The Feminist perspective insists that society is male-dominated and power is normally exercised by males in their favour. Society is seen divided into two groups based on gender distinction. Feminists feel that biological distinction is used to create artificial distinctions in terms of material, intellectual and moral resources. Thus, males extend natural and biological distinctions between male and female to appropriate material resources, rights and privileges. This distinction and resultant discrimination determines the power structure of society. Males, who take all decisions, either in the public or private domain, always hold power. Distribution of power in favour of males and their dominant position in society, public arena and family and private domain is characterized by feminists as patriarchy.
Patriarchy meaning ‘rule by the father’ or the elder male has been considered as the earliest form of authority. Henry Maine from the historical school and R. M. MacIver from the sociological school have presented patriarchy as the earliest form of authority. They have argued that the authority of the father or family elder subsequently passed over to the authority in community and in political arena. On the other hand, Lewis Morgan, Friedrich Engels and Edward Jenks have argued that matriarchal authority was the earliest form of authority. However, it is understood that possession of authority in the family, tribal organization, larger community forum and initial form of political authority in the course of historical evolution, has been in the hands of the father, a male elder or male family head. In family and social relations, community decision-making and larger political organizations, males have always dominated. This historical coincidence of evolution of authority and male domination has been a perpetual feature. However, in the arena of power and authority, male domination has been discriminatory, exploitative, humiliating and morally and psychologically indignifying to females. This is the patriarchy that the feminist insists should be removed.
In the contemporary period, feminist advocates and campaigners have used patriarchy to describe authority in ‘general sense as “rule by men”, drawing attention to the totality of oppression and exploitation to which women are subjected’.67 Patriarchy is used to signify gender inequality, discrimination in terms of unequal rights and privileges or absence of them, lack of economic and political capacity and freedom and physical, sexual, moral and psychological oppression and exploitation. The feminist movement accordingly attacks all these aspects. The crux of the feminist position is that merely because of physical power possessed by males and biological distinction in which the female is compared to the male, historically, power, dominance and resource allocation has been in favour of males. This means natural and biological compulsion of childbearing, what Canadian feminist activist Shulamith Firestone says, ‘curse of Eve’, has been used against the females. It is also argued that female biological and childbearing make-up, is used as weapon of violence against women. In civil wars, conflict situations and such other conditions of rivalry, women are subjected to mental, physical and sexual violence. The feminist model looks at the political arena as an extension of the general patriarchal relations obtaining in social relations. It is not always easy to differentiate between the attack on power distribution in the political arena and the nature of the state from the general critique of patriarchy.
Three distinct streams of feminist critique of power distribution have been identified. Initially, it started with the demand for equal rights and privileges for women as enjoyed by men. An immediate reflection of this was demand for equal political rights, mainly equal right to electoral suffrage and to hold public offices. This stream of feminism can be called equal rights feminism or what some call, ‘first wave’ feminism. John Stuart Mill in his Essays, ‘the Subjection of Women’,68 advances a major argument for equality and analyses historical and social presumption that prevail against women. He writes:
That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.
He goes on to argue against the assumption of ‘mental differences between men and women as natural’ and attributes it to cultural factors. His contention is that in a context of male domination and inequality between males and females, it is difficult to know whether the female has systematically divergent attitudes that warrant unequal rights and privileges. Mills’s version of feminism is considered as a ‘classical statement of liberal feminism’. Long before Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft in her A Vindication of the Rights of Women argued for equal right on the grounds of females also being ‘human beings’.69 This work is considered as the earliest work on feminism and was written against the backdrop of the French Revolution. Demand for women’s voting right gained momentum in the mid-ninteenth century. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an anti-slavery and civil right activist in America organized women’s rights convention in July 1848 and demanded the right to vote along with other rights such as property rights, admission to higher education and church offices. This wave of feminism advances the liberal feminist model of power distribution in the form of equal rights and privileges. This wave favours reform and gradual changes in political institutions and processes for equal rights and participation. Inequality is considered as a bias of the state and demand is made to remove equality. By the very fact of demand for equality, liberal feminism does not reject the state outrightly. Rather, it is expected to mediate, reform and provide conditions of equal participation between males and females. The state and political process is seen as agency that could redress inequality problem.
The second stream of feminism also known as the ‘second wave’ feminism is more critical and radical than the first one. It gained momentum during the 1960s and 1970s and instead of focusing on equal rights and neutrality of the state, it was oriented towards women liberation and emancipation from social, sexual and political oppression. Radical feminism is critical of the state and political power and considers the state as a reflection of male power structure, oppression and patriarchy. Radical feminists argue that the state is not neutral and cannot serve the purpose of female equality. This view goes beyond rights and equality concerns and seeks means and ways to remove oppression, exploitation and subordination. Heywood points out that the most famous slogan of the second wave of feminism is ‘the personal is the political’. This signifies that as far as women’s position is concerned, politics is not confined to mere political and public arena. Rather, politics permeates in all aspects of life and reflects in the totality of oppression and subjection and sexual relations. Gender and the female’s image is seen as a political construct based on feminine and masculine and stereotypical social roles. Thus, radical feminists treat gender as socially imposed, politically perpetuated and sexually exploited.
Simone de Beauvoir, a French social critic and novelist, in her famous The Second Sex has argued how the feminine and the masculine are dichotomized and masculine is taken as the positive norm and normal, while the feminine as the ‘other’, inconsequential and second to the first. This image construction and artificial and stereotypical ‘otherness’ inhibits females to express their humanity. This radical feminist formulation was fully espoused by other feminists such as Kate Millett in USA, Shulamith Firestone in Canada and others. Millett argues that patriarchy is universal and runs through all political, social and economic structures. This means irrespective of economic structure—capitalist, socialist, mixed economy, patriarchy is a constant phenomenon, she calls ‘social constant’. In her Sexual Politics, she challenged conventional family as the chief institution of patriarchy and argued for replacement of the conventional family.70 Shulamith treats natural division of labour, i.e., reproduction and childbearing, as the curse for a female’s role in society. In its radical form, feminism argues that public affair is organized in such a way that it excludes females. They cite the example of power theory, which is based on male orientation in politics. It is not that feminists are only interested in public affairs. In fact, the male orientation of public affair, leads to assigning a private and domestic realm to female. It has been argued that patriarchy creates a dichotomous situation to dominate. Males are treated as powerful, courageous, brave, enduring and manipulative and females as submissive, soft, tender and pliable. This distinction becomes the basis for female exclusion from a variety of activities including politics, military and works that require courage and endurance. Alternatively, females are considered fit for jobs that require less rigour and less physical endurance, e.g., receptionists, sales girls, nurses, social workers, etc. An image of care, tending, warmth and tension and pressure-buster for males? The underlying basis of such a division of work is the submission and sacrificing nature of a female. Feminists argue that this is artificial dichotomy to organize and exclude certain arena from the reach of females. And based on the biological and natural division of labour, the female is confined to family chores and that too dominated by males. Shulamith (The Dialectic of Sex) goes to the extent of denouncing natural childbearing and opting for medical and technological aids such as test tube babies and artificial wombs to escape the oppressive natural division of labour. It would not be out of place to add that lesbian tendency can be attributed to the radical feminist position where women liberation is taken to its extreme and considered as compatible only with its own gender. Sexual relationship with the opposite gender is treated as a manifestation of dominance.
A third stream of feminism also called ‘third wave’ feminism has treaded on socialist lines. It uses the Marxian framework and attributes female subordination to the capitalist mode of production. Economic significance of female is confined either to the family, or in the market it is defined as commodity. In family, women’s domestic labour is unrecognized and unpaid. Juliet Mitchell, New Zealand born British writer, has espoused socialist feminist arguments and maintains that patriarchy has social, cultural and economic and political roots. Change from capitalism to socialism may reduce the patriarchal rigour but will not be sufficient, as it has cultural and ideological roots. It has been argued that market treats the female body as a commodity like any other as a means to promote, sale and earn profit from. In proof of this are oft-cited examples of a female’s appearance in promoting and endorsing market products. Preference given to female in appearance and endorsements is a reflection of the same stereotypical image of women—caring, soft, pleasing, attractive, home maker, sensual, sexual. Consider her appearance in the promotion of male undergarments, deodorants, shaving creams, hair gels, and even a pair of shoes and trousers. She appears in promoting her stuff only as if she is meant to tease, seduce, and finally win over the elusive male. It would be interesting to hear a radical feminist position whether a female walking on the ramp, appearing sensually and furthering the stereotypical image, is emancipating or commodifying?
In India, for example, the Constitution removes any inequality between male and female and provides equality of rights and opportunities. India has adult universal suffrage and equal right to hold public offices by males and females. The Indian Constitution adopts liberal feminism and provides equal rights to women. Further, there is a possibility to secure some special privileges such as reservation in public offices and employment for women to mitigate and compensate for their historical and social discrimination. Two recent developments have also advanced the liberal feminist conception in India that the Constitution upholds. The government has provided one-third of reservation in the seats in local bodies for women. Recently, the Government of India has introduced ‘gender budgeting’. This is meant to specify and monitor gender-related allocation of resources and utilization.
However, liberal feminism in India faces its limitation when it encounters the personal laws and other discriminatory assumptions in inheritance rights, marriage and divorce, etc. Additionally, radical feminism treats state intervention and welfare voluntarism to favour women as a system of public dependence of women. The central understanding is that the state as an extension of patriarchy cannot be a genuine sharer of power with females. In the Indian context, to some extent this apprehension gets credibility when we look at the dynamics of decisionmaking, participation and independent standing of female office holders in the public offices in local bodies. It has been reported that female office bearers in local bodies (where one-third seats are reserved for females) act as proxy to their male family members and on their behest take decisions.
To a large extent, the feminist model of power distribution in terms of patriarchy and division between a dominant male and subordinated female, natural and biological division of labour which is exploitative, female as a commodity in the capitalist system, sexual and familial exploitation through subordination and unpaid domestic labour, etc. are not only historically and sociologically true but glaring and still continuing. However, this does not mean power structure, political space and gender equality have not progressed. Equal rights, protection against discrimination and exploitation, basic facilities for capacity expansion and gender empowerment have been a constant effort at the international (including the UN) and national levels.
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