Feminist movements and ideologies
Encyclopedia
Several movements of feminist
ideology
have developed over the years. They vary in goals
, strategies , and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminist
s identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism, which focuses on women's ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices. Liberal feminism uses the personal interactions between men and women as the place from which to transform society. According to liberal feminists, all women are capable of asserting their ability to achieve equality, therefore it is possible for change to happen without altering the structure of society. Issues important to liberal feminists include reproductive and abortion rights, sexual harassment, voting, education, "equal pay for equal work
", affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of sexual and domestic violence against women.
Anarcha-feminism
(also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism) combines anarchism
with feminism. It generally views patriarchy
as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle
and of the anarchist
struggle against the state
. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice-versa. As L. Susan Brown
puts it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist".
Important historic anarcha-feminists include Emma Goldman
, Federica Montseny
, Voltairine de Cleyre
, Maria Lacerda de Moura
, and Lucy Parsons
. In the Spanish Civil War
, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres
("Free Women"), linked to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica
, organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.
Contemporary anarcha-feminist writers/theorists include Germaine Greer
, L. Susan Brown
, and the eco-feminist Starhawk
. Contemporary anarcha-feminist groups include Bolivia
's Mujeres Creando
, Radical Cheerleaders, the Spanish anarcha-feminist squat
La Eskalera Karakola
, and the annual La Rivolta! conference in Boston
.
Socialist feminism
connects the oppression of women to Marxist ideas about exploitation, oppression and labor. Socialist feminists think unequal standing in both the workplace and the domestic sphere holds women down. Socialist feminists see prostitution, domestic work, childcare, and marriage as ways in which women are exploited by a patriarchal system that devalues women and the substantial work they do. Socialist feminists focus their energies on far-reaching change that affects society as a whole, rather than on an individual basis. They see the need to work alongside not just men but all other groups, as they see the oppression of women as a part of a larger pattern that affects everyone involved in the capitalist system.
Marx felt that when class oppression was overcome gender oppression would vanish as well; this is Marxist feminism
. Some socialist feminists, many of Radical Women
and the Freedom Socialist Party
, point to the classic Marxist writings of Frederick Engels and August Bebel
as a powerful explanation of the link between gender oppression and class exploitation. To some other socialist feminists, this view of gender oppression is naive and much of the work of socialist feminists has gone towards separating gender phenomena from class phenomena. Some contributors to socialist feminism have criticized these traditional Marxist ideas for being largely silent on gender oppression except to subsume it underneath broader class oppression.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, both Clara Zetkin
and Eleanor Marx
were against the demonization
of men and supported a proletarian revolution that would overcome as many male–female inequalities as possible. As their movement already had the most radical demands of women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai
counterposed Marxism against feminism, rather than trying to combine them.
considers the male-controlled capitalist
hierarchy, which it describes as sexist, as the defining feature of women's oppression. Radical feminists believe that women can free themselves only when they have done away with what they consider an inherently oppressive and dominating patriarchal system. Radical feminists feel that there is a male-based authority and power structure and that it is responsible for oppression and inequality, and that, as long as the system and its values are in place, society will not be able to be reformed in any significant way. Some radical feminists see no alternatives other than the total uprooting and reconstruction of society in order to achieve their goals.
Over time a number of sub-types of radical feminism have emerged, such as cultural feminism, separatist feminism, and anti-pornography feminism, the last opposed by sex-positive feminism
.
is the ideology of a "female nature" or "female essence" that attempts to revalidate what they consider undervalued female attributes. It emphasizes the difference between women and men but considers that difference to be psychological, and to be culturally constructed rather than biologically innate. Its critics assert that, because it is based on an essentialist view of the differences between women and men and advocates independence and institution building, it has led feminists to retreat from politics to "life-style". One such critic, Alice Echols
(a feminist historian and cultural theorist), credits Redstockings
member Brooke Williams with introducing the term cultural feminism in 1975 to describe the depoliticisation of radical feminism
.
is a form of radical feminism that does not support heterosexual relationships. Lesbian feminism
is thus closely related. Separatist feminism's proponents argue that the sexual disparities
between men and women are unresolvable. Separatist feminists generally do not feel that men can make positive contributions to the feminist movement and that even well-intentioned men replicate patriarchal dynamics. Author Marilyn Frye
describes separatist feminism as "separation of various sorts or modes from men and from institutions, relationships, roles and activities that are male-defined, male-dominated, and operating for the benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege—this separation being initiated or maintained, at will, by women".
Black feminism
argues that sexism
, class oppression, and racism
are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class
oppression but ignore race can discriminate against many people, including women, through racial bias. The Combahee River Collective
argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression. One of the theories that evolved out of this movement was Alice Walker
's womanism
. It emerged after the early feminist movements that were led specifically by white women, were largely white middle-class movements, and had generally ignored oppression based on racism and classism. Alice Walker and other womanists pointed out that black women experienced a different and more intense kind of oppression from that of white women.
Angela Davis
was one of the first people who articulated an argument centered around the intersection of race, gender, and class in her book, Women, Race, and Class. Kimberle Crenshaw, a prominent feminist law theorist, gave the idea the name Intersectionality
while discussing identity politics
in her essay, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color.
focuses on Mexican American, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States.
