. One way to understand the various dimensions of feminist theories and their theoretical approaches to understand patriarchy is to locate them within the broader philosophical and political perspectives that have been broadly classified as Liberal, Marxist, Socialist and Radical. However, despite the ideological differences between the feminist groups, they are united in their struggle against unequal and hierarchical relationships between men and women, which is no longer accepted as biological destiny.
Approaches to Understand Patriarchy
Liberal Feminism: Liberal feminists have championed equal legal and political rights for women to enable them to compete with men in the public realm on equal terms. The philosophical basis of liberal feminism lies in the principle of individualism and they campaigned for all individuals to participate in public and political life. Several women’s movement demanded female suffrage during the 1840s and 1850s in United States and United Kingdom. The famous Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 marked the birth of women’s rights movement which among other things called for female suffrage. Women were granted the right to vote in the US Constitution in 1920. In UK though franchise was extended to women in 1918 for a decade they did not exercise equal voting rights with men. Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women” (1972) was the first text of modern feminism which campaigned for women’s right to vote/ female suffrage. Wollstonecraft claimed that if women gained access to education as rational creatures in their own right the distinction of sex would become unimportant in political and social life. John Stuart Mill in collaboration with Harriet Taylor in “The Subjection of Women” (1970) proposed that women should be entitled to the citizenship and political rights and liberties enjoyed by men. It indicts traditional arrangements of work and family as tyrannizing women and denying them freedom of choice (Mandell, 1995: 6). Thus, liberal feminists believed that female suffrage would do away with all forms of sexual discrimination and prejudice. Walby contends that “first wave feminism was a large, multifaceted, long-lived and highly effective political phenomenon” (Walby, 1997:149).
Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” marked the resurgence of liberal feminist thought in the 1960s and is often credited as stimulating the emergence of ‘second wave’ feminism. She referred to the cultural myth that women seek security and fulfillment in domestic life and that their feminine behaviour serves to discourage women from entering employment, politics and public life in general. In “The Second Stage” (1983) Friedan “discussed the problem of reconciling the achievement of personhood by making it possible to open up broader opportunities for women in work and public life while continuing to give central importance to family in women’s life which has been criticized by radical feminists as contributing to ‘mystique of motherhood”(Heywood, 2003: 254). Therefore, liberal feminism is essentially reformist and does not challenge the patriarchal structure of society itself. Critics suggest that the liberal reforms to increase opportunities for women, prohibit discriminations and to increase public consciousness of women’s rights have not been shared equally by all women because these changes have not addressed issues of socially structured inequalities (Mandell, 1995: 8). Thus, while the first wave feminism ended with winning suffrage rights the emergence of second wave feminism in 1960s acknowledged that political and legal rights were insufficient to change women’s subordination. Feminist ideas and arguments became radical and revolutionary thereafter.
Marxist Feminism: Marxist feminist believed that both subordination of women and division of classes developed historically with the development of private property. Frederick Engels in “The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State” (1884) stated that with the emergence of private property, women’s housework sank into insignificance in comparison to man’s productive labour. ‘The world historical defeat of the female sex with the establishment of capitalism based on private property ownership by men did away with inheritance of property and social position through female line’ (also see Bhasin, 1993: 24-25). Thus maternal authority gave place to paternal authority and property was to be inherited from father to son and not from woman to her clan. The bourgeois families which owned private property emerged as patriarchal families where women were subjugated. Such patriarchal families became oppressive as men ensured that their property passed on only to their sons. Therefore bourgeois family and private property as a byproduct of capitalism subordinated and oppressed women.
Marxist feminists unlike the radical feminists argue that class exploitation is deeper than sexual oppression and women’s emancipation essentially requires social revolution which will overthrow capitalism and establish socialism. Engels believed that “in a socialist society marriage will be dissolvable and that once private property is abolished its patriarchal features and perhaps also monogamy will disappear”. Therefore Marxist feminists like many socialist feminists connect structural changes in kinship relations and changes in the division of labour to understand women’s position in society. They argue that it is not women’s biology alone but, private property and monogamous marriage, economic and political dominance by men and their control over female sexuality which led to patriarchy. However, the Marxist feminists have been criticized for differentiating working class women and bourgeois women and also for the focus on economic factors to explain subordination of women. Recent socialist feminists critique traditional Marxist feminists as the later emphasize only on economic origins of gender inequality and state that female subordination occurs also in pre-capitalist and socialist systems (Mandell, 1995: 10). In fact socialist feminists accuse Marxists feminists of being ‘sex blind’ and only adding women to their existing critique of capitalism (Hartmann, 1979).
