Feminism Concepts and Theories.
This is lecture 27.
This is your 2nd lecture for week 12 and we
will continue with our agenda, which is mainly
to recap our learnings; weeks 1 through 11.
Now, in the last lecture we went through a
summary of the main concepts covered in weeks
1 through 4.
(tod) I am going to continue on weeks 5 to
11.
If you remember, we had moved on from fundamental
concepts, equality, choice, difference, etc.,
to a history of the feminist movement, specifically
through an understanding of the three waves
of feminism.
In this, we considered key concepts associated
with each wave, as well as key thinkers specific
to each wave.
We also went through some primary readings.
Now, of course, one of the important things
to remember while considering this particular
part of feminist history, is the very use
of the term ‘wave’.
So, one of our sets of discussions was about
the very history of the term itself.
And we concluded that while each wave refers
to periodization of a certain order, aspects
of each wave can persevere beyond that time
limit as well.
And aspects of each wave are important to
consider specifically also in relation to
our understanding of feminisms, in various
other parts of the world.
So, the wave or aspects of the wave in the
first, second, and third instance are not
properties of that time or of that geography.
They are only ways to understand the historical
specificity of feminist theory.
And while different kinds of feminisms across
the world may have had different trajectories,
we can continue to identify aspects of each
wave across all these geographies and forms
of struggle.
At the same time, we also considered ongoing
critiques of the use of the wave as a metaphor,
which according to feminist historian Linda
Nicholson for example, can be problematic
and is historically misleading and not politically
helpful.
In Nicholson’s words, it suggests that gender
activism in the history of the United States
has been for the most part unified around
one set of ideas, a set of ideas called Feminism.
And we know this to certainly not be the case.
So, wave itself is not a term, that must necessarily
be adopted in an uncritical fashion.
In many ways, it is an organizing device – a
heuristic, and it allows us to identify certain
historical elements, in the development of
feminist theory proper.
It allows us to see broadly in a global north-specific
fashion, where is it that feminist thought
often gained its energy from.
So, it serves as a kind of method and not
necessarily a historical truth to feminist
movements around the world.
We then went on to discuss aspects of each
of the waves.
For example; the first wave was the West’s
first long sustaining political movement for
political equality for women and it can be
broadly located in the years 1848 to 1920.
The first wave also serves as a useful example,
because it can be understood in response to
other larger political events around that
time, say for example, Abolitionist movements
in the U.S.
So in many ways, gender is often argued about
in the same tone as race in that moment, even
as often there were struggles and differences
between the two sets of movements, feminism
often claimed primacy over race-based movements
leading also to the critique that the first
wave could not account for differences in
race, amongst women.
The second wave can broadly be located 1963
to the 1980s, and, it also responds and reacts
to a different surrounding political milieu.
It is continuous with the first wave to the
extent that it has a unifying goal of social
equality.
It is also in the second wave that we located
the popular feminist motto, “the personal
is political”.
The second wave however moved on from the
goals of the first wave, to also look at the
casual sexism ingrained in society.
So, from political equality, we go on to analyzing
the ways in which gender becomes enshrined
in a hierarchical fashion in society and the
second wave named and called out such sexism.
To this extent, the discussions of the second
wave were about body, if there is a fundamental
nature to women, how is it that women are
constructed?
So, we read Simone de Beauvoir instance, who
speaks about becoming a woman, as to woman
is not somebody that is born a woman, but
has to become a woman over the lifetime.
We continued speaking about reproductive rights,
consciousness raising, male violence, pornography,
and the notion of sisterhood, that we first
read about in bell hooks.
However, the second wave also continued to
be limited in relation to questions of race
or the different concerns of women of color
in relation to the feminist movement.
Moving on from there, we spoke about the backlash
to the second wave, in the comfortable conservatism
of the Reagan era in the US, where the image
of feminists as angry and man-hating and lonely
became canonical.
If you remember this quote from the New York
Times magazine, a young woman says, I do not
think of myself as a feminist; not for me,
but for the guy next door, that would mean
that I am a lesbian and I hate men.
As a result of this, what we identify as third
wave feminism, that 1980s onwards becomes
a more modest feminism.
It does take into account class, race, and
gender and produces a range of differential
feminisms as much as it also critiques Eurocentric
feminism – feminism located only in the
concerns of white, middle, or upper-class
women in the global north.
Third wave feminism takes into account women
of color, of the third world and argues that
it is important to consider all of these different
questions.
There is no central issue as a result of this.
It is much more centered in its location and
questioned around ways to think about gender
and its impacts.
Here, we ended our series of lectures by looking
at the question of whether there is a fourth
wave and we have said, we will discuss it
later on, as we did in week 10.
From here, we looked at the feminist body
and very specifically feminist theory’s
understanding of the body; given how central
it is, to all forms of thoughts and disciplines.
We revisited the sex gender framework through
theory and through a set of primary readings.
