LECTURE 6

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM: FEMINISM VS

MASCULINISM, LGBT AND SCSOGIE… Cont.

Introduction:

Who told you that you are a lady or a woman? That you are a lad or a man? Why do you
believe in that? What makes you believe that you are what you are? Masculine and
Feminine. When hearing those two words you might immediately think of men and
women. I wouldn’t blame you, many of us are told that men must be masculine and
women must be feminine. Is that so?

Social Constructionism

The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought
entitled social constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything
people “know” or see as “reality” is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say
that something is socially constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept.
Take, for example, money. Money is a socially constructed reality. Paper bills
are worth nothing independent of the value individuals ascribe to them. The dollar is
only worth as much as value as Americans are willing to ascribe to it. The dollar only
works in its own currency market; it holds no value in areas that do not use the dollar.
Nevertheless, the dollar is extremely powerful within its own domain. These
basic explanations of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study
pertaining to human life, including gender. Is gender an essential category or a social
construct? If it is a social construct, how does it function? Who benefits from the way
that gender is constructed?
A social constructionist view of gender looks beyond categories and examines
the intersections of multiple identities and the blurring of the boundaries between
essentialist categories. This is especially true with regards to categories of male and
female, which are viewed typically as binary and opposite. Social constructionism
seeks to blur the binary and muddle these two categories, which are so frequently
presumed to be essential. Therefore, social constructionism is a theory that knowledge
and many aspects of the world around us are not real in and of themselves. They only
exist because we give them reality through social agreement. The concept of the self
can be considered a social construct because self-identity is created by the
interactions with other people and reactions to the expectations of the
society([Link], 2021).

Judith Butler and Gender Performativity

Judith Butler is one of the most prominent social theorists currently working on issues
pertaining to the social construction of gender. Butler is a trained philosopher and has
oriented her work towards feminism and queer theory. Butler’s most known work
is Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, published in 1991,
which argues for gender performativity. This means that gender is not an essential
category. The repetitious performances of “male” and “female” in accordance
with social norms reifies the categories, creating the appearance of a naturalized and
essential binary. Gender is never a stable descriptor of an individual, but an individual
is always “doing” gender, performing or deviating from the socially accepted
performance of gender stereotypes. Doing gender is not just about acting in
a particular way. It is about embodying and believing certain gender norms and
engaging in practices that map on to those norms. These performances normalize
the essentialism of gender categories. In other words, by doing gender, we reinforce
the notion that there are only two mutually exclusive categories of gender. The
internalized belief that men and women are essentially different is what makes men and
women behave in ways that appear essentially different. Gender is maintained as a
category through socially constructed displays of gender.
Doing gender is fundamentally a social relationship. One does gender in order to be
perceived by others in a particular way, either as male, female, or as troubling those
categories. Certainly, gender is internalized and acquires significance for the individual;
some individuals want to feel feminine or masculine. Social constructionists might
argue that because categories are only formed within a social context, even the affect
of gender is in some ways a social relation. Moreover, we hold ourselves and each
other for our presentation of gender, or how we “measure up.” We are aware that
others evaluate and characterize our behavior on the parameter of gender. Social
constructionists would say that gender is interactional rather than individual—it is
developed through social interactions. Gender is also said to be omnirelevant,
meaning that people are always judging our behavior to be either male or female
(Panopio and Realidad, 2007).

Femininity and Masculinity

What makes a difference between femininity and masculinity? According to google

dictionary (2021), masculinity was traditionally associated with men, while others
were more direct and said that the word masculine meant men or the male gender.
The word feminine it came up the definitions went straight to associating it with women.
Masculinity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys.
Although, masculinity or manliness can be seen as socially constructed. Masculinity is
a form of gender, variously defined as an identity, a social role, and a form of power
and is typically, though not exclusively, associated with men. In the socialization of
masculinity, boys and men are encouraged to reject or avoid anything stereotypically
feminine, to be tough and aggressive, suppress emotions (other than anger), distance
themselves emotionally and physically from other men, and strive toward competition,
success and power. In particular, anti-femininity and homophobia are at the core of
what traditional masculinity means.

