Definitions
Androcentrism – Male centeredness, which is the value set of our dominant culture based on male norms. Any account which characterizes aspects of women’s lives as deviant is androcentric.
Exploitation – To use the experience, wealth or skills of others without reward.
Liberal Feminism – The theory of individual freedom for women. Liberal feminism is part of the mainstream of feminist political and social theory. Argues that the roots of women’s oppression lie simply in the lack of equal civil rights and educational opportunities. Focuses on reform, seeking to improve the status of women within the system, but not fundamentally contest either the system’s operation or legitimacy.
(bell hooks uses the term Reform or Reformist Feminism)
Marxist Feminism – The aims of Marxist Feminism are: to describe the material basis of women’s subjugation, and the relationship between the modes of production and women’s status; and to apply theories of women and class to the role of family.
Oppression – Women’s oppression is the experience of sexism as a system of domination.
Patriarchy – A system of male authority which oppresses women through social, political and economic institutions
Radical Feminism – Argues that women’s oppression comes from the categorization of ‘women’ as an inferior class to the class ‘men’ on the basis of gender. Aims to destroy this sex-class system. Focuses on the roots of male domination and claims that all forms of oppression are extensions of male supremacy.
(bell hooks uses the term revolutionary feminism)
Sexism – A social relationship in which males have authority over females.
Socialist Feminism – Believes that women are second-class citizens in patriarchal capitalism which depends for its survival on the exploitation of working people, and on the special exploitation of women.
Source: The Dictionary of Feminist Theory 2nd edition by Maggie Humm. 1995. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.