feminist theory

Meaning: Feminist theory asks how social structures and norms create and maintain unequal power, resources, and opportunities between women and men. Like conflict theory, it sees society as shaped by competition over power, with men as a group holding more of it. Gender is treated as socially constructed: roles and expectations are learned, unlike biological sex. Many feminist writers also stress intersectionality, the idea that gender combines with race, class, and other statuses to shape a person's experience. Different strands exist (liberal, radical, intersectional), and they differ on causes and remedies.

On the MCAT: A passage describes a gender pay gap, a glass ceiling, unequal unpaid housework, or gendered division of labor, and asks which perspective explains it. Feminist theory (or conflict theory) points to power and structural inequality. Functionalism instead asks how the arrangement contributes to social stability. Symbolic interactionism looks at how gender meanings are created in face-to-face interaction, as in "doing gender."

Common confusion: Students treat it as a theory about individual prejudice or one that concerns women alone. It targets structural inequality, and it also examines how gender norms constrain men. Keep sex (biological) separate from gender (social).