Feminism has been both a sociological and political movement
gaining momentum post WWII, women’s
roles have changed dramatically since the 1940’s with the emphasis on housewife
and mother decreasing and acts such as the 1979 Equal Pay act creating more
employment opportunities for women. Feminist sociologists have both
helped produce research which have influenced social policy aimed at improving
female experiences whilst the new political and attitude changes to women have
been of much sociological investigation in recent years. Sociology has been condemned as malestream and
only researching male phenomena especially in crime and deviance, Feminism has
altered this as women are more likely to be researched due to the rising
presence of women in society, they are no longer confined to the private sphere
but are actively part of the public world meaning they are considered
more in sociological research as they contribute more to society in the modern
day. Feminism exposes the
deep seated gender inequalities and the detrimental effects of patriarchy in
society that other perspectives ignore, not only this but the different
type of feminisms means feminism as a whole gives a more holistic understanding to society. For
example, Marxist feminists
acknowledge debates of both gender and class whilst Black feminists attempt to
explain the issues of racism, ethnicity and gender touching upon other
inequalities. Feminist researchers have called for new methods to
research females as they
condemn the traditional positivist methods as oppressive, stripping research of
meaning and creating inequalities in power between researchers and
participants, an extension of patriarchy into sociology. Feminists have
advocated interpretivists methods of focus groups to gain a valid insight into
female experiences that are utterly different to that of males.
“Revolutionised”
is a particularly emotive word and perhaps exaggerative when it comes to
feminism’s contribution to sociology and society. Whilst feminism has
brought about changes, perhaps due to political protests and pressure rather
than the findings of sociological research, there is still evidence of
patriarchy, particularly in sociology. For example in the study of the family,
Functionalist Parsons claims women are biologically the expressive leaders and
emotional members of the family, a particularly patriarchal view. Similarly, in the sociology of
crime and deviance, studies, research and theory are based primarily around
males, Oakley argues it is malecentric. Despite recent research from Caroline Jackson into female
offending and the laddette culture of the 90’s sociology is still very much
centred around the study of males with a traditional, patriarchal view of
women’s roles, this suggests feminism has not revolutionised sociology in the
same way feminist movements have caused drastic changes to laws and people’s
attitudes in society. However, it could be argued feminism has not even
had a revolutionary impact on patriarchy outside of sociology as despite
progress in Britain, the
global situation has changed very little. LEDC’s are still tightly controlled
by religious patriarchy and many women experience immense inequalities
particularly in Middle Eastern countries, as the recent Boko Haram kidnapping illustrates many
attitudes across the globe have not been changed by feminism. This
suggests whilst feminism has had its achievements in abundance in Britain and
has slowly incorporated females into sociological study, feminism has perhaps
not been as revolutionary as it would hope to be. However it has exposed the
inequalities that do persist and awakened us to the dominance of patriarchy
worldwide, explaining the imbalances in power between the genders within
modern, industrial and developing countries.
Despite
the similar starting points for feminism of advocating the liberalisation of
females and abolition of patriarchy, there are many different branches of feminism
which have contributed to our understanding of society. For example, as
aforementioned Marxist feminists focus on women as the victims of both
capitalism and class inequality and patriarchy. Marxist Feminists suggest women’s roles within the family
are to serve the interests of capitalism as their domestic labour is unpaid and
therefore exploitative, for example they cook, clean and nurse children
which are all professions which outside the home would be paid for however
patriarchal ideology has confined women to the home in which their labour is
exploited. Females also
serve capitalism by supplying sexual and emotional support to their husbands
which keeps the capitalist workforce fit and healthy and able to work.
This branch of feminism explains that women are both the inferior class
exploited and the inferior sex suggesting women face double inequality.
Other feminist branches include Radical feminism, which takes a more aggressive
stance, they suggest men are women’s opposition and thus separatism is advocated,
they suggest women should become lesbians as advances in technology mean males
are no longer needed for reproduction. However, interpretivists argue lesbian
families face being denied family status due to other ideologies such as
Functionalist Murdock claiming the nuclear family is the correct type of
family. Radical feminism exposes how association with men is detrimental to the
independent woman in society. Lastly a more modern branch to feminism is that of Black feminism, who
highlight the hardships black females experience in society. Black feminists
suggest there is an ethnic dimension to inequality and that black females are
more likely to be victims of poverty, patriarchy, abuse and racism
suggesting the plight of black females in an unequal society. The various forms of feminism contribute to
our understanding of society in the fact they each highlight the vast
inequalities in society that are not just perpetuated by patriarchy and explain
how women face many disadvantages.
Despite feminists taking a structural approach they are not
necessarily positivists, feminists
often use interpretivist methods and the rise of feminism has also contributed
to the move away from positivist methods to triangulation or interpretivism.
Feminists see the need to study women in a more equal and sensitive way, they suggest the researchers
motives should be explained to the participant to avoid deception, that focus
groups should be used to equalise power and not represent patriarchy through
methodology and have female researchers examine females as males cannot
understand female experiences in society. These techniques are unique to feminism in sociological
research and offer validity as it could be argued to fully understand female
experiences, a female researcher must interpret the data or observation. However the disadvantages of feminist
research is its potential
for bias particularly if the researcher is a radical feminist or liberal
feminist as their motives for research may taint their interpretation for
example they may see women as unequal in the workplace due to actively wanting
to change legislation because they believe women are unequal. This suggests
interpretivists methods are better for understanding womens place and
experience in society as they place women in a position of equal power rather
than as an inferior to a researcher and look to find in depth meanings rather
than analysing socially constructed official statistics which cannot grasp a
female’s true place in society, however due to the radical intent within this perspective to change
society the results may be bias and thus invalid, the very component they are
seeking to find.
Feminism has offered many changes to society and the role of
women is progressing at least, it has offered new methodology and techniques to
sociological research whilst in its theory explained and exposed the multitude
of inequalities females face in society. Feminism has highlighted the
patriarchal nature of society and the institutionalised aspect of it, whilst illustrating
how society and sociology is centred around males with a very traditional and
somewhat backwards view of the female role.
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