In many respects the second-wave feminist movement, as with the first wave, was based on the idea that women shared a common, disadvantaged social position; that as women they had similar experiences of being treated as second-class citizens. Therefore their key identity was as a woman. Political unity between women was possible if they recognized […]

Feminists were politicizing gender relations as power relations. This meant challenging their supposed naturalness (Pateman, 1989: 131; Mouffe, 1992:372).Although this approach was intended to be an analy­sis of broad patterns of power which tended to favour men as a group over women as a group, feminists were often interpreted as critical of men as individuals. […]

For equality to be achieved it was argued that women must be able to control their reproductive capacities. The contraceptive pill had only become available in the 1960s. It did bring some improvement as it did not rely on the male partner’s willingness to cooperate. However, it was not always 100 per cent effective and […]

One challenge of patriarchal society’s representation of a ‘personal trouble’ came through feminist insistence on the need for access to twenty-four hour, free childcare. Women have borne most of the responsibility for childcare (see Brown et al., 2001; Oakley, 1972; 1980). There is no reason why, having given birth to the children, women should have […]

The division between ‘public’ and ‘private’ is artificial; the terms only make sense through opposition to each other. The public is that which is not private and vice versa (Pateman, 1988). For feminists ‘the private’ usually referred to the domestic sphere, but there are other usages of the term which refer to civil society, for […]

Second wave feminism began to emerge in about 1968 as masses of women began struggling for ‘liberation’ from patriarchal dominance. It was part of a general upsurge in political activity as the baby boomers reached their teenage years and were keen to use their numbers to change the world. The year 1968 had seen some […]

Feminist politics is an attempt to represent women’s interests in order to overcome the gender inequalities which disadvantage women. Although women’s struggles to improve their position have a long history, there have been two periods of particularly noticeable mass activity, which are referred to as the first wave and the second wave of feminism. The […]

Within the sociology of the body phenomenological approaches focus on how we experience our bodies. Phenomenology is the study of experiences, usually done via description. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (2003/1945) work is central. He understands subjectivity as located in the body. He is going against Cartesian models which say that subjectivity is located in the mind (I […]

Australian feminist philosophers Elizabeth Grosz and Moira Gatens have endeavoured to develop a corporeal feminism which rethinks sexual difference without resort to essentialism. Grosz is perhaps the more influen­tial of the two, so I shall discuss her ideas. Corporeal feminism relies largely on Jaques Lacan’s interpretation of Freud. Women are seen as the representation of […]

Both Friedan (1965) and Greer (1970) argue that women are encour­aged, cajoled and sometimes coerced into making their bodies conform to male dictated ideals. Intrinsic to the feminine mystique is that women are taught to find fulfilment through their bodies. They are encouraged to find themselves by dyeing their hair or having another baby (Friedan, […]