A Theoretical Perspective on

Gender Beliefs and Social Relations

CECILIA L. RIDGEWAY
SHELLEY J. CORRELL
Thesis

Widely shared, hegemonic cultural beliefs about gender and their impact in
what the authors call "social relational" contexts are among the core
components that maintain and change the gender system.
There are several prima facie reasons for suspecting that both cultural beliefs
and social relational contexts play significant roles in the gender system. If
gender is a system for constituting difference and organizing inequality on the
basis of that difference, then the widely held cultural beliefs that define the
distinguishing characteristics of men and women and how they are expected to
behave clearly are a central component of that system. These are the core,
defining cultural beliefs about gender that we refer to as "gender beliefs" in this
article.

Viewed this way, gender beliefs, as the cultural rules or schemas for enacting
gender, are one of the twin pillars (along with resources) on which the gender
system rests.
If cultural beliefs are an important component of the gender system, then social
relational contexts-as the arenas where these beliefs or rules are in play-are
likely to be important as well. Since social relational contexts include any
context in which individuals define themselves in relation to others to
comprehend the situation and act, everyday interaction, be it in person, on
paper, or through the Internet, is a major source of social relational contexts.
Yet as symbolic interactionists have noted that contexts in which individuals act
alone are also social relational if the individuals feel their behavior or its
consequences will be socially evaluated. In such situations, individuals still
must implicitly define themselves in relation to those others to anticipate and
manage the situation.

Cultural Beliefs about Gender

Studies show that widely held gender beliefs do exist in the contemporary
United States. In general, contemporary stereotypes describe women as more
communal and men as more agentic and instrumental. In addition to this
horizontal dimension of difference, gender beliefs have a hierarchical dimension
of status inequality. Men are viewed as more status worthy and competent
overall and more competent at the things that "count most"( e.g., instrumental
and rationality).Women are seen as less competent in general but "nicer" and
better at communal tasks even though these tasks themselves are less valued.
In a setting where people know they are around likeminded others, such as in a
gathering of feminist friends or African American colleagues, their shared
alternative gender beliefs, rather than hegemonic gender beliefs, are likely to be
evoked in the situation and shape their behaviors and evaluations.

Social Relational Contexts

Sex categorization. If cultural beliefs about gender are the rules for enacting the
gender system, social relational contexts are the arenas in which these rules are
brought to bear on the behavior and evaluations of individuals. The process that
links gender beliefs and social relational contexts is automatic sex
categorization. Sex categorization is the socio -cognitive process by which we
label another as male or female. As we sex categorize another, by implication,
we sex categorize ourselves as either similar or different from that other.
In our gender belief system, physical sex differences are presumed to be the
basis for sex categorization. Yet in everyday social relational contexts, we sex
categorize others based on appearance and behavioral cues (e.g., dress,
hairstyles, voice tone) that are culturally presumed to stand for physical sex
differences (West and Zimmerman 1987). Knowing that they will be
categorized in this way, most people carefully construct their appearance
according to cultural gender rules to ensure that others reliably categorize them
as belonging to the sex category they claim for themselves. Clearly, then, the
unconscious and automatic process of sex categorization in social relational
contexts relies on the use of widely shared cultural beliefs about sex/gender to
classify self in relation to others in an initial way to begin the process of
understanding of one's situation and possibilities for action. Since cultural
beliefs about gender are involved in the initial process of sex categorization, we
should expect that the behavioral expectations for men and women that are
contained within gender beliefs also will be implicitly evoked for individuals in
social relational contexts. Indeed, social cognition experiments demonstrate that
sex categorization automatically activates gender stereotypes, including gender
status distinctions, and primes them to affect judgments and behavior.
 These institutional and culturally more specific roles and identities (e.g., clerk
and customer) are usually in the foreground of individuals' contextual
definitions of who self and other are and what that implies in terms of behavior,
while gender is almost always a background identity in social relational
contexts. It operates as an implicit, cultural/cognitive presence that colors
people's activities in varying degrees but that is rarely the ostensible focus of
what is going on in the situation. As a result, although gender beliefs are
cognitively primed for individuals in virtually all social relational contexts, the
impact of those beliefs on behavior and evaluations is not invariant across such
contexts. This is a central point of our argument.
Instead, the implications of gender beliefs combine with those of other salient
identities and roles, the impact of each weighted by its situational relevance, to
shape behavior and evaluations in a context (Wagner and Berger 1997).
Consequently, as we shall see, the impact of gender beliefs on behavior is
highly responsive to the structure of the context and can vary from
imperceptible to substantial.
Specifying Gender's Impact on Behavior and Evaluations