, sometimes also known as Third World feminism, partly draws on postcolonialism
, which discusses experiences endured during colonialism, including "migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place and responses to the influential discourses of imperial Europe." Postcolonial feminism centers on racism
, ethnic issues
, and the long-lasting economic, political, and cultural effects of colonialism
, inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of non-White non-Western women. It sees the parallels between recently decolonized nations and the state of women within patriarchy—both postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism take the "perspective of a socially marginalized subgroup in their relationship to the dominant culture."
Western
feminists universalize women's issues, thereby excluding social classes and ethnic identities, reinforcing homophobia
, and ignoring the activity and voices of non-White non-Western women, as under one application of Orientalism
. Some postcolonial feminists
criticize radical
and liberal feminism
and some, such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty
, are critical of Western feminism for being ethnocentric. Black feminists
, such as Angela Davis
and Alice Walker
, share this view. Another critic of Western perspectives is Sarojini Sahoo
. Postcolonial feminists can be described as feminists who have reacted against both universalizing tendencies in Western feminist thought and a lack of attention to gender issues in mainstream postcolonial thought.
Colonialism has a gendered history. Colonial powers often imposed Western
norms on colonized regions. Postcolonial feminists argue that cultures impacted by colonialism are often vastly different and should be treated as such. In the 1940s and '50s, after the formation of the United Nations
, former colonies were monitored by the West for what was considered "social progress". Since then, the status of women in the developing world has been monitored by organizations such as the United Nations. Traditional practices and roles taken up by women—sometimes seen as distasteful by Western standards—could be considered a form of rebellion against colonial oppression. That oppression may result in the glorification of pre-colonial culture, which, in cultures with traditions of power stratification along gender lines, could mean the acceptance of, or refusal to deal with, issues of gender inequality. Postcolonial feminists today struggle to fight gender oppression within their own cultural models of society rather than through those imposed by the Western colonizers.
Postcolonial feminism is closely related to transnational feminism
. The former has strong overlaps and ties with Black feminism
because both respond to racism and seek recognition by men in their own cultures and by Western feminists.
and Sarojini Sahoo
criticize Western feminism on the grounds that it is ethnocentric
and does not take into account the unique experiences of women from third-world countries or the existence of feminisms indigenous to third-world countries. According to Chandra Talpade Mohanty
, women in the third world feel that Western feminism bases its understanding of women on "internal racism, classism and homophobia". This discourse is strongly related to African feminism and postcolonial feminism
. Its development is also associated with black feminism, womanism
, "Africana womanism
", "motherism", "Stiwanism", "negofeminism", chicana feminism
, and "femalism".
have argued that feminism should examine how women's experience of inequality relates to that of racism
, homophobia
, classism
and colonization. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, postmodern feminists argued that gender roles are socially constructed, and that it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and histories.
, "Classical liberal or libertarian feminism conceives of freedom as freedom from coercive interference. It holds that women, as well as men, have a right to such freedom due to their status as self-owners."
There are several categories under the theory of libertarian feminism, or kinds of feminism that are linked to libertarian ideologies. Anarcha-feminism
combines feminist and anarchist beliefs, embodying classical libertarianism rather than contemporary conservative libertarianism. Recently, Wendy McElroy
has defined a position, which she labels "ifeminism" or "individualist feminism", that combines feminism with anarcho-capitalism
or contemporary conservative libertarianism, and she argued that a pro-capitalist and anti-state position is compatible with an emphasis on equal rights and empowerment for women. Individualist anarchist-feminism has grown from the United States-based individualist anarchism
movement.
Individualist feminism
is typically defined as a feminism in opposition to what writers such as Wendy McElroy and Christina Hoff Sommers
term political or gender feminism. However, there are some differences within the discussion of individualist feminism. While some individualist feminists like McElroy oppose government interference into the choices women make with their bodies because such interference creates a coercive hierarchy (such as patriarchy), other feminists such as Christina Hoff Sommers hold that feminism's political role is simply to ensure that everyone's, including women's, right against coercive interference is respected. Sommers is described as a "socially conservative equity feminist" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Critics have called her an anti-feminist
feminism, also referred to as French feminism, uses the insights of various epistemological movements, including psychoanalysis, linguistics, political theory (Marxist and post-Marxist
theory), race theory, literary theory, and other intellectual currents for feminist concerns. Many post-structural feminists maintain that difference is one of the most powerful tools that women possess in their struggle with patriarchal domination, and that to equate the feminist movement only with equality is to deny women a plethora of options because equality is still defined from the masculine or patriarchal perspective.
is an approach to feminist theory
that incorporates postmodern
and post-structuralist theory
. Judith Butler
argues that sex, not just gender, is constructed through language
. In her 1990 book, Gender Trouble
, she draws on and critiques the work of Simone de Beauvoir
, Michel Foucault
, and Jacques Lacan
. Butler criticizes the distinction drawn by previous feminisms between biological sex
and socially constructed gender. She says that the sex/gender distinction does not allow for a sufficient criticism of essentialism
. For Butler, "woman" is a debatable category, complicated by class, ethnicity, sexuality, and other facets of identity. She states that gender is performative
. This argument leads to the conclusion that there is no single cause for women's subordination and no single approach towards dealing with the issue.
In A Cyborg Manifesto Donna Haraway
criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly its emphasis on identity, rather than affinity. She uses the metaphor of a cyborg
in order to construct a postmodern feminism that moves beyond dualisms and the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics. Haraway's cyborg is an attempt to break away from Oedipal narratives and Christian
origin myths like Genesis. She writes, "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."