Boys and men are rewarded in a variety of settings such as schools, intimate
relationships, the workplace, military, and prisons for adhering to these stereotypic
expectations and often are punished or rejected for violating them. However, fulfillment
of these gendered expectations is also associated with a range of health and social
problems including anxiety and depression, substance abuse, and interpersonal
violence ([Link], 2021).On the other hand, femininity pertains to qualities or
attributes regarded as characteristic of women. “She alternated between embracing
her femininity and concealing it. It is the quality or nature of the female sex: the quality,
state, or degree of being feminine or womanly challenging traditional notions about
femininity and masculinity ([Link], 2021). In any culture, certain
behaviors or practices may be widely recognized as “feminine” or “masculine”,
irrespective of whether they are adopted by women or by men.
Femininities and masculities are not descriptors of sexual orientation
([Link], 2021). New femininity is about having a combination of
both strong and supportive side, while at the same time, demonstrating strength - she
is resilient, knows what she wants and speaks her mind ([Link], 2018).

Let’s start with some traits that are Now for some traits that are
considered masculine considered feminine
Dominant Emotional
Strong Collaborative
Independent Nurturing
Assertive Vulnerable
Brave Caring
Innovative Humble

All of the feminine traits are associated with women, whereas the masculine
traits are associated with men. If a woman is seen being dominant or assertive she is
bossy, but if a man is dominant or assertive he’s a boss and is taking control. We can
say the same thing about a man who is seen crying or being caring, he can be
considered weak, but if a woman is emotional or caring it is considered good or the
way she is supposed to [Link] is time that society realizes that masculinity and
femininity are not traits we associate with depending on gender, but instead depending
on the character.

Hofstede: Masculinity / Femininity

This dimension focuses on how extent to which a society stress achievement or

nurture. Masculinity is seen to be the trait which emphasizes ambition, acquisition of
wealth, and differentiated gender roles. Femininity is seen to be the traits which stress
caring and nurturing behaviors, sexuality equality, environmental awareness, and more
fluid gender roles.

Hoftstede’s definitions:

“Masculinity stands for a society in which social gender roles are clearly distinct: Men
are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success; women are
supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.”

“Femininity stands for a society in which social gender roles overlap: Both men and
women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.”

From Hofstede(2001), Culture’s Consequences, 2nd ed. p 297.

Review Hofstede’s country ranking for Masculinity / Femininity.

Traits of High Masculine Low Masculine (Feminine)

 Masculinity/
Femininity
social norms ego oriented relationship oriented
quality of life and people are
money and things are important
important
live in order to work work in order to live
politics and environment protection high
economic growth high priority
economics priority
conflict solved through
conflict solved through force
negotiation
religion most important in life less important in life
both men and women as
only men can be priests
priests
work larger gender wage gap smaller gender wage gap
fewer women in management more women in management
preference for fewer working
preference for higher pay
hours
family and
traditional family structure flexible family structure
school
girls cry, boys don’t; boys fight, both boys and girls cry;
girls don’t neither fight
failing is a disaster failing a minor accident

The terms masculinity and femininity refer to traits or characteristics typically

associated with being male or female, respectively. Traditionally, masculinity and
femininity have been conceptualized as opposite ends of a single dimension, with
masculinity at one extreme and femininity at the other.

By this definition, high masculinity implies the absence of femininity, and vice
versa. In other words, people can be classified as either masculine or feminine.
Contemporary definitions propose that masculinity and femininity are separate
dimensions, allowing for the possibility that individuals may simultaneously possess
both masculine and feminine attributes.
Source: Iloilo Pride Team 2018

A sex characteristic refers to both primary and secondary sexual characteristics.

