190 Chapter 9
centred on the family and domestic responsibilities, as illustrated in Figure 9.1. If politics takes place only within the public sphere, the role of women and the question of sexual equality are issues of little or no political importance. Women, restricted to the private role of housewife and mother, are in effect excluded from politics. Feminists have therefore sought to challenge the divide between ‘public man’ and ‘private woman’ (Elshtain, 1993). However, they have not always agreed about what it means to break down the public/private divide, about how it can be achieved, or about how far it is desirable. Radical feminists have been the keenest opponents of the idea that politics stops at the front door, proclaiming instead that ‘the personal is the political’. Female oppression is thus thought to operate in all walks of life, and inmany respects originates in the family itself. Radical feminists have therefore been concerned to analyse what can be called ‘the politics of everyday life’. This includes the process of conditioning in the family, the distribution of housework and other domestic responsibilities, and the politics of personal and sexual conduct. For some feminists, breaking down the public/private divide implies transferring the responsibilities of private life to the state or other public bodies. For example, the burden of child-rearing on women could be relieved by more generous welfare support for families or the provision of nursery schools or crèches at work. Socialist feminists have also viewed the private sphere as political, in that they have linked women’s roles within the conventional family to the maintenance of the capitalist economic system. However, although liberal feminists object to restrictions on women’s access to the public sphere of education, work and political life, they also warn against the dangers of politicizing the private sphere, which, according to liberal theory, is a realm of personal choice and individual freedom.
‘Public’ man Politics, education, careers, art, literature
‘Private’ woman Family, caring, child-rearing, domestic work
Figure 9.1 The sexual division of labour
Sex and gender The most common of all anti-feminist arguments is that the gender division that runs through society is ‘natural’: women andmenmerely fulfil the social roles for which nature designed them. The fact that childbearing is unique to the female sex is thus seen to suit women for the responsibilities of motherhood: nurturing, educating and raising children by devoting themselves to home and family. In short, ‘biology is destiny’. Feminists typically challenge such thinking by drawing a sharp distinction between sex and gender. ‘Sex’, in this sense, refers to biological differences between females and males; these differences are natural and therefore are unalterable. The most important sex differences are those that are linked to reproduction. ‘Gender’, on the other hand, is a cultural term; it refers to the different roles that society ascribes to women and men. Gender differences are typically imposed through contrasting stereotypes of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’.
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