Feminist Studies

1
Feminist Studies

• Explores
• the meaning of gender
• in society
• Aims to expose the power and limits of the
  genderized world
• It studies the
• power distribution
• between the sexes

2
Looks at how

• male language bias
• affects relations between the sexes
• How male domination constrains communication for
  females
• How women have accommodated male patterns of
  speech and language
• How women have resisted these patterns

3
Looks at the

• unique power and characteristics
• of womens communication forms
• Claim that traditional methods of research mute
  the
• experience of women
• and
• hide the value of womens experience

4
FCT focuses on the womens experience as being
central

• characteristics include but are not limited to-
• a sense of interdependence and relationship
•     the legitimacy of emotionality
•     fusion of public and private realms of
  experience
• egalitarian values
•      concern for process over product
•      openness to multiple ways of seeing and doing

5
Liberal feminism

• from the 60s and 70s, ERA, equal pay for equal
  work
•  
• Deals with public images and rights of women

6
Radical feminism

• oppression is much more than inequality
• Problem is the patriarchal social structure
• A structure which devalues and marginalizes
  womens experience via communication, texts, etc.