Chapter 13 Learning Objectives

• discuss the major tenets of feminist theory and explain why it is distinct from other sociological theories;
• discuss the basic questions that feminist theorists ask and the different ways that feminist theorists have answered these questions;
• understand the historical roots of feminist theory, including the concerns of the first, second, and third Waves of feminist theorists;
• discuss the four basic varieties of feminist theory: gender difference, gender inequality, gender oppression, and structural oppression, and the different perspectives that constitute each of these theories;
• discuss the relationship between feminism and postmodernism; and
• discuss the five distinctive features of feminist sociological theory.