IGNOU MPS 001 Political Theory — Unit 26: Feminism (Complete Notes)

26.1 Introduction

The term feminism is generally attributed to Utopian Socialist Charles Fourier (19th century), used to refer to the question of equal rights for women.
In the West, women emerged as a distinct interest group in the early 19th century for two reasons: the bourgeois democratic revolutions of the 17th–18th centuries had excluded women from their promise of equality, and the Industrial Revolution made women’s presence in public employment increasingly visible. This gave rise to the “Woman Question.”
In post-colonial societies, feminist interventions had to engage with both traditional oppression and the new oppression of colonialism.
All feminist positions, despite internal diversity, share the recognition that: (a) women occupy an inferior position in society, (b) this hierarchy is based on gender, and (c) though justified on grounds of natural/biological difference, it is actually rooted in socio-cultural and economic power structures.
It is now more accurate to speak of “feminisms” (plural) rather than one unified feminism.

26.2 Types of Feminism

Three conventional streams:

Stream	Core Argument
Liberal Feminism	Works within the liberal state framework; argues that concepts of equality, freedom, and justice are inadequate until the gender dimension is included.
Socialist Feminism	Links women’s oppression to class society; draws from Marxist analysis while critiquing its gender-blindness.
Radical Feminism	Theorises patriarchy as a system of male dominance independent of and prior to all other systems of domination; sex-based oppression is historically the oldest form of oppression.

These are useful entry points but not watertight compartments.

26.3 Patriarchy

Patriarchy is the central term in feminist analysis, referring to an overarching system of male dominance.

26.3.1 Views of Kate Millett

Kate Millett (one of the earliest radical feminists, 1970s) built on Max Weber’s concept of domination to argue that throughout history the relationship between the sexes has been one of domination and subordination.
Men exercise dominance in two forms: social authority and economic force.
Patriarchy is a system, not a collection of individual behaviours — men’s power over women is structural.

26.3.2 Gerda Lerner’s Views

Gerda Lerner (historian) defines patriarchy as: “the manifestation and institutionalisation of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general.”
Men hold power in all important institutions; women are deprived of access to such power.
This does not mean every individual man dominates every individual woman — it means there exists an ideology that men are superior, that women are men’s property, and that women should be under men’s control.

26.3.3 Control over Women’s Sexuality and Labour Power

Under patriarchy, women’s sexuality is controlled through the strictly policed institution of monogamous marriage.
Women’s labour power (both within and outside the household) is controlled by men, who determine whether women work outside the home.
To maintain this control, women are denied access to and ownership of productive resources, making them materially dependent on men.
Women’s mobility is further restricted through rules and norms that confine them to strictly defined spaces.

26.3.4 Different Forms

Patriarchy takes different forms across geographical regions and historical periods.
Historian Uma Chakravarti notes the experience of patriarchy differs between tribal women and women in highly stratified caste societies, between 19th-century and contemporary India, and between India and industrialised western countries.
The term “patriarchies” (plural) is therefore preferred by feminist scholars to capture this fluidity and to make visible patriarchy’s linkages with class, caste, race, nation, and religion.
Key compound terms:
- “Capitalist patriarchy” (Zillah Eisenstein) — the mutually reinforcing dialectical relationship between capitalist class structure and hierarchical sexual structures.
- “Brahminical patriarchy” (Uma Chakravarti) — the intersection of caste and gender oppression.

26.4 The Sex/Gender Distinction

26.4.1 Sex is to Nature as Gender is to Culture

One of feminist theory’s key contributions: “sex” refers to biological differences between men and women; “gender” refers to the vast range of cultural meanings attached to that biological difference.
This distinction is crucial because women’s subordination has historically been justified through biological determinism — challenging this is therefore central to feminist politics.

26.4.2 Masculinity, Femininity, and Cultural Differences

Feminist anthropologist Margaret Mead demonstrated that what is understood as masculinity and femininity varies across cultures — the same qualities are not universally coded as masculine or feminine.
There is no necessary correlation between biology and the qualities deemed masculine or feminine. Differences are produced by child-rearing practices that socialise boys and girls into gender-specific behaviour, dress, and play from childhood — through continuous, often subtle conditioning, backed by punishment when necessary.
Societies generally value “masculine” characteristics more highly than “feminine” ones, while disciplining non-conformists.
Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born, but becomes, a woman.”
The sexual division of labour — different work performed by men and women — has nothing to do with biology. Only pregnancy is biological; all domestic labour (cooking, cleaning, child-rearing) can equally be done by men but is designated “women’s work.”

26.4.3 Sexual Division of Labour and Workplace

The sexual division of labour extends to the public arena of paid work — certain jobs are coded as “women’s work” and certain as “men’s work.”
Crucially, whatever work women do gets lower wages and less social value.
Example: nursing and teaching (especially at lower levels) are predominantly female and comparatively ill-paid — a “feminisation” of these professions because such work is seen as an extension of the nurturing women do at home.

