Theoretical Base Sample Clauses

Theoretical Base. The first works to inspire and influence the second wave feminists were The Second Sex (1949, first English translation in 1952), written by French philosopher Xxxxxx xx Xxxxxxxx, and The Feminine Mystique (1963), by U.S.A. writer Xxxxx Xxxxxxx. In these renowned works, the authors developed a theoretically founded critique against the subordinated position of women, and they argued in favor of far-reaching social and ideological changes. Following Xxxx-Xxxx Xxxxxx’x existentialist claim that ‘existence precedes essence’ – thus, that things and persons first exist, and only later get a meaning – Xxxxxx xx Xxxxxxxx stated that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman (Beauvoir, 1972: 295)”. Xx Xxxxxxxx was one of the first to put forward that it is not biology that defines what a women is, but society. In male-dominated cultures women are defined in relation to men, and they are seen as ‘the Other’. For xx Xxxxxxxx, this social construction of woman as ‘the Other’ is fundamental to women’s oppression (Beauvoir, 1972). In The Feminine Mystique, Xxxxx Xxxxxxx criticized the idea that women need to take care of their children and their household to find fulfilment. Like xx Xxxxxxxx, she pleaded for a general awareness-raising regarding the oppression of women (Xxxxxxx, 1972). Inspired by xx Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxxxx, various authors in the late 1960s and 1970s started publishing feminist theoretical works, among others Xxxx Xxxxxxx, Xxx Xxxxx, Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxx Xxxxx, and Xxxxx Morgan31. Xxxx Xxxxxxx proposed a broadening of the term ‘patriarchy’. Traditionally, patriarchy referred to the dominant position of an elder male figure within a traditional kinship structure. Xxxxxxx extended this definition to an institutionalized system of oppression of all women by all men. She also pointed out that the existing oppression is primarily maintained through ideological control (Millet, 1969). Most of these writers tried to situate the oppression in a social and economic context, and in a historical and cultural perspective. They erased undeniable differences, but their goal was to show the universality of patriarchal oppression (Thornham, 2004: 36-38). Following the growing interest in the theoretical debate regarding the position of women, feminist ideology was slowly adopted by scholars in different fields of academia, such as sociology, anthropology, literature, history, etcetera. These scholars recognized that research had suffered from a very strong ...