CHAPTER 3: PARADIGMATIC AND THEORETICAL ORIENTATION OF THE
3.2 What is Feminism?
There are some scholars who feel that feminism serves a particular group of people as it does not address the needs of all women. It is a term which was theorized and espoused by white women in Western culture and encompasses an agenda that was intended to meet the needs and demands of that particular group. For this reason, it is reasonable for white women to identify with feminism and the feminist movement.
However, to present this western white middle-class discourse as representative of issues faced by all women would be misleading. It is for this reason that various definitions have been devised to best suit the needs of the various racial groups, including black women. This chapter will examine the thought provoking and various points of view presented by different scholars, expounding on feminism. Hawthorn (1992:63) defines feminism as “a set of political ideologies employed by women’s movements to advance the agenda of women’s equality and to end sexist theory and practice of social oppression”. Korany [et. al] (1993:86) maintain that, “feminism firstly, is a theoretical paradigm in social theory that seeks to advocate and enhance women’s political emancipation in a predominantly patriarchal world; secondly, it is also a movement that mobilises for gender equality. Hence, feminism encompasses many varied activities and contexts”. They further affirm that those who subscribe to feminism have a number of things in common (ibid.). They share a firm commitment to gender equality, an agonizing awareness that such equality is far from being achieved, and a continuing desire to work towards such equality.
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Feminism is a extensive concept, that could be divided and discussed under three significant viewpoints in feminist thinking and research, that is, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism and Radical feminism. In order to appreciate what each perspective entails a brief synopsis is offered on each one of them. Since the study deals with African societies, in particular, a line of thought that deals with African Feminism will also be included. Literary feminism which is the main theoretical framework that will inform this study, will be explained and its preference specified.
3.2.1 Liberal Feminism
Accordind to Bryson ( 2003: 139) “Feminist demands for equal rights started from the claims that women are “as good as men”, that they are entitled to full human rights, and that they should be free to explore their full potential in equal competition with men”.
As Williams (1988) cited in (Robbins, 2000:22) points out, liberal is a word which implies freedom elaborates on this point and observes that freedom take place within limits, which are sometimes widely drawn for those with power. Robbins (2000:28) further asserts that, “liberal feminism which generally originates from bourgeois positions of relative comfort have had to extend their sphere of activity to address the structures of oppression that discriminate against women who occupy positions of multiple marginality by virtue, for example, of their class and gender, or race and gender or any combination of these facets”. This notion is affirmed by Betty Friedan in her book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ (1963) wherein she argued that, in the United States since the Second World War, earlier feminist dreams of education and independence had been displaced by an all-pervasive ‘feminine mystique’, through which women had been manipulated and persuaded into the belief that their only fulfiment lay in domesticity” ( cited in Bryson, 2003:140).Liberal feminists believe that the solution to the problems faced by women lies in changing ideas and cultural practices.
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3.2.2 Marxist Feminism
At the core of Marx and Engels belief, “was a view of history and society that saw the world constantly changing and progressing, and that insisted that liberal ideas of individual rights, justice and human nature were not universal principles, but the product of a particular period of human history. The key to understanding the process of historical development lay, they argued, not in the ideas that people may hold but in their physical productive activity”maintains Bryson (2003: 56). Engels unequivocally argued that rape and violence against women were inherent in the family from inception. According to Smith;
The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children...In order to make certain of the wife’s fidelity and therefore the paternity of his children, she is delivered over unconditionally into the power of the husband; if he kills her, he is only exercising his rights (Smith, 2013:2).
Engels (cited in Smith, 2013:2) further argued that, “the epitome of the monogamous family in class society is grounded in double standards. From its very beginning the family has been accorded its precise character of monogamy for the woman but not for the man”. What emerges from the Marxist tradition on women’s liberation is:
that women’s issues have never been viewed theoretically as being solely the concern of women, but it was viewed holistically as the concern of all revolutionary leaders, male and female. That is why feminism has been under attack ever since, in a bid to misrepresent feminists as a group of bitter, selfish and humourless women who either do not like men or are not attracted to men; thus spending their lives steeped in a victimhood mentality, imagining that they see sexism everywhere they look (Smith, 2013:5).
Gimenez, (2000) on the other hand, makes this observation about Marxist feminism that:
the key position of Marxist Feminism is to attempt to deconstruct the doubly subordinated role of women by the capitalist system and patriarchy. This thinking makes a direct casual connection between capitalism and the subordination of women. This perspective believes that women are an exploited class in the capitalist mode of production, both by their husbands within families and by employers in the paid labour market. The strongest criticism of this thinking is the fact that, patriarchy predates capitalism by several thousand years and therefore cannot be understood as a product of capitalism. This perspective also ignores the fact that male dominance continues in non-capitalist countries such as China (Gimenez, 2000:20).
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Critism offered by African Marxists, on the other hand, is dismissive of the notion of class and the “class struggle” because of having its foundations in a non-African economic construct, that is, capitalism and has thus far concentrated on the ideological critique of African literature as opposed to the other topics such as women images or representation in said literature. Onoge (cited in Olaniyan and Quayson, 2007:473) asserts that, “this critique of the social-world outlook of African writers, as represented in their texts, is that it is founded on a firm sociology of the exploitative capitalist nature of the colonial social order”. He further argues that “the conceptual representations and evocative images, which inculcate the universe imagined in a writer’s poem, story or play, have not been clearly specified by Marxist critics whether they are progressive, reactionary or reformist” (ibid). “The implications of this whole approach for feminist theory are profound. Firstly, the family and sexual relationships are, like other forms of social organization, placed in historical context:
neither eternally given nor consciously planned, they are a product of a particular historical situation and therefore open to change” maintains Bryson (2003:58).
The ideas of African Marxists, particularly what ought to be considered as the
‘natural’ role of women in society, are pertinent in this study as it will become evident further on in the study
3.2.3 Radical Feminism
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts.
Radical feminists seek to abolish patriarchy by challenging existing social norms and institutions rather than through political process. This includes challenging the notion of traditional gender roles, opposing the sexual objectification of women and raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence against women. Bryson confirms the above with her statement that,
Radical feminism firstly claimed to go to the roots of women’s oppression, and it proclaimed itself as a theory of, by and for women; as such, it was based firmly in women’s own experiences and perception and saw no need to compromise with existing political perspectives and agendas. Secondly it saw the oppression of women as the most fundamental and universal form of domination, and its aim was to understand and end this; here ‘patriarchy’ was a key term (Bryson, 2003:163).
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According to Ruthven (1984:35), “the objective of radical feminism is to crash that androcentric dominance which makes women feel that their own sense of ‘reality’ is at odds with the ‘reality’ they are expected to conform to”. Some African women scholars felt that some of these theories were focused on addressing western women problems, therefore not really relevant to their situation, and that prompted them to come up with alternative theories. It must be pointed out that the study distances itself from such radical thinking.