Essay, Research Paper: Feminism And The Private Spher

By recognising that politics is a science not only
of the public realm but also of the private, feminism
shows itself to be an ideology that challenges
conventional thought. As the question rightly states, it
is feminists imparticular that oppose the division but
this view has influenced many others to think in such a
way about the public and private. In short, feminists
believe that the plight of women can only be eased if the
private sphere is opened up to political debate.
Feminists have stated on numerous occasions that the
main way in which they are oppressed is within the
private sphere. It is thought that men are able to stunt
the progress of women through psycologically degrading
them in the home. By doing this, in the private realm,
women do not have the confidence (or permission) to
perform a role in the public realm. Feminists argue that
wife-beating and rape within the home are common ways of
degrading women. The current division we have between the
public and private means that the state is powerless to
address the issue, seeing as it is an issue outside the
public sphere. Political intervention is essential for
this issue, hence the division needs to disappear.
It should be noted also that this hypothesis applies
to any weak groups within society, such as the disabled,
homosexuals and ethnic minorities.
Feminists also oppose the division between public
and private because of men s domination in the public
sphere. All state institutions in the UK are inhabited
overwhealmingly by men; the House of Commons has less
than a sixth of its members that are female. Art and
literature are still male-orientated disciplines. The
point is that when there is a time (like now) where
women are equal in name to men, it has very little
meaning to women as they are equal only in a male
designed world. The Greek playwright Euripides once
suggested that women would only be equal when they have
the opportunity to contribute to the arts. Feminists say
that women are unknowingly oppressed by men because they
have submitted themselves to live and think in male
defined ways.
Feminists add to this that if there were no division
between the public and private realm, it would allow the
achivements of women in the private sphere to be
acknowledged. Radical feminists state that women s
qualities like child-bearing, their emmotional awareness
and their compassion are qualities overlooked because
they are put to use only in the private sphere. In order
for women to be fully liberated, these achievements have
to be appreciated on the same level as men s
achievements. Hence, womens domination of life in the
private sphere should balance the domination of men in
the public sphere.
Feminists have advanced this viewpoint by
campaigning for wages for housework, a task usually
undertaken by women without reward, in the private
sphere. Feminists argue that a job done behind closed
doors is of value, just like a proper job in the public
sphere. This campaign is a good illustration of what is
possible once the division between public and private is
ridden of. Women, when they have a legitimately paid job
just like men, cannot be economically oppressed, that is
to say they would no longer feel dependent on men for
money.
There are feminists though who have no problem with
the divide between public and private. Liberal feminists
believe that women are equally rational to men and
therefore, once enabled with equal rights, will be able
to work with men on an equal basis. Although liberal
feminism was the core of feminist thought in the 19th and
early 20th century, it is no longer. The leading
feminists of that time were middle class women who
egotistically paid little attention to women s oppression
in the home, seeing as they didn t have to put up with it
themselves, being women of high status.
Marxist feminists do recognise that women are
oppressed in the home, but do not see opening the private
sphere up to debate as being the solution. Men and women
are said to have a common humanity, and the only reason
why such oppression occurs is because of the economic
system we live in. Women in the capitalist stage are used
by men simply due to man s compulsion to fufil his
economic wants. Man is not predestined to act in this
way: it is the environment that he lives in that
determines his behaviour. In the next stage of society,
communism, man and woman will be complete equals and free
from the greed of capitalism, the mode of production that
spurs people to oppress others.
In conclusion, feminists find that the division
between the public and private spheres is wrong mostly
because of the psychological damage that men inflict on
women in the private sphere. Even though the proponents
of this view are labelled radical feminists it is fair
to say that the view has become the mainstream feminist
view. Since gaining equal rights in every legal aspect in
developed countries, feminists have found there to be an
obstacle preventing the advance of women. That obstacle
is the invisible private sphere.