Primary sexual characteristics are present at birth and compromise the external and
internal genitalia (e.g. the penis and testes in males and the vagina and ovaries in
females). While secondary sexual characteristics are those that emerge during the
prepubescent through postpubescent phases (e.g., breast in females, adam’s apple in
men etc.) ([Link], 2020).
The international protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) rights
are in the midst of significant positive change. Earlier this year, the International Bar
Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) welcomed the appointment of a UN
Independent Expert on the protection against violence and discrimination based on
sexual orientation and gender identity, and the Yogyakarta Principles – the main
international instrument outlining human rights from a sexual orientation, gender
identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) viewpoint – are celebrating
their tenth anniversary.
In line with this, the IBAHRI has published a new thematic report, Sexual Orientation,
Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics at the UPR, giving focus to
the protection of LGBTI rights at an international level. The report gives a revealing
overview of the role played by the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in shaping the
protection of LGBTI [Link] UPR itself, created in 2006 by the United Nations
Human Rights Council, is a unique peer-to-peer assessment of all 193 UN states’
human rights performances, designed to promote and protect universal human rights.
On the other hand, SCSOGIE can be illustrated by a “Genderbread Person” wherein
gender and sex was dissected into sexual/gender orientation - to what we are
attracted to the other person: sexually, romantically, and emotionally/spiritually; gender
identity -to what we identify our gender and perceived if our sex is aligned with the
assigned biological sex at birth with our gender identity or could be different; and
gender expression - the outer or external display of ones’ gender identity and
sexual/gender orientation usually expressed in clothing, social behavior and interaction
with others, demeanor, as our gender presentation seen by the people around us.
SCSOGIE comprised of the following:

L lesbian
G gay
B Bisexual
Transgender or Transexual
T
Transwoman/Transman
 Q queer
Q Questioning
I intersex
A asexual
A ally
C cisgender
C celibate
+ Gender is made-up of 72 to 102 types

FEMINISM MOVEMENT: kinds and concept (Social Feminism)

“Being a feminist means that you fight for the equality of all people.” Feminism is
intersectionality; it should not exclude people based on their gender, race,
socioeconomic status, ability or sexual orientation. Feminism allows people to look at
the world not as it is, but how it could be ([Link], 2020). According to Brunell (2018),
in her book institutional Capital: Building Post-Communist Government Performance,
Feminism is the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. Although,
largely originating in the West, feminism is largely manifested worldwide and is
represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s rights
and interest.
There are various types of feminism such as Liberal Feminism, Radical
Feminism, Marxist and Socialist Feminism, Cultural Feminism, Eco-Feminism, and I-
Feminism. Feminist political philosophy is a branch of both feminist philosophy and
political philosophy. As a branch of feminist philosophy, it serves as a form of critique
or a hermeneutics of suspicion. It serves as a way of opening up or looking at the
political world as it is usually understood and uncovering ways in which women and
their current and historical concerns are poorly depicted, represented, and addressed.
As a branch of political philosophy, it serves as a field for developing new ideals,
practices, and justifications for how political institutions and practices should be
organized and reconstructed. This branch of philosophy may be the paradigmatic
branch of feminist philosophy because it best exemplifies the point of feminist theory,
which is: not only to understand the world but to change it. It focuses most directly on
understanding ways in which collective life can be improved. It involves understanding
the ways in which power emerges and is used or misused in public life as well as
feminist philosophy broadly to include work conducted by feminist theorists doing this
philosophical work from other disciplines, especially political science but also
anthropology, comparative literature, law, and other programs in the humanities and
social sciences.

