Critical Analysis of Monique Wittig

I deny that anyone knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely

Social reproduction refers to the continuous intergenerational physically and emotionally exhausting household labour that is needed to maintain life (Trotz, lecture, Jan 13, 2016). This kind of labour though is considered to be a woman’s duty. Since an economic activity happens where there is a market, social reproduction is not considered as one as it doesn’t have a visible market. Even though, it doesn’t have market value, domestic work greatly contribute to the economy (Waring, 2013). Since this work is done in homes and by women who are usually marginalized, it remains invisible and thus not considered for pay. This kind of work depends on the traditional division of labour in which women are seen as housewives while men, breadwinners. Thus, the gendering of social reproduction is a result of “doing gender,” where women’s abilities to be mothers are naturalized (Coltrane, 1989); in other words, women are made to fit into the simplistic “domestic = family = heterosexual woman = care and love” equation (Manalansan & Martin, 2008, p.2), while any man who does the caring work in a family is feminized and considered a lesser man (Coltrane, 1989).Thus, a woman’s femininity depends on her motherhood while a man’s masculinity depends on “not doing mother’s work” (Coltrane, 1989, p.473).

Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) argues that rather than sex determining gender-gender determines sex. Sex is shaped by gender discourses which give us scripts to perform according to whether we are biologically classed as male or female. The continual performance of these scripts on a daily basis is what makes us male or female. The classic example of this is the third sex, yes, the third sex and that is the transgender( born male in a female’s body or

She paraphrases her fellow scholar Karlyn Kors Campbell who found that, “The primary purpose of [women's liberation] rhetoric was 'consciousness raising' toward other women” (Zivanovic 209). “traditional means, designed to encourage passivity and acceptance in an audience, were at odds with the goals of women's liberation, especially fundamental goal of self-determination” (Zivanovic 209). “Such 'consciousness raising' involves […] leaderless groups in which each person can express herself and all are considered expert (Zivanovic 209). “Women's liberation rhetoric […] is characterized by the use of confrontative non-adjustive strategies designed to 'violate the reality structure'” (Zivanovic 209). By reversing the roles in the first part

The most recent and current third wave of feminism began in the mid-90’s and has destabilized many past constructs including “universal womanhood,” gender, body, hetreronormativity, and sexuality. A peculiar and important point of the latest wave that

Monique Wittig in her article, “One is not born a woman”, states that there is no “natural woman”, and that the idea of a woman and feminity is created by the society in relationship to the “man.” She argues that since lesbians are outside the heterosexual normativity, and a lesbian society does exist, this defeats the idea of “natural woman.” Wittig postulates that society must reject the myth of Woman. She makes convincing arguments that currently lesbianism is the only category that goes beyond man and woman. In the end, she concludes that the society must destroy categories of sex, and reject all sciences that use these definitions. I agree with Witting that “woman” is not a natural group, but a group created in relation to “man.”

express her outlook towards the conflict of gender equality in They Say, I Say, does so from an

From paragraph twenty to paragraph twenty-six, she start every sentence with ‘it is a violation of human rights when…” (p.20). To emphasis the offenses of women’s rights. She continues on adding other strategies to her writing to make her point more effective. For example when she says “when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls” (p.20).

The old Western idea of feminism consisting of being weak minded, emotional, or simply just a mother figure, displays the inequality between men and woman. How does the western ideology of feminism affect what feminism really is? Us American woman are very privileged because we have a platform to fight for rights; but in Third World countries, as Mohanty discussed woman are considered battered woman syndromes. In this paper, I want to discuss the disparity between a man or woman when it comes to looks, character traits, and . This is reaffirmed by Judith Lorber, “Gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it bred into our genes,” (Lorber 64).

It is the same complaint she levels against 1980’s Feminists, a charge of authoritative oversight that requires a corrective for either philosophy to be meaningfully applicable. That the Lesbian Standpoint should, via its outsider politics, confront the foundationalism of both Feminism and Marxism becomes am emboldened pathway to start considering an eventual Queer viewpoint. Its interrogation of their central claims and associations to power and discourse create alternative space to consider other possible formations of gendered subjects, a space from which “we must recognize the need to reach subjectivity in the abandonment by many of us to the myth ‘women’…a snare that holds us up” (108). To be able to embrace new thought calls for a letting go of that which no longer works in describing lives and experiences beyond oppressive perspectives. Here then a response to a historic moment that starts to define a paradigm shift of understanding subject construction but a potential middle ground between the current dichotomous Feminist and Queer politics to begin to think through common values and aesthetics their seemingly different processes

Anne Fausto-Sterling is an amazing feminist who is trying to challenge historical dualisms of two sexes and two genders. In the Western society, both religion and biology are perceived as destiny. Fausto-Sterling defines the “developmental systems theory,” as one that denies that there are “fundamentally two kinds of processes: one guided by genes, hormones, and brain cells (that is, nature), the other by the environment, experience, learning, or inchoate social forces (that is, nurture)” (Fausto-Sterling 2000, 25). Considering this, Fausto-Sterling’s theory provides a breakdown of the three key dualisms: sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed. This proves that their individuals who are born as mixtures of male and female. As I have

Iris Young defines humanist feminism’s form of oppression as “the inhibition and distortion of women’s potential to be in a society that allows the self-development of men” (Young 1984, 174). She makes note that for a humanistic feminist the form of oppression that women cannot be held to the same standard as men. The aim for humanist feminists is to have men and women stand as equals; equating the woman to the man. There is, however, another form of feminism, that embraces womanly characteristics: “Gynocentric feminism defines women’s oppression as the devaluation and repression of women’s experience by a masculinist culture” (Young 1984, 174). Rather than noting the key differences of men and women the Gynocentric feminist would much rather embrace what makes a woman a woman instead of ignoring these qualities. Instead of holding women to the same standard of men, womanly qualities are embraced and valued to the same extent that things are valued from a masculinist

Part of her restructuration of feminist theories include allowing men into the feminist movement, so that there is not a nonconformist belief, but a combining companionship. She also shows great appreciation for the movement away from feminist thought as led by middleclass white women, and towards a gathering of both genders to fight for the higher stance of women. This puts the original focus of feminism away from victimization, and towards having a greater understanding, appreciation, and tolerance for every genders and sex so that everyone is in control of their own destinies, and not controlled by male

To begin with, we will look at how, in early feminist anthropology, the binary pair ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ was used to account for the apparent universality of gender hierarchies. Then, we will analyse how feminist anthropologists moved from an anthropology of ‘women’ to an anthropology of gender that looks at cultural ideas about the difference between men and women. It implies a reworking of our taken-for-granted ideas about gender difference and its relation to the apparently ‘natural’ difference between women´s and men´s bodies. We will examine how the sex-gender distinction, as a reflection of the nature-culture dichotomy, has been used and deconstructed. Focusing on how different societies envision gender and its relation to the body through ethnographic cases like transgendered prostitutes, we will look at how bodies can escape from universal dichotomies and compromise their

Identifying the root of female subjugation in society is a conundrum that extends over numerous decades and on into present day, time and time again. Some scholars and feminists have frequently deemed the biological make-up of woman and their aptitude to reproduce the source of gender oppression. It seems the natural ability to give birth is often contended whether or not to be a restrictive factor of female activity. In a modern society as industrialized and innovative as present day where attention is much more focused on supple thoughts, the masculinity of the physical male becomes an untenable reason for superiority over the organic