Chapter No.

FEMINIST THEORIES AND PRACTICE

What is Feminism?

 Feminism is a social movement and ideology that fights for the political, economic
and social rights aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women.
 The terms "feminism" and "feminist" did not gain widespread use until the 1970s,
they were already being used in the public parlance much earlier; for instance,
Katherine Hepburn speaks of the "feminist movement" in the 1942 film Woman of the
Year.
 Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in
defense of her sex" was Christine de Pizan who wrote ‘Epistle to the God of Love’ in
the 15th century.
 Feminists believe that men and women are equal, and women deserve the same
rights as men in society.
 The feminist movement has fought for many different causes, such as the right for
women to vote, the right to work and the right to live free from violence.
 Almost all modern societal structures are patriarchal and are constructed in such a
way that men are the dominant force in making the majority of political, economic,
and cultural decisions.
 Feminism focuses on the idea that since women comprise one-half of the world
population, true social progress can never be achieved without the complete and
spontaneous participation of women.
 The feminist assumption is that women are not treated equally to men and as a
result, women are disadvantaged in comparison to men.
 Feminism seeks to achieve equal treatment and opportunity for women and men in
order to achieve similar opportunities across different fields of work and culture and
equal respect in a variety of roles.
 The goal of feminism is to create non-discrimination, which is essential for creating
equality to ensure that no one is denied their rights due to factors such as race,
gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, political or other
beliefs, nationality, social origin, class, or wealth status.
 Famous feminists include Beyonce, Lena Dunham, Amy Poehler, Tavi Gevinson,
Lorde and many more.

THEORIES OF FEMINISM

In 1983, Alison Jaggar published ‘Feminist Politics and Human Nature’ where she defined four
theories related to feminism:

1. Liberal Feminism
2. Radical Feminism
3. Marxist Feminism
4. Socialist Feminism

1. Liberal feminism

 Liberal feminism's primary goal is gender equality in the public sphere, such as equal
access to education, equal pay, ending job sex segregation, and better working
conditions. From this standpoint, legal changes would make these goals possible.
 Liberal feminism is an individualistic form of feminist theory, which focuses on
women's ability to maintain their equality through their own actions and choices.
  Liberal feminists argue that society holds the false belief that women are, by nature,
less intellectually and physically capable than men; thus it tends to discriminate against
women in the academy, the forum, and the marketplace.
 Liberal feminists believe that "female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and
legal constraints that blocks women's entrance to and success in the so-called public
world". They strive for sexual equality via political and legal reform.
 According to Liberal feminism, social customs and laws are the major causes of
women oppression and suppression in societies.
 Liberal feminism is built upon two inter-related elements. Firstly, women are rational
individuals entitled to inalienable and universal human rights. In the eloquent words
of the pioneering first-wave feminist Mary Wollstonecraft; “the mind has no gender.”
In the context of gender equality, liberal feminists advocate a society in which women
hold political equality with men. The second aspect of liberal feminism is the aim to
facilitate a diversity of lifestyles amongst women.
 Diversity is the watchword of liberal feminists and the guiding principle should be one
shaped by individual choice.
 A society governed by liberal feminism enables women (and men) to maximise their
personal freedom to the very full.
 Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been a key goal for liberal
feminists.
 Liberal feminism as theory and work that concentrates more on issues such as
equality in the workplace, in education, and in political rights. Liberal feminism also
focuses on how private life impedes or enhances public equality.
 liberal feminists tend to support marriage as an equal partnership, and more male
involvement in child care. Support for abortion and other reproductive rights have to
do with control of one's life and autonomy.
 Ending domestic violence and sexual harassment remove obstacles to women
achieving on an equal level with men.
 Liberals hold that freedom is a fundamental value, and that the just state ensures
freedom for individuals.
 Liberal feminism conceives of freedom as personal autonomy living a life of one's
own choosing.
 Liberal feminists hold that the exercise of personal autonomy depends on certain
enabling conditions that are insufficiently present in women's lives, or that social
 arrangements often fail to respect women's personal autonomy and other elements
of women's flourishing.
 They hold also that women's needs and interests are insufficiently reflected in the
basic conditions under which they live, and that those conditions lack legitimacy
because women are inadequately represented in the processes of democratic self-
determination.
 The state should ensure that the basic structure of society satisfies principles of
justice that women, as well as men, could endorse.
 Others argue that the democratic legitimacy of the basic conditions under which
citizens live depends on the inclusion of women in the processes of public
deliberation and electoral politics.

Liberal feminists believe they want the same things men want:

 to get an education
 to make a decent living
 to provide for one's family.

Solution of Women oppression

 To amend the social customs and laws to eradicate the women oppression.
 Liberal feminism support affirmative action legislation requiring employers and
educational institutions to make special attempts to include women in the pool of
applicants.

Criticism

 Critics of liberal feminism point to a lack of critique of basic gender relationships, a focus
on state action which links women's interests to those of the powerful, a lack of class or
race analysis, and a lack of analysis of ways in which women are different from men.
 Critics often accuse liberal feminism of judging women and their success by male
standards.
 Liberal feminism promotes racial equality because it focused on the white women.
 Individual feminism often opposes legislative or state action, preferring to emphasize
developing the skills and abilities of women to compete better in the world as it is.
 This feminism opposes laws that give either men or women advantages and privileges.

2. Radical Feminism

 A radical feminist aims to dismantle patriarchy rather than making adjustments to the

system through legal changes. 
 Radical feminists also resist reducing oppression to an economic or class issue, as
socialