ABSTRACT
The women's movement has changed the way we think about both gender and politics in the country. In feminist theory, gender, unlike sex, is defined as a socially constructed role, which means that it is the result of political arrangements and is amenable to social and political analysis. Margaret Mead's analysis demonstrated that, although every society defined certain activities as either male or female, the gender designation of those activities varied from culture to culture. Patriarchy has been defined as a state whose ethos reflects the characteristics of masculine gender. Whether women can claim equal civil rights with men while retaining their different aspects is an issue that was born in the suffrage movement and remains unresolved. Issues of race, class, and women's specialness weave in and out of feminist politics, especially after 1975. The possibilities afforded by military service, surrogate motherhood, the Mommy Track, and electoral office are simply not of equal value to all women.