Socialist Feminism: Unlike the liberal feminists, socialist feminist argue that women do not simply face political and legal disadvantages which can be solved by equal legal rights and opportunities but the relationship between sexes is rooted in the social and economic structure itself. Therefore women can only be emancipated after social revolution brings about structural change. Socialist feminists deny the necessary and logical link between sex and gender differences. They argue that the link between child bearing and child rearing is cultural rather than biological and have challenged that biology is destiny by drawing a sharp distinction between ‘sex and gender’. Therefore, while liberal feminist takes women’s equality with men as their major political goal, socialist feminism aim at transforming basic structural arrangements of society so that categories of class, gender, sexuality and race no longer act as barriers to share equal resources (Mandell, 1995: 9). Gerda Lerner’s (1986) explains how control over female sexuality is central to women’s subordination. She argues that it is important to understand how production as well as reproduction was organized. The appropriation and commodification of women’s sexual and reproductive capacity by men lies at the foundation of private property, institutionalization of slavery, women’s sexual subordination and economic dependency on male.
Most socialist feminists agree that the confinement of women to thedomestic sphere of housework and motherhood serves the economic interests of capitalism. Women relieve men of the burden of housework and child rearing, and allow them to concentrate on productive employment. Thus unpaid domestic labour contributes to the health and efficiency of capitalist economy and also accounts for the low social status and economic dependence of women on men. But, unlike the Marxist feminists, socialist feminists look at both relations of production as well as relations of reproduction to understand patriarchy. Unlike orthodox Marxists who have prioritized class politics over sexual politics, modern socialist feminists give importance to the later. They believe that socialism in itself will not end patriarchy as it has cultural and ideological roots.
In ‘Women’s Estate’ (1971) Juliet Mitchell believes that gender relations are a part of the super structure and patriarchy is located in the ideological level while capitalism in the economical level (Mitchell, 1975: 412). Like traditional Marxist analysis she fails to consider the significance of sexual division of labour as an economical phenomenon (Walby, 1986: 34). She argues that patriarchal law is that of the rule of the father, which operates through the kinship system rather than domination of men. Mitchell stated that women fulfill four social functions (i) They aremembers of workforce and are active in production, (ii) they bear children and thus reproduce human species (iii) they are responsible for socializing children and (iv) they are sex objects. Therefore “women can achieve emancipation only when they liberate from each of these areas and not only when socialism replaces capitalism” (also see Heywood, 2003: 257-258). Walby critiques Mitchell as she fails to consider the material benefits that men derive from women’s unpaid domestic labour and the significance of men’s organized attempts to limit women’s access to paid work. On the other hand, Delphy argues that the basis of gender relations is the domestic mode of production in which the husband expropriates the wife’s labour (Delphy, 1977: 37). Women share a common class position and are exploited by men as a class. Thus it is not women’s position within the domestic mode of production which is the basis of their class oppression alone but it is their main form of subordination. The forms of oppression outside the family therefore derive from oppressions within the family (Walby, 1986: 38). She further argues that women’s relation to production is not determined by content of the task but by the nature of the social relations under which they labour. Therefore it is the relations of production which explain why their work is excluded from the realm of value (ibid, 4). Delphy has been critiqued by Molyneux for placing all women in one class without making a distinction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat (Molyneux. 1979: 14).
