OPEN UNIVERSITY M A L A Y S I A  

FACULTY OF APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES (FASS)  

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HBCT2203 COMMUNICATION THEORY

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‘FEMINIST THEORY’  

• Semester • MAY 2012

ZALIDA ABU ZARIM (710909086130001) 710909-08-6130

0122743747 aidazarr@oum.edu.my

NOR FAKRULRAZI BIN ISMAIL

PETALING JAYA [ONLINE MODE]

[09 JULY 2012]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS__________________________________________________________

1. INTRODUCTION - Background of Feminist Theory 1

2. Concept of Gender in Feminist Theory 2

3. Impact of Gender on Communication in Organization 3 - 4

4. Impact of Gender on Communication in Personal Life 5 - 6

5. CONCLUSION 7 - 8

REFERENCES (In Alphabetical Order) 9

   

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1. INTRODUCTION - Background of Feminist Theory

Feminist theory takes the ideal or practice of ‘feminism’ and places it in the

theoretical, the philosophical. It embraces all things feminine, denounces many things

masculine, but mostly seeks to understand the difference between the two and hopes

to elevate the feminine in many areas of philosophical understanding in the arts,

literature, economics, even mathematics.

In addition, the feminist movement can really be divided quite distinctly into two

phases. The first wave of feminism began somewhere in the 1860’s and lasted to the

1920’s when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified and women were given the right

to vote. The second wave of the feminist movement began in the late 1960’s and

continues to the present day. Feminist theory was developed more recently, within the

second wave of feminism, as it involves a more educated approach, and many women

were not given the opportunity to pursue higher education during the first wave of

feminism.

Margaret Brent has been labeled by many as the ‘first feminist.’ She asked for the

right to vote and was denied. Thus began a fight and a struggle that led finally to a

victory for women everywhere. On August 26, 1920, women were given the right to

vote in the United State of America. Many more victories were won after that, and

many fights continue yet today, such as equal pay for woman or the elimination of

pornography due to the fact that it objectifies women. Nevertheless, many feminists

wish only to be recognized for the individuality of the woman and some want to be

recognized for the superiority.

Moreover, in feminist theory, the constructive paradigm has been overall the most

productive in many areas of knowledge. While relying on the concept of gender,

namely that both men and women are socialized via languages, tastes, symbols,

fantasies, values into masculine and feminine beings. On the other hand, feminist

theorists also insist that substantive differences existed between the sexes precisely

because women inhabit different bodies, as compared to those of men, bodies that in

turn inhabit different social locations.

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2. Concept of Gender in Feminist Theory

When someone deliver a baby, usually it is hard to tell if a baby is a boy or a girl. But

the second someone declares “It is a boy!” or “It is a girl!” the biological makeup of

that child is not the only thing that is being determined. Once that declaration is made,

a process of gendering begins that will continue throughout that person’s entire life.

One aspect of that process is how a child learns to communicate. Babies are linguistic

clean slates, in other words, they will learn whatever language their caretakers speak.

They also learn from their caretakers the rules of communication, such as when it is

appropriate to speak or remain silent, what topics of conversation are taboo, and with

whom they should discuss specific things. Gender plays a role in those rules of

communication. People find it comfortable to talk, confide and relate to people from

same gender and hence this leads to ineffective communication.

As such, that gender analysts bring to bear such a wide variety of theoretical

approaches, brings us to the questions on why not discuss each of these theorists on

the theoretical tradition of which they are a part? Although this is certainly an option

for us, as we will see, the feminists whose works we read do not fit very neatly into a

single theoretical tradition but rather, they provocatively draw from a variety of

theoretical and disciplinary sources in order to fully address feminist concerns. On the

other hand, grouping feminist theorists together will enables us to compare and

contrast these various approaches to gender better.

Therefore, taken to its logical limit, the sex or gender distinction suggests a radical

discontinuity between sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders. Assuming for

the moment the stability of binary sex, it does not follow that the construction of men

will grow exclusively to the bodies of males or that women will interpret only female

bodies. Further, the presumption of a binary gender system implicitly retains the

belief in a derivative relation of gender to sex whereby gender mirrors sex or is

otherwise restricted by it. When the constructed status of gender is theorized as

radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating deception.

Consequently, that man and masculine, might just as easily signify a female body as a

male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one.

