Gender Oppression and Structural Oppression Theories of Feminism

8.1 Theories Of Gender Oppression

Theories of gender oppression describe women's situation as the consequence of a direct power relationship between men and women in which men have fundamental and concrete interests in controlling, using, and oppressing women. By domination, theorists mean any relationship in which one party (the dominant), succeeds in making the other party (the subordinate) an instrument of the dominant's will, and refuses to recognise the subordinate's independence. From the subordinate's viewpoint, it is a relationship in which the subordinate's assigned significance is solely as an instrument of the will of the dominant (Lengermann & Niebrugge, 1998). Women's situation for theorists of gender oppression is centrally that of being dominated and oppressed by men. This pattern of gender oppression is incorporated in the deepest and most pervasive ways into society's organisation, a basic arrangement of domination most commonly called patriarchy. Patriarchy is not the unintended and secondary consequence of some other set of factors (be it biology or socialisation or sex roles or the class system). It is a primary power arrangement sustained by strong and deliberate intention. Indeed, to theorists of gender oppression, gender differences and gender inequality are by-products of patriarchy. This is why the Lengermann & Niebrugge-Brantley (1998) typology of feminist theories did not classify Marxist theory of feminism under oppression theories; they leave gender subsumed under class oppression.