A major branch in postmodern feminist thought has emerged from contemporary psychoanalytic French feminism. Other postmodern feminist works highlight stereotypical gender roles, only to portray them as parodies of the original beliefs. The history of feminism is not important in these writings—only what is going to be done about it. The history is dismissed and used to depict how ridiculous past beliefs were. Modern feminist theory has been extensively criticized as being predominantly, though not exclusively, associated with Western middle class academia
. Mary Joe Frug, a postmodernist feminist, criticized mainstream feminism as being too narrowly focused and inattentive to related issues of race and class.
feminism by an approach which is more philosophical and literary. Its writings tend to be effusive and metaphorical, being less concerned with political doctrine and generally focused on theories of "the body." The term includes writers who are not French, but who have worked substantially in France and the French tradition, such as Julia Kristeva
and Bracha Ettinger.
In the 1970s, French feminists approached feminism with the concept of Écriture féminine
, which translates as 'female', or 'feminine writing'. Hélène Cixous
argues that writing and philosophy are phallocentric and along with other French feminists such as Luce Irigaray
emphasizes "writing from the body" as a subversive exercise. The work of the feminist psychoanalyst and philosopher, Julia Kristeva
, has influenced feminist theory in general and feminist literary criticism
in particular. From the 1980s onwards, the work of artist and psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger has influenced literary criticism, art history, and film theory. However, as the scholar Elizabeth Wright pointed out, "none of these French feminists align themselves with the feminist movement as it appeared in the Anglophone world."
Ecofeminism
links ecology
with feminism. Ecofeminists see the domination of women as stemming from the same ideologies that bring about the domination of the environment. Western patriarchal systems, where men own and control the land, are seen as responsible for the oppression of women and destruction of the natural environment. Ecofeminists argue that the men in power control the land, and therefore they are able to exploit it for their own profit and success. Ecofeminists argue that, in this situation, women are exploited by men in power for their own profit, success, and pleasure, and
Ecofeminists argue that women and the environment are both exploited as passive pawns in the race to domination. that those people in power are able to take advantage of women and the environment distinctly because they are seen as passive and rather helpless. Ecofeminism connects the exploitation and domination of women with that of the environment. As a way of repairing social and ecological injustices, ecofeminists feel that women must work towards creating a healthy environment
and ending the destruction of the lands that most women rely on to provide for their families.
Ecofeminism argues that there is a connection between women and nature that comes from their shared history of oppression by a patriarchal Western society. Vandana Shiva claims that women have a special connection to the environment through their daily interactions with it that has been ignored. She says that "women in subsistence economies, producing and reproducing wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of holistic and ecological knowledge of nature's processes. But these alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the capitalist
reductionist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of women's lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth."
However, feminist and social ecologist
Janet Biehl
has criticized ecofeminism for focusing too much on a mystical connection between women and nature and not enough on the actual conditions of women.
and Gloria Steinem
consider men oppressed by gender role
s. "From the beginning Friedan had presented feminism as a sex-role revolution in which both men and women would benefit. Indeed, for Friedan feminism was but 'a stage in the whole human rights movement.'" "[I]n 1970, Gloria Steinem, Ms. editor and the best-known exponent of this new liberal feminism . . . implied that women's liberation was men's liberation as well" because some burdens on men would no longer be men's alone. Susan Faludi
wrote, in Stiffed
, "[W]ith the mystery of men's nonrebellion comes the glimmer of an opening, an opportunity for men to forge a rebellion commensurate with women's and, in the course of it, to create a new paradigm for human progress that will open doors for both sexes. That was, and continues to be, feminism's dream, to create a freer, more humane world." Ellen Willis
, weighing economics and feminism, considered an alliance with men necessary to women's liberation. Florynce Kennedy
wrote, "Men are outraged, turned off, and wigged out, by threats that women might withdraw consent to oppression, because they—men—subconsciously (and often consciously) know that they—men—are oppressed." Mary Wollstonecraft
wrote, "From the respect paid to property flow . . . most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. . . . One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property . . . . [M]en wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors." "Those writers are particularly useful, in my opinion, who make man feel for man, independent of the station he fills, or the drapery of factitious sentiments." "Men are not aware of the misery they cause, and the vicious weakness they cherish, by only inciting women to render themselves pleasing". "To say the truth, I not only tremble for the souls of women, but for the good natured man, whom everyone loves."
Other movements consider men primarily the causative agents of sexism. Mary Daly
wrote, "The courage to be logical—the courage to name—would require that we admit to ourselves that males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy. Patriarchy is the homeland of males; it is Father Land; and men are its agents." The Redstockings
declared, "We identify the agents of our oppression as men. . . . [M]en dominate women, a few men dominate the rest. . . . All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women." In a somewhat less clear-cut position, Kate Millett
wrote in Sexual Politics
, "The following sketch . . . . must . . . be both tentative and imperfect. . . . [O]ur society, like all other historical civilizations, is a patriarchy. . . . The fact is evident at once if one recalls that . . . every avenue of power within the society . . . is entirely in male hands. . . . If one takes patriarchal government to be the institution whereby that half of the populace which is female is controlled by that half which is male, the principles of patriarchy appear to be two fold: male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger. However, just as with any human institution, . . . contradictions and exceptions do exist within the system."
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
have developed over the years. They vary in goals
Feminism and equality
In general, feminism is a belief in equality between the two genders. Most feminists argue for equal opportunities, although many differ on exactly which claims to opportunity are vital, justifiable, or objectionable for the achievement of the ultimate goal of equality and many differ on...