26.4.4 Ideological Assumptions behind Sexual Division of Labour

The sexual division of labour rests on ideological assumptions, not biological facts.
Women are deemed physically weak and unfit for heavy work — yet they perform the heaviest labour (carrying water, transplanting paddy, head-loads in construction).
When manual work performed by women is mechanised (and thus made lighter and better-paid), it is men who receive training to use the new machinery; women are edged out into even more arduous, lower-paid work. This pattern holds in factories and in community tasks (e.g., electric flour mills replacing hand-pounding; machine-made nylon fishing nets replacing women’s hand-made nets).
Feminist agenda: relocate questions of sex-differentiated work, sexual division of labour, sexuality, and reproduction from the realm of the “biological” (seen as natural and unchangeable) to the realm of the “political” (open to transformation).

26.5 Developments in the Sex/Gender Distinction in Feminist Theory

The initial sex = nature / gender = culture framework has been considerably reworked. Four main directions:

26.5.1 Views of Scholars like Alison Jaggar

Alison Jaggar argues “sex” and “gender” are dialectically and inseparably related — the conceptual distinction cannot be sustained beyond a point.
Human biology is constituted by a complex interaction between the human body, the physical environment, and the state of development of technology and society. As Jaggar puts it, “the hand is as much the product of labour as the tool of labour.”
This operates in two senses:
- Long-term/evolutionary: human bodies have evolved differently across the globe due to differences in diet, climate, and nature of work.
- Short-term/within a lifetime: neurophysiology and hormonal balances are affected by social factors (anxiety, physical labour, social interaction), just as these in turn affect social interaction.
Applied to women: women’s bodies have been shaped by social restrictions and norms of beauty — “body” is formed as much by “culture” as by “nature.” The rapid improvement in women’s athletic records over two decades evidences this.
Two equally powerful factors: society produces sex differences, and sex differences structure society.

26.5.2 Radical Feminists

Radical feminists argue that attributing all difference to “culture” underplays biological difference and effectively accepts the male civilisation’s devaluing of the female reproductive role.
Their position: certain differences between men and women arise from their different biological reproductive roles — women are therefore more sensitive, instinctive, and closer to nature.
Susan Griffin and Andrea Dworkin: women’s reproductive biology, gestation, and the experience of mothering fundamentally affect their relationship to the external world; women share in nature’s qualities of fecundity, nurturing, and instinct — qualities rejected by patriarchy but which feminism should revalue.
Ecofeminists like Vandana Shiva extend this: the feminine worldview is more respectful of nature and more attuned to ecologically sustainable development.
Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice): using psychoanalytic insight, she argues that because the primary care-giver is invariably the mother, boys come to adulthood by differentiating from the mother, girls by identifying with her. Result: women develop a more subjective, relational engagement with the world; men develop a more objective, separating mode. Women relate to others; men separate themselves.
Gilligan on moral reasoning: women are less driven by normative notions of right/wrong and more by empathy, concern, and sensitivity. Men tend to rely on socially accepted moral categories. Conclusion: the basic categories of western moral philosophy (rationality, autonomy, justice) reflect the male experience — the female experience is invisible.
Ashis Nandy argues that pre-colonial Indian cultures accorded greater value to femininity; it was colonialism that imposed western valorisation of masculinity. Nationalists too adopted masculinist ideology. Gandhi was unique in emphasising “feminine” qualities (spiritual and moral courage over aggression) as the true power to resist colonialism.
Pre-modern Indian cultures had greater space for varied sexual identities — eunuchs had acknowledged social status; Sufi and Bhakti traditions drew on androgyny. Illustrated by 12th-century Shaivite poet Basavanna and Devara Dasimayya (two centuries earlier), both writing in Kannada on the fluidity of gendered identity.

26.5.3 Post-Modernist View

Judith Butler argues that if gender is the cultural meaning the sexed body takes on, then gender cannot be said to simply follow from sex. Rather, “gender” as a concept produces the category of biological “sex” — sex does not precede gender; gender precedes sex.
Butler proposes a “radical discontinuity” between sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders.
The category of “woman” does not exist prior to thinking about it — gender is constructed through relations of power and norms that regulate what is recognised as a “male” or “female” body.
These norms render a wide range of bodies invisible or illegitimate: infants with ambiguous sexual characteristics, eunuchs, men and women who do not follow dress norms for their gender.
Most modern languages have no way of speaking of a human who does not fit either sex — language forces reality into pre-given patterns.
Jaggar’s study: when children’s sex was incorrectly assigned at birth and the discrepancy later emerged, parents and medical practitioners preferred surgical intervention to change the body rather than changing years of cultural gender conditioning — suggesting culture is in some ways more concrete than biology.
Feminist scientists Ruth Bleier and Evelyn Fox Keller argue that a rigid sex/gender distinction mistakenly assumes the biological body remains an unchanging reality. In fact, perceptions and interpretations of the body are mediated through language, and bio-medical sciences function as a major provider of that language. Scientific “facts” about the body are deeply embedded in society and culture — “sex” is constructed by human practices.