We began our lecture by speaking about why
is it that the body is so central to feminism.
Two reasons: the body in western philosophy
itself has always been conditioned by the
body-mind dichotomy.
The body becomes an instrument to be directed.
And therefore, one debates questions such
as ‘Does one have a body or it is one a
body?’
Given the hegemonic nature of this dichotomy,
this Descartes-ian dichotomy, we wanted to
ask, what is the status of a woman’s body.
If woman is always considered to be closer
to body than mind, then in a philosophical
system, where body is already devalued or
considered to be directed, would it not be
intuitive to then suggest that women also
are directed by men or by masculinity?
We looked at how theorists like Grosz argue
for example; discursively of course that women
somehow see more biological, more corporeal
and more natural than men.
And this is why, we argued that corporeality
becomes an important set of ideas to confront
as well as engage with, for feminist theory.
And here, we wanted to trace the body across
multiple feminist theorizations, even as we
argued to begin with, that these theorizations
are fraught and multiple; they are not simple
or unified.
And one can trace them, also in tandem with
the three waves of feminism.
In the lecture, our goals were fairly structured.
We wanted to look at how the body appears
and disappears in feminist theory.
In other words, tracing a sort of history
of the body, in a history of feminist theory.
And because, we wanted to look at a few examples,
we considered a modest typology, which is:
let us look at particular kinds of theorizations
about body, in relation to feminist theory.
We also asked as to the implications of these
different kinds of typologies and bodily knowledges,
for feminist theory.
From here, we moved on to the very specific
question in history of feminism in India conducted
by Professor Kalpana Karunakaran.
Here, we spoke about feminism in India, both
pre and post-independence in cohort with the
Indian National Movement, but also on a different
trajectory than the three waves of feminism
that we studied before.
Professor Karunakaran demonstrated how Indian
women’s movements were the driving force
for feminism or feminisms in India.
And therefore, intersectionality as a principle
was fundamental to such an understanding.
She also provided a brief history.
Our next week of lectures took into consideration
very specifically feminism and feminist theory,
in relation to work and labor.
And here, we took into consideration a very
specific intersectionality, that of class
and gender, also in relation to Marxist and
socialist feminism.
We looked at how, for first and second wave
feminists, the right to work was paramount.
This was of-course also conditioned by the
social context of postcolonial movements and
World War 2; both of which we revisited.
In this week, we were concerned with feminist
scholarship on work, so the study of housework
itself and how it features in Marxist analyses.
We also considered the structural and institutional
bases of gender in the contemporary workplace.
In other words, if we have moved on to a situation
where women are free to work, where are the
new locations of gender or gendering?
Here, we were interested in economic issues
such as the gender wage gap, but also forms
of sexism in the workplace.
And lastly, we took into account the broad
literature on feminization of labor.
Very specific to the question of women and
housework, we examined the wages for housework
movement, led by feminist like Silvia Federici
and we looked at how the International Wages
for Housework campaign argued for housework
as an important consideration in Marxist calculations
of capitalist oppression.
Under feminization of labor, we were very
specifically concerned with the globalization
and its effects on the gendering of labor.
We focused on two dimensions: the rise in
the number of female workers in paid work
in the last 20 years worldwide – a); but
also, the nature of work which was flexible
and flexible forms of work often attract large
numbers of women for sure, but also increase
precarity in their lives.
In the set of discussions, we were also concerned
with new forms of understanding labor, related
to care work, related to emotional or affective
labor, and we took up examples in relation
to body sexuality and work, very specifically
to do with sex work and sex workers.
We examined in detail the work of Arlie Hochschild
in relation to emotional labor, where Hochschild
argues that human emotions, given how social
they are; come into play in relation to new
forms of service labor.
And for Hochschild, this has to do with her
study of airlines stewardesses, where she
refers to the management of ones’ feelings
and expressions, based on the emotional requirements
of a job.
And therefore, we see how this form of analysis
becomes very important in the present day,
because we are seeing an increase in precisely
these forms of service jobs.
Hochschild’s continued theorization had
to do with concepts like the “global care
chain,” which refers to a pattern of women
leaving their own families in developing countries,
to care for the children of well-off families.
We also took into account other sets of case
studies on sex work and surrogacy and sex
worker’s rights, in order to explicate these
concepts.
We ended our discussion with a set of definitions
around emotional or affective labor.
In Hochschild’s understanding, emotional
labor requires one to induce or suppress feeling,
in order to sustain the outward countenance
that produces the proper state of mind in
others: in this case, the sense of being cared
for in a convivial and safe place.
And here, we shifted the location of gender,
we argued for a fundamental gendering of labor
through affect or emotion.
So, there is a feminization of emotion itself
that is not restricted to female bodies.
In the week following the set of discussions,
we looked at feminism in film and theatre.