, strategies , and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
s identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
Liberal
Liberal feminismLiberal feminism
Liberal feminism asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism and theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices...
asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism, which focuses on women's ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices. Liberal feminism uses the personal interactions between men and women as the place from which to transform society. According to liberal feminists, all women are capable of asserting their ability to achieve equality, therefore it is possible for change to happen without altering the structure of society. Issues important to liberal feminists include reproductive and abortion rights, sexual harassment, voting, education, "equal pay for equal work
Equal pay for equal work
Equal pay for equal work is the concept that individuals doing the same work should receive the same remuneration. In America, for example, the law states that "employers may not pay unequal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility,...
", affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of sexual and domestic violence against women.
Anarchist
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the state...
(also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism) combines anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
with feminism. It generally views patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
and of the anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
struggle against the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice-versa. As L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown is a Canadian anarcho-communist writer and theoretician.Brown is best-known for her germinal text The Politics of Individualism , in which she makes a distinction between "existential individualism" and "instrumental individualism" and examines how these forms are utilized in...
puts it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist".
Important historic anarcha-feminists include Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, Federica Montseny
Federica Montseny
Federica Montseny i Mañé was a Spanish anarchist, intellectual and Minister of Health during the social revolution that occurred in Spain parallel to the Civil War...
, Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist writer and feminist. She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the state, marriage, and the domination of religion in sexuality and women's lives. She began her activist career in the freethought movement...
, Maria Lacerda de Moura
Maria Lacerda de Moura
Maria Lacerda de Moura was a Brazilian teacher, journalist, writer, anarcha-feminist, and individualist anarchist.- Life :...
, and Lucy Parsons
Lucy Parsons
Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons was an American labor organizer and radical socialist. She is remembered as a powerful orator.-Life:...
. In the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres
Mujeres Libres
Mujeres Libres was an anarchist women's organization in Spain that aimed to empower working class women. It was founded in 1936 by Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón and had approximately 30,000 members...
("Free Women"), linked to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica
Federación Anarquista Ibérica
The Federación Anarquista Ibérica is a Spanish organization of anarchist militants active within affinity groups inside the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union. It is often abbreviated as CNT-FAI because of the close relationship between the two organizations...
, organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.
Contemporary anarcha-feminist writers/theorists include Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
, L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown is a Canadian anarcho-communist writer and theoretician.Brown is best-known for her germinal text The Politics of Individualism , in which she makes a distinction between "existential individualism" and "instrumental individualism" and examines how these forms are utilized in...
, and the eco-feminist Starhawk
Starhawk
Starhawk is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion...
. Contemporary anarcha-feminist groups include Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
's Mujeres Creando
Mujeres Creando
Mujeres Creando is a Bolivian anarcha-feminist collective that participates in a range of anti-poverty work, including propaganda, street theater and direct action. The group was founded by María Galindo, Mónica Mendoza y J.Paredes in 1992 and members including two of Bolivia's only openly lesbian...
, Radical Cheerleaders, the Spanish anarcha-feminist squat
Squatting
Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....
La Eskalera Karakola
Eskalera Karakola
Eskalera Karakola is a squat in Madrid, Spain, which is held by feminists and works on autogestion principles. It was situated in the Lavapiés barrio from 1996 to 2005, and is now in Calle Embajador. The squat organizes activities focussing on domestic violence and women's precarity in...
, and the annual La Rivolta! conference in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
Socialist and Marxist
Socialist feminism
Socialist feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses upon both the public and private spheres of a woman's life and argues that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression...
connects the oppression of women to Marxist ideas about exploitation, oppression and labor. Socialist feminists think unequal standing in both the workplace and the domestic sphere holds women down. Socialist feminists see prostitution, domestic work, childcare, and marriage as ways in which women are exploited by a patriarchal system that devalues women and the substantial work they do. Socialist feminists focus their energies on far-reaching change that affects society as a whole, rather than on an individual basis. They see the need to work alongside not just men but all other groups, as they see the oppression of women as a part of a larger pattern that affects everyone involved in the capitalist system.
Marx felt that when class oppression was overcome gender oppression would vanish as well; this is Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way of liberating women. Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political confusion, and ultimately unhealthy social relations between...
. Some socialist feminists, many of Radical Women
Radical Women
Radical Women is a socialist feminist, grassroots activist organization that provides a radical voice within the feminist movement, a feminist voice within the Left, and trains women to be leaders in the movements for social and economic justice...
and the Freedom Socialist Party
Freedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist political party with a unique program of revolutionary feminism that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. It is currently a working class organization that works towards creating social justice and order for all...
, point to the classic Marxist writings of Frederick Engels and August Bebel
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel was a German Marxist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.-Early years:...
as a powerful explanation of the link between gender oppression and class exploitation. To some other socialist feminists, this view of gender oppression is naive and much of the work of socialist feminists has gone towards separating gender phenomena from class phenomena. Some contributors to socialist feminism have criticized these traditional Marxist ideas for being largely silent on gender oppression except to subsume it underneath broader class oppression.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, both Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day....
and Eleanor Marx
Eleanor Marx
Jenny Julia Eleanor "Tussy" Marx , also known as Eleanor Marx Aveling, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist, who sometimes worked as a literary translator...
were against the demonization
Demonization
Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...
of men and supported a proletarian revolution that would overcome as many male–female inequalities as possible. As their movement already had the most radical demands of women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1919 she became the first female government minister in Europe...
counterposed Marxism against feminism, rather than trying to combine them.
