FEMINIST THEORY

PREPARED BY:
JARRED DALE C. BRIOSO & ELLA N. LLANERA
 FEMINIST
FROM THE GREEK WORD ΦεμꞱvɭoήҫ
means feministίs.

- relating to or in accordance with feminism.

- A member of a feminist political movement.
 Feminist is broad. There is one feminist theory per se. Rather, there have been evolutions
of the different frameworks under the broad heading of “feminist theory” since the late
1700s.
 A Feminist is someone who supports equal rights for women.

 Feminism is the doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women
equal to those of men.

 It is alternative theory, which attempts to look at women’s oppressed positions in today’s

society.

 There were two waves of feminism. The first wave came about regarding the issue of
suffrage, or the campaign for women’s right to vote. The second wave of feminism
occurred during the Civil Rights Movement, which focused on women’s liberation .
The concepts of feminism include:
• Gender: culturally determined cognitions,
attitudes, and belief systems about
females and males .

• Sex: the descriptive, biologically-based

variable that is used to distinguish females
and males.

• Sex Roles: patterns of culturally approve

behaviors that are regarded as more
desirable for either females and males.
Many social workers are dissatisfied with the
traditional treatment of women. Various reasons for
their concern include the facts that:

• Male type traits are depicted as norms.

• Female type traits are depicted as deficient in comparison.

• Women tend to be omitted in psychology knowledge base.

• There’s sex stereotyping and sex bias in diagnosis.

• There’s disregard of social work relating to validity of
women’s self-reported experiences.

• Blame is attributed to women for sexual/physical

violence.

• Mother/women blaming theories [Feud] are still used as

foundations.

• There’s increasing medicalization of women’s.

• Pathology reflects inequalities of social status and

interpersonal power between men and women.
 History of feminist theory and feminist
thought
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical,
fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the
nature of gender inequality . It examines women’s and men’s
social roles, experience, interest, chores, and feminist politics
in a variety of fields , such as anthropology and sociology,
communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, home
economics, literature, educational, and philosophy.

Feminist theory focuses on analyzing gender inequality.

Themes explored in feminism include discrimination,
objectification [especially sexual objectification], oppression,
patriarchy, stereotyping, art history and contemporary art, and
aesthetics.
 TEN IMPORTANT FEMINIST BELIEFS

IDEAS OF THE 1960’S/ 1970’S WOMENS’S MOVEMENT

1.The Personal is Political

2.The Pro-woman Line
3.Sisterhood is Powerful
4.Comparable Worth
5.Abortion Rights on Demand
6.Radical Feminism
7.Socialist Feminism
8.Ecofeminism
9.Conceptual Art
10.Housework as a Political Issues