Gender and Theories of the State
It can be said that 'the state' is a category of abstraction that is too aggregative, too unitary and too unspecific to be of much use in addressing the disaggregated, diverse and specific (or local) sites that must be of most pressing concern to feminists. (Allen 1990)The difficulty of any theory of 'the state' is an obvious one. 'The state' is a generalization that is constantly shifting and redefining 'itself' and the power paradigms that exist within 'it'. Therefore, it is difficult to agree on an identifiable spatial and conceptual vision of what 'the state' is. Such are some of the obstacles that the many streams of feminism have had to contend with when theorising about 'the state'. It is conceptually understandable that there are so many diverse and often conflicting theories of state presented by feminism, especially considering not only the heterogeneity of feminism, but also the abstract nature of 'the state' and the paradigms of power and its distribution. When comparing and contrasting the different feminist theories of 'the state', the following traditional classifications of feminism will be examined: (1) Marxist/socialist feminism which presents theories of state structured within the framework of methods of pr
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Some common words found in the essay are:
, Mary Daly, Jane Flax, Jeremy Bentham, Heidi Hartmann, 'the state', York Routledge, Voices Gender, van acker, Hartmann Heidi, radical feminism, Nicholson Linda, Watson Sophie, liberal feminists, gender politics australia, politics australia, gender politics, voices gender politics, van acker 1999, acker 1999, voices gender, power structures, acker voices gender, van acker voices, acker voices,
Approximate Word count = 2575
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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