26.5.4 Gender Identity Interface

A fourth development locates “gender” within a grid of identities — caste, class, race, religion.
Women do not exist as a pre-existing unified subject; they identify themselves not only (or even primarily) in terms of gender but as Black, Muslim, Dalit, peasant, etc. Women may be more easily mobilised around religion than around the women’s movement.
Indian example — Uniform Civil Code: All religious communities have personal laws discriminating against women in marriage, divorce, inheritance, and guardianship. The women’s movement demanded a uniform civil code since 1937. However, the rise of communalism since the 1980s and the insecurity of religious minorities shifted the majority of the women’s movement towards reform within personal laws rather than state-imposed uniformity. The state’s legitimacy and neutrality are increasingly suspect.
Further, not all politically active women act as feminists — women active in Hindu right-wing politics or anti-lower-caste movements (e.g., agitation against the Mandal Commission) may represent interests feminist politics seeks to oppose.
Implication: the sex/gender distinction must account for other modes of identity; depending on context, feminists may need to privilege caste or class over gender, just as Marxists or Dalit activists may need to privilege gender in other contexts.

26.5.5 Naturalness of Heterosexuality Questioned

The sex/gender distinction, when fully developed, challenges the supposed naturalness of heterosexuality.
Adrienne Rich uses the term “compulsory heterosexuality” — heterosexual marriage is set up as the unquestioned norm.
If “male” and “female” as natural categories are challenged, this simultaneously challenges the entire range of institutionalised practices (marriage, family) through which patriarchal property and power relations are maintained.
Sexual identity and sexual orientation are therefore important issues for contemporary feminist theory.

26.6 Feminist Critique of the Public/Private Dichotomy

In liberal theory: the public realm is open to government regulation; the private realm (sexuality, family) is protected from it.
In Marxist theory (Engels): women’s oppression begins when housework is transformed from a public to a private service; women are emancipated only when they enter the public sphere of production. Housework is not “work”; women participate in history only through entry into the industrial workforce.

26.6.1 Feminist Criticism

Liberal feminist critique:

The public/private dichotomy has historically excluded the family from the values of justice and equality that animate liberalism.
The “individual” in liberal theory was the adult male head of household — his freedom from state interference included rights over women, children, and servants in the private realm, rendering oppression within the family invisible to political theory.

Socialist feminist critique:

The Marxist model of “production” (defined as economic production for the capitalist market) ignores the “private” sphere of reproduction — women’s child-bearing and housework.
Traditional Marxists treat this as part of the superstructure, not even defining it as “work.”
Socialist feminists reframe housework as a commodity — unpaid labour that reproduces labour power in two senses: (a) it ensures male workers can return to work each day; (b) child-bearing reproduces the actual people who will constitute the workforce.
This unpaid labour in the private sphere underlies and enables capitalist production in the public sphere.
Across the political spectrum, feminists agree: the public and private are not two distinct, separate spheres, and assuming they are is uniformly detrimental to women.

26.6.2 Lack of Consensus Among Feminists

Despite shared critique, there is no consensus on consequences for feminist practice — two opposite positions:

Position 1 — Privacy as a ground for women’s rights (characteristic of US feminism):

Claims to privacy can effectively secure important feminist demands, from reproductive rights to protection against sexual harassment.
Landmark case: Roe v. Wade (1972) — abortion rights grounded in the individual woman’s right to privacy.
Also: the 1965 judgement that married couples’ right to use contraceptives is part of “a right to privacy older than the Bill of Rights.”
Feminist task here: transform gender institutions so genuine privacy (free from state and legal intrusion) is available to both men and women, not just men.
This position is not taken within the Indian women’s movement.

Position 2 — “The personal is political” (more common in India; radical feminist slogan):

Domestic violence, child abuse, and rape have been brought into the public arena through feminist pressure.
Violence against women in the “private” realm of family and sexuality is in principle as actionable as violence in the public arena.
Privacy and the family are seen as areas of “judicial void” — outside the application of law, and therefore sites of protected oppression.
The state, though paternalistic and masculine, can be an instrument for women if laws are designed from the standpoint of women.
Critique of the privacy position: framing abortion as a right to privacy gives the state no obligation to provide public funding for abortion; actual control won by women through such legislation may be captured by men (husbands, fathers) within the family.

26.7 Summary (Key Takeaways)

Theme	Key Point
Origin	Term attributed to Charles Fourier (19th century)
Three streams	Liberal, Socialist, Radical
Patriarchy	System of male dominance — Millett (social authority + economic force), Lerner (institutionalised ideology of male superiority)
Patriarchy’s forms	Varies by region, period, caste, class, religion — “capitalist patriarchy” (Eisenstein), “brahminical patriarchy” (Chakravarti)
Sex/gender	Sex = biology; Gender = cultural meanings — Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born, but becomes, a woman”
Developments in sex/gender	Jaggar (dialectically inseparable); Radical feminists (revalue biological difference — Gilligan, Griffin, Vandana Shiva); Postmodernist/Butler (gender precedes sex); Identity grid (caste, class, race)
Heterosexuality	Adrienne Rich — “compulsory heterosexuality”
Public/private	Liberal critique: family excluded from justice; Socialist critique: housework = unpaid reproduction of labour; “The personal is political”
Indian context	Uniform Civil Code debate; Ashis Nandy on colonialism and masculinity; caste-gender intersections