Discuss the Feminist theory of the State.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 state is no neutral arbiter → male power built into law, bureaucracy, welfare
Route 2 “personal is political” (Hanisch) → public-private divide broken
liberal: state reformable (Wollstonecraft) → “too institutional” critique → Marxist: oppression tied to capital + domestic labour (Engels) → radical: patriarchal in structure → sexual contract (Pateman) → state is male, law sees women as men do (MacKinnon) → public-private split hides domination
universalising all states as patriarchal risks essentialism → variation across class, race, caste
Route 1 state not gender-neutral → formal equality insufficient
Route 2 neither enemy nor saviour → gendered terrain of struggle
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
