FEMINISM FOR BEGINNERS

There is no denying the fact that almost half of humanity has always comprised women. But only a few women appear on lists of ‘great people’ who have shaped the course of human history that has been, to many feminists ‘His-story’. Women, if they appear at all, do so as a support for men, or as suffering the consequences of war and disaster. However, things are not so anymore as after a long suffering and discrimination to find a limited recognized place in the society, women, nowadays, are playing an important role in societies across the globe. They hold the reins of governments in many countries, e.g. Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealandý and Sanna Marin of Finalnd, and are serving at top positions in global bodies and international organizations, e.g.  Kristalina Georgieva (Managing Director IMF) Christine Lagarde (President of the European Central Bank), Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the US House of Representatives), Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission) and many others. These achievements emerged after the feminism which attempts to analyse the social position of women, explain their apparent subsidiary role in history and offer the basis for reform and the advancement of women in all areas of society.

1. Introduction

People know about feminism in one way or another without clearly knowing what it entails. They advance it courageously without vividly specifying the specific rights they stand for. And a few despise it simply because they consider it wayward and mysterious talk about women rights. They think that getting into it is not their business because it is a private matter fussed into a moot point for gaining public sympathy. This makes them all like a person who says he knows an elephant when he sees one.

2. Why study feminism?

Studying feminism is a profitable enterprise in three ways. At the academic level, it benefits law students, legal practitioners and legal professionals to have a sharpened understanding of the nature of law, i.e. it makes them see the often camouflaged prejudices, impartiality, subjectivity and assumptions of law. At the citizens’ level, it sensitizes them to value and accept women narratives and believe their issues as real and worthy of attention and redress. At the women level, it makes them locate their problems and speak, thereupon, about those with transparency and without any fear. 

3. Brief history

The recent study or approach towards feminism has been misinformed or misguided. Therefore, feminist thinkers forewarn beginners not to commit the common fallacy of assuming that it is a by-product of the twentieth century and that knowing its first precise usage will boost up its understanding. Rather, they encourage a neat understanding of the three developmental stages in the history of feminism. The first stage—the first wave—is traced back to the early classical writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. It focuses on enhancing women’s economic power by encouraging their entry into public life.

The second stage—the second wave—is the timeline between 1960s and 1970s when the feminist thought entered into the academia and informed criminal law in the area of sexual harassment, family law in the domain of domestic violence, labour law in the economic power of women and social security law in the division of labour within the family.

The third stage—the third wave—is the period from 1980s onwards with its focus on formulating a general feminist account of the legal practice and social order. In so doing, it widened its horizon to the study of post-modernism, critical race theory and psychoanalysis.

4. What is feminism today?

Against this long history, it does not come as a surprise that a plethora of literature on defining feminism has been produced by noted authors ranging from Wayne Morison to Nicola Lacey to Raymond Wacks to Jill Marshall. However, the joint reading of Lloyds and Clare Dalton is the best explanation by far, as it offers concise and clear meaning of such a vast subject. For them, feminism is a dual commitment to identify the extent to which law, legal order and/or society are patriarchal, and suggest ways, modes and methods through which this can be minimized or eliminated to the advantage of women. In pursuance of this, feminist thinkers are often noted asking questions such as: what are the roles assigned to women? Are these self-imposed or society-imposed? If they are former then, are they autonomous? And, if the latter, are they denied personhood? Are their roles valued? What are the wrongs suffered by them? Do they suffer those just because they are women? What are the proposed reforms to address their grievances and are they satisfied with those?

5. Various schools of thought

That said, there are four notable schools of thought in feminism. These, as Lloyds rightly points out, make feminism a house with many rooms.

1. a) Liberal Feminism

The first one is liberal feminism. It has three principal notions: understanding of human beings, liberalism and the public-private dichotomy. According to them, human beings are born equal in terms of rationality and this starting equality of existence means they are qualified to same entitlements. This, coupled with the liberal ideals of individual rights, personal freedoms and values such as neutrality, universality, objectivity, impartiality and autonomy, makes them argue that equality for women requires treating them at par with men. Therefore, women’s lives and choices should be valued so that they can be the authors of their lives and have non-instrumental significance. Since a state is most likely to imbalance this equilibrium, there is a need to set boundaries of the private sphere with exclusion of state intervention, save it is to prevent harm to others.

This mode of thinking has had the success of availing women rights like right to vote, to work, to equal treatment, to abortion (though limited), and, more recently, to equal resources and respect. Besides, it has influenced the American and British judiciary and legislature to the advantage of women. In Reed vs Reed, it was held that a statute which preferred men estate administrator over women was denying women equality and was, thus, liable to be struck down. In Frontiero vs Richardson, the female military officers were said to be entitled to housing and other benefits in much the same way as their male counterparts. In Roe vs Wade, women were given a limited right to abortion. In addition, its influence has had impact on the British judiciary. In McCarthy vs Smith, the denial of equal pay to Mrs Smith on the ground that she had not been hired at the same time as the male employee was said to be discriminatory and, hence, un-maintainable. In Garland vs Rail, the denial by a railway company of concessionary tickets to female employees’ families was found discriminatory and hence worthy of protection. Likewise, the British legislature in its framing of Sex Discrimination Act, 1975, carefully used words prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex rather than prohibition of discrimination against women to maintain legislative neutrality.