Historical Context and Developments

Current feminist political philosophy is indebted to the work of earlier

generations of feminist scholarship and activism, including the first wave of feminism in
the English-speaking world, which took place from the 1840s to the 1920s and focused
on improving the political, educational, and economic system primarily for middle-class
women. Its greatest achievements were to develop a language of equal rights for
women and to garner women the right to vote. It is also indebted to the second wave
of feminism, which, beginning in the 1960s, drew on the language of the civil rights
movements (e.g., the language of liberation) and on a new feminist consciousness that
emerged through women’s solidarity movements and new forms of reflection that
uncovered sexist attitudes and impediments throughout the whole of society. By 1970,
feminism had expanded from activism to scholarship with the publication of Shulamith
Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex (Firestone 1971); Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics (Millett
1970); and Robin Morgan’s Sisterhood is Powerful (Morgan 1970).One of the first
theoretical advances of second wave feminism was to separate out biological
conceptions of women’s identity from socially-constructed ones in order to disprove
the notion that biology was destiny and hence that women’s main role was as mothers
and caregivers. Anthropologist Gayle Rubin developed an account of a “sex/gender
system” (Rubin 1975; Dietz 2003, 401; and the entry on feminist perspectives on sex
and gender). The sex/gender distinction pointed to “a set of arrangements by which
the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social
intervention” (Rubin 1975, 165). While biological sex was fixed, in Rubin’s view, gender
was a social construction that served to divide the sexes and privilege men. Because
gender was mutable, the sex/gender distinction gave feminists a powerful tool to look
for ways to address women’s oppression.

Kinds of Feminism

 Liberal feminism

This remains a strong current in feminist political thought. Following liberalism’s

focus on freedom and equality, its primary concern is to protect and enhance women’s
personal and political autonomy, the first being the freedom to live one’s life as one
wants and the second being the freedom to help decide the direction of the political
community.

This approach was invigorated with the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of
Justice (Rawls 1971) and subsequently his Political Liberalism (Rawls 1993).Susan
Moller Okin (Okin 1989, 1979; Okin et al. 1999) and Eva Kittay (Kittay 1999) have used
Rawls’s work productively to extend his theory to attend to women’s concerns. Liberal
feminist theory parallels developments in liberal feminist activism. While feminist
activists have waged legal and political battles to criminalize violence against women
(which previously, in marital relations, had not been considered a crime), feminist
political philosophers who have engaged the liberal lexicon have shown how the
distinction between private and public realms has served to uphold male domination of
women by rendering power relations within the household as “natural” and immune
from political regulation. Such political philosophy uncovers how seemingly inoffensive
and “commonsensical” categories have covert power agendas. For instance, old
conceptions of the sanctity of the private space of the household and the role of
women primarily as child-bearers and caregivers served to protect male domination of
women in the household from public scrutiny. Feminist critiques of the public/private
split supported legal advances that finally led in the 1980s to the criminalization in the
United States of spousal rape (Hagan and Sussman 1988). Beyond the liberal feminism,
contemporary feminist philosophers have led the way in theorizing and critiquing
neoliberalism which supports neoliberal social and economic forces impact the lives of
women.
On Wendy Brown’s account (2015), neoliberalism refers to a set of relations
between state, society, and subjects that mimics and reinforces radical free-market
ideals in the economy. These forces, Brown argues, undermine liberal democratic
citizenship, public institutions, and popular sovereignty. Nancy Fraser (2013), Jodi
Dean (2009), and Judith Butler (2015) join Brown in asking whether democracy—or
“the demos”—can be sustained under neoliberal conditions of rapidly increasing
economic precariousness and diminishing social and political resources for resistance.

 Radical Feminism

Continues to take issue with many of the central tenets of liberal feminism,
especially its focus on the individual and the supposedly free choices that individuals
can make. Where the liberal sees the potential for freedom, the radical feminist sees
structures of domination that are bigger than any individual. Patriarchy itself,
according to this view, dominates women by positioning them as objects of men’s
desire (Welch 2015).Radical feminists remain committed to getting at the root of male
domination by understanding the source of power differentials, which some radical
feminists, including Catharine MacKinnon, trace back to male sexuality and the notion
that heterosexual intercourse enacts male domination over women. “Women and men
are divided by gender, made into the sexes as we know them, by the
requirements of its dominant form, heterosexuality, which institutionalizes male
sexual dominance and female sexual submission. If this is true, sexuality is the
linchpin of gender inequality” (MacKinnon 1989,113). Radical feminists of the 1980s
tended to see power as running one-way, from those with power over those who are
being oppressed. As Amy Allen puts it, “Unlike liberal feminists, who view power as a
positive social resource that ought to be fairly distributed, and feminist
phenomenologist, who understand domination in terms of a tension between
transcendence and immanence, radical feminists tend to understand power in terms of
dyadic relations of dominance/subordination, often understood on analogy with the
relationship between master and slave.” Radical feminists of the 1980s largely sought
to reject the prevailing order altogether, sometimes advocating separatism (Daly 1985,
1990).

