Major Concepts in Spanish Feminist Theory by Roberta Johnson;

Author:Roberta Johnson;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2019-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Difference

Spanish feminist theory of the democratic period (after 1975) has been dominated by a debate between theorists who approach feminism from the point of view of legal equality between the sexes and theorists who approach feminism from a difference perspective. I understand “equality” feminists to believe that women must continue to work for a parity with men that remains elusive despite the constitution, and for specific laws guaranteeing equality in institutions such as marriage and the workplace. For equality feminists, women’s reality includes less access to work, unequal wages, more responsibilities at home even if they work full-time outside the home, and restricted abortion, among other issues. Equality feminists locate their roots in the eighteenth century, when the concept of social equality culminated in the French Revolution. Some equality feminists call themselves feministas ilustradas, or Enlightenment feminists, after eighteenth-century philosophers such as François Poulain de la Barre, who argued for women’s equality with men. Their philosophical method privileges reason or the logos as the only sure path to a more just world for women. Equality feminists also refer to Descartes, Rousseau, and Kant in their rational arguments about the role of the state and society in the lives of individual human beings. Thus, equality feminists place significant emphasis on official social institutions and the law as the means to achieve parity between the sexes. In terms of their historical roots in the Spanish feminist tradition, equality feminists in democratic Spain, such as Amelia Valcárcel and Celia Amorós, have continued the work of pre-Franco-era feminist thinkers such as Margarita Nelken (La condición social de la mujer en España [1919]) and Carmen de Burgos (La mujer moderna y sus derechos [1927]), although they do not necessarily acknowledge their Spanish forebears. The Spanish difference feminists, on the other hand, maintain that women are essentially different from men and should not attempt to equal men in the public sphere. Rather, they should cultivate feminine roles such as motherhood and caregiving. Spanish difference feminists have relied for inspiration on the Italian difference feminists led by Luisa Muraro. In addition to the philosophical divide, the schism between Spanish equality and difference feminists includes geographical differences. The equality camp is centered primarily in Madrid and in the 1980s had links to the socialist government then in power; the difference group was centered primarily in Barcelona, which is a traditional rival to Madrid as the hegemonic city and cultural capital of Spain.

While equality feminists look to the law to right the wrongs they perceive in Spanish society, difference feminists such as Victoria Sendón de León and Milagros Rivera are more interested in women’s interior realm; from a feminocentric position, they identify distinctly female qualities, which, if nurtured within a female hierarchy, would, they believe, contribute measurably to the betterment of women’s lives and society as a whole. They argue strenuously against the notion of equality, which, they believe, accepts patriarchal values. Spanish difference feminists reject political action for securing rights. Philosophically, difference feminists often draw on more-recent

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.