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Gender Inequality in Hong Kong

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Gender Inequality in Hong Kong
INTRODUCTION

There are various feminist critiques of the welfare state. They all exist to examine and develop their critiques on the individual welfare services ¡V health, housing, education, social security and the personal services. The aim of this paper is to examine the various feminist critiques and thus to decide which perspectives are effective in analyzing the gender inequality in Hong Kong.

This paper is divided into three parts. The first part will discuss the different theoretical and strategic positions within feminism ¡V Libertarian Feminism; Liberal Feminism; Welfare Feminism; Radical Feminism; Socialist Feminism and Black Feminism. The second part will try to look at the situation of gender inequality in Hong Kong. At last, this paper will try to make a conclusion on which perspectives of feminism are effective in analyzing the gender inequality in Hong Kong.

FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF THE WELFARE STATE

According to article ¡§Feminist Critique of the Welfare State¡¨ wrote by Fiona William, there are six dominant perspectives, which were raised by the feminist critique, posing criticism on the existing approaches to welfare within the discipline of social policy. All these feminist critiques of the welfare state are focusing on some areas known as ¡§reproduction¡¨ or ¡§social reproduction¡¨. These significant feminist critiques are: Libertarian Feminism; Liberal Feminism; Welfare Feminism; Radical Feminism; Socialist Feminism and Black Feminism. They share the idea of why it must be the responsibilities of women to play a major role in social reproduction; or should it be changed to other status. In order to have a clear picture on the thesis of the perspectives of feminist critiques held, in the following paragraphs, this paper tries to define the views from different feminist critiques.

Libertarian Feminism Libertarian Feminism is considered as the offshoot of neo-liberalism. It emphasises on achieving individual liberty through the
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