1. There is considerable evidence that the extent to which gender, as a

background identity, biases the performance and evaluation of
contextually central behaviors depends on gender's salience in the
situation.
2. Salience, in turn, depends on the structure of the social relational context.

Two Situations
1. Gender becomes effectively salient in contexts where real or implied
actors differ in sex category.
2. Gender also becomes effectively salient in contexts that are gender typed
in that the stereotypic traits and abilities of one gender or the other are
culturally linked to the activities that are central to the context.

The impact of hegemonic gender beliefs

1. When hegemonic gender beliefs are effectively salient in a situation,

hierarchical presumptions about men's greater status and competence
 become salient for participants, along with assumptions about men's and
women's different traits and skills. While all components of gender
beliefs shape behavior and serve to differentiate men and women.
2. The trouble with these status-shaped expectations for competence is that
they affect people's behaviors and evaluations in self-fulfilling ways.
3. Besides affecting participation and influence, self-other competence
expectations, which are shaped by gender status beliefs, also bias
evaluations of performance.
4. In addition to biasing evaluations of performance, self-other competence
expectations also can affect people's actual performances independent of
skills.
5. Finally, self-other competence expectations, shaped by gender beliefs,
also bias the extent to which individuals are willing to attribute ability to
themselves or others on the basis of a given quality performance.

Nonhegemonic gender beliefs

1. In contexts where people know or have good reason to presume that the
others present share their alternative gender beliefs, we theorize that it is
these alternative gender beliefs that are cognitively primed by sex
categorization.

Why Is Gender Everywhere?

1. Part of the answer lies, we argue, in the way the need to define self and
other in social relational contexts evokes automatic sex categorization,
which in turn activates gender as a background identity in virtually all
such contexts.
2. Because these multiple differences are inherently entwined with one
another as people make sense of self and other in social relational
contexts, the shared cultural meanings people attach to them can never be
entirely independent, even when they are culturally presented as being so.

The Persistence of Gender Hierarchy

1. What is interesting about the age-old gender system in Western society is
not that it never changes but that it sustains itself by continually
redefining who men and women are and what they do while preserving
 the fundamental assumption that whatever the differences are, on balance,
they imply that men are rightly more powerful.
2. If the structural terms on which people who are classified as men and
women are allowed to encounter one another do not repeatedly enact
power and influence relations that predominantly favor men in people's
everyday experience, then the cultural beliefs that create gender as a
distinct system of difference and inequality will become unsustainable.
Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence
Adrienne Rich

Biologically men have only one innate orientation-a sexual one that draws
them to women, -while women have two innate orientations, sexual toward
men and reproductive toward their young.'

"The Origin of the Family," Kathleen Gough

The Power of Man to
1. to deny women [our own] sexuality chastity belts; punishment, including
death, for female adultery; punishment, including death, for lesbian
sexuality.
2. or to force it [male sexuality] upon them [by means of rape (including
marital rape) and wife beating; father-daughter, brother-sister incest; the
socialization of women to feel that male sexual "drive" amounts to a
right.
3. to command or exploit their labor to control their produce by means of
the institutions of marriage and motherhood as unpaid production; the
horizontal segregation of women in paid employment.
4. to control or rob them of their children [by means of father-right and
"legal kidnapping" enforced sterilization; systematized infanticide;
seizure of children from lesbian mothers by the courts.
5. to confine them physically and prevent their movement by purdah; foot-
binding, the veil; sexual harassment on the streets.
6. to use them as objects in male transactions [use of women as "gifts";
bride-price; pimping; arranged marriage
7. to cramp their creativeness restriction of female self-fulfillment to
marriage and motherhood; sexual exploitation of women by male artists
and teachers.
8. to withhold from them large areas of the society's knowledge and
cultural attainments [by means of noneducation of females the "Great
Silence" regarding women and particularly lesbian existence in history
and culture.
The function of pornography as an influence on consciousness
Pornography does not simply create a climate in which sex and violence are
interchangeable; it widens the range of behavior considered acceptable from
men in heterosexual intercourse-behavior which reiteratively strips women of
their autonomy, dignity, and sexual potential, including the potential of loving
and being loved by women in mutuality and integrity.
The intersection of compulsory heterosexuality and economics
Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination,
Catharine A. MacKinnon
1. Under capitalism, women are horizontally segregated by gender and
occupy a structurally inferior position in the workplace; this is hardly
news, but MacKinnon raises the question why, even if capitalism
"requires some collection of individuals to occupy low-status, low-paying
positions . . . such persons must be biologically female," and goes on to
point out that "the fact that male employers often do not hire qualified
women, even when they could pay them less than men suggests that more
than the profit motive is implicated"
2. Two forces of American society converge: men's control over women's
sexuality and capital's control over employees' work life.
3. But whatever its origins, when we look hard and clearly at the extent and
elaboration of measures designed to keep women within a male sexual
purlieu, it becomes an inescapable question whether the issue we have to
address as feminists is, not simple "gender inequality," nor the
domination of culture by males, nor mere "taboos against
homosexuality," but the enforcement of heterosexuality for women as a
means of assuring male right of physical, economical, and emotional
access.
Lesbian Existence
Lesbian exitance suggests both the fact of the historical presence of lesbians
and our continuing creation of the meaning of that existence.
Lesbian continuum
To include a range-through each woman's life and throughout history--of
woman-identified experience.; not simply the fact that a woman has had or
consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman. If we
expand it to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and among
women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male
tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical and political support; if we can
also hear in it such associations as marriage resistance and the "haggard"
behavior identified by Mary Daly (obsolete meanings: "intractable," "willful,"
"wanton," and "unchaste" . . . "a woman reluctant to yield to wooing")~~-we
begin to grasp breadths of female history and psychology which have lain out of
reach as a consequence of limited, mostly clinical, definitions of "lesbianism."

If we think of heterosexuality as the "natural" emotional and sensual inclination

for women, lives such as these are seen as deviant, as pathological, or as
emotionally and sensually deprived. Or, in more recent and permissive jargon,
they are banalized as "life-styles." And the work of such women-whether
merely the daily work of individual or collective survival and resistance, or the
work of the writer, the activist, the reformer, the anthropologist, or the artist-the
work of self-creation- is undervalued, or seen as the bitter fruit of "penis envy,"
or the sublimation of repressed eroticism, or the meaningless rant of a
"manhater." But when we turn the lens of vision and consider the degree to
which, and the methods whereby, heterosexual "preference" has actually been
imposed on women, not only can we understand differently the meaning of
individual lives and work, but we can begin to recognize a central fact of
women's history: that women have always resisted male tyranny.