Similarly Zillah Eisenstein in “Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism” (1979) argues that ‘male supremacy and capitalism are the core relations which determine oppression of women’ She defines patriarchy as a “sexual system of power in which the male possesses superior power and economic privilege’ (Eisenstein 1979:17). Patriarchy is not the direct result of biological differentiation but ideological and political interpretations of these differentiations. “On the one hand the capitalist live a process in which exploitation occurs and on the other the patriarchal sexual hierarchy in which the women is mother, domestic labourer and consumer and in which the oppression of women occurs” (also see Bhasin, 1993: 28). Social relations of reproduction are therefore important and they are not the result of capitalist relations but cultural relations. Thus, while in her early work in 1979 there was greater stress on the synthesis between capitalism and patriarchy, in her later work in 1984, there is more recognition of conflict and tensions between the two (Walby, 1986: 31). Heidi Hartmann (1979) argues that both patriarchy and capitalism are independent yet are interacting social structures. She believes that “We can usefully define patriarchy as a set of social relations between men who have a material base who through hierarchical, establish/create interdependence and solidarity among men and enable them to dominate women (Hartmann, 1979: 11). She argues that historically both had important effects on each other as the material base upon which patriarchy rests lies most fundamentally in men’s control over women’s labour power. “In capitalist societies a healthy and strong partnership exists between patriarchy and capitalism” (ibid, 13). She has been critiqued for paying insufficient attention to tension and conflict between capitalism and patriarchy (Walby, 1986: 44).
Maria Mies, in her paper “The Social Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour” refers to women’s labour as ‘shadow work’. She suggests that we should no longer look at the sexual division of labour as a problem related to the family, but rather as a structural problem of a whole society. The hierarchical division of labour between men and women and its dynamics form an integral part of dominant production relations i.e. class relations of a particular epoch and society and of the broader national and international divisions of labour (also see Bhasin, 30). She argues that the asymmetric division of labour by sex, once established by means of violence was upheld by such institutions as the family and the state and also by the powerful ideological systems. The patriarchal religions have defined women as part of nature which has to be controlled and dominated by man (ibid, 33).
Thus, socialist feminists have advanced theoretical boundaries by analyzing the ways class and gender relations intersect. Economic class relations are important in determining women’s status but gender relations are equally significant and therefore eradicating social class inequality alone will not necessarily eliminate sexism. Patriarchy existed before capitalism and continued to exist in both capitalism and other political-economic systems (Mandell, 1995: 11). However, patriarchy and capitalism are concretely intertwined and mutually supportive system of oppressions. Women’s subordination within capitalism results from their economic exploitation as wage labourers and their patriarchal oppression as mothers, consumers and domestic labourers (ibid, 13).
Sylvia Walby in ‘Patriarchy at Work’ (1986) attempts to conceptualise patriarchy not only in terms of the complexity of relationships of gender but also subtleties of interconnections of patriarchy with capitalism, which is a relationship of tension and conflict and not of harmony and mutual accommodation. Domestic labour is a distinct form of labour and core to patriarchal mode of production which is essential to exploitation of women by men and is independent of exploitation of proletariats by the capitalists (Walby, 1986: 52). Within the household women provide all kinds of services to their children, husband and other members of the family, in other words in the patriarchal mode of production, women’s labour is expropriated by their husbands and others who live there. The control over and exploitation of women’s labour benefit men materially and economically. “Patriarchy is a system of interrelated social structures through which men exploit” (ibid, 51). She states that gender relations need to be explained at the level of social relations and not as individuals. Within the patriarchal mode of production, the producing class comprises of women and domestic labourer and husbands are the non-producing and exploiting class. And domestic labourer works to replenish/ produce his/ their labour power, she is separated from the product of her labour and has no control over it, while the husband always has control over the labour power which the wife has produced. She is separated from if at every level, physically, in the ability to use it, legally, ideologically etc. (ibid, 53). Thus the domestic labourer is exploited as the husband has the control over the wage he receives from the capitalist in exchange of his labour. The relations of production in such a mode of production are personalized relations between individuals (ibid, 54). When the patriarchal mode of production articulates with the capitalist mode, women are prevented from entering paid work as freely as men and are reinforced by patriarchal state policies.