 Socialist and Marxist Feminisms

Many political theorists in Europe, the United States, and Latin America drew on
socialist and Marxist texts to develop theories of social change attentive to issues of
class relations and exploitation in modern capitalist economies. Jaggar’s 1983
book summed up well the way feminists were using socialist and Marxist ideas to
understand the way women were exploited and their laboring and reproductive work
devalued and unpaid though necessary for capitalism to function. It grew out of the
same social ferment and the same consciousness-raising groups that produced other
forms of feminism.
Socialist feminists attempted to produce a creative synthesis of debates raging
in the feminist community in the 1970's about the roots of the oppression of women. At
the crux of socialist feminist thought is the understanding that not just one system of
oppression is at the heart of women's subordination; rather, it is a combination of
systems related to race, social class, gender, sexuality, and nation. So while the
categories of socialist and Marxist feminisms are less relevant today, many feminist
philosophers still take seriously the need to attend to the material conditions of life
and engage in the hermeneutics of suspicion that Marxist analysis calls for.
Socialist feminists focus on a full range of oppression, not simply the sex/gender
system. A great example of the socialist feminist movement is the Chicago Women's
Liberation Union. This organization, founded in 1969, was instrumental in articulating a
new social feminist vision of society. The CWLU published a document that is useful in
understanding the full range of concern among socialist feminists, including the world
of work, health, racial relations, capitalism and its connections with physical force,
among others.

 Poststructuralist Feminisms

Take sexual difference seriously are those who work in the continental traditions,
ference seriously are those who work in the continental traditions, and attend to the
ways in which language and meaning-systems structure experience. Notable among
them are the so-called French Feminists, namely Cixous, Kristeva, and Irigaray. Of
them all, Irigaray may have the most developed political philosophy, including several
books on the rights that should be afforded to girls and women. Irigaray’s early work
(1985a and 1985b) made the case that in the history of philosophy women have been
denied their own essence or identity.
Rather, they have been positioned as men’s mirror negation. So that to be a
man is to not be a woman, and hence that woman equals only not-man. Her
strategy in response to this is to speak back from the margins to which women have
been relegated and to claim some kind of “essence” for women, and along with
that a set of rights that are specifically for girls and women (Irigaray 1994 and
1996). Criticisms of her views have been heated, including among feminists themselves,
especially those who are wary of any kind of essentialist and biological conflation of
women’s identity. To the extent that Irigaray is an essentialist, her view would indeed
be relegated to the approach outlined here as symbolic difference feminism. But
there are compelling arguments that Irigaray is wielding essentialism strategically or
metaphorically, that she isn’t claiming that women really do have some kind of
irreducible essence that the history of metaphysics has denied them (Fuss 1989). This
other reading would put Irigaray more in the performative group. The same kind of
argument could be made for the work of Julia Kristeva, that her metaphors of the
female chora, for example, are describing the western imaginary, not any kind of
womanly reality. The concerns about essentialism or identifying distinct values that
women have as women are part of a larger set of criticisms that have run through
feminist with non-white, non-middle-class, and non-western women questioning the
very category of “woman” and the notion that this title could be a boundary-spanning
category that could unite women of various walks of life. Criticisms of a unitary identity
of “woman” have been motivated by worries that much feminist theory has originated
from the standpoint of a particular class of women who mistake their own particular
standpoint for a universal one. In her 1981 book, Ain’t I a Woman?: Black women and
feminism, Bell Hooks notes that the feminist movement pretends to speak for all
women but was made up of primarily white, middle class women who, because of their
narrow perspective, did not represent the needs of poor women and women of color
and ended up reinforcing class stereotypes (Hooks 1981).