I suspect that the problem of the married woman who would prefer emotional-
physical relationships with other women is proportionally much higher than a
similar statistic for men. (A statistic surely no one will ever really have.) This
because the estate of woman being what it is, how could we ever begin to guess
the numbers of women who are not prepared to risk a life alien to what they
have been taught all their lives to believe was their "natural" destiny-AND their
only expectation for ECONOMIC security. It seems to be that this is why the
question has an immensity that it does not have for male homosexuals. . . . A
woman of strength and honesty may, if she chooses, sever her marriage and
marry a new male mate and society will be upset that the divorce rate is rising
so-but there are few places in the United States, in any event, where she will be
anything remotely akin to an "outcast." Obviously, this is not true for a woman
who would end her marriage to take up life with another woman.
The lie of heterosexuality is many-layered.
1. Assertion that women are inevitably, even if rashly and tragically, drawn
to men.
2. Another layer of the lie is the frequently encountered implication that
women turn to women out of hatred for men.
Heterosexuality and Feminist Theory
Author(s): Christine Overall
Definition
Heterosexuality, which I define as a romantic and sexual orientation toward
persons not of one's own sex, is apparently a very general, though not entirely
universal, characteristic of the human condition.
Why is it Universal.
1. Historically, for example, there has been a tendency to investigate the
causes of forms of non-heterosexuality, but not of heterosexuality;
2. To consider whether non-heterosexuality, but not heterosexuality, can be
spread through a sort of contagion effect;
3. To ask whether nonheterosexuality is unnatural, but not to contemplate
whether heterosexuality in any sense could be.
4. If we make any assumption about a person's sexual orientation, it is
almost always the assumption that the person is heterosexual.
5. Moreover, heterosexual sexual expression is defined as real sex; in
particular, sexual intercourse is the standard of having sex' by reference
to which all other sexual stages and activities-e.g., Virginity,' 'foreplay,'
etc. -are defined.
The Institution of Heterosexuality
By the institution of heterosexuality, or what I shall call for short the
heterosexual institution, what I mean is the systematized set of social standards,
customs, and expected practices which both regulate and restrict romantic
and sexual relationships between persons of different sexes in late twentieth
century western culture.
1. The heterosexuality institution involves both men and women.
2. In Patriarchal Society this institution is experienced by both in different
terms and with different consequences.
3. Human sexuality is culturally constructed, that is, it is 'a social, not [only]
a biological phenomenon.
4. I shall therefore assume that there is no 'fixed sexual "essence" or "nature
“that lies buried beneath layers of social ordering in any of us. In
particular, I deny that most human beings are 'naturally' or innately
heterosexual; if sexual desire and activity are socially constructed, then
 one sort of orientation is no more natural, innate, or inevitable than
another.
5. Nor do I make the somewhat more fashionable (these days) assumption
that human beings are 'naturally' bisexual.
6. So the presence of that strong social insistence upon heterosexuality is, to
my mind, one very large piece of evidence that heterosexuality is not
innate.
The Politics of Heterosexuality
1. When talking about Heterosexuality Institution its not sufficient to raise
questions about Sex but also about nature of love, commitment and
loyalty between men and women.
2. As these are not questions of simple morality but of power as these
experiences are experienced between two unequal partners in Gender
Binary.
To understand this, we need to understand the nature of an Institution: An
Institution is an Organization which is instituted for attainment of an objective.
So, we need to understand the objective for which this Intuition of
Heterosexuality is instituted?
Assumption: That Heterosexuality Institution exists for reproduction?
1. Refutations: First, not all heterosexual activity, even when unconstrained
by deliberate use of contraception and abortion, results in procreation-
relationships between too old and too young people or relationships
between two not in marriage relationship.
2. Refutations: Second, it is remarkable that women who are celibate,
whether by choice or through force of circumstance, are usually still
thought of as being heterosexual; the presumption of heterosexuality
operates in the absence of reproductive activity.
3. Refutations: Third, heterosexual desire is not at all the same as the desire
