Feminist Theory - There is No One Definition of Woman Essay -- Femini

womens rightist Theory - there is No One Definition of Woman When represent with the question What is woman? it seems a daunting task to lay an comprehensive statement to describe an entire gender. Upon further reflection, however, it seems that this overwhelming inability to closure the question, may in fact, be the answer to the question itself. Within the last(prenominal) two decades Maria Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman, Caroline Whitbeck, Geraldine Finn, and Helene Cixous have addressed the meaning of woman. There is not a concrete answer to What is woman? either produced by women or produced through mens perceptions of women. The message of Lugones and Spelman in look at We Got a Theory for You feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for The Womans Voice, is that the entire worldwide experience of women cannot be universally articulated. Blanket comment of woman is impossible due to the many characteristics of women that make the gender so diverse, specifically race and economic status in society. The womens voices virtually likely to come forth and the womens voices mostly likely to be heard are, in the United States anyway, those of white, middle- programme, heterosexual Christian women (Lugones and Spelman 21). Since womens liberationist opening has been established without encompassing the inherently different experiences of non-white/non-Anglo women much of the theory has failed to be relevant to the lives of women who are not white or middle class (Ibid. 21). This displacement of a large population of the worlds women from feminist theory is extremely threatening to the development of a womans voice, in so far as this voice is key to struggle the battles that feminism sets out to fight the end of re... ...a Cohen. The Signs Reader Women, Gender and Scholarship. redact by Elizabeth and Emily Abel. University of Chicago Press Chicago. 1983. 279-297.Finn, Geraldine. On the Oppression of Women in ism Or, Whatever Happened to Objectivity?. Feminism in Canada From Pressure to Politics. Edited by Angela R. Miles and Geraldine Finn. Black Rose Books Montreal. 1982. 145-173.Lugones, Maria C. and Elizabeth V. Spelman. Have We Got a Theory for You Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for The Womans Voice. Women and determine Readings in new-made Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing participation California. 1986. 19-31.Whitbeck, Caroline. Theories of Sex Difference. Women and Values Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing Company California. 1986. 34-51.