Feminism

Feminist theory stress that women are underprivileged within society compared to men. Moreover, men are favoured in society which impacts largely on women’s lives. As a movement, feminism wishes to have women living on equal terms with men. However, some radical feminists take this idea further (pearsons, 2010).

In 2010, 17.2 million adult women were poor, compared to 12.6 million adult men. This suggests huge inequalities within today’s society (Bartelli,I 2012).Feminists suggest that recent changes in welfare have resulted in the feminisation of poverty. Increasing numbers of unwanted pregnancies, separations and divorces have resulted in a high percentage of lone-parent families, usually headed by women. As well as children, a significant amount of women may have other caring responsibilities such as elderly family members. These responsibilities may result in having to take low-paid, part-time employment. Furthermore, in this area of work women will have less chance of a good pension. Women are also subjected to stereotyping within the workplace which results in a lack of access to promotions and lower wages.

 Feminism suggests that childcare costs too much for women, especially those who are lone-parents, to return to work and are therefore forced to live on benefits. Women who have caring responsibilities have no specific help from the government. This would allow more to return to work. Furthermore, women have no specific ‘back to work’ programmes aimed at those who have children and are seeking employment. This would aid those who cannot find employment which fits around their responsibilities (Bartelli,I 2012).

Within the study, regarding the welfare reform there are many points. Oxfam’s main areas of concern included the proposal that a single payment of benefits would be made to one single claimant within the household. Oxfam found that this would affect the women and children living within these families severely as the man is more likely to prioritise his needs over those of his family. The system assumes that money coming in to the household is shared equally between couples. Research, however, suggests otherwise and that the use of the income is dependant on who receives it. Another area of concern that Oxfam focused on was the move away from universal and non-means tested benefits which provides essential social protection. Means-tested benefits would again mean more couples would be jointly assessed and as a result receive a single payment of benefits. This would be an issue for venerable groups such as migrant women, traveller women and those who do not speak English as their first language. Furthermore, the use of stronger conditionality concerns Oxfam as many lone parents, mainly women, in particular may not be able to meet them. Oxfam believe tat the use of stronger conditionality should be a policy of last resort. Finally, Oxfam stressed the impact on women’s motivation and ability to get back to work. Due to rising costs of childcare, lone parents – again mostly women – find it difficult to find part-time employment and therefore have to rely on benefits. Child Tax Credits alone do not cover this cost (Oxfam, 2010).

Low-paid employment and caring responsibilities continue to hold women back, and cause huge poverty for them in today’s society. Furthermore, inequality still exists within employment as women who are in employment continue to be subjected to lower pay than men, even within identical roles.
Feminism, however, has many criticisms. Feminism may be dismissed in today’s society as some radical feminists groups may be too extreme. Within these groups, equality is not the issue, but patriarchy. Furthermore, if patriarchy was to be replaced by matriarchy, this would not resolve the issues of discrimination.
Oxfam’s study, ‘A Gender Perspective on 21^st Century Welfare Reform’, can also be criticised. The study does not take into account that males may be the ones caring for children as it focuses on criticising them. Furthermore, it does not take in to account the nuclear family but focuses solely on lone parent families headed by women.