Study Questions for Randall

  1. What are the main assumptions and aims of the feminist approach?
  2. How is feminism “innately political”?
  3. What are the differences between feminism as an ideological perspective and feminism as a tool for political analysis? How does this complicate the feminist approach? How does the author distinguish between the two?
  4. Describe how Randall defines feminism through her historical account. How solid is her definition?
  5. List and describe the three strands of feminism as detailed by Randall. What are the underlying assumptions of each? How do the three compare and relate to each other?
  6. How has the discussed male dominance been detrimental to the scope of Political Science?
  7. How does feminism attempt to remedy this? Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the attempts.
  8. Describe how the “second generation” of feminist perspectives can be considered as being increasingly directed toward political analyses.
  9. Why is epistemology and methodology an underlying problem that the feminist approach experiences? How does the “second generation” claim to take this more into account?
  10. Why is it important to regard the diversity within the feminist approach?
  11. What specific aspects of the conventional definition of the scope and character of politics have proven to be problematic for feminist approaches? Why are they problems?
  12. What is the state’s role asserted through feminism? How is it “gendered”?
  13. What are the main critiques of feminist political perspectives? Analyze their strengths and weaknesses. How does the author refute them? Who is more convincing?
  14. Summarize Randall’s conclusion concerning the strengths of political feminist approaches. How well does she describe the beneficial attributes of this perspective? How convincing are her arguments?
  15. Describe the implications that political feminist approaches exhibit for the study of American politics.

Things to look for/keep in mind for future readings:

Back to Syllabus