Feminist Theories and

Sustainable Development
Dr. Julius Mugisa
What is Feminist Theory
• Feminist theory is one of the major contemporary sociological
theories, which analyzes the status of women and men in society with
the purpose of using that knowledge to better women's lives.
• Feminist theorists question the differences between women and men,
including how race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, and age
intersect with gender.
• Feminists develop, deploy, and popularize the concept of
intersectionality in theory and research.
• Feminist theory is most concerned with giving a voice to women and
highlighting the various ways women have contributed to society.
Feminist theory-Liberal
Feminist theory emerged out of the women’s movement and aims to understand the
position of women in society for the sole purpose of improving their position in society.
Major frameworks that have developed out of feminist theory: liberal feminism,
socialist feminism, radical feminism, ecofeminism etc.
1. Liberal feminists argue that gender inequality results from past traditions that pose
barriers to women’s advancement.
• Emphasizes individual rights and equal opportunity as the basis for social justice and reform.
• Defend the equal rationality of the sexes and emphasize the importance of structuring social,
familial, and sexual roles in ways that promote women's autonomous self-fulfillment.
• They emphasize the similarities between men and women rather than the average differences
between them, attribute most of the personality and character differences between the sexes to
the social construction of gender, and tend to promote a single set of androgynous virtues for
both women and men.
Feminist theory-Liberal. Cont..
• Liberal feminists avoid the promotion of particular conceptions of the good life for either men or women,
instead defending a broad sphere of neutrality and privacy within which individuals may pursue forms of life
most pleasant to them.
• Tend to avoid maternalism and any second-guessing of those choices made without coercion, or threats. Fully
informed and mentally competent adult women are assumed to be the final judges, of their own best interests.
• Aim to extend the full range of freedoms in a liberal democratic society to women, criticizing practices that deny
women equal protection under the law as well as laws that de facto discriminate against women.
• Liberal feminists reject utopian visions of an ideal society in favor of one that eliminates coercion and promotes
autonomous choices.
• With regard to sexuality, liberal feminism maintains the tradition of liberalism, valuing personal privacy and
autonomy in ways that appear, to some, to conflict with the goal of eradicating sexist norms. e.g, liberal
feminists tend to adopt a libertarian or public health approach regarding commercial sexual activity. Thus many
liberal feminists reject calls to criminalize or even condemn prostitution and pornography when those who
participate in their manufacture and consumption do so without coercion. They defend this position by citing
privacy but also by invoking the inherent value of autonomous choice.
• Liberal feminists defend the liberty to decide on one's sexual orientation, partners, and practices as beyond the
reach of law.
Feminist Theory- Marxist /Socialist
2. Marxist /Socialist feminists argue that the origin of women’s oppression lies with the
system of capitalism. Because women are a cheap supply of labor/services, they are
exploited by capitalism, which makes them less powerful both as women and as
workers.
Scholars like Engels (1972) argue that as early human communities became more
agrarian as the institution of private property became more and more bound to
inheritance women’s capacity for both domestic and sexual reproductive labor became a
crucial commodity.
The origin of the institution of marriage is not, argues Engels, love or fidelity but rather
the disposition of inheritable wealth through male bloodlines. Hence, private property is
intimately bound to the rise of patriarchy and to what later feminist theorists will refer
to as the structural inequality of both sexual and (given the economic dependence it
generates) gendered forms of class.
Feminist Theory- Marxist /Socialist . Cont..
• Socialist feminists assert that women are oppressed due to their financial dependence
on males. Women are subjects to male domination within capitalism due to an uneven
balance in wealth. They see economic dependence as the driving force of women's
subjugation to men. Further, Socialist feminists see women's liberation as a necessary
part of a larger quest for social, economic, and political justice. Socialist feminists
attempt to integrate the fight for women's liberation with the struggle against other
oppressive systems based on race, class, sexual orientation, or economic status.
• Socialist feminists consider how the sexism and gendered division of labor of each
historical era is determined by the economic system of the time. Those conditions are
largely expressed through capitalist and patriarchal relations.
• According to Socialist feminists, gender oppression strive to specify how gender and
class work together to create distinct forms of oppression and privilege for women and
men of each class. For example, they observe that women's class status is generally
derivative of her husband's class or occupational status, e.g. a secretary that marries
her boss assumes his class status.
Feminist Theory- Marxist /Socialist . Cont..
• Advocate for equality within a transformed society in which both
sexes are equal and given the same opportunities despite any
physiological differences.
• Calls for a total change in both the economic and social system to
create the lasting improvement in women’s life.
• Stress that free markets discriminate against women as big bosses
consider women to be less reliable, weaker and more emotional
which leads to the gender pay gap.
• That many women take part in work within the household but this is
invisible as far as the market is concerned.
Feminist Theory-Radical/Cultural
• Radical / Cultural feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of
inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, the social domination
of women by men.
• Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing societal rights, privileges, and
power primarily along the lines of sex, and as a result, oppressing women and
privileging men.
• They assert that women’s oppression lies in men’s control over women’s bodies
• Radical feminism opposes existing political and social organization in general
because it is inherently tied to patriarchy. Thus, radical feminists tend to be
skeptical of political action within systems and instead focus on culture change
that undermines patriarchy and associated hierarchical structures
• View patriarchy as the rule of men in which women are subordinate category.
Patriarchy is considered to be the root of all further oppression, inequality and
injustice.
Feminist Theory-Radical/Cultural. Cont..
•They emphases that the patriarchal society is generally an unjust system in which
women are categories of people exposed to various types of discrimination and
exploitation.
•Radical feminist theory is based on the fact that gender inequality is the foundation
of all other inequalities and oppression. Repression against women takes place in
the patriarchy that is a hierarchical system of male domination over the female
gender, which consists of, and is maintained due to the characteristics which include:
I. Th e obligatory motherhood and limiting the reproductive freedom;
II. Th e social construction of femininity and female sexuality through the creation

and presentation of subordinative image

III. Violence against women;
IV. Institutions that favor the dominance of men over women, such as the church
and the traditional family models.
Feminist Theory-Radical/Cultural. Cont..
The unique position of radical feminism is formed of the idea that, in
order to end the oppression of women, the patriarchate has to be
abolished, which potentially includes:
I. Incitement and rejection of traditional gender roles and the
ways in which women are presented / constructed in the
language, the media, as well as in their personal lives;
II. Anti-patriarchal constructions of female sexuality by banning
pornography and rejection of traditional models of relations
between the sexes;
III. Achieving the reproductive freedom.
Feminist theory- Ecofeminism
• Ecofeminist explores the connections between women and
nature in culture, economy, religion, politics, literature and
images/ symbols, and addresses the parallels between the
oppression of nature and the oppression of women.
• These parallels include but are not limited to seeing women and
nature as property, seeing men as the custodians of culture and
women as the custodians of nature, and how men dominate
women and humans dominate nature.
• Ecofeminism emphasizes that both women and nature must be
respected.
Feminist theory- Ecofeminism. Cont..
There are four sides to ecofeminism framework:
1. The mechanistic materialist model of the universe that resulted from
the scientific revolution and the subsequent reduction of all things into
mere resources to be used.
2. The rise of patriarchal religions and their establishment of gender
hierarchies along with their denial of inherent divinity.
3. The self and other dualisms and the inherent power and domination ethic it
entails.
4. Capitalism and its claimed intrinsic need for the exploitation, destruction
and instrumentalization of animals, earth and people/women for the sole
purpose of creating wealth.
Feminist theory- Ecofeminism. Cont..
• Hold that these four factors have brought us to what ecofeminists see as
a "separation between nature and culture" that is for them the root
source of our planetary ills
• Ecofeminism relates the oppression and domination of all marginalized groups
(women, people of color, children, the poor) to the oppression and domination of
nature (animals, land, water, air, etc.).
• Ecofeminist further assert that capitalism reflects only authoritarian and patriarchal
values. This notion implies that the effects of capitalism have not benefited women
and has led to a harmful split between nature and culture.
• Assert that it is not because women are female or "feminine" that they relate to
nature, but because of their similar states of oppression by the same male-dominant
forces.
Feminist theory- Ecofeminism. Cont..
• That marginalization is evident in the gendered language used to describe nature,
such as "Mother Earth" or "Mother Nature", and the animalized language used to
describe women in derogatory terms. Some discourses link women specifically to
the environment because of their traditional social role as a nurturer and
caregiver. Thus following this line of thought these connections are illustrated
through the coherent socially-labeled values associated with 'femininity' such as
nurturing, which are present both among women and in nature.
• Ecofeminists assert that women have a special connection to the environment
through their daily interactions and that this connection has been
underestimated. Accordingly women in subsistence economies who produce
"wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of
holistic and ecological knowledge of nature's processes".
 Another view of feminist
theories and Sustainable
Development
1. Gender Difference perspective
2. Gender Inequality perspective
3. Gender Oppression perspective
4. Gender Structural Oppression perspective
Feminist theory-Gender Difference
perspective
Feminist theory that attempt to explain the societal differences between men and
women:
A. Gender Differences: The gender difference perspective examines how women's
location in, and experience of, social situations differ from men’s.
a. Cultural feminists look to the different values associated with womanhood and
femininity as a reason why men and women experience the social world differently.
• Other feminist theorists believe that the different roles assigned to women and men
within institutions better explain gender difference, including the sexual division of
labor in the household.
• Existential and phenomenological feminists focus on how women have been
marginalized and defined as the “other” in patriarchal societies.
• Women are thus seen as objects and are denied the opportunity for self-realization.
Feminist theory-Gender Inequality
perspective
B. Gender Inequality: Gender-inequality theories recognize that women's location in, and
experience of, social situations are not only different but also unequal to men’s.
a. Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral reasoning and
agency (Action), but that patriarchy, particularly the sexist patterning of the division of labor, has
historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning.
• Women have been isolated to the private sphere of the household and, thus, left without a
voice in the public sphere.
• Even after women enter the public sphere, they are still expected to manage the private
sphere and take care of household duties and child rearing.
• Liberal feminists point out that marriage is a site of gender inequality and that women do not
benefit from being married as men do.
• Indeed, married women have higher levels of stress than unmarried women and married
men.
• According to liberal feminists, the sexual division of labor in both the public and private
spheres needs to be altered in order for women to achieve equality.
Feminist theory-Gender Oppression
perspective
C. Gender Oppression: Theories of gender oppression go further than theories of gender
difference and gender inequality by arguing that not only are women different from or unequal to
men, but that they are actively oppressed, subordinated, and even abused by men. Power is the
key variable in the two main theories of gender oppression: Psychoanalytic feminism and radical
feminism.
a. Psychoanalytic feminists attempt to explain power relations between men and women by
reformulating Freud's theories of the subconscious and unconscious, human emotions, and
childhood development. They feel that conscious calculation cannot fully explain the production
and reproduction of patriarchy.
b. Radical feminists argue that being a woman is a positive thing in and of itself, but that this is
not acknowledged in patriarchal societies where women are oppressed.
They identify physical violence as being at the base of patriarchy, but they think that patriarchy can be
defeated if women recognize their own value and strength, establish a sisterhood of trust with other women,
confront oppression critically, and form female separatist networks in the private and public spheres.
Feminist theory-Gender Structural
Oppression perspective
D. Structural Oppression: Structural oppression theories posit that women's
oppression and inequality are a result of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism.
a. Socialist feminists agree with Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels that the working
class is exploited as a consequence of the capitalist mode of production, but they
seek to extend this exploitation not just to class but also to gender.
b. Intersectionality theorists seek to explain oppression and inequality across a
variety of variables, including class, gender, race, ethnicity, and age. They make the
important insight that not all women experience oppression in the same way. e.g.
White women and black women, for example, face different forms of discrimination
in the workplace.
Thus, different groups of women come to view the world through a shared
standpoint of "heterogeneous commonality."