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3. Impact of Gender on Communication in Organization

All of us have different styles of communicating with other people. Our style depends

on a lot of things, for instance where we are from, how and where we were brought

up, our educational background, our age, and it also can depend on our gender.

Generally, men and women talk differently although there are varying degrees of

masculine and feminine speech characteristics in each of us. But men and women

speak in particular ways mostly because those ways are associated with their gender.

Commonly, most of us spend most of our days in work organizations that are almost

always dominated by men. We could say that the most powerful organizational

positions are almost entirely occupied by men, with the exception of the occasional

biological female who acts as a social man. Gender sometimes does act as a barrier to

communication within an organization. (Source: Changing Gender: The Discursive

Construction of Equal Opportunities.)

Therefore, a systematic theory of gender and organizations is needed for a number of

reasons. First, the gender segregation of work, including divisions between paid and

unpaid work, is partly created through organizational practices. Second, and related to

gender segregation, income and status inequality between women and men is also

partly created in organizational processes inclusively understanding these processes is

necessary for understanding endearing equality. Third, organizations are one arena in

which widely disseminated cultural images of gender are invented and reproduced.

Knowledge of cultural production is important for understanding gender construction

(Hearn and Parkin 1987). Fourth, some aspects of individual gender identity, perhaps

particularly masculinity, are also products of organizational processes and pressures.

Fifth, an important feminist project is to make large-scale organizations more

democratic and more supportive of humanitarian goals.

Feminists wanting to theorize about organizations face a difficult task because of the

deeply embedded gendering of both organizational processes and theory. Nonetheless,

gender sometimes does act as a barrier to communication within an organization.

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However, this underlying construction way of thinking is not simply an error, but part

of the processes of organization and this segregation in turn creates fundamental

insufficiencies in theorizing about gender-neutral systems of positions to be filled.

Creating more adequate theory may come only as organizations are transformed in

ways that dissolve the concept of the abstract job and restore the absent female body.

Such a transformation would be fundamental in practice because it would probably

require the end of organizations, as they exist today, along with a redefinition of work

and work relations. The regularity and timing of work would be adapted to the

regularity of life outside of work. Caring work would be just as important and well

rewarded as any other, for instance having a baby or taking care of a sick mother

would be as valued as designing computer software or making an automobile.

In addition, hierarchy would be eradicated, and workers would run things themselves.

It is obvious that women and men would share equally in different kinds of work.

Perhaps there would be some mutual or collective form of organization, where work

and intimate relations are closely related, children learn in places close to working

adults, and work-mates, lovers, and friends are all part of the same group. But this

brief listing supplicates many questions, perhaps the most important of which is how,

given the present organization of economy and technology. Thus, the pervasive and

powerful, impersonal, textually mediated relations of ruling whereby so drastic a

change could come about. Coincidence or individual characteristics (those men are

just very good) are also favorite interpretations. (Source: The Division of Labor and

Inequalities Between the Sexes: An Ideological Dilemma.)

Thus, by continuing to puzzle out how gender provides the implication for

arrangements of subordination, feminist research and theorizing, is making

contributions to a future. To say that an organization, is gendered means, that

advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning

and identity, are spotted through and in terms of a distinction between male and

female, masculine and feminine. Gender is not an addition to ongoing processes,

regarded as gender neutral. Adequately, it is an important part of those processes,

which cannot be properly understood without any exploration of gender. (Source: The

Practice of Feminist Theory.)

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4. Impact of Gender on Communication in Personal Life

Feminist theory is one of the major contemporary sociological theories, which

analyzes the status of women and men in society with the purpose of using that

knowledge to better women’s lives. Feminist theory is most concerned with giving a

voice to women and highlighting the various ways women have contributed to

society. Even when women are included into any research, their behavioral

differences are explained by gendered stereotypes or distinctive socialization

processes. It is found out that the conclusions are different for men and women.

(Source: The Practice of Feminist Theory.)

