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Radical feminists believe that women every where are living a life that is constantly being oppressed by their male counterparts, they state that this tetrarch ideology is first learnt in the primary stage of a child’s life at home and then continued through to the secondary stage when then child is exposed to the outside world. However can this bold statement really mean that the way men treat women is our parents fault to begin with?
If so are women are Just of guilty of their own oppression as they make up half the household and some times more as single parent families consist mainly of the female parent? There are five main approaches to feminism which consist of Radical feminism, Marxist and socialist feminism, Liberal feminism, Black feminism, Post modern feminism, whilst most of these overlap, most feminists will associate themselves with one of these categories. IPPP, Harmless and Holbrook)A Radical fearfulness point of view of feminism tend to be more extreme than other groups and blame all of societies problems on the men and the male ideology, they call for an over throw of patriarchal supremacy and many would indeed see it replaced for a matriarchal society, they believe that female oppression is one of the oldest forms of oppression and that all women around the world are being oppressed by men at the same time and not in just in certain societies, there has been data collected suggesting they might be right(Key Social Thinkers, IPPP, Rob Stones) Radical Feminists believe that this patriarchal ideology stems from men and woman’s primary solicitation at a young age in the family home. What we would refer to as a classic or nuclear type family is where the male will go to work a for wage, with this he will bring home the basic necessities for the family to survive whilst the woman will play the role of the housewife and keep the house in good order with a clean environment for the male and their offspring,
Children within the house will probably already see this view of one parent going to work and another staying closer to the home as perfectly normal as they are used to nothing else from birth, they may well have this so called norm reinforced by interaction with families of the same status and what they see on TV and magazines etc, this does not mean that the female has to play the role of the housewife and it is becoming more common for the household to have a house husband who will play the more paternal partner. Most Radical feminists will state that gender solicitation also begins In the home when girls are groomed from an early age to take on the more paternal role In the family through role play with dollies and pushchairs which already starts to Install a norm to the child that this position of looking after babies Is gender specific, It would suggest the home Is almost a training ground for the girls to become pretend parents where roles are predetermined. This is in complete contrast nature.
The color many parents dress our their children is gender role specific too, girls are more than likely to be dressed in pink or soft colors which are suggested to e more feminine in nature whilst boys are generally dressed in blue and dark colors which are vibrant and dominant. It could be argued that this was true up until the possibly the last fifteen to twenty years however many parents in society now are opting to dress their children in gender neutral clothes to encourage gender neutrality, also modern technology with gadgets and computer games are steering our children away from the traditional toys that an older generation would of played with, thus it could be argued they are being less encouraged to take on these fixed rental statuses.
In some of these countries there are still some men that believe all males should be the dad of the house hold and that they will go to many lengths to achieve through physical and mental abuse and more extremely rape(Applying Psychology to crime, PIP, Julie Harrower)Any child subjected to this environment could almost definitely think this is a norm however this way of thinking is on the decline, in current modern society there is a lot more same sex marriages than ever before, the question is would there still be a dominant figure in the house hold between two gay men or women and if there was would it suggest that it is not about gender dominance but ore about personality dominance, would this be a case of nature rather than nurture. Also if marriage and the family home are the base for female oppression why are there Radical feminists who are living in nuclear type families, is this not a contradiction of everything that they believe in, or does it suggest that there are women who are heads of their own house hold, another contradiction, or even better there are households who have a gender equilibrium which would show how far outdated some views of that we have talked about are. Positions than ever before, certainly in politics, education and law. Countries like
South Korea, Germany, Argentina and Norway all have women as their head of state and as current affairs show in the world at the moment all of these women have shown that they too, are capable of actions like going to war which Radical feminists suggest war is a male fault for power and greed which is ego based and learned at an early stage in life. Where radical feminists believe it is the home that breeds gender inequality a Marx feminists will argue that women are oppressed through the class divide and only through a major restructuring of society can we really be free of women’s oppression (https://www. Mustiness’s. Com/Marxist. HTML) They believe that we are all a slave to production, money and materialistic greed. Current trends could reinforce the Marxist feminist theory as our children are exposed daily to the wide world of Capitalism and are constantly bombarded with goodies and extravagance that makes them feel they could not live without these material objects.