The state is a site of patriarchal relations which is necessary to patriarchy as a whole as it upholds the oppression of women by supporting a form of household in which women provide unpaid domestic services to male (ibid). Thus capitalism benefits from a particular form of family which ensures cheap reproduction of labour power and the availability of women as a reserve army. Patriarchy is also located in the social relations of reproduction and masculinity and femininity are not biological givens but products of long historical process. Thus, socialist feminists combine both marxist and radical approach and neither is sufficient by itself. Patriarchy is connected to both relations of production and relations of reproduction.
Therefore reactionary feminism differed from conventional feminism challenging the traditional public/private divide and the influence of patriarchy not only in politics, public life and economy but also in all aspects of social, personal, psychological and sexual existence. This was evident in the pioneering work of radical feminists. Kate Millet’s “Sexual Politics” (1970)) and Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch” (1970), Simon de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” (1970), Eva Figes’s “Patriarchal Attitudes” (1970) drew attention to the personal, psychological and sexual aspects of female oppression. It is the because of the ‘patriarchal values and beliefs which pervade the culture, philosophy, morality and religion of society that women are conditioned to a passive sexual role, which has repressed their true sexuality as well as more active and adventurous side of their personalities’ (Greer in Heywood, 2003: 258). Therefore the emphasis shifted from political emancipation to women’s liberation and the second wave feminists campaigned for the legislation of abortions, equal pay legislation, anti-discrimination laws and wider access to education and political and professional life. Women’s Liberation Movement during the 1960s and 70s called for radical social changes rather than legal and political reforms and criticized the repressive nature of the conventional society.
Radical Feminism: Unlike the liberal and socialist traditions, radical feminists developed a systematic theory of sexual oppression as the root of patriarchy which preceded private property. They challenge the very notion of femininity and masculinity as mutually exclusive and biologically determined categories. The ideology of motherhood subjugates women and perpetuates patriarchy, which not only forces women to be mothers but also determines the conditions of their motherhood (Bhasin, 199: 8). It creates feminine and masculine characteristics, strengthens the divide between public and private, restricts women’s mobility and reinforces male dominance. “While sex differences are linked to biological differences between male and female, gender differences are imposed socially or even politically by constructed contrasting stereotypes of masculinity and femininity” (de Beauvoir, 1970: 258). Simone de Beauvoir in “The Second Sex” (1970) pointed out that women are made and not born. She believed that greater availability of abortion rights, effective birth control and end of monogamy would increase the control over their bodies. Judith Butler turned the sex-gender distinction on its head: by making sex the effect of gender, a legitimization subsequently imposed in order to fix the socially contingent through recourse to an unquestioned biology, “the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all” (Butler, 1990: 7 also see Mary John 2004).
Kate Millet in “Sexual Politics” (1970) defined politics as power structured relationships, which is not only confined to government and its citizens but also to family between children and parents and husband and wife. Through family, church and academy men secure consent of the very women they oppress and each institution justifies and reinforces women’s subordination to men with the result that women internalize a sense of inferiority to men (Mandell, 1995: 16). Men use coercion to achieve what conditioning fails to achieve (Millet 1970:8). She proposed that patriarchy must be challenged through a process of conscious-raising and women’s liberation required a revolutionary change. The psychological and sexual oppression of women have to be overthrown. Shulamith Firestone in “The Dialectic of Sex” (1972) believes that the basis of women’s oppression lies in her reproductive capacity in so far as this has been controlled by men. She stated that patriarchy is not natural or inevitable but its roots are located in biology which has led to a natural division of labour within the biological family and liberation of women required that gender difference between men and women be abolished (also see Heywood, 260). Firestone’s attempt to build a theory of patriarchy in which different sets of patriarchal relations have their place and specify their articulation with class and race relations is one of the most sophisticated and highly developed radical feminist theories (Walby, 1986: 25). However, her analysis of relations of patriarchy with class and ethnicity are rather reductionist as she ignores various structures and institutions which have shaped these relationships through out history (ibid, 26). Walby critiques her for her insufficient analysis of capitalist relations and their interrelationships with patriarchal relations, which Walby sees as a serious omission (ibid). Her believe that the connection between childbirth and child care is a biological rather than a social fact has also been critiqued.