Despite the range of benefits that have been accorded to women through this first and original wave of feminism, the notion has not managed to escape from criticism. It has been said that the ‘sameness or equality as men’ thesis works only for women who are willing to live by male standards and ignores those who wish to go by women standards.

1. b) Radical feminism

Criticisms such as these have paved the way for radical feminism. Its chief contributors are Catherine MacKinnon, Frances Olsen and Christine Littleton. Radicals contend that equality between men and women is an overambitious task because the main reason for their difference whether cultural, social, political or legal is the domination of men over women. Until we realize that the world is defined by men on their terms and to their benefit, we cannot begin to strike real change. This claim is bigger than saying that men are patriarchal or oppressive. It is to highlight that the structure of our legal system and the world we live in is so much tainted with male ideals that we fail to realize that the talk of rights, freedoms and objectivity, etc. is dominance of men over women. In this way, radicals pose questions to other feminists such as: Is equality worth pursuing as a value? Do women want to be treated like men? Does equality require different treatment?

Besides, they highlight the analytical flaws with liberal debate on abortion and pornography. In the view of Catherine MacKinnon, liberals are mistaken to associate abortion debate with privacy rights and autonomy of women. It veils the fact that maternity is coerced on women and that they lack control over circumstances that actuate it. Therefore, if abortion is to be legalized, the economic conditions of women, their education and supply of contraceptives and stricter regulation of sexual assault must be put into place. This will give women power over the process of reproduction which they currently lack. As regards pornography, liberals are again wronged to associate it with free speech. This is because pornography sets standards for mistreatment of women, child abuse and forced prostitution. Therefore, there should be a ban on it. Other radicals like Olsen contend that the binary division of men and women is sexualized. The former is superior and masculine because of its description as active, rational, objective and abstract. The latter is inferior and feminine because of its description as passive, emotional, subjective and contextual.

1. c) Cultural feminism

The feminist narrative does not end here as there is a third school of thought called cultural or difference feminism which contends that men and women are different from each other because they are guided by a different sense of justice. And the key to our moral development is maintaining this difference through cooperation. This will end the current tug of war between men and women for finding a true champion of values. The chief contributor to this is Carol Gilligan, a developmental psychologist. In her seminal work “In a Different Voice,” she draws our attention to the ethic of care found in women and ethic of rights found in men. The former implies respect for value such as context and the latter respect for value such as equality for all. She substantiates this through her experiment with young girls and boys whom she had posed with a moral dilemma: whether stealing drug from a shop was justified to save life of a closed one? Their answers, as it transpired, were all the same. They generally found it wrong but on different moral grounds. Girls found it wrong on the basis that help could be taken from friends. Boys found it wrong because drugs were the property of the pharmacist. This difference in moral reasoning made her argue that cooperation between the two sexes was the hallmark of maturity and justice. Thus, women needed to understand that moral reasoning was not confined to context, and included abstract ideas such as rights of others. Likewise men needed to realize that moral reasoning was not limited to abstract notions and included context. This required attitudinal change as a starting point. Women needed to stop looking at male values such as competitiveness, aggressiveness and domination with disdain. At the same time, they needed to develop beyond nurturers, home-makers and housewives. On the other hand, men needed to stop devaluing female values such as care, affection and communication. In the same vein, they needed to develop beyond patriarchy, rationality and self-centredness. This approach, she believes, would blossom benefits in daily lives. First of all, it would make men and women tolerant of their differences. Secondly, it would shift the confrontational and adversarial nature of our justice system to facilitation and cooperation. This, in turn, would make them inhabitants of one planet rather than occupants of Mars and Venus, respectively.

1. d) Postmodern feminism

Finally, there is postmodern feminism. This mirrors the dissatisfaction of feminists with the approaches of other schools. In their view, they are committed to essentialism, that is, they are mistaken to think that women are a homogenous group and that their version is the ultimate truth about women’s lives. Given that there are different factors influencing women’s subordinate roles and sense of justice, it is not possible to formulate one theory fit all. Therefore, the feminists should look to different female voices and experiences and try to locate them in their context and conditions and suggest reforms accordingly. This is because women, today, are not a uniform group. To say the least, they are either traditional or progressive. Traditional women press for rights like marriage with person of choosing, respect or freedom from home responsibilities, separate dwellings, fewer children, work rights and mixed sex education. On the other hand, progressive women urge for rights like freedom from slander, battery, character assassination and economic exploitation. In this way, we are able to see grass from other side of the fence. We are protected from downplaying each other. We realize that discovering truth about human life is not the job of a sacred few. In fact, we become empathetic to others’ experience which is difficult to realize with a moralizing mindset.

6. Conclusion

Last but not least, the debate on feminism is ongoing as its impact is felt in cultures in and beyond the Western world—which highlights its growing importance. But as it is picking up, it is also being misunderstood. Therefore, it is important to have preliminary understanding about this important women cause before advocating for or neglecting it. With this objective in mind, it is hoped that the above discussion will serve to inform the misinformed or under-informed and make gateways for better reflection on the subject.

 

The author teaches jurisprudence and legal theory at Pakistan College of law, Lahore. She can be contacted at: mawraraja@protonmail.com