Radical
Radical feminismRadical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
considers the male-controlled capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
hierarchy, which it describes as sexist, as the defining feature of women's oppression. Radical feminists believe that women can free themselves only when they have done away with what they consider an inherently oppressive and dominating patriarchal system. Radical feminists feel that there is a male-based authority and power structure and that it is responsible for oppression and inequality, and that, as long as the system and its values are in place, society will not be able to be reformed in any significant way. Some radical feminists see no alternatives other than the total uprooting and reconstruction of society in order to achieve their goals.
Over time a number of sub-types of radical feminism have emerged, such as cultural feminism, separatist feminism, and anti-pornography feminism, the last opposed by sex-positive feminism
Sex-positive feminism
Sex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism is a movement that began in the early 1980s...
.
Cultural
Cultural feminismCultural feminism
Cultural feminism developed from radical feminism. It is an ideology of a "female nature" or "female essence" that attempts to revalidate what cultural feminists consider undervalued female attributes...
is the ideology of a "female nature" or "female essence" that attempts to revalidate what they consider undervalued female attributes. It emphasizes the difference between women and men but considers that difference to be psychological, and to be culturally constructed rather than biologically innate. Its critics assert that, because it is based on an essentialist view of the differences between women and men and advocates independence and institution building, it has led feminists to retreat from politics to "life-style". One such critic, Alice Echols
Alice Echols
Alice Echols is a cultural critic and historian. A specialist of the 1960s, Echols is Professor of English, Gender Studies and History at the University of Southern California.-Education:Echols received her Bachelor's degree from Macalester College in 1973...
(a feminist historian and cultural theorist), credits Redstockings
Redstockings
Redstockings, also known as Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, is a radical feminist group that was founded in January of 1969...
member Brooke Williams with introducing the term cultural feminism in 1975 to describe the depoliticisation of radical feminism
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
.
Separatist and lesbian
Separatist feminismSeparatist feminism
Separatist feminism is a form of radical feminism that holds that opposition to patriarchy is best done through focusing exclusively on women and girls...
is a form of radical feminism that does not support heterosexual relationships. Lesbian feminism
Lesbian feminism
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective, most popular in the 1970s and early 1980s , that questions the position of lesbians and women in society. It particularly refutes heteronormativity, the assumption that everyone is "straight" and society should be structured to serve...
is thus closely related. Separatist feminism's proponents argue that the sexual disparities
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
between men and women are unresolvable. Separatist feminists generally do not feel that men can make positive contributions to the feminist movement and that even well-intentioned men replicate patriarchal dynamics. Author Marilyn Frye
Marilyn Frye
Marilyn Frye is a philosophy professor and feminist theorist. She earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1969 and has taught feminist philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of language at Michigan State University since 1974...
describes separatist feminism as "separation of various sorts or modes from men and from institutions, relationships, roles and activities that are male-defined, male-dominated, and operating for the benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege—this separation being initiated or maintained, at will, by women".
Black and womanist
Black feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
argues that sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
, class oppression, and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
oppression but ignore race can discriminate against many people, including women, through racial bias. The Combahee River Collective
Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist Lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. They are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement, a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of...
argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression. One of the theories that evolved out of this movement was Alice Walker
Alice Walker
Alice Malsenior Walker is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender...
's womanism
Womanism
The word womanism was adapted from Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker's use of the term in her book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose...
. It emerged after the early feminist movements that were led specifically by white women, were largely white middle-class movements, and had generally ignored oppression based on racism and classism. Alice Walker and other womanists pointed out that black women experienced a different and more intense kind of oppression from that of white women.
Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
was one of the first people who articulated an argument centered around the intersection of race, gender, and class in her book, Women, Race, and Class. Kimberle Crenshaw, a prominent feminist law theorist, gave the idea the name Intersectionality
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is a feminist sociological theory first highlighted by Kimberlé Crenshaw . Intersectionality is a methodology of studying "the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations"...
while discussing identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
in her essay, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color.
Chicana
Chicana feminismChicana feminism
Chicana feminism, also called Xicanisma, is a group of social theories that analyze the historical, social, political, and economic roles of Mexican American, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States.- Overview :...
focuses on Mexican American, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States.
Multiracial
Multiracial feminism (also known as "women of color" feminism) offers a standpoint theory and analysis of the lives and experiences of women of color. The theory emerged in the 1990s and was developed by Dr. Maxine Baca Zinn, a Chicana feminist, and Dr. Bonnie Thornton Dill, a sociology expert on African American women and family.Postcolonial
Postcolonial feminismPostcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism, often referred to as Third World feminism, is a form of feminist philosophy which centers around the idea that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects of colonialism in the postcolonial setting, are inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of...
, sometimes also known as Third World feminism, partly draws on postcolonialism
Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...
, which discusses experiences endured during colonialism, including "migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place and responses to the influential discourses of imperial Europe." Postcolonial feminism centers on racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, ethnic issues
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
, and the long-lasting economic, political, and cultural effects of colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of non-White non-Western women. It sees the parallels between recently decolonized nations and the state of women within patriarchy—both postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism take the "perspective of a socially marginalized subgroup in their relationship to the dominant culture."
Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
feminists universalize women's issues, thereby excluding social classes and ethnic identities, reinforcing homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, and ignoring the activity and voices of non-White non-Western women, as under one application of Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
. Some postcolonial feminists
Postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism, often referred to as Third World feminism, is a form of feminist philosophy which centers around the idea that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects of colonialism in the postcolonial setting, are inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of...
criticize radical
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
and liberal feminism
Liberal feminism
Liberal feminism asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism and theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices...
and some, such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Chandra Talpade Mohanty is a prominent postcolonial and transnational feminist theorist. She became well known after the publication of her influential essay, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" in 1988...
, are critical of Western feminism for being ethnocentric. Black feminists
Black feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
, such as Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
and Alice Walker
Alice Walker
Alice Malsenior Walker is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender...
, share this view. Another critic of Western perspectives is Sarojini Sahoo
Sarojini Sahoo
Sarojini Sahoo is an Orissa Sahitya Academy Award winner Indian feminist writer, a columnist in The New Indian Express and associate editor of Chennai based English magazine Indian AGE, who has been enlisted among 25 Exceptional Women of India by ‘Kindle’ English magazine of Kolkata.Born in the...
. Postcolonial feminists can be described as feminists who have reacted against both universalizing tendencies in Western feminist thought and a lack of attention to gender issues in mainstream postcolonial thought.
Colonialism has a gendered history. Colonial powers often imposed Western
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
norms on colonized regions. Postcolonial feminists argue that cultures impacted by colonialism are often vastly different and should be treated as such. In the 1940s and '50s, after the formation of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, former colonies were monitored by the West for what was considered "social progress". Since then, the status of women in the developing world has been monitored by organizations such as the United Nations. Traditional practices and roles taken up by women—sometimes seen as distasteful by Western standards—could be considered a form of rebellion against colonial oppression. That oppression may result in the glorification of pre-colonial culture, which, in cultures with traditions of power stratification along gender lines, could mean the acceptance of, or refusal to deal with, issues of gender inequality. Postcolonial feminists today struggle to fight gender oppression within their own cultural models of society rather than through those imposed by the Western colonizers.
Postcolonial feminism is closely related to transnational feminism
Transnational feminism
Transnational Feminism is a contemporary paradigm. The name highlights the difference between international and transnational conceptions of feminism, and favours the latter...
. The former has strong overlaps and ties with Black feminism
Black feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
because both respond to racism and seek recognition by men in their own cultures and by Western feminists.
Third-World
Third-world feminism has been described as a group of feminist theories developed by feminists who acquired their views and took part in feminist politics in so-called third-world countries. Although women from the third world have been engaged in the feminist movement, Chandra Talpade MohantyChandra Talpade Mohanty
Chandra Talpade Mohanty is a prominent postcolonial and transnational feminist theorist. She became well known after the publication of her influential essay, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" in 1988...
and Sarojini Sahoo
Sarojini Sahoo
Sarojini Sahoo is an Orissa Sahitya Academy Award winner Indian feminist writer, a columnist in The New Indian Express and associate editor of Chennai based English magazine Indian AGE, who has been enlisted among 25 Exceptional Women of India by ‘Kindle’ English magazine of Kolkata.Born in the...
criticize Western feminism on the grounds that it is ethnocentric
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with...
and does not take into account the unique experiences of women from third-world countries or the existence of feminisms indigenous to third-world countries. According to Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Chandra Talpade Mohanty is a prominent postcolonial and transnational feminist theorist. She became well known after the publication of her influential essay, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" in 1988...
, women in the third world feel that Western feminism bases its understanding of women on "internal racism, classism and homophobia". This discourse is strongly related to African feminism and postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism, often referred to as Third World feminism, is a form of feminist philosophy which centers around the idea that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects of colonialism in the postcolonial setting, are inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of...
. Its development is also associated with black feminism, womanism
Womanism
The word womanism was adapted from Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker's use of the term in her book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose...
, "Africana womanism
Africana womanism
"Africana Womanism" is a termed coined in the late 1980s by Clenora Hudson-Weems intended as an ideology applicable to all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture and Afrocentrism and focuses on the experiences, struggles, needs, and desires of Africana women of the African...
", "motherism", "Stiwanism", "negofeminism", chicana feminism
Chicana feminism
Chicana feminism, also called Xicanisma, is a group of social theories that analyze the historical, social, political, and economic roles of Mexican American, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States.- Overview :...
, and "femalism".
Standpoint
Since the 1980s, standpoint feministsStandpoint feminism
Standpoint feminism argues that feminist social science should be practiced from the standpoint of women or particular groups of women as some claim that they are better equipped to understand certain aspects of the world...
have argued that feminism should examine how women's experience of inequality relates to that of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, classism
Classism
Classism is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes...
and colonization. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, postmodern feminists argued that gender roles are socially constructed, and that it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and histories.
Libertarian
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide...
, "Classical liberal or libertarian feminism conceives of freedom as freedom from coercive interference. It holds that women, as well as men, have a right to such freedom due to their status as self-owners."
There are several categories under the theory of libertarian feminism, or kinds of feminism that are linked to libertarian ideologies. Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the state...
combines feminist and anarchist beliefs, embodying classical libertarianism rather than contemporary conservative libertarianism. Recently, Wendy McElroy
Wendy McElroy
Wendy McElroy is a Canadian individualist anarchist and individualist feminist. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of The Voluntaryist in 1982.-Sex-positive:...
has defined a position, which she labels "ifeminism" or "individualist feminism", that combines feminism with anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
or contemporary conservative libertarianism, and she argued that a pro-capitalist and anti-state position is compatible with an emphasis on equal rights and empowerment for women. Individualist anarchist-feminism has grown from the United States-based individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
movement.
