FEMINISM

(Queer Theory)

Widatul Fajariyah (17320194)

Meri Andani (17320229)
M. Bintang Aldijana (17320204)
What is Feminism?
Feminism was born i n the early 20th century, which was
pioneered by Virginia Woolf in her book A Room of One's
Own (1929). Etymologically feminist comes from the word
femme (woman), meaning a woman who aims to fight for
women's rights (plural), as a social class. The feminist
goal i s gender balance. In a broader sense, feminists are
women's movements to reject everything that is
marginalized, subordinated, and denigrated by the
dominant culture, both in the political, economic, and
soci al life in general. Feminist theory as a tool for women
to fight for their rights is closely related to racial class
conflicts, especially gender conflicts.
There are generally 4 different feminisms:
1. Radical, Marxist, liberal, and Sylvia Walby’s dual-
systems theory.
Radical feminist argue that women’s oppression is the
result of the system of patriarchy, a system of
domination in which men as a group have power over
women as a group.
2. In Marxist feminist analysis, the ultimate source of
oppression is capitalism, that is, the men-to-women
domination is seen as a consequence of capital’s
domination over labor.
3. Liberal feminism differs from both Radical and
Marxist feminisms in that it does not take place in a
system –patriarchy or capitalism- that determines the
oppression of women.
Liberal feminism tends to see the problem in terms of
male prejudice against women.
4. Dual-systems theory represents the coming
together of Radical and Marxist feminism in the belief
that women’s oppression is the result of a complex
articulation of both systems.
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 HISTORY OF FEMINISM
Even though each feminist has different causes and reasons of the attempt to end the oppression that women have
undergone all the time, but the essentially have the same struggle to get equality, dignity, and freedom for women to do
many things. In its development, feminism has gone through 3 different periods that will be discussed as follows:
In the first period, feminism focused more on the In the second period, feminism emphasized more on
unequality in politics. They struggled for the same rights of women liberation. The struggle points at questioning who
politics and also the emancipation of women in the field of women are and women’s experience can be an academic
politics. The era of Renaissance that brought an study. In this period, the feminists proposed that economic,
awareness of humanity and human rights and the era of psychological, and social freedom were necessary for
French Revolution that induced an awareness of social women to progress from being second-class citizens in
class and oppression have influenced the feminism their societies. Russian Revolution followed by the
thought in the first period. Industrial Revolution and World War have quite influenced
this feminist thinking trends.

In the third period, feminism turned into what is called as post-feminism. It was
running from the late half of 20th century up to now. It struggled make steps for women
to reconstruct their existence in “the men’s world”. Post-feminism may also present a
critique upon the binary thinking and essentialism of the previous feminisms. It may
also contradict with the notion that absolute gender equality is necessary and
realistically achievable. The historical events such anti-colonial awareness and free
market expansion gave shape to the third period of feminism.
 Feminism and Political
Movement

Feminism is always more than a body of academic texts and practices. It is

also seen as a political movement concerned with the ways and means to
empower women.
Michele Barrett (1982 points out that ‘Cultural politics are crucially
important to feminism because they involve struggles over meaning.’
Lana Rakow (2009) makes much the same point that ‘Feminists approaching
popular culture proceed from a variety of theoretical positions that carry
with them a deeper social analysis and political agenda.

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 Queer Theory
Queer theory is a critical field of theory first in the early 1990s from
queer studies and women’s studies. Queer theory included both
queer-ness itself. Highly influenced by the work of Lauren Berlant,
Leo Bersani, Judith Butler, Lee Edelman, Jack Halberstam, and Eve
Kosofky Sedgwick. Queer theory builds well on femini st challanges
with the idea that gender is a part of the true self and above
research-gay/lesbian research that sexual behaviour and identity
are socially constructed.

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 S T Y L E / Presentation Template
According to butler there are only two biological sexes:
Male
Famale
Which are determined by nature that is :
Femininiy (different Femininities) Masculinity (different
masculinities)
 
Sex (‘male’and famale)
Butler explains, ‘there is no reason to divide up human bodies into
male and female sexes except that such a division suits the
economic needs of heterosexuality and lends a naturalistic gloss
to the institution of heterosexuality’ (143). Therefore, as she
contends, ‘one is not born a woman, one becomes one; but
further, one is not born female, one becomes female; but even
more radically, one can if one chooses, become neither
female nor male, woman nor man’ (33).
Butler’s theory of performativity
According to Butler’s argument, gender is not the expression of
biological sex, it is performatively constructed in culture. In this
way, ‘Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of
repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal
over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural
sort of being’ . In other words, gender identities consist of the
accumulation of what is outside (i.e. In culture) in the belief that
they are an expression of what is inside (i.e. in nature).
Butler’s theory of performativity is a development of J.L. Austin’s
(1962) theory of performative language. Austin divides language
into two types: constative and performative. Constative language
is descriptive language. ‘The sky is blue’ is an example of a
constative statement. Performative language, on the other hand,
does not merely describe what already exists, it brings something
into being.
The example of performative language is the expression ‘Now I
pronounce you as a husband and wife.’ It does not merely
describe something, it brings into existence. When the words are
spoken by an appropriate person, he turns two single people into
a married couple.
Slide 6
•Butler argues that gender works in much the same way as performative
language. She explains that ‘there is no identity behind the expression of
gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions”
that are said to be its result.’ Then, we will meet the performative speech
acts as the pronouncement ‘It’s a boy or ‘It’s a girl.’ That each comes wi th
the rules and regulations ‘little boys do this, little girl don’t do that, etc.’
Other variables of discourse such as parents, educational institutions, media
will combine to play role in our conformity.
THANK YOU