to reproduce one may have either one without the other.
4. Refutations: Fourth, the heterosexual institution continues to operate at
full force even in places where, one would think, the needs for
reproduction are already amply or even excessively filled.
5. Refutations: Finally, seeing reproduction as the object of the
heterosexual institution simply 'portrays men and women as the dupes of
their own physiology and considers eroticism as a mere cover-up for
Nature’s reproductive aims.
Assumption: That Heterosexuality Institution exists for benefits of what
group of people or Individuals? It exists for the benefits of Men.
1. Proof: First, that the heterosexual institution primarily benefits men, not
women; and that it affords men easy sexual gratification and material
possession of women, as well as reproduction of themselves and their
offspring.
2. Proof: Second, these benefits are created and distributed through what
Adrienne Rich and others have described as the compulsory nature of
heterosexuality.
3. Proof (Two types of cost for women): First, violence, degradation, and
exploitation of women's bodies and women's sexuality. And second, the
deliberately cultivated separation of women from their allies, each other.
4. Proof: (the conjunction of heterosexual privilege and heterosexism). On
the one hand, the heterosexual institution grants a certain privilege to
heterosexual women that is not possessed by non-heterosexual women.
At the same time, heterosexual privilege is coupled with heterosexism,
that is, discrimination on grounds of non-heterosexual orientation. Hence,
heterosexual privilege has its price: strict conformity to the standards and
requirements of heterosexual behavior and appearance.
Heterosexuality and Choice
1. Is, then, a 'feminist heterosexuality' possible? If, as some feminists have
argued, heterosexuality in women is coerced, it would seem that no woman
chooses to be heterosexual. When there are not several recognized and
legitimate options, when there are so many pressures to be heterosexual, and
when failure to conform is so heavily punished, it is difficult to regard
heterosexuality as the genuine expression of a preference.
2. The idea that all heterosexual women (unlike non heterosexual women) just
can't help themselves and are somehow doomed to love and be attracted to
men gives too much weight to the view of women as victims, and too little
credit to the idea that women can act and make decisions on their own
behalf.
3. Most such women will not see themselves as victims of coercion.
4. Beyond the claim that heterosexuality is innate (which seems to be an
insufficiently grounded essentialist claim) and the claim that heterosexuality
is coerced (which seems true in regard to the heterosexual institution as a
whole) there is a third possibility: that heterosexuality is or can be chosen,
even or especially -by feminists.
5. The woman can be in a relationship that seems to be egalitarian and the male
partner does not resort to violence but still this is due to the good nature of
the man and not because of the nature of heterosexual relationship.
Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of
Sexuality
Gayle S. Rubin
Basic Thesis
Sex is always political and there are certain times in histories that sexuality is
more hotly contest and overly politicized and during this period the domain of
erotic life is renegotiated.
Example 1: In England and the United States, the late nineteenth century was
one such era. During that time, powerful social movements focused on ‘vices’
of all sorts. There were educational and political campaigns to encourage
chastity, to eliminate prostitution, and to discourage masturbation, especially
among the young.
Heritage is still with us (Masturbation is bad).
1. The idea that masturbation is an unhealthy practice is part of that
heritage. During the nineteenth century, it was commonly thought that
‘premature’ interest in sex, sexual excitement, and, above all, sexual
release, would impair the health and maturation of a child. Theorists
differed on the actual consequences of sexual precocity. Some thought it
led to insanity, while others merely predicted stunted growth.
2. Much of the sex law is also of that period : The first federal anti-
obscenity law in the United States was passed in 1873.
Example 2 :
1. In the 1950s, in the United States, major shifts in the organization of
sexuality took place. Instead of focusing on prostitution or masturbation,
the anxieties of the 1950s condensed most specifically around the image
of the ‘homosexual menace’ and the dubious specter of the ‘sex
offender’.
2. From the late 1940s until the early 1960s, erotic communities whose
activities did not fit the postwar American dream drew intense
persecution. Homosexuals were, along with communists, the objects of
federal witch hunts and purges.