Individualist feminism
Individualist feminism
Individualist feminism is a term for feminist ideas which seek to celebrate or protect the individual woman....
is typically defined as a feminism in opposition to what writers such as Wendy McElroy and Christina Hoff Sommers
Christina Hoff Sommers
Christina Hoff Sommers is an American author and former philosophy professor who is known for her critique of late 20th century feminism, and her writings about feminism in contemporary American culture...
term political or gender feminism. However, there are some differences within the discussion of individualist feminism. While some individualist feminists like McElroy oppose government interference into the choices women make with their bodies because such interference creates a coercive hierarchy (such as patriarchy), other feminists such as Christina Hoff Sommers hold that feminism's political role is simply to ensure that everyone's, including women's, right against coercive interference is respected. Sommers is described as a "socially conservative equity feminist" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Critics have called her an anti-feminist
Post-structural
Post-structuralPost-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
feminism, also referred to as French feminism, uses the insights of various epistemological movements, including psychoanalysis, linguistics, political theory (Marxist and post-Marxist
Post-Marxism
Post-Marxism has two related, but different uses: the socio-economic circumstances of Eastern Europe, especially in the ex-soviet republics after the Soviet Union's end; and the extrapolations of the philosophers and social theorists basing their postulations upon Karl Marx's writings and Marxism...
theory), race theory, literary theory, and other intellectual currents for feminist concerns. Many post-structural feminists maintain that difference is one of the most powerful tools that women possess in their struggle with patriarchal domination, and that to equate the feminist movement only with equality is to deny women a plethora of options because equality is still defined from the masculine or patriarchal perspective.
Postmodern
Postmodern feminismPostmodern feminism
Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-structuralist theory.-Origins and theory:The largest departure from other branches of feminism is the argument that sex is itself constructed through language, a view most notably propounded in Judith...
is an approach to feminist theory
Feminist theory
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality...
that incorporates postmodern
Postmodern philosophy
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy. Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including writings of Georg Wilhelm...
and post-structuralist theory
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
. Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
argues that sex, not just gender, is constructed through language
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
. In her 1990 book, Gender Trouble
Gender Trouble
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler is a highly influential book in academic feminism and queer theory. It is also the book credited with creating the seminal notion of gender performativity. It is considered to be one of the canonical texts of queer theory and postmodern/poststructural feminism.-...
, she draws on and critiques the work of Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
, Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
, and Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
. Butler criticizes the distinction drawn by previous feminisms between biological sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
and socially constructed gender. She says that the sex/gender distinction does not allow for a sufficient criticism of essentialism
Essentialism
In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
. For Butler, "woman" is a debatable category, complicated by class, ethnicity, sexuality, and other facets of identity. She states that gender is performative
Gender performativity
Gender Performativity is a term created by post-structuralist feminist philosopher Judith Butler in her 1990 book Gender Trouble. In it, Butler characterizes gender as the effect of reiterated acting, one that produces the effect of a static or normal gender while obscuring the contradiction and...
. This argument leads to the conclusion that there is no single cause for women's subordination and no single approach towards dealing with the issue.
Donna Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...
criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly its emphasis on identity, rather than affinity. She uses the metaphor of a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
in order to construct a postmodern feminism that moves beyond dualisms and the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics. Haraway's cyborg is an attempt to break away from Oedipal narratives and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
origin myths like Genesis. She writes, "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."
A major branch in postmodern feminist thought has emerged from contemporary psychoanalytic French feminism. Other postmodern feminist works highlight stereotypical gender roles, only to portray them as parodies of the original beliefs. The history of feminism is not important in these writings—only what is going to be done about it. The history is dismissed and used to depict how ridiculous past beliefs were. Modern feminist theory has been extensively criticized as being predominantly, though not exclusively, associated with Western middle class academia
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
. Mary Joe Frug, a postmodernist feminist, criticized mainstream feminism as being too narrowly focused and inattentive to related issues of race and class.
French
French feminism is a branch of feminist thought from a group of feminists in France from the 1970s to the 1990s. It is distinguished from AnglophoneEnglish-speaking world
The English-speaking world consists of those countries or regions that use the English language to one degree or another. For more information, please see:Lists:* List of countries by English-speaking population...
feminism by an approach which is more philosophical and literary. Its writings tend to be effusive and metaphorical, being less concerned with political doctrine and generally focused on theories of "the body." The term includes writers who are not French, but who have worked substantially in France and the French tradition, such as Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a Professor at the University Paris Diderot...
and Bracha Ettinger.
In the 1970s, French feminists approached feminism with the concept of Écriture féminine
Écriture féminine
Écriture féminine, literally "women's writing," more closely, the inscription of the female body and female difference in language and text, is a strain of feminist literary theory that originated in France in the early 1970s and included foundational theorists such as Hélène Cixous, Monique...
, which translates as 'female', or 'feminine writing'. Hélène Cixous
Hélène Cixous
Hélène Cixous is a professor, French feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, literary critic and rhetorician. She holds honorary degrees from Queen's University and the University of Alberta in Canada; University College Dublin in Ireland; the University of York and University College...
argues that writing and philosophy are phallocentric and along with other French feminists such as Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray is a Belgian feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist. She is best known for her works Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One .-Biography:...
emphasizes "writing from the body" as a subversive exercise. The work of the feminist psychoanalyst and philosopher, Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a Professor at the University Paris Diderot...
