In relation to explaining gender the cultural turn (sometimes called the linguistic turn) was a turn away from an emphasis on inequalities and towards more exploration of identity and meanings (see Table 4.7). Generally speaking the linguistic turn refers to a theoretical shift, across the humanities and social sciences, away from a focus on material […]

A debate emerged within feminism about whether its political goal was gender equality or whether women’s differences, from men and each Table 4.5 The equality/difference debate within feminism Equality Difference Central ideas Rational individuals have Women’s difference (even if not certain rights that should be ‘natural’) should be recognized common to all and valued. Sometimes […]

Radical feminists argued that male control of women’s sexuality was a key factor in women’s oppression (see Dworkin, 1981; Kelly, 1988; MacKinnon, 1982). Kate Millet and Shulamith Firestone are the most visible of the first radical feminist theorists and certainly attended to sexuality, though Jackson (1998b: 19—20) suggests that Firestone is rather idiosyncratic. Millet’s (1972/1970) […]

Feminists starting from the socialist position of wanting to redistribute social rewards struggle to understand how class and gender might interrelate. Socialist and materialist feminists draw their political theory from Marxist materialism, which argues that ‘the determining factor in history is, in the final instance, the production and reproduction of immediate life’ (Engels cited in […]

Liberal feminism emerged as part of liberalism: a political and intel­lectual doctrine promoting the ideals of equality of opportunity and the notion that individuals had certain rights. These included the right to liberty, the right to some say in who ruled them, and the right to pursue their own interests to achieve happiness — as […]

Feminism has a variety of forms as a political and an intellectual movement that has been concerned with inequalities as well as with the production of knowledge. It is therefore within the spirit of feminist enquiry that I want to raise some questions about how different ways of thinking within feminism are labelled. The labels […]

Post-structuralists are interested in fragmentation and fluidity. Post­structuralism is about rethinking linguistic structuralism rather than completely rejecting it. Most of post-structuralism goes against key structuralist assumptions (see discussion of the linguistic turn below). It proposes that there is no underlying ‘truth’ behind the appearances — the point is to analyze the ‘appearances’ (see Barthes, 1967, […]

When applied to gender the advantages of the structuralist position are that it allows a discussion of gender relations in a way that makes it pos­sible to argue that there are gender inequalities that need to be addressed politically. Women have just gained some status as subjects and need to speak out. There are still […]

Sociologists still argue over the effects and desirability of a move from structuralist attention to ‘things’ (the material) to post-structuralist atten­tion to ‘words’ and meaning (the linguistic).They might refer to this shift as ‘the cultural turn’ (Chaney, 1994; Nash, 2001) or ‘the linguistic turn’ (Barrett, 1992). In order to understand this linguistic/cultural turn it helps […]

The word ‘theory’ can immediately strike fear into the heart, but a theory is really just an explanation, and the theories presented here are attempts to explain gender. We all theorize to some extent, trying to explain the world around us. Theorists do this too, but more systematically. There are various good books (for example, […]