Sexual Thoughts
A radical theory of sex must identify, describe, explain, and denounce erotic
injustice and sexual oppression.
1. Essentialism: One such axiom is sexual essentialism – the idea that sex is
a natural force that exists prior to social life and shapes institutions.
Sex is not biological. Asocial or ant historical: Similarly, sexuality is
impervious to political analysis as long as it is primarily conceived as a
biological phenomenon or an aspect of individual psychology. Sexuality is as
much a human product as are diets, methods of transportation, systems of
etiquette, forms of labor, types of entertainment, processes of production, and
modes of oppression.
2. Sex Negativity: Western cultures generally consider sex to be a
dangerous, destructive, negative force. Most Christian tradition,
following Paul, holds that sex is inherently sinful. It may be redeemed if
performed within marriage for procreative purposes and if the pleasurable
aspects are not enjoyed too much. In turn, this idea rests on the
assumption that the genitalia are an intrinsically inferior part of the body,
much lower and less holy than the mind, the ‘soul’, the ‘heart’, or even
the upper part of the digestive system.
3. Fallacy of misplaced scale: Sexual acts are burdened with an excess of
significance. A single act of consensual anal penetration was grounds for
execution.
4. The hierarchical valuation of sex acts: Modern Western societies
appraise sex acts according to a hierarchical system of sexual value.
Marital, reproductive heterosexuals are alone at the top of erotic pyramid.
Clamoring below are unmarried monogamous heterosexuals in couples,
followed by most other heterosexuals. Solitary sex floats ambiguously.
Stable, long-term lesbian and gay male couples are verging on
respectability, but bar dykes and promiscuous gay men are hovering just
above the groups at the very bottom of the pyramid.
5. Domino theory of sexual peril: Most systems of sexual judgment
religious, psychological, feminist, or socialist – attempt to determine on
which side of the line a particular act falls. Only sex acts on the good side
of the line are accorded moral complexity. For instance, heterosexual
encounters may be sublime or disgusting, free or forced, healing or
destructive, romantic or mercenary. As long as it does not violate other
rules, heterosexuality is acknowledged to exhibit the full range of human
experience. In contrast, all sex acts on the bad side of the line are
considered utterly repulsive and devoid of all emotional nuance. The
 further from the line a sex act is, the more it is depicted as a uniformly
bad experience. As a result of the sex conflicts of the last decade, some
behavior near the border is inching across it. Unmarried couples living
together, masturbation, and some forms of homosexuality are moving in
the direction of respectability.
6. Benign sexual variation: This notion of a single ideal sexuality
characterizes most systems of thought about sex. For religion, the ideal is
procreative marriage. For psychology, it is mature heterosexuality.