, has influenced feminist theory in general and feminist literary criticism
Feminist literary criticism
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller to cutting-edge theoretical work in...
in particular. From the 1980s onwards, the work of artist and psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger has influenced literary criticism, art history, and film theory. However, as the scholar Elizabeth Wright pointed out, "none of these French feminists align themselves with the feminist movement as it appeared in the Anglophone world."
Environmental
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
links ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
with feminism. Ecofeminists see the domination of women as stemming from the same ideologies that bring about the domination of the environment. Western patriarchal systems, where men own and control the land, are seen as responsible for the oppression of women and destruction of the natural environment. Ecofeminists argue that the men in power control the land, and therefore they are able to exploit it for their own profit and success. Ecofeminists argue that, in this situation, women are exploited by men in power for their own profit, success, and pleasure, and
Ecofeminists argue that women and the environment are both exploited as passive pawns in the race to domination. that those people in power are able to take advantage of women and the environment distinctly because they are seen as passive and rather helpless. Ecofeminism connects the exploitation and domination of women with that of the environment. As a way of repairing social and ecological injustices, ecofeminists feel that women must work towards creating a healthy environment
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
and ending the destruction of the lands that most women rely on to provide for their families.
Ecofeminism argues that there is a connection between women and nature that comes from their shared history of oppression by a patriarchal Western society. Vandana Shiva claims that women have a special connection to the environment through their daily interactions with it that has been ignored. She says that "women in subsistence economies, producing and reproducing wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of holistic and ecological knowledge of nature's processes. But these alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
reductionist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of women's lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth."
However, feminist and social ecologist
Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...
Janet Biehl
Janet Biehl
Janet Biehl is a writer associated with social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin. In 1986 she attended the Institute for Social Ecology and there began a collaborative relationship with Bookchin, working intensively with him over the next two decades in the...
has criticized ecofeminism for focusing too much on a mystical connection between women and nature and not enough on the actual conditions of women.
Shared perspectives
Movements share some perspectives while disagreeing on others. For example, some movements differ on whether discrimination against women adversely affects men. Movements represented by writers Betty FriedanBetty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
and Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
consider men oppressed by gender role
Gender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
s. "From the beginning Friedan had presented feminism as a sex-role revolution in which both men and women would benefit. Indeed, for Friedan feminism was but 'a stage in the whole human rights movement.'" "[I]n 1970, Gloria Steinem, Ms. editor and the best-known exponent of this new liberal feminism . . . implied that women's liberation was men's liberation as well" because some burdens on men would no longer be men's alone. Susan Faludi
Susan Faludi
Susan C. Faludi is an American feminist, journalist and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitzer Prize committee thought showed the "human costs of high finance".-Biographical...
wrote, in Stiffed
Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man
Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man is a 1999 book by feminist author Susan Faludi, her followup to Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women...
, "[W]ith the mystery of men's nonrebellion comes the glimmer of an opening, an opportunity for men to forge a rebellion commensurate with women's and, in the course of it, to create a new paradigm for human progress that will open doors for both sexes. That was, and continues to be, feminism's dream, to create a freer, more humane world." Ellen Willis
Ellen Willis
Ellen Jane Willis was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist and pop music critic.-Biography:...
, weighing economics and feminism, considered an alliance with men necessary to women's liberation. Florynce Kennedy
Florynce Kennedy
Florynce "Flo" Kennedy , was a U.S. lawyer, activist, civil rights advocate, and feminist.- Early life :...
wrote, "Men are outraged, turned off, and wigged out, by threats that women might withdraw consent to oppression, because they—men—subconsciously (and often consciously) know that they—men—are oppressed." Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
wrote, "From the respect paid to property flow . . . most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. . . . One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property . . . . [M]en wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors." "Those writers are particularly useful, in my opinion, who make man feel for man, independent of the station he fills, or the drapery of factitious sentiments." "Men are not aware of the misery they cause, and the vicious weakness they cherish, by only inciting women to render themselves pleasing". "To say the truth, I not only tremble for the souls of women, but for the good natured man, whom everyone loves."
Other movements consider men primarily the causative agents of sexism. Mary Daly
Mary Daly
Mary Daly was an American radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at Boston College, a Jesuit-run institution, for 33 years. Daly retired in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male...
wrote, "The courage to be logical—the courage to name—would require that we admit to ourselves that males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy. Patriarchy is the homeland of males; it is Father Land; and men are its agents." The Redstockings
Redstockings
Redstockings, also known as Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, is a radical feminist group that was founded in January of 1969...
declared, "We identify the agents of our oppression as men. . . . [M]en dominate women, a few men dominate the rest. . . . All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women." In a somewhat less clear-cut position, Kate Millett
Kate Millett
Kate Millett is an American lesbian feminist writer and activist. A seminal influence on second-wave feminism, Millet is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics.-Career:...
wrote in Sexual Politics
Sexual Politics
Sexual Politics is a classic feminist text written by Kate Millett, said to be "the first book of academic feminist literary criticism", and "one of the first feminist books of this decade to raise nationwide male ire"....
, "The following sketch . . . . must . . . be both tentative and imperfect. . . . [O]ur society, like all other historical civilizations, is a patriarchy. . . . The fact is evident at once if one recalls that . . . every avenue of power within the society . . . is entirely in male hands. . . . If one takes patriarchal government to be the institution whereby that half of the populace which is female is controlled by that half which is male, the principles of patriarchy appear to be two fold: male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger. However, just as with any human institution, . . . contradictions and exceptions do exist within the system."