Feminism: human nature divided

Edexcel Paper 2 Section B has one 24-mark question per non-core ideology. For Feminism, human nature is the deepest area of internal disagreement between the four strands. The board has used it before but it is overdue for a fresh framing. The 'divided' wording in the predicted question is what examiners typically use when the answer is meant to be a clear yes, with disagreements outweighing the surface agreements.

Three reasons human nature is well-placed for Summer 2026: it tests whether students can distinguish the four strands at the deepest theoretical level (a Level 4 discriminator); it forces a thematic answer rather than a strand-by-strand description (which the 2025 ER specifically warned against); and recent feminist debates - around gender identity, biological sex, and intersectionality - have made the human nature question politically live.

You need to use named thinkers from at least three of the four strands. Wollstonecraft and Friedan remain core liberal voices.

Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1949) is foundational for the human nature debate. Her claim "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" is accepted by all four strands but interpreted differently.

All four strands share three foundational claims. Open the essay with these, then unpack the disagreements as the substantive content.

(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 the founding statement. 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 in The Feminine Mystique (1963) extends it - women confined to suburban domesticity could not develop their potential. All four strands agree women are not naturally suited only for domestic labour.

(iii) Gender roles are learned, not innate.

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 sharply on four core questions. Compare thinkers across these themes, not strand by strand.

Theme 1: 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. Reform liberates the woman who was always there.

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. The implication: even reformed institutions produce gendered people, because the depth of the conditioning predates institutional reform.

Theme 2: 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. The legal subject is the unit of analysis.

Socialist feminists (Rowbotham, Gilman) argue class and gender produce human nature together; the experience of a working-class woman is not the experience of a woman plus a worker but a single experience shaped by both. Gilman's Women and Economics (1898) grounds this in the 'sexuo-economic relation' - women's economic dependence on men shapes the person at every level.

Theme 3: Is there one universal woman, or many?

Liberal, socialist and radical feminisms tend to talk about 'women' as a single category. The implicit assumption is a universal female experience that political theory can analyse.

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.

Theme 4: Are there valuable differences between women and men?

Difference feminism (within radical feminism, drawing on Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, 1982) 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.

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.

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 in section 3 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 (feminists are divided on human nature) and the three or four themes you will use to defend it (depth of patriarchy, individual versus class, universal versus particular, difference versus equality). No long preamble.
• Three or four thematic paragraphs. Each paragraph takes one of the 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 'divided' side.
• Short conclusion. Restate the line of argument with one fresh framing - for example, "the strands begin with the same foundational claim and end with four different accounts of the person."

What to name in each paragraph

• Two or three of the five spec thinkers (Wollstonecraft, Friedan, Millett, Rowbotham, hooks; also Gilman and de Beauvoir).
• 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, The Second Sex 1949, In a Different Voice 1982).
• At least one concrete illustration per paragraph - the suburban mid-century housewife (Friedan), Refuges Movement 1971, sexuo-economic dependence (Gilman), Black maternal mortality data (hooks's framework).

Banned moves

• No strand-by-strand description. The 2025 ER marked this down. Compare thematically across thinkers.
• No fence-sitting. Pick the 'divided' line and stick to it.
• No 'modern feminism' or 'social media feminism' as a category without a named thinker.
• No essentialist claims about women that no spec thinker holds.