- Material feminism
-
Material feminism examines the "material conditions under which social arrangements, including those of gender hierarchy, develop"[1] It argues that "material conditions of all sorts play a vital role in the social production of gender".[1]
Material feminism is an ideology with a central focus upon maximizing women's material assets.
Contents
History
The movement began in the late 19th century with the aim to liberate women by improving their material condition.
The Grand Domestic Revolution by Dolores Hayden is a reference. Hayden describes Material feminism at that time as reconceptualizing the relationship between the private household space and public space by presenting collective options to take the "burden" off women in regard to housework, cooking, and other traditional female domestic jobs.[2]
Relationship to Marxist feminism
The term Material feminism was first used in 1975 by Christine Delphy.[3] The current concept has its roots in socialist and Marxist feminism; Rosemary Hennessay and Chrys Ingraham, editors of Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women’s Lives, describe material feminism as the "conjuncture of several discourses—historical materialism, Marxist and radical feminism, as well as postmodernist and psychoanalytic theories of meaning and subjectivity.”[3]
See also
References
- ^ a b Wicke, Jennifer. Feminism and Postmodernism, Duke University Press 1994, ISBN 0822314886
- ^ Spender, Dale, Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues & Knowledge, Routledge 2000, ISBN 0415920906, p766
- ^ a b Rosemary Hennessay and Chrys Ingraham, eds. Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women’s Lives, p. 7 (New York and London: Routledge, 1997)
External links
Categories:- Feminism and social class
- Feminism and the family
- Materialism
- Feminism stubs
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.