'Feminist Perspective in Sociology Essay\r'

'â€Å"If we atomic number 18 to get hold of a richer culture, rich in secernate apprizes, we essential recognize the whole gamut of sympathetic potentialities, and so weave a little irresponsible loving fabric, angiotensin-converting enzyme in which each(prenominal) diverse gift leave alone key a fitting orient. ” †Marg argont Mead I. Prologue At present, it is quite grueling to imagine how on that point was a time when wo hands were non afforded the same rights and opportunities as men. Some of these rights and opportunities include the right and chance to pursue a college diploma and a c atomic number 18er, and the right to vote.\r\nAt present, it is quite yucky to think how women were tagged and branded to watch at home and pursue the exceed interests of her family members, plainly non hers. It is quite difficult to imagine, hardly the truth of the matter is that thither was much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) a time that completely these unimaginable things and revolting things were happening, when women were to take the backseat to the men and when they were non regarded as likens. The remnant of the starting time pluck feminism was to correct solely these capriciousnesss and to afflict to achieve a stance for the women when they do not take the backseat to the men, but stay beside the men as their equals.\r\nSlowly, this was achieved. Hence, women were whence ar given the right and luck to pursue a college diploma and a career, and the right to vote, among all others. All of these things are remarkable achievements and should in and by themselves, be commended. However, it cannot be denied once over again, that the struggle of women does not end with the first roam feminism, afterward all its not apt to tender it the first vagabond if on that point is no blurb wave. The bit wave devolved most the problems that the achievements of the first wave shake off to fore.\r\nThe sum of all these remainders is finally for society grapple woman not just as an intention but as a subject †who has her throw thoughts and who can lecture through her own mind and with her own voice (Delmar, 2005, p. 32). The ultimate goal was to relax woman from her reification. in that locationfore, MacKinnon remarked: I say, give women equal index number in kindly life. permit what we say matter, whence we will discourse on questions of morality. Take your foot forth our necks, then we will hear in what tongue women speak.\r\nSo long as waken equating is limited by â€Å"sex difference” whether you like it or don’t like it, whether you value it or seek to negate it, whether you stakes it out as a railway yard for feminism or occupy it as the terrain of misogyny, women will be born, degraded and die. We would unflurried settle for that equal protection of the police forces downstairs which one would be born, live and die, in a country where protection is n ot a dirty word and equality is not a special right (1987, p. 45).\r\nThe issues and problems created by the first wave as manifested in the second wave conduct Bell meat hooks to assert that [a]ll women are suppress, and being oppressed means the absence seizure of choices. The goal of this account then is to try to explain in a simplified but not in a simplistic manner what Bell Hooks meant when she cited the above-mentioned egotism-confidence through an comment of some the writings during the second wave feminism. The Paper shall be divided into 4 voxs.\r\nThe first take apart is the Prologue, where these paragraphs fall beneath, which shall discourse in general the background and the goal of the Paper. The second part shall discuss in general what Bell Hooks take a firm stand through the credit rating materials. The third part shall discuss in circumstantial event how all women are oppressed, once again through the reading materials. The fourth part is the epi logue, which shall present the conclusion and mortal-to-person thoughts of the author of this Paper. II. The New Face of subjugation\r\n conquest presupposes two parties, one is the oppressor and the other is the prey of the oppression, or oppressee, so to speak. During the first wave it is quite apparent that the oppressor is the patriarchal and machismo attribute of society, or men in short, and the object of the oppression are women. In the second wave, one wonders how Hooks do this assertion given the event that the men and women dichotomy and oppression were no long-dated as manifest. The answer is simple, time the first wave whitethorn acquit achieved equal rights and opportunities for women and men, there is still oppression.\r\nIt is exclusively that the faces of the oppressor and the oppressee pack changed. With the second wave, other women became the oppressors. According to most critics, this was an infallible consequence of setting equality with male pers ons as the primary goal of feminism (Jhappan, 1996, p. 25). Jhappan expounds: [i]n reality, the positions of supply and privileges adoreed by clean men fox only been make executable by racism and sexism, they require hierarchy, skewed power congenators, inequality and the subjugation of the majority ( uninfected women and dandy deal of colour).\r\nIt seems to me that unobjectionable women’s â€Å"equality” with dust coat men would only be possible of the unravel hierarchy were kept good intact since the privileges that unobjectionable men enjoy depend upon a racially satis pointory genial system (p. 25). Simply, this means that with the goal of equality with men, women aimed for an equally oppressing position, where they are promptly the oppressors. While men were no longer tagged as the oppressors of all women, in spite of appearance the grade of women rose other oppressors in the face of fellow women who are of a different color.\r\nThis is what An gela P. Harrris discusses in her article, in likeness to what Catharine MacKinnon discusses in hers. Generally, the idea of the latter is that there is a universal apprehension of a woman so to speak. This universal concept of a woman is what was oppressed by society through male subordination and supremacy before. For MacKinnon, there is just one know, culture, heritage, fill for all women, thus, their needs are all alike. As most feminists then were white women, most of what was pushed for were for the needs of the white women.\r\nThis is also known as the notion of a massive women find out (Harris, 2002, p. 384). through this sexual activity essentialism and worse, racial essentialism was likewise furthered (Harris, 2002, p. 384). Thus according to Harris, they reduce the lives of slew who experience seven-fold haves of oppression to additional problems: â€Å"racism + sexism = straight faint woman’s experience” or â€Å"racism + sexism + homophobia = black lesbian experience.\r\n” Thus, in an essentialist world, black women’s experience is always forcibly disunited before being subjected to analysis, as those who are â€Å"only interested in race” and those who are â€Å"only interested in gender” take their straighten out slices of our lives (p. 384). An theoretical account for Harris is what MacKinnon does when she reduces Black women to just worse forms of white women, and not as a separate and diverse woman apart from the white woman, but not an aggravation. MacKinnon imparts:\r\n[b]lack is not but a color of skin pigmentation, but a heritage, an experience, a cultural and in-person identity, the meaning of which becomes specifically… and glorious and/or ordinary below specific social conditions. It is as much socially created as, and at least in the American scope no less specifically important or defective than any linguistic, tribal, or religious ethnicity, all of whom are convent ionally recognized by capitalization. While women on paper, were emancipate from their reification, what happened really was that white women were liberated from reification.\r\nWhite women were no longer considered as objects â€they became subjects. Black women, though they were women but because they were black, were not similarly liberated. This is because [w]hite feminists have exposed male essentialism only to re step forward it with another essentialism base on the notion of an essential woman. However, as it turns out, this generic â€Å"woman” is not only white, but middle class, and also capable…Over the last couple of decades people of color have highlighted the silences of racists Eurocentric report and discourses which render all â€Å"others” invisible (Jhappan, 1996, p.\r\n22). By virtue of the large experience of women, women who did not fit the mold of the monolithic experience were oppressed in the sense that they were left with no choice . The choice was already made for them by the systems that were built in place respecting much(prenominal) monolithic experience. They were left with no choices as their needs were not addressed. The needs that were addressed were the needs of those who fit the monolithic experience of women. III. The Specific Instances of heaviness\r\nThe specific instances of oppression that are discussed in the reference materials are enumerated below. a. onerousness in sexual relation to the Family Through the idea of the family operate, women were oppressed with the fact that they were made dependent on the wage of their husbands. They were made dependent with the notion that â€Å"a working man should earn teeming to turn out his family” (Gavigan, 1996, p. 237), and consequently, the place of the woman or the wife is at home (Gavigan, 1996, p. 237).\r\nAs the husband already earns enough to support the family, there is no more need for the woman to earn and augment the cipher fo r the family. Thus, she is tasked by society to stay at home and address the needs of her family members. such(prenominal) admittedly, does not require professional and personal growth. Thus, while the members of the family pursue different goals in their lives, the woman is stuck at home smell after the family members, sending them off to earn their dreams, while she stays in her place. In addition, if and when a woman earns, she is given minimum wage.\r\nThe notion of minimum wage was put in place to accommodate individuals who were private and who did not have dependents to support (Gavigan, 1996, p. 238). In this wise, women were oppressed with the fact that when they earn, what they earn is not even enough to provide for their dependents, if any. b. Oppression under the Law Under the law, straightaway kindreds are afforded more advantages and privileges, in call of â€Å"tax benefits, standing to recover remediation for legitimate torts committed against spouses, and rights to succession and insurance benefits” (Gavigan, 1996, p.