Mackinnon argues that sexuality is the basis of differentiation of sexes and oppression of women and this she considers as parallel to the centrality of work for Marxist analysis of capitalism. “Sexuality is to Feminism what work is to Marxism: that which is most one’s own, yet most taken away” (Mackinnon, 1982: 1). She considers that sexuality constructs gender and these are social processes and not biological givens. Walby critiques her for not assessing the relative importance of class/labour for gender equality as compared to sexuality (Walby, 1986: 27). For radical feminists sexual relations are political acts, emblematic of male/female power relationships. The traditional political theory which divide personal and political spheres and believe that family is nonpolitical and personal has been questioned by radical feminists who argue that family is that space where maximum exploitation of women takes place. It is this ‘public-private divide’ which legitimizes exploitation of women. In fact, it is essential that the private sphere must be mapped in terms of the same values of justice, equality and freedom which are necessary in the public sphere.
Radical feminists aim at the need to redefine individual identity, free language and culture from the clutches of masculinity, re-establish political power, re-evaluate human nature/ behaviour and challenge the traditional values. Thus along with legal reforms and the right to franchise the protest against capitalist society is important to transform the traditional sexual identity through sexual revolution. Radical feminists therefore believe that unless sexuality is reconceived and reconstructed in the image and likeness of women, the later will remain subordinate to men (Mandell, 1995: 16).
While radical feminists claim that ‘personal is political’ liberal feminist warn against the dangers of politicizing the private sphere, which is the realm of public choice and individual freedom. On the other hand the limitation of individualism as the basis of gender politics has been raised by radical feminists as an individualist perspective draws attention away from the structural character of patriarchy. Women are subordinated not as systematic individuals who happen to be denied rights or opportunities but as a sex that is subject to pervasive oppression (Heywood, 2003: 254). They critique individualism which makes it difficult for women to think and act collectively on the basis of their common gender identity. Liberal individualism depoliticizes sexual relations and equal treatment might mean treating women like men. Finally the demand for equal rights only equips women to take advantage of the opportunities and may therefore reflect the interest of white, middle class women in developed countries and fail to address problems of women of colour, working class women and women in developing countries (ibid). Thus while ‘egalitarian feminists’ link gender difference to patriarchy as a manifestation of oppression and subordination and want to liberate women from gender difference, ‘difference feminists’ regard the very notion of equality as either misguided or simply undesirable. Alison Jaggar in “Feminist Politics and Human Nature” (1971) critiques the radicals for ignoring the causes that led to the origin of patriarchy and its structures which requires theorizing human behaviour and human society. She states that it is not that gender differences determine some forms of social organizations but the later which give rise to gender difference. Therefore instead of controlling their bodies women should be able to control their lives. Marxist feminists critique radical feminists for ignoring the historical, economic and materialist basis of patriarchy and therefore the later are trapped in ahistorical biological deterministic theory.
The new feminist traditions such as psychoanalytical feminism, ecofeminism, postmodern feminism, black feminism, lesbian feminism have emerged since the 1980s. Psychoanalytical feminists analyse the psychological process through which men and women are engendered. They do not hold biological factors as responsible for the construction of sexual difference. Psychoanalytical feminist explore the hidden dynamics at work in personal, interpersonal and social relations and the unconscious dynamics that shape the way we think, feel and act in the world. Freudian psychoanalysis describes women oppression in patriarchy as a process, which need to be altered. After Juliet Mitchell’s book “Psychoanalysis and Feminism” (1974) the psychological process which determine patriarchy has expanded (see Brennan, 1989). Similarly “Feminism and Psychoanalysis” (1992) edited by Elizabeth Wright demonstrates the continued interest in this field. Psychoanalysis feminists may share the politics of radical, marxist or socialist feminists but the kind of questions and concerns raised by them are not acknowledged by the later. They analyse gender difference beyond conscious levels of experience and focus on the unconscious levels where gender –specific desires and meanings are constituted and formed. Dorothy Dinnerstein and Nancy Chodorow draw on a school for psychoanalysis called ‘objectrelation theory’. Exclusive female mothering is seen to be the cause of gender inequality (Mandell, 1995: 20).