We began with a guest lecture from Dr. Harmony
Siganporia, who spoke about her work in relation
to female impersonators in Parsi theatre.
I continued the discussion taking into accoun,
Laura Mulvey’s seminal work on feminist
film studies and her important essay ‘Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’.
We also went on to discuss the Indian context
very specifically in relation to Hindi films
and the ways in which women have been depicted
in Indian cinema, in Hindi cinema; pre and
post 1991.
In the essay, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative
Cinema’, Mulvey looks at unconscious as
structuring ways of seeing and pleasure in
looking.
She borrows from psycho analytical theory
and transforms it into a political tool.
In order to understand concepts like scopophilia,
in relation to gendering and feminist struggles,
she demonstrates how in films, woman is always
the image and man is always the bearer of
the look and women are displayed as sexual
objects.
From here, we moved on to popular culture,
social media and feminism and took up a question,
that we had left hanging at the end of our
week on the three waves of feminism.
Here, we asked; is there a fourth wave of
feminism? is it ongoing?
what are its characteristics?
how do we understand its importance?
And looked at new interdisciplinary forms
of thinking across media, we were interested
in the set of discussions on social media,
art and digital production and dissemination,
in the question of what next for feminism.
We agreed that thanks to what we can tentatively
call a fourth wave, feminism is now a global
discussion, no longer restricted to women’s
studies departments.
And therefore, the gains of the first, second
and third wave have arguably led to a consistent
and continuous set of discussions; some radical,
some reformist, some problematic, some erudite
and some thoughtful.
Broadly, we gathered characteristics of fourth
wave feminism to encompass the following:
Fourth wave feminism is queer, it is trans-inclusive,
it is sex positive, body positive, digitally
driven, and displays large measures of pragmatism,
inclusion, and humour.
At the same time, we were also taking into
account critiques of this in-formation fourth
wave feminism, in that, feminism in this century
has shifted its focus from legal equality
to a kind of discrimination, that is harder
to quantify and therefore harder to fight.
It has also led to many internal struggles,
taking on the nature of “not feminist enough”
or “more feminist than thou,” which can
often be counterproductive.
In the series of lectures, we took up a few
examples such as Menstrupedia, the stellar
work of Agents of Ishq, #HappytoBleed and
#MeToo to examine the characteristics of fourth
wave feminism.
And in week 11, our last week of theorization,
we examined the import of masculinity studies,
in relation to feminism, before going on to
explore the interventions made by Queer Theory
and theorists like Judith Butler.
We examined the concepts of performance and
performativity, and located sex, sexuality,
and bodies across different disciplinary formations,
such as feminist theory, science and technology
studies, and queer theory.
In relation to masculinity studies, we examined
different formulations.
One stream of thought for example suggests,
that masculinity consists of the institutional
practices, attitudes and personality traits
of men, like aggression and competitiveness,
that uphold male dominance and oppress women.
An alternate formulation, that allows us to
imagine it differently, suggests that it is
a slippery entity without consistent content.
Some feminists think it can be restructured,
so that it does not depend on male dominance
over women.
We also introduced the concept of hegemonic
masculinities, which can break the notion
of a singular masculinity thereby bringing
out hierarchies within that very seemingly
singular notion.
This desired dominant form of masculinity
operates by excluding other masculinities;
gay, black, disabled, weak bodied, along with
femininities, thereby suggesting the possibility
of a different kind of political allegiance,
between women and discounted masculinities.
1
We concluded the section by invoking the nature
of discourse, in relation to masculinity and
femininity, as well as feminism.
We suggested that both masculinity and feminism
are fantasies, but they invoke differently
situated desires.
While masculinity is nostalgic, always missing,
lost or about to be lost, its ideal form located
in a past that advances with each generation,
in order to recede just beyond its grasp,
feminism is a utopian discourse of an ideal
future, never yet attained, whose myths celebrate
alliances that manage conflicts within comprehensive
metanarratives and narratives of comprehension.
From this, we moved on to a brief discussion
of Queer theory where, we presented Queer
theory as a form of post structuralist critical
thinking, that builds upon the idea, that
identity is not only not fixed, it does not
determine who we are.
Queer theory builds upon the work of figures
like Michel Foucault and History of Sexuality,
his seminal work, where one asks about the
relationships built with oneself through sexuality.
We spoke about the importance of Queer theory,
in relation to gender studies.
And therefore, came full circle in relation
to sex gender and the sex gender framework.
We asked are both culture and biology destiny?
And how are both sex and gender, not just
gender, points of convergence among historically
and culturally specific sets of relations?
In this lecture, we took up the case studies
of sports people like Shanti Sundararajan
and models like Andre Pejic and Casey Legler
This is what we have covered: weeks 1 to 11.
I hope this is an adequate summary.
And let me just say this once again.
This is just to give you a broad idea of the
trajectory that we have traversed.
It is a necessary, but not sufficient condition
for you to be prepared for your exams.