\r\n263). The same are not afforded to butch relationships; thus women are oppressed. Oppression of women under the law is manifested explicitly in wellbeing Law. When women seek assistance under the public assistance law, especially the solo parents, they have a hard time obtaining the assistance that the law provides because of the very stiff and stringent rendering of â€Å"spouse” under the laws such as the Family Law constitute, RSO 1990 and Canada Pension Plan Act : â€Å"spouse” means either of a man and a woman who (a) are married to each other or\r\n(b) have together entered into, a join that is voidable or void, in good faith on the part of the person asserting a right under the Act x x x â€Å"spouses” means a spouse as defined in subsection 1 (1), and in addition includes either of a man and woman who are not married to each other and have cohabited (a) continuously or (b) i n relationship of some permanence, if they are natural or adoptive parents if a child x x x â€Å"spouses: in relation to a endorser means’ (i) if there is no person described in subparagraph (ii), a person who is married to the contributor at the relevant time\r\nor (ii) a person of the opposite sex who is cohabiting with the contributor in a conjugal relationship at the relevant time, having so cohabited with the contributor for a continuous gunpoint of at least one grade (Gavigan, 1996, p. 266) When solo parents seek social eudaimonia assistance, there were always resort to the courts in order to de lineine whether or not a particular relationship was sufficiently conjugal to imprimatur the characteristic as spousal and consequently to warrant the benefits provided by the social go (Gavigan, 1996, p. 266).\r\nAlso, the definition of the term â€Å"spouse” was too technical such that even in heterosexual relationships, there were always doubt as to whether a r elationship is sufficiently conjugal to warrant the benefits granted by social services (Gavigan, 1996, p. 267). An extype Ale of the ill-effect of this law is the requirement that the spouse who should support the spouse (wife) and the children, must not live in a certain proximity; otherwise the latter cannot bear the benefits under the Welfare Law (Gavigan, 1996, p. 269). c. Oppression by Virtue of Race or Color\r\nThis form was already discussed in part two. However, in addition Jhappan tells us that for colored women, race rather gender has been the primary ascendant of oppression. …while white feminists have theorized the male breadwinner dependent-female, post-Industrial Revolution family form of the West as a source of women’s oppression, different family forms persist in other culture even among those existing in the diasporas, For many women of colour, in fact, solid ground actions such as iimmigration and labour policies that have separated and distorted families have oppressed them more than gender relations (p. 23). d.\r\nOppression of Oneself by Oneself Women also admit that in and by themselves, they are oppressed. As there are women who are of different cultures, there are certain aspects of their identity that is jilted by another aspect, but which they ultimately have to deal with. For instance a woman who has both black and albumen heritage, the black heritage forsakes slavery while the Caucasian heritage promoted the same.\r\nThere whitethorn be instances in the life of such person when decisions have to be made favoring one aspect over the other, and in such instance, the woman is the oppressor of her own self as she is left with no choice but to decide in such manner, although contrary to an aspect of her identity. IV. Epilogue Delmar has pointed out that the problem of oppression within the circle of feminism is rooted on the fact that the very definition of feminism is monolithic and abstracted. The very definition of feminism forgets or averts from the reality that there exists a quadruple consciousness of women.\r\nWith the acknowledgment that a multiple consciousness of women exists, then there may be the realization that there are motley facets of oppression. Consequently, solutions may be afforded to these various facets in order to abolish, if not minimise the same. This is why at the beginning of this Paper a quote from Margaret Mead was stated. â€Å"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.\r\n” With the realization that women are rich in culture, in contrasting values, then we can fulfil that there is a whole gamut of potentialities. With such variety, a less arbitrary social fabric may be established, and through such less arbitrary social fabric, each and every individual may find his or her own place without necessarily fitting into a monolithic mold. References Delmar, Rosalind. (2005). What is Feminism? Feminist Theory: A reader, 27-36. New York: McGraw-Hill. Gavigan, Shelley. (1996). Familial Ideology & the Limits of Difference.\r\nWomen and Canadian Public Policy, 225-78. Toronto: Harcourt Brace. Harris, Angela. (2002). Race and Essentialism in Legal Theory. Women, Law and Social Change, quaternate ed. , 383-92. Concord, ON: Captus Press. Jhappan, Raddha. (1996). Post-Modern Race and Gender Essentialism or a Post-Mortem of Scholarship. Studies in Political scrimping 51:15-58. MacKinnon, Catharine. (1987). Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law, 32-45, 240-45. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.\r\n'