Eco-feminists accept women’s attitudes and values as different from men. They believe that in certain respects women are superior to men and possess the qualities of creativity, sensitivity and caring which men can never develop. Vandana Shiva in her conception of ecofeminism critiques development and establishes the connection between ecological destruction and capitalist growth as a patriarchal project (Shiva, 1999: 41, for details see Vandana Shiva’s “Colonialism and the Evolution of Masculinist Forestry”).
Postmodern feminists claim that there is no fixed female identity. The socially constructed identities can be reconstructed or deconstructed. Thus the distinctions between sex and gender are criticized from two perspectives: (i) ‘difference feminists’ who believe that “there are essential difference between men and women and the social and cultural characteristics are seen to refer the biological differences” and (ii) ‘postmodern feminists’ who “questioned whether sex is a clear-cut biological distinction as is usually assumed”. In other words the features of biological motherhood do not apply to women who cannot bear children. Thus “there is a biology-culture continuum rather than a fixed biological/cultural divide and the categories male and female become hopelessly entangled” (Heywood, 2003: 248). Linda Nicholson in “Feminism / Postmodernism” (1990) claims that there are many points of overlap between a postmodern stance and position long held by feminists. According to Nancy Fraser and Nicholson if feminism pursues a trend towards a more historical non-universalizing, non-essentialist theory that addresses difference amongst women (lesbians, disabled, working class women, black women) then feminism will become more consistent with postmodernism (Nicholson, 1990: 34) This trend means giving up universal claims of gender and patriarchy. However, feminists hostile to postmodernism theory claim that no feminist politics is possible once one has called into question the nature of gender identity and subjectivity (Mandell, 1995: 26).
Black feminists have prioritized differences based on race and challenge the tendency within feminism to ignore it. They portray sexism and racism as interlinked systems of oppression and highlight the particular range of gender, racial and economic disadvantages that confront “women of colour”. Black feminists argue that women are not subject to common forms of oppression due to their sex but ‘women of colour ‘in particular are more vulnerable to oppression and subjugation. They criticize the liberal, Marxist, socialist and radical feminists for ignoring race as a category of oppression and analysis (also see Brand, Dasgupta). By assuming that gender is primary form of subordination, oppression of class, sexuality and race become extensions of patriarchal domination. Radical feminists’ insistence that the elimination of sexism is key to the elimination racism is inadequate to “women of colour” as they experience racism from white women as well as from men (Grant, 1993 in Mandell, 1995: 18). Thus an analysis of the intersection of class, caste, race, sexuality and gender is important.
Similarly lesbian feminists primarily struggle against homophobia which is as important as the struggle against patriarchy. Lesbian feminism and cultural feminism are two types of feminist separations advocating the creation of women identified world through the attachments women have to each other. They believe that since patriarchy is organized through men’s relations with other men, unity among women is the only effective means for liberating women. They position lesbianism as more than a personal decision and an outward sign of an internal rejection of patriarchal sexuality (Rich in Mandell, 1995: 14). Lesbianism becomes a paradigm for female-controlled female sexuality which meets women’s needs and desires. ‘Another popular strategy for resisting patriarchy has been to redefine social relations by creating women-centered cultures that emphasise positive capacities of women by focusing on creative dimensions of their experiences’ (ibid). Therefore while earlier feminists struggled for a legally equal position for women and demanded democratic rights, which included right to education and employment, right to own property, right to vote, right to birth control, right to divorce, today feminists have gone beyond demanding mere legal reforms to end discrimination between men and women. They have raised issues of violence against women, rape, unequal wages, discriminatory personal laws, the sexual division of labour, distribution of power within the family, use of religion to oppress women and negative portrayal of women in media (also see Bhasin, 1993: 9). Emancipation of women necessarily calls for challenging patriarchy as a system which perpetuates women’s subordination. Several structures of society such as kinship and family, class, caste, religion, ethnicity, educational institutions and state reinforce patriarchy. Some of the experiences of multiple patriarchies can be illustrated by analyzing the dynamics and interface of social forces which institutionalize and legitimize patriarchy in society.
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