Sexual Transformation
The modern times, as the research suggests, is the time of emergence pf new
erotic speciation.
Example: Homosexuality is the best example of this process of erotic
speciation. Homosexual behavior is always present among humans. But in
different societies and epochs it may be rewarded or punished, required or
forbidden, a temporary experience or a life-long vocation.
How this happened: Industrialization and urbanization. (The relocation of
homoeroticism into these quasi-ethnic, nucleated, sexually constituted
communities are to some extent a consequence of the transfers of population
brought by industrialization. As laborer migrated to work in cities, there were
increased opportunities for voluntary communities to form. Homosexually
inclined women and men, who would have been vulnerable and isolated in most
pre-industrial villages, began to congregate in small corners of the big cities).

Sexual Stratification
The industrial transformation of Western Europe and North America brought
about new forms of social stratification.
Areas of sexual behavior come under the purview of the law when they become
objects of social concern and political uproar.
Sexual Conflicts
The sexual system is not a monolithic, omnipotent structure. There are
continuous battles over the definitions, evaluations, arrangements, privileges,
and costs of sexual behavior.
Definitions: Recurrent battles take place between the primary producers of
sexual ideology – the churches, the family, the shrinks, and the media – and the
groups whose experience they name, distort, and endanger.
Regulations: The legal regulation of sexual conduct is another battleground.
The territorial and border wars: Dissident sexuality is rarer and more closely
monitored in small towns and rural areas. Consequently, metropolitan life
continually beckons to young perverts.
According to the mainstream media and popular prejudice, the marginal sexual
worlds are bleak and dangerous.
Information on how to find, occupy, and live in the marginal sexual worlds is
also suppressed.
For poorer kids, the military is often the easiest way to get the hell out of
wherever they are.
Once in the cities, erotic populations tend to nucleate and to occupy some
regular, visible territory. Churches and other anti-vice forces constantly put
pressure on local authorities to contain such areas, reduce their visibility, or to
drive their inhabitants out of town.
The Limits of Feminism
1. One tendency has criticized the restrictions on women’s sexual behavior
and denounced the high costs imposed on women for being sexually
active.
2. The second tendency has considered sexual liberalization to be inherently
a mere extension of male privilege.
 First wave feminism
Analogy of Wave: The historical development of feminism (especially in
Britain and the USA) is commonly divided into several key periods, some
characterized by a relative absence of feminist thought and mobilization, and
others by the sustained growth both of feminist criticism and of activism with a
high public profile.
The apparent pattern of rise and fall of feminism over time has led to the ‘wave’
analogy; the peaks and troughs of the feminist movement are characterized as
following the motion of tidal water, with its ongoing cycle of gradual swelling,
eventual cresting and final subsiding.
Period/Dating: The earlier period (dating from at least the mid to late
nineteenth century up until about the 1920s), became ‘first wave’ feminism.
In broad historical terms, the period of first wave feminism may be dated to
include pre-nineteenth-century expressions of concern about the rights of
women.
Examples:
1. The French Revolution of 1789 is often identified as the arena in which
the first concerted demands for women’s rights were made.
2. Mary Wollstonecraft, whose Vindication of the Rights of Women,
published in Britain in 1792, is widely recognized as the first substantial
and systematic feminist treatise.
Actual Dating: First wave feminism (in Britain and the USA) is most often
dated as occurring between c.1880s and the 1920s.
Main Concerns:
1. It had as its principal concern women’s attainment of equality with men
and therefore feminist analyses and campaigning centered around
securing legislation change.
2. First wave feminist movement in Britain was of central importance in
bringing about a change from ‘private’ to ‘public’ patriarchy, via the
struggle for the vote, for access to education and the professions, to have
legal rights of property ownership, rights in marriage and divorce and so
on.
3. By the early twentieth century, the question of the suffrage was the
predominant concern and it was the issue on which public campaigning
activity was focused. The issue of the vote, seen as the key to placing the
 equality of women on the legislation agenda, united almost all feminists
into a single campaign.
Second wave feminism
Second wave feminism is a term used to describe a new period of
feminist collective political activism and militancy which emerged in the
late 1960s.
Liberation from Patriarchy: Whereas the first wave lobbied for
women’s enfranchisement via the vote and access to the professions as
well as the right to own property, the second wave feminists talked in
terms of ‘liberation’ from the oppressiveness of a patriarchally defined
society.
The body becomes the center: for second wave feminists the key
site of struggle was the female body itself – its representation and the
meanings attached to the bald fact of biological difference.
Simone De Beauvoir: One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’.
Important Books: De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, 1949, Betty Friedan’s
The Feminine Mystique (1963).
Agenda:
 Second wave feminists were committed to building a body of
knowledge which specifically addressed the ways in which women
have historically been marginalized, both culturally and socially.
 Second wave feminism often raised the possibility of enormous social
change which would make existing social structures untenable,
imbued as they were with patriarchal realities.
 As discussed in the entry on ‘feminisms’, many of the women who
gave feminism its new radical impetus were refugees from New Left
and civil rights political movements. These radical feminists’ decision
to organize in small groups and to engage in consciousness raising,
direct action and demonstrations that were more like street theatre,
meant that this new brand of feminism, or the ‘women’s liberation
movement’ quickly communicated itself to the public consciousness.
 This notion that ‘membership’ of feminism is very much a question of
political choice rather than a formal matter, is crucial to the identity
and shape of second wave feminism.
Third wave feminism
Third wave feminism has numerous definitions, but perhaps is best described in
the most general terms as the feminism of a younger generation of women who
acknowledge the legacy of second wave feminism, but also identify what they
see as its limitations.
Limitations of Second Wave:
1. These perceived limitations would include their sense that it remained too
exclusively white and middle class, that it became a prescriptive
movement which alienated ordinary women by making them feel guilty
about enjoying aspects of individual self-expression such as cosmetics
and fashion, but also sexuality – especially heterosexuality and its
trappings, such as pornography.
2. Moreover, most third wavers would assert that the historical and political
conditions in which second wave feminism emerged no longer exist and
therefore it does not chime with the experiences of today’s women.
Founder: Rebecca Walker and Shannon Liss
Beyond their cultural tastes, third wavers pride themselves on their global
perspective and there is a commitment to look at the material conditions of
people’s lives while embracing some of the key tenets of second wave
feminism. Men and heterosexuality have a less problematic place in third
wave feminism – and their analysis tends to take into account the
dispossession of young males as well as females.