PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Political Ideologies
Explain how the slogan ‘the personal is political’ addresses the issue of women’s oppression and discrimination?
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
(3 Present the slogan as second-wave feminism's central claim — that the private sphere is constituted by politics. &2 Open with the liberal public/private split the slogan was meant to dismantle.
Body flow
Liberal public/private divide — politics is public; family & sexuality treated as pre-political → Carol Hanisch — essay in Notes from the Second Year (eds. Firestone & Koedt): personal suffering as structural → Simone de Beauvoir — woman as the "Other" → locating oppression — domestic violence, unpaid work, control of reproduction, coercive sexuality as patriarchal → Kate Millett — sexual politics through personal relationships → the divide itself serves patriarchy — Susan Moller Okin, Carole Pateman, Nancy Fraser
Counter-view
Collapsing the public/private line raises the worry of erasing a protected private sphere — the feminist reply is that "privacy" had long shielded domination.
Conclusion routes
(3 The slogan reframed women's lived experience as the basis for political critique and legislative redress. (2) Its lasting force is to make the home a legitimate site of justice claims.
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