Gendered personalities are supposedly manifested in common gender stereotypical

behavior. Take emotional dependency. Women are stereotypically more emotional

and emotionally dependent upon others around them, supposedly finding it difficult to

distinguish their own interests and wellbeing from the interests and wellbeing of their

children and partners. This is said to be because of their blurry and (somewhat)

confused ego boundaries: women find it hard to distinguish their own needs from the

needs of those around them because they cannot sufficiently individuate themselves

from those close to them. By contrast, men are stereotypically emotionally detached,

preferring a career where dispassionate and distanced thinking are virtues. These traits

are said to result from men's well-defined ego boundaries that enable them to

prioritize their own needs and interests sometimes at the expense of others' needs and

interests.

In daily encounter with problems, for instance family matters or difficulties, more

often then not it appears that women are likely to try to resolve the situation

themselves rather than leaving it unsolved. While the reasons for this may lies in

differences in negotiating behaviors, the fact that outcome differences appear even

when men and women intervention behaviors are identical suggests that, differences

in perceptions are important. For example, with regard to childcare it is likely that

women undertake the more difficult, unpleasant tasks and although men may help

with housework or shopping, it is still women who take the responsibility for planning

the organization of the household.

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Therefore, gender stereotypes along the lines of ‘women are more emotional than

men’ can obscure how individual and situational differences affect the expression of

emotion. It also reminds us that men and women have been found, at least in

physiologically based experiments, to experience emotions to a very similar degree.

Women are subjected to a more closer and personalized control mechanisms, while

men are subjected to impersonal rules and given some degree of autonomy. There are

obvious difference in the way women want to discuss a problem and the way men

want to discuss it. Women are happy to simply verbalize a problem and will not

during the course of a discussion seek to be given a solution. Simply talking about

helps them find the solution. This often manifests itself in relationships and how

couples talk about and interact over work issues at home. In the ease of sex

segregation, women’s work in the organization is likely the same they do in the home.

(Source: The Practice of Feminist Theory.)

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5. CONCLUSION

Conclusively, we could say that the distribution of power within organizations and

among gender is another debatable issue. Feminist theory perceived the direct relation

between the subordination of women and unequal distribution of power. Additionally,

in any organization, there are differences in outcomes, behaviors and perceptions that

occur when women and men negotiate, as well as the theoretical explanations for

these differences and their implications. However, in experimental tests of negotiation

outcomes, men appear to earn higher profits or other forms of better outcomes than do

women and to make more use of formal dispute resolution procedures compared to

women.

Henceforth, in any organization, although it seems that in most of the occupations sex

segregation decrease by employment of women to traditional men occupations, glass

ceilings are still exist for majority of women. As a consequence of their analysis from

the view of feminist theory, it suggested revaluation of feminine values and skills to

construct genderless organization structures. This would cause elimination of

gendered division of labor. Female dominated jobs would receive comparable worth

as male dominated professional works. In addition, wages for male and female labor

would be readjusted according to the comparable but not identical skills.

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According to the feminist theory, elimination of gender contrast does not necessarily

mean the elimination of gender differences. Rather, it means elimination of influential

constraints that attribute certain stereotypes to each sex. Therefore, within the broad

framework of feminist theories, different perspectives on the issue of inequalities

between men and women can be distinguished. Lastly, these approaches highlight

particular organizational issues while ignoring others, give different accounts for

gender inequality, phrase the problem differently and propose different courses of

action as solutions.

(Approximately 2264 words)

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REFERENCES (In Alphabetical Order)

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Aries, Elizabeth. (1996). Men and Women in Interaction: Reconsidering the

Differences. New York: Oxford University Press

Butler, J. (1999) “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” from Gender Trouble by Judith

Butler. Reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, a division of

Informa plc.

Changing Gender: The Discursive Construction of Equal Opportunities. Full Text

Available By: Nentwich, Julia C. Gender, Work & Organization. Nov2006, Vol. 13

Issue 6

Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Gray, John. (1992). Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: A Practical Guide

for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships.

New York: HarperCollins  

Hearn, Jeff, and P. Wendy Parkin. (1987). Sex at Work. Brighton: Wheatsheaf.

The Division of Labor and Inequalities Between the Sexes: An Ideological Dilemma.

Full Text Available By: Benschop, Yvonne; Halsema, Lilian; Schreurs, Petra.

Gender, Work & Organization. Jan2001, Vol. 8 Issue 1,

The Practice of Feminist Theory. Full Text Available By: Grosz, Elizabeth.

Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Spring2010, Vol. 21 Issue 1

Wood, Julia T. (2009). Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture. (9th

Edition). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth