Feminism: state and gender equality / human nature

Edexcel Paper 2 Section B has one 24-mark question per ideology. For Feminism, the state and human nature have not appeared since the 2023 series. Both are core areas of disagreement between the four strands (liberal, socialist, radical, post-modern), which makes them strong candidates for an essay that tests whether you can compare thinkers across themes.

The 2025 examiner report on Section B was clear that the best answers compared thinkers thematically rather than going strand by strand. Both predicted questions reward thematic comparison.

Before getting to disagreements, lock down what feminists share. The mark scheme rewards answers that recognise common ground before showing the splits.

• Patriarchy is real. Society systematically advantages men over women through law, economy, family and culture.
• The sex-gender distinction. Biological sex is fixed but gender (masculinity, femininity) is socially constructed. de Beauvoir: "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" (The Second Sex, 1949).
• The personal is political. Millett coined the phrase in Sexual Politics (1970): family, sexuality and domestic life are sites of political power, not private affairs outside political analysis.
• Equal rationality. Women are rationally and morally equal to men. Differences in outcome reflect denied opportunity, not different capacity. Wollstonecraft (Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792) is the founding voice.
• Public-private divide must be challenged. The traditional liberal split between the political public sphere and the apolitical private sphere has masked male power. All four strands reject the split, in different forms.

Edexcel lists four feminist strands and five named thinkers. The thinkers map onto strands as follows.

Note: Gilman (1860-1935) sits at the bridge between liberal and socialist feminism. de Beauvoir (1908-1986) is foundational for the second wave and shapes both radical and socialist thinking. Both are spec thinkers; use them as bridges between strands.

All four feminist strands agree on three things about the state.

(i) The historical state has been patriarchal.

From English common law (women as femme covert, legally absorbed into the husband's identity until the Married Women's Property Act 1882) through denied suffrage (women won the vote only in 1918 and 1928) to the gendered welfare state of the post-war settlement, the state was built by men for men. Wollstonecraft and Millett agree on this even though they propose very different remedies.

(ii) Formal legal equality is necessary, even if not sufficient.

The Equal Pay Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Equality Act 2010 are accepted by all four strands as gains, even by radical feminists who think they do not go far enough. No feminist argues for the repeal of anti-discrimination law.

(iii) The state cannot stay neutral on private power.

All four strands agree the liberal claim of a state that simply leaves the private sphere alone is a fiction. Domestic violence, marital rape, childcare provision, abortion access and reproductive rights all show the state shaping private life whether it wants to or not. The question is what shape that intervention should take.

The strands split sharply on how far the state can be reformed and how deep the changes must run.

Liberal feminism: the state can be reformed from within

Wollstonecraft argued the state should extend equal education and equal legal rights to women through reformed laws and institutions. Friedan in The Feminine Mystique (1963) calls for women's access to existing institutions (work, education, politics) through anti-discrimination law and equal opportunity policy. Friedan founded the National Organization for Women (1966) precisely to lobby the state. The British Equality Act 2010 is the textbook liberal-feminist policy: nine protected characteristics, applies to public and private sector, enforced through the courts.

Socialist feminism: the state must overhaul capitalism alongside patriarchy

Rowbotham in Hidden from History (1973) argues women's unpaid domestic labour subsidises wage labour: under capitalism, the family produces and reproduces the workforce for free. The state must socialise care work (childcare, eldercare), provide full employment, guarantee paid maternity and paternity leave, and tax wealth to fund it. Anti-discrimination law alone leaves the structural exploitation intact. The Scandinavian welfare state model is the closest practical example: generous parental leave, subsidised childcare, gender quotas. Even there, Rowbotham would argue more is needed.

Radical feminism: the state itself is patriarchal and needs deeper change

Millett in Sexual Politics (1970) argues the state is one site of patriarchal power among many - the family, sexuality, religion and culture are equally important. Reform-from-within strategies leave the deepest sources of male power untouched. Radical feminists pushed for the Refuges Movement from 1971 (Erin Pizzey, Chiswick), the marital rape ruling (R v R, 1991 declared marital rape illegal), and abortion rights (the Abortion Act 1967 only decriminalised under restricted conditions). They argue legal change must be matched by cultural and structural revolution: separatism, women-only spaces, transformation of the family.

Post-modern / intersectional feminism: the state cannot be a universal solution

hooks in Ain't I a Woman (1981) and Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984) argues mainstream feminism was built around white middle-class women. State remedies designed for that group (anti-discrimination law, professional access) miss the distinct experiences of Black, working-class and queer women. Universal solutions can entrench other inequalities. Intersectional feminism pushes for targeted policy: minimum wage rises (which disproportionately help women of colour), childcare access for low-income women, action on Black maternal mortality (UK Black women are roughly four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women).

Edexcel mark schemes and 2025 examiner report are clear: top-band answers commit to one of the two views and defend it the whole way through. "Both views have a point" is fence-sitting and stays at Level 3.

For this question, the stronger side is that feminists DISAGREE more than they agree on the role of the state. The shared commitments listed in section 4 are real but thin. The substantive question - what the state should actually do - splits the strands sharply. Liberal feminism is satisfied with the Equality Act 2010; socialist feminism wants the Nordic model and beyond; radical feminism wants the private sphere transformed; intersectional feminism wants targeted policy by group identity. These are not minor variations; they are different theories of the state.

So the line of argument for Q5(a) is: yes, feminists share three foundational positions (the state was patriarchal, formal equality is necessary, state neutrality is a fiction), but on every substantive question of state action they divide along strand lines. The disagreements outweigh the agreement.

All four strands share three claims about human nature.

(i) The sex-gender distinction.

Biological sex is fixed at birth; gender (masculinity, femininity, gender roles) is socially constructed and varies across cultures and times. de Beauvoir's "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" (The Second Sex, 1949) is accepted by all four strands. Millett sharpens it in Sexual Politics (1970): gender is produced by power, not by biology.

(ii) Women's rational and moral capacities are equal to men's.

Wollstonecraft founds this position in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792): women appear less rational only because they are denied education. Friedan extends it: women confined to suburban domesticity in the mid-twentieth century could not develop their potential. All four strands agree women are not naturally suited only for domestic labour.

(iii) Gender roles are not natural but learned.

The 'feminine mystique' (Friedan, 1963), the 'second-class' construction (de Beauvoir, 1949) and patriarchal cultural reproduction (Millett, 1970) all share the claim that gender is taught, reinforced and policed - not innate.

The strands split on three core questions about human nature.

How deep does patriarchy run in shaping the person?

Liberal feminists (Wollstonecraft, Friedan) treat patriarchy as a layer of social conditioning that can be reformed away through education and equal opportunity. The 'real' rational individual underneath remains accessible. Radical feminists (Millett) argue patriarchy is so deep that it shapes psychology, sexuality and even the language used to describe selves. There is no 'real' woman underneath patriarchy that reform can simply uncover - the whole self has been formed in patriarchy.

Is human nature individual or shaped by class as well as gender?

Liberal feminists treat the individual as the basic unit - women are individuals denied equal opportunity. Socialist feminists (Rowbotham) argue class and gender produce human nature together; the experience of a working-class woman is not just the experience of a woman plus a worker but a single experience shaped by both. The split is whether liberal individualism is enough to capture what shapes a person.

Is there one universal woman, or many?

Liberal, socialist and radical feminisms tend to talk about 'women' as a single category. hooks rejects this. In Ain't I a Woman (1981) she argues the second-wave 'woman' was implicitly white, middle-class and heterosexual. Black women, working-class women, lesbian women and disabled women have distinct experiences of patriarchy that universal feminism erases. There is no single 'female human nature'; there are many gendered identities shaped by race, class, sexuality and ability.

Are there valuable differences between women and men?

Difference feminism (within radical feminism, e.g. Carol Gilligan) argues women have distinct ways of moral reasoning (care, relationship) and these should be valued, not erased. Equality feminism (liberal and socialist) argues differences are social and should be made irrelevant. The split runs through real policy debates: should parental leave be equal or maternity-specific? Should women's sports be sex-segregated? The strands fall on different sides.

The view in the question (feminists are divided on human nature) is correct, and that is the line of argument to commit to. The shared commitments listed in section 7 are real but they are foundational principles, not specific claims about what people are like. Once feminists move past the surface - 'gender is constructed', 'women are equal' - the strands diverge sharply on how deep patriarchy runs, whether class shapes gender, whether all women share a common nature, and whether male-female differences are valuable or to be erased. These are not minor variations; they are different theories of the human person.

So commit to: feminists are divided on human nature. Use the shared commitments at the start to show you understand the spec, then unpack the disagreements as the substantive content of the essay. Every paragraph ends with an interim judgement landing on the 'divided' side.

Structure that wins marks

• Brief introduction (2-3 sentences). Name your line of argument (which view wins) and the two or three themes you will use to defend it. No long preamble.
• Three thematic paragraphs. Each paragraph takes one theme (e.g. for Q5(a): formal equality, state restructuring, transformation of private sphere) and compares two or three thinkers across that theme. Each paragraph ends with a one-sentence interim judgement that lands on your overall line.
• Short conclusion. Restate the line of argument with one fresh framing.

What to name in each paragraph

• Two or three of the five spec thinkers (Wollstonecraft, Friedan, Millett, Rowbotham, hooks; you can add Gilman and de Beauvoir as supporting voices).
• At least one real-world example per paragraph (Equality Act 2010, marital rape R v R 1991, Nordic welfare model, Black maternal mortality, NOW founding 1966).
• One named work per thinker with date (Vindication 1792, Feminine Mystique 1963, Sexual Politics 1970, Hidden from History 1973, Ain't I a Woman 1981).

Banned moves

• No strand-by-strand description. The 2025 ER marked this down. Compare thematically.
• No fence-sitting. Pick the 'divided / disagree' line for both questions and stick to it.
• No 'all feminists agree' as the conclusion. The strands matter.
• No vague gestures at 'modern feminism' or 'social media feminism' without naming a thinker or example.