 Decolonial and Intersectional Feminisms (Diversity Feminism)

Is one of the most vexing issues facing feminist theory in general and feminist
political philosophy in particular is the matter of identity .Identity politics, itself a
politically vexed term, refers to political practices of mobilizing for change on the
basis of a political identity (women, Black, Chicana, etc.). The philosophical debate is
whether such identities are based on some real difference or history of oppression, and
also whether people should embrace identities that have historically been used to
oppress them. Identity politics in feminist practice is fraught along at least two axes:
whether there is any real essence or identity of woman in general and even if so
whether the category of woman could be used to represent all women. People at
the intersection of multiple marginalized identities (e.g, Black women) have raised
questions about which identity is foremost or whether either identity is apt. Such
questions play out with the question of political representation—what aspects of
identity are politically salient and truly representative, whether race, class, or gender
(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018).

The ontological question of women’s identity gets played out on the political
stage when it comes to matters of political representation, group rights, and affirmative
action. The 2008 U.S. Democratic Party primary battle between Senators Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton turned this philosophical question into a very real and
heated one from Black women throughout the United States. The scenario is seen this
way: “Was a Black woman who supported Clinton a traitor to her race, or a Black
woman who supported Obama a traitor to her sex? Or did it make any sense to talk
about identity in a way that would lead to charges of treason?” On the other hand,
diversity feminism disagrees entirely with the idea that there is or needs to be a single
and universal category of “woman.” It pursues the idea that women of color and others
pointing out that the presuppositions of mainstream feminism were based on their very
particular race and class. In the 1980s and 1990s philosophy along with the rest of
Western culture started grappling with demands for multicultural perspectives. Shortly
thereafter postcolonial theory raised the need to become aware of multiple global
perspectives. As described “this development involved the“world diversification’ of
feminism to a more global, comparative, and differentiated body of work” (Krause
2011).

Furthermore, this diversification, led to the better understanding of intersectionality,

that is, the ways in which the intersections of our multiple identities (race, gender,
orientation, ethnicity, etc.) all need to be attended to in talking about political change
(Krause 2011).
Intersectionality also links up with discussions of “hybridity” in postcolonial
literature,of religion and globalization, and of the experiences of LGBTQ people.
“The result is an explosion of knowledge about the lived experience of differently
placed and multiply-positioned women” (Krause 2011). Meanwhile, decolonial
feminismframed within the discourse of “coloniality,” first theorized in terms of
“coloniality of power” (Quijano 2003). Here, “coloniality” refers to how relations
between colonizer and colonized are racialized, for instance how labor, subjectivity,
and authority are racialized around the colonial system of capitalist exploitation. In here,
gender is another axis around which the global capitalist system of power classifies
and dehumanizes people. It is a colonial imposition in tension with non-modern
cosmologies, economies, and modes of kinship which known “coloniality of gender,”
noting that de-colonizing gender is part of a wider project of decolonial resistance
opposed to the categorial, dichotomous, and hierarchical logics of capitalist modernity.

 Performative Feminisms

Proposes a feminist conception of democratic citizenship that would render

sexual difference “effectively nonpertinent.” Perhaps the salient feature of such
conceptions is the turn toward plurality, which posits democratic society as a field
of interaction where multiple axes of difference, identity, and subordination
politicize and intersect . It sees identity as something that is performatively created.
“How we assume these identities, is never something ‘out there’ that effectively
determines who we can be as men and women—gay, lesbian, straight, queer,
transsexual, transgender, or otherwise” (Cornell 2003). It is something that is shaped
as we live and externalize identities. From a performative feminist perspective,
feminism is a project of anticipating and creating better political futures in the absence
of foundations. In somewhat, “politics is about making claims and judgments—and
having the courage to do so—in the absence of the objective criteria or rules that could
provide certain knowledge and the guarantee that speaking in women’s name will be
accepted or taken up by others” (Zerilli 2005). Drawing largely on Arendt and Butler,
Zerilli calls for a “freedom-centered feminism” that “would strive to bring about
transformation in normative conceptions of gender without returning to the classical
notion of freedom as sovereignty” that feminists have long criticized but found difficult
to resist. Peformative feminist political philosophy shares liberal feminism’s
appreciation for Enlightenment ideals but in a way that is skeptical about foundations.
It performatively reconstitutes the concept of freedom, recuperates ideas of
autonomy, dignity, and personhood, in a new performative capacity, as ideals that
people aspire to rather than as moral facts waiting to be discovered, applied, or
realized.

