Tag: patriarchy

DEATH TO THE PATRIARCHY: SHOULD FEMINISM ADOPT ANTI-NATALIST THEORY?

Post author By Glen
Post date 12 January 2022
No Comments on DEATH TO THE PATRIARCHY: SHOULD FEMINISM ADOPT ANTI-NATALIST THEORY?

Anti-natalism is a world-ending set of beliefs. It calls for the extinction of humankind and suggests we no longer procreate via appeals to morality and ethics. The absolutist subject matter evokes a guttaral counterreaction from society so strong that the theory is shunned – why, then, are feminists not more in favour of it?

Feminism is a philosophical theory developed to critique and be active in its opposition to the marginalisation of women. Focusing on oppresions committed by the patriarchy, a social system wherein men are oppressors and women the oppressed, it is innately counter-cultural: today’s ‘mainstream’ is synonymous with ‘whims of the patriarchy’. As the patriarchy is a self-sustaining institution created by birth and life, and most feminists recognise that its indoctrination is inescapable, it draws into question why more feminist theorists do not advocate for anti-natalism. Bringing into existence new vehicles for male supremacy to brainwash should be the first thing feminists oppose – it is not enough just to make female existence bearable and content with oppression.

An investigation into feminist anti-natalism requires a close look into both feminist theory and the traditional bioethics of anti-natalism. Case studies and statistical analysis have been applied to the object of anti-natalism in order to create a holistic, fair exploration of the concepts used to review it.

Tags feminism, gender, patriarchy

2021 Abstracts Stage 3

A Philosophical Investigation into Women’s Rights to Equal Status: To what extent can it be argued that a historic power imbalance still exists between the sexes, despite the efforts made to extinguish this gap?

A Philosophical Investigation into Women’s Rights to Equal Status:
To what extent can it be argued that a historic power imbalance still exists between the sexes, despite the efforts made to extinguish this gap?
Object:
-Robert Browning’s poem, My Last Duchess-
An insight into the use of language relative to women’s power and the extent to which women remain powerless due to lexical choice, in the modern media.
Looking at the death of Sarah Everard as a modern example.
Territory:
An in-depth analysis of the change in power attributed to women in the past 200 years.
Focusing on changes in legislation and societal attitudes towards women.
Could it be argued that women now have equal power to men or has the male desire for dominance simply diverged into other areas of society?
Concept 1:
-Plato’s Republic-
A discussion of the existence of power in Plato’s Polis, and how power exists in society. Moving on to consider Plato’s understand of the role of women in society and subsequently what this means for women in terms of power and equality.
Concept 2:
-Foucault’s Power / Knowledge-
Considering Foucault’s understand of power could it be that women should be equal to men in society? Using Foucault’s Repressive Hypothesis, and Sovereign Power, to formulate an understanding of Foucault’s understanding of power equality.

Tags feminism, inequality, patriarchy

2004 Abstracts Stage 2

The Feminine

Territory: Helene Cixous, simultaneous writer of fiction, philosophy, and fact, develops the idea of l’ecriture feminine, ‘feminine writing.’ Against the hierarchical duality of binary oppositions (action/passion, head/heart, activity/passivity), the feminine is the position of non-duality, characterised by openess to Other. Subtler than political feminism based only on gender and power, the feminine is opposed to the masculine, not the male. Cixous’s notion of the feminine is not restricted to woman, although woman’s feminine libidinal ecomomy does provide a propensity for the feminine. (A woman’s writing can be, and indeed usually is, phallocentric; Cixous urges women to throw off this masculine paradigm and write their body). (Clarice Lispector’s (left) is a supreme example, for Cixous, of a truly feminine writing). Being/becoming: Supple, moving, chaotic-poetic, feminine writing is characterised by immediacy, it is a writing of being. Its propinquity, its earthy, erotic immanence, can equally be interpreted as becoming, always moving. Feminine writing is fully present in the moment (being), and open to the temporal flux of existence (becoming). By addressing the neglected area of feminine being (becoming?), we discover a writing characterised by giving, openness, simultaneously homogeneous and heterogeneous. Application: My dissertation in part addresses Cixous’s writing (along with biblical character Salome and turn of the century socialite Alma Mahler). I argue that Cixous’s feminine writing (The Book of Promethea) embodies the Nietzschien ideal of the will to power and his notion of the eternal return. In other essays, I have read Lispector from a Cixousian perspective, and looked at what Cixous’s notion of feminine writing means for philosophy.

Tags Cixous, feminism, patriarchy

2004 Abstracts Stage 2

The Power of Oppression

OBJECTIVE: • I intend to explore the oppression of women in a patriarchal society with particular reference to art. • To achieve this I will examine the treatment of women in art institutions and within society as a whole and by discussing assumptions about the nature of femininity and how these have an oppressive force. SOCIETY: • Family: What does it mean to be a “good” women? An exploration into patriarchal codes of conduct enforced upon women that forbid female professionalism. • Institutions: How knowledge is manipulated to maintain current social divisions that segregate men and women and prioritise male characteristics. • Power: artistic impressions of the power dynamic that exists between men and women. Using examples of pictures I will demonstrate different approaches to this subject. ART HISTORY: • An investigation into the manipulation of knowledge and the use of negative assumptions of femininity to prevent female artists achieving recognition. EROTICISM: • The evident bias in painting of the nude that only acknowledges the male viewer. • How does this bias affect the idea of rights and equality and how have female artists confronted this issue? • Have women escaped oppression today?

Tags art, feminism, patriarchy