Feminist Geographies: Applications and Theories

Feminist Geographies Applications and TheoriesModern wo mens liberation movement began in mid-sixties in the United States with the Womens Liberation Movement. This political movement afterwards spread to Europe and initi tout ensembley focussed on equality surrounded by men and women. Women saw themselves as subordinate and nothing more than imaginary figures, the objects of an some others desire, made real (Mackinnon, 1987) and thus tried to wage increase awargonness of the sociable inequality experienced by women. Social libber geographics (adopting a Marxist ideology) revolved around the question of how trump out to articulate gender and association analyses, with the theorisation of a sexual form of labour. Haraway (1991) thus claims a feminist is one who fights for women as a class and for the disappearance of that class. From these roots drawing inspiration from womens movements of the mid-sixties, feminist geographies have developed considerably and diversely all o ver the last-place 30 years and directly hold, without doubt, a considerable institutional presence. This demonstrate volition overview the development and progression of womens lib as a sarcastic discourse and argue that although scholars such as Bondi, in McDowell and Sharp (eds) (1997), postulate feminism has never achieved a high profile in geographics and that the potential of feminism is ignored this is NOT necessarily the case. I testament argue feminist theory has shaped theory and practise in geography through raising the awareness of gender issues, helping do away with blatant sexism from academic journals and institutions and contributing Brobdingnagianly to the heathenish turn at heart the discipline.A huge volume of literature has amassed on feminist geographies over recent decades meaning that in the current era on that point are numerous feminist geographies spanning across the discipline. This is clearly apparent in the fall of books that have been publ ished on the topic, the formation of the journal Gender derriere and Culture in 1994 and the volume of articles that can be found in other contemporary human, cultural and social geography journals. Although feminist perspectives and outlooks divert in theory and content, common concerns cut across them all (Johnston et al., 2000). evolution out of the radical separatist ideas and oppositional politics associated with the global sisterhood of the 1960s and 70s, came a more theoretical outlook associated with the cultural turn. feminist movement thus developed as a critical discourse. The discipline of geography itself was criticised for its inherent masculine bias and for excluding fractional the human from human geography (Monk and Hansen, 1982). Haraway (1991) argued that women do not appear where they should in geographical literature.However, as jump of the cultural turn, the shift away from grand theories and a meanness on diverse and interconnecting global micro-geograp hies, gender was understood to interact with rush along and class and therefore to understand gender, one had to constantly go beyond gender (Connell, in McDowell and Sharp, 1997). The massive literature on contemporary feminism thus reflects criticisms that Western feminism has played down sexual, racial and class differences. Western feminism had been strongly criticised for being ethnocentric, as it obscured or subordinated all other Others (Haraway, in McDowell and Sharp (eds) 1997). Black women argued they were not constituted as women as white women were, but instead constituted simultaneously racially and sexually as marked female (animal, sexualised and without rights), but not a women (human, potential wife, conduit for the name of a father). This critique expanded into development studies where it was argued although cultural barriers can impede policy progress, many of these barriers may in point have been magnified and reinforced by Western interventionist gender frau d development policies, through an ignorance of local traditions (Crewe and Harrison, 1999).The further development of feminist geographies and the sweat to make women visible through geographies of women has also resulted in a galactic literature on feminist methodologies (Moss, 1993 Nast, 1994, Farrow, Moss and Shaw, 1995, Hodge, 1995), including experimental writing and self-reflexivity (Rose, 1997). Work by Rose (1993) criticised geographical demesnework as being masculinity in go through, using historical examples such as Tansleys (1939) Man and temperament. McDowell (1992) also details sexist biases in research methods, culminating in an absence seizure of statistics about women, for example, detailing their unpaid labour (i.e. housework). In many studies there also seems to be a lack of women that were interviewed. For example, William Whytes Street corner Society (1955), in which he seemed unaware that he had only interviewed men There has thus been an application of f eminist ideas to research and fieldwork. Feminist interrogative nowadays works for an egalitarian research process amongst the investigator and her subjects.A further similarity between feminist geographies is that they trace the inter-connections between all aspects of daily life, across sub-disciplinary boundaries of economic, social, political and cultural geography. From Linda McDowells ample research on the feminist geographies of the labour force involving glass ceilings and unlikeness (McDowell, 1997), to Hoschchilds (1997) dual role women and the second shift (women having to be carers and mothers as well as career women). There has also been a huge volume of literature over recent years regarding the rise of women workers in the service industry (for example, call centres) and women as the new proletariat. Conversely, as part of this new identity politics, gender is argued by rough to be a competitive advantage for women in the current custody in terms of their role s as emotional managers (Hochschild, 1983). McDowell (2001, 2004) has also recently introduce the development of a crisis of masculinity associated with the collapse of Fordism, unemployment and a lost generation of males. Thus, it is argued by some the best man for a job is now a woman.This thorough, multi-disciplinary application of feminist geographies at a variety of contrastive scales in various sub-fields of the discipline clearly highlight its meeting in shaping modern theory and practise within geography. From its beginnings of liberal feminism and oppositional politics (1960s and 70s), feminist geography has developed through feminist Marxism involving a gender/class interface (late 70s/80s) to feminist geographies of difference (late 80s-present) as part of identity politics and the cultural turn. Feminist geography now concentrates on gendered identities within a post-structural, post-colonial, cultural theoretical framework, studying gender relations across races, age s, ethnicities, religions, sexualities and nationalities. Most recently of all, the discipline has undergone further internal-critique, affair for more intensive study of relations and equality between women themselves. It is for these reasons I believe feminist geographies have had a huge ideological impact on geographical theory and practise over recent decades and will continue to do so for years to come.ReferencesCrewe, E. and Harrison, E. 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