Introducing Feminism

answer lies in the pre-Oedipal stage when the infant boy develops conflicting feelings towards his mother’s body, which he sees as the source of pleasure and pain. The grown-up man wants to avoid this dependence on the female body by controlling it. For her part, the girl deals with the power of the mother within her by seeking to be controlled by men. This results in a mis-shapen set of six gender arrangements which determine all human relations

Capitalism is thus predicated upon the distinctions of woman-as-reproducer and man-as-producer. However, once women are freed from the responsibility to reproduce, they can participate in the workplace and achieve economic and personal independence.

taking their name from Pierre Louys’ Sapphic love poetry Chansons de Bilitis.

THE FEMININE PHASE (1840–80), IN WHICH WRITING PRODUCED BY WOMEN IMITATED MAINSTREAM PUBLICATIONS BY MEN.
THE FEMINIST PHASE (1880–1920), IN WHICH WOMEN WRITERS PROTESTED AGAINST THEIR MARGINALIZATION.
THE FEMALE PHASE (1920 ONWARDS), WHEN WOMEN’S WRITING IS PREOCCUPIED WITH SELF-DISCOVERY.

An egalitarian society, she argued, could be achieved only through an androgynous system whereby it “no longer matters culturally” who possesses the womb. Under this system, the traditional structure of the family which ascribed clear sexual roles to each gender would dissolve, as heterosexuality would no longer be compulsory and women would be freed from their domestic confinement.

This was an ironic statement with a political message of its own, since in Atlantic City women police officers were not allowed to make any arrests.

also concluded that it was impossible to generate a patriarchal model of society which would correspond to a universal experience of women’s oppression.

The Feminine Mystique,

. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer as the worst culprits.

. She has famously urged women to stop declaring themselves to be feminists and to announce instead that they advocate feminism