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their sex, but as individuals, as ‘persons’. This implies that the central core of feminism is the achievement of genderless ‘personhood’. Establishing a concept of gender that is divorced from biological sex had crucial significance for feminist theory in at least two senses. Not only does it highlight the possibility of social change – socially constructed identities can be reconstructed or even demolished – but it also draws attention to the processes through which women are ‘engendered’ and therefore oppressed. Although most feminists have regarded the sex/gender distinction as empowering, others have attacked it. These attacks have been launched from two main directions. The first, advanced by so-called ‘ difference feminists ’, suggests that there are profound and perhaps ineradicable differences between women and men. From this ‘ essentialist ’ perspective, accepted by some but by nomeans all difference feminists, social and cultural characteristics are seen to reflect deeper biological differences. The second attack on the sex/gender distinction challenges the categories themselves. Postmodern feminists have questioned whether ‘sex’ is as clear-cut a biological distinction as is usually assumed. For example, the features of ‘biological womanhood’ do not apply to many who are classified as women: some women cannot bear children, some women are not sexually attracted to men, and so on. The categories ‘female’ and ‘male’ are therefore more or less arbitrary. An alternative approach to gender has been advanced by the trans movement. In seeing gender as essentially a matter of self-identification, this explodes the binary conception of gender, in which the human world is tidily divided into female and male parts. The implications of such thinking are examined later in the chapter, in connection with trans theory and feminism. Patriarchy Feminists use the concept of ‘ patriarchy ’ to describe the power relationship between women and men. The term literally means ‘rule by the father’ ( pater meaning father in Latin). Some feminists employ patriarchy only in this specific and limited sense, to describe the structure of the family and the dominance of the husband-father within it, preferring to use broader terms such as ‘male supremacy’ or ‘male dominance’ to
describe gender relations in society at large. However, feminists believe that the dominance of the father within the family symbolizes male supremacy in all other institutions. Many would argue, moreover, that the patriarchal family lies at the heart of a systematic process of male domination, in that it reproduces male dominance in all other walks of life: in education, at work and in politics. Patriarchy is therefore commonly used in a broader sense to mean quite simply ‘rule by men’, both within the family and outside. Millett (1970), for instance described ‘patriarchal government’ as an institution whereby ‘that half of the populace which is female is controlled by that half which is male’. She suggested that patriarchy contains two principles: ‘male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger’. A patriarchy is therefore a hierarchic society, characterized by both sexual and generational oppression. The concept of patriarchy is, nevertheless, broad. Feminists may believe that men have dominated women in all societies, but accept that the forms and degree of oppression have varied considerably in different cultures and at different times. At least in Western countries, the social position of women
Difference feminism: A form of feminism which holds that there are deep and possibly ineradicable differences between women and men, whether these are rooted in biology, culture or material experience. Essentialism: The belief that biological factors are crucial in determining psychological and behavioural traits. Binary: Composed of or involving two parts. Patriarchy: Literally, rule by the father; often used more generally to describe the dominance of men and subordination of women in society at large.
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