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Feminist Theory
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Feminist Theory
The domestic worker movements have been a crucial part of the struggle for women’s rights. Household Technicians of America (HTA) was the first organization to advocate for the rights of paid domestic workers nationally. In a fundraiser event held in New York City, guests were astonished to see several black women dressed in uniforms serving the rest of the guests, who were made mainly of white women. In a period when the politics of race grappled women rights movements, the events at the fundraiser depicted how feminist could recreate class and racial hierarchies. The members of the HTA movement saw domestic labour as skilled work rather than subordinate and viewed it as a source of strength to have pride of rather than demean it. The HTA was founded in 1971 with the main objective of evaluating household labour. The HTA remained and fought to claim household work as important work that deserves fair pay, whether the employees care about their job or not (Nadasen, 2016).
The HTA advocated for domestic workers right in a period when most black women were grasping employment opportunities in other sectors away from domestic work. The HTA presented household laborers as people who are seeking to make a living by making things work out and therefore a maid that serves food while smiling and another one who doesn’t smile both deserve fair pay. Recognizing care is a very important approach of viewing domestic work, but it can be limiting.

Most of the activities in the social production are not based on care but include cooking and cleaning as part of household care. The HTA sought training and professionalization, written employment contracts, higher wage rates, job specification, and enactment of federal labour safety and security laws (Nadasen, 2016).
In her article, ‘Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom’ Zerilli seeks restoration of women’s lost treasure, a fundamentally radical fight for political freedom. Zerilli responds to two major problems; the continuous perception that political action and identity emanate from demographic characteristics such as gender, and the rendering of politics as the mere achievement of social determinants. Zerilli’s support of feminism provides a Eurocentric impulse to drive Feminists in America past the old debate on equality-difference and the anxiety over unity among women. Zerilli’s arguments might aid in nudging feminists in America away from viewing equal rights as the defining character of what feminism stands for, without making an attempt of reviving the difference as some form of categorization that women have or defying any epistemological privilege to any categorical oppression (Zerilli, 2009).
The article offers a deep but clear disregard of the victim discourse into which claims of privilege lead to. Zerilli states that real women should not always see themselves in the oppressed position. She also advocates for cognitive acknowledgment of the sorry state of women as a social statement and emotional rejection of the victim being oppressed saying that it can lead to a three-sex theory which defines people as men, women, and then yourself. However, embracing feminism has never included three-sex identification any more than it would ask for some dichotomous division women or men as identification, struggle and affection objects that seemingly Zerilli has taken more or for granted (Zerilli, 2009).
Feminist theory focuses on exclusion and discrimination of people based on gender and sex, structural, objectification, and economic inequality, oppression and power, stereotypes and gender roles. Feminist theory views the society regarding the forces that create and sustain, oppression, inequality, injustice, and by doing so, enhances the pursuit of justice and equality. Feminist theory provides an analysis for understanding how the position of women in the society is different from that of men. The various roles given to men and women in the society within several institutions can explain gender differences, for example, labour in households is mainly performed by women justifying why women are at the forefront of fighting for employment rights of house labourers. Feminist theories focusing on gender inequality that the position of women, and experience of, social scenarios are different and unequal to those of men. Liberal feminists’ claim that women are capable of performing the same duties as men, and have agency and moral reasoning, however, that reasoning, especially the division of labour based on gender, has for a long time denied women the opportunity to practice and express this liberal reasoning (Crossman, 2016).
References
Crossman, A. (2016). What is Feminist Theory?. About.com Education. Retrieved 17 November 2016, from http://sociology.about.com/od/Sociological-Theory/a/Feminist-Theory.htmNadasen, P. (2016). The Care Deficit. Dissent, 63(4), 67-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/dss.2016.0076Zerilli, L. (2009). Symposium on Linda Zerilli’s Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom. Sociological Theory, 27(1), 74-74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2009.00339_1.x