 Care, Vulnerability, and Affect Theories of Feminism

A prime example is care ethics, which, originally developed as an alternative to

mainstream ethical theory, has been harnessed to counter liberal political theory. In
moral psychology, the virtues that society and mothering cultivate in women can
provide an alternative to the traditional emphases in moral and political philosophy on
universality, reason, and justice the virtues that had long been relegated to the private
realm, such as paying particular attention to those who are vulnerable or taking into
consideration circumstances and not just abstract principles, and use them as well in
the public realm. This approach has led to intense debates between liberals who
advocated universal ideals of justice and care ethicists who advocated attention to the
particular, to relationships, to care. By the 1990s, however, many care ethicists had
revised their views. Rather than seeing care and justice as mutually exclusive
alternatives, they began to recognize that attention to care should be accompanied by
attention to fairness (justice) in order to attend to the plight of those with whom we
have no immediate relation (Koggel 1998).Feminists as a whole have long distanced
themselves from the idea that women have any particular essence, choosing instead to
see femininity and its accompanying virtues as social constructs, dispositions that
result from culture and conditioning, certainly not biological givens. So for care
ethicists to champion the virtues that have inculcated femininity seems also to
champion a patriarchal system that relegates one gender to the role of caretaker. The
care ethicists’ answer to this problem has largely been to flip the hierarchy, to claim
that the work of the household is more meaningful and sustaining than the work of the
polis. But criticsargue that such a revaluation keeps intact the dichotomy between the
private and the public and the old association of women’s work with childcare.
Disregard for the role of emotion in political life has long been a policy in the history of
philosophy, in particular because emotionality—like care—is frequently associated with
women and racialized others. However, women philosophers have insisted on the
importance of this intersection.

Building on the contributions of feminist care ethicists and difference feminists

who worked to show the significance of positive affects typically associated with
femininity—such as love, interest, and care—in ethical encounters, other thinkers
worried that this appraisal merely reified a false (gendered) dichotomy between reason
and emotion, mind and body. Instead, early work by Alison Jaggar (1990), Elizabeth
Spelman (1989 and 1991), Genevieve Lloyd (1993), Elizabeth Grosz (1994), and others
argued that reason is both embodied and emotion-laden, and that emotion is an
important resource for epistemology in particular. Building on this work, feminist
political theorists have argued that understanding the role of emotion and affect is
crucial for understanding a number of important political phenomena:motivation for
action (Krause 2008), collective action and community formation (Beltrán 2009 and
2010, Butler 2004 and 2015), solidarity and patriotism (Nussbaum 2005 and 2015), as
well as vulnerability (Fineman 2013), racism and xenophobia (Ahmed 2015, Anker 2014,
Ioanide 2015).

Summary
Social constructionism proposes that everything people “know” or see as “reality” is
partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially
constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. A social constructionist view
of gender looks beyond categories and examines the intersections of multiple identities
and the blurring of the boundaries between essentialist categories. This is especially
true with regards to categories of male and female, which are viewed typically as
binary and opposite. Social constructionism seeks to blur the binary and muddle these
two categories, which are so frequently presumed to be essential. Therefore, social
constructionism is a theory that knowledge and many aspects of the world around us
are not real in and of themselves. They only exist because we give them reality through
social agreement. The concept of the self can be considered a social construct
because self-identity is created by the interactions with other people and reactions to
the expectation of the society.

Masculinity and femininity are separate dimensions, allowing for the possibility that
individuals may simultaneously possess both masculine and feminine attributes.
Femininities and masculities are not descriptors of sexual orientation
([Link], 2021). New femininity is about having a combination
of both strong and supportive side, while at the same time, demonstrating strength -
she is resilient, knows what she wants and speaks her mind. LGBT refers to lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender/transexual. On the other hand, SCSOGIE refers to sex
characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Gender
orientation (sexual orientation) can be unlearn and relearn and relearn is a sort of a
lifetime process. Sexual orientation usually refers to sexual, emotional, and romantic
attraction to the other person which can be fluid. Gender identity can be aligned or
may deviate from the assigned sex at birth while gender expression is the external
display of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Feminism is the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. Although,
largely originating in the West, feminism is largely manifested worldwide and is
represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s rights
and interest. There are various types of feminism such as Liberal Feminism, Radical
Feminism, Marxist and Socialist Feminism, Cultural Feminism, Eco-Feminism, and I-
Feminism. Feminist political philosophy is a branch of both feminist philosophy and
political philosophy. As a branch of feminist philosophy, it serves as a form of critique
or a hermeneutics of suspicion. It serves as a way of opening up or looking at the
political world as it is usually understood and uncovering ways in which women and
their current and historical concerns are poorly depicted, represented, and addressed.

References:
[Link]
differences-in-the-classroom/
Social Learning Theory of Gender by Bandura. (2017). In ScienceAid. Retrieved
Oct 27, 2020, from [Link]
Aldea, Merian, Women and Gender Concerns, A Mission Partner of the Association of
Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines, 2019 Notes from Iloilo Pride Team.
Dietz, Mary G., 1985. “Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal
Thinking”, Political Theory, 13: 19–38, 1987. “Context is All: Feminism and Theories of
Citizenship,” Daedalus, 116: 1–24, 2002. Turning Operations: Feminism, Arendt, and
Politics, New York: Routledge, 2003. “Current controversies in feminist theory,” Annual
Review of Political Science, 6: 399–431. Hall, Cheryl, 2005. The Trouble with Passion:
Political Theory Beyond the Reign of Reason, New York: Routledge.

Note: On the next page is your Assessment for this topic. Kindly print this part and
answer. This will be collected next meeting.
 Quiz

Name: _____________________________________________________ Date_____________

Course, Year and Section: ______________________________________ Score:

____________

I. Identification. ( 2pts each.)

____________1. One of the most prominent social theorists currently working on issues
pertaining to the social construction of gender.

____________2. A person who identifies, both, on a combination of male and female gender.

____________3. Attracted to women, females, and – on feminity.

____________4. A term used to describe a person primarily emotionally, physically, and/or

sexually attracted to members of the same gender/sex.

____________5. Refers to people who are sexually attracted to more than one gender or sex.

II. Identify the type of Feminism in the tone of the statements below. Write only the
letter of your answer.

A. Liberal Feminism E. Decolonial and International Feminism

B. Radical Feminism F. Performative Feminism

D. Po structuralist Feminism G. Care, Vulnerability, Affect Theories of

Feminism

_______1. To be a man is not to be a woman, and hence that women equal only not-
man.

_______2. To champion the virtues that inculcated feminity seems to also to champion
a patriarchal system.

_______3. Feminism is a project of anticipating and creating better political futures in

the absence of foundations.

_______4. Black women and feminism, Bell Hooks notes that the feminist movement
pretend to speak for all women but was made up of primary white, middle-
class women.

_______5. Its primary concern is to protect and enhances women personal and
politicalauthority.

_______6. They have led the way in theorizing and critiquing realiberalism which
supports neoliberal social and economic, and forces impact the lives of
women.

_______7. Its focus is on freedom and equality.

_______8. Patriarchy itself, according to this view, dominates women by positioning

them as project of men’s desire.

_______9. Its focus is on a full range of oppression, not simply the gender/sex system.

_______10. It was an instrumental in articulating a new social feminist vision of society

as it was founded in 1969.