State and gender equality

Edexcel Paper 2 Section B has one 24-mark question per non-core ideology. For Feminism, the role of the state has not appeared since 2023. The question tests how well a student can compare thinkers across themes rather than describe the four strands one at a time. That is the test the 2025 examiner report flagged as the dividing line between Level 3 and Level 4 answers.

Three reasons this question is well-placed for Summer 2026: feminist state debates have shifted with the 2023 Public Order Act protest restrictions and the 2023 Worker Protection Act on workplace harassment; intersectional feminism has moved into UK policy discussion through Black maternal mortality reporting (Black women in the UK are around four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women); and the question rewards comparison across all four spec strands, which examiners favour as a test of breadth.

You need to use named thinkers from at least three of the four strands. Wollstonecraft and Friedan remain key liberal voices even though they are core spec thinkers from Paper 1 - they apply directly to the Paper 2 Section B feminism question too.

Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1949) is foundational for the second wave and is cited by radical and socialist feminists in particular.

All four strands share three commitments. Open the essay with these, then show the splits as the substantive content.

(i) The historical state has been patriarchal.

From English common law (married 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, Rowbotham and Millett agree on this even though they propose 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. No feminist argues for the repeal of anti-discrimination law. Even radical feminists who consider it inadequate accept it as a base.

(iii) State neutrality in the private sphere is a fiction.

All four strands reject the liberal claim of a state that simply leaves the private sphere alone. 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 the shape of that intervention, not whether it exists.

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

Theme 1: Can the state be reformed from within?

Wollstonecraft argued the state should extend equal education and equal legal rights to women through reformed laws. Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) argues for 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 UK Equality Act 2010 is the textbook liberal-feminist policy: nine protected characteristics, applies to public and private sector, enforced through the courts.

Millett in Sexual Politics (1970) argues the state is one site of patriarchal power among many - family, sexuality, religion and culture are equally important. Reform-from-within strategies leave the deepest sources of male power untouched. The Refuges Movement from 1971 (Erin Pizzey, Chiswick) and the R v R (1991) ruling on marital rape are radical-feminist wins, but they came from cultural and grassroots pressure as well as state action.

Theme 2: Does economic restructuring need to happen alongside?

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. Gilman made a parallel argument in Women and Economics (1898): the 'sexuo-economic relation' is the deepest cause of women's oppression. Anti-discrimination law alone leaves the structural exploitation intact. The Nordic welfare model is the closest practical example: generous parental leave, subsidised childcare, gender quotas. Liberal feminists like Friedan would say good but not necessary.

Theme 3: Should state action be universal or targeted by group?

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 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 (disproportionately help women of colour), childcare access for low-income women, action on Black maternal mortality. Liberal feminists like Friedan generally treat 'women' as a single category for legal purposes; intersectional feminists reject the universalism.

Edexcel mark schemes and the 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.

The stronger line of argument is that feminists DISAGREE more than they agree on the role of the state. The shared commitments in section 3 are real but thin. The substantive question - what the state should actually do - splits the strands sharply along all three of the themes in section 4. 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 commit to: yes, feminists share three foundational positions, but on every substantive question of state action they divide along strand lines. The disagreements outweigh the agreement.

Structure that wins marks

• Brief introduction (2-3 sentences). Name your line of argument (feminists disagree more than they agree) and the three themes you will use to defend it (reform-from-within, economic restructuring, universal-versus-targeted). No long preamble.
• Three thematic paragraphs. Each paragraph takes one of the three themes from section 4 and compares two or three thinkers across that theme. Each paragraph ends with a one-sentence interim judgement that lands on the disagreement side.
• Short conclusion. Restate the line of argument with one fresh framing - for example, "the strands agree on the historical patriarchal state but design four different states in response."

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 bridge thinkers).
• At least one real-world example per paragraph (Equality Act 2010, NOW founding 1966, Nordic welfare model, R v R 1991, Black maternal mortality).
• 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, Women and Economics 1898).

Banned moves

• No strand-by-strand description. The 2025 ER marked this down on Socialism Q3 and the rule applies here too. Compare thematically.
• No fence-sitting. Pick the 'divided' line and stick to it.
• No vague gestures at 'modern feminism' or 'social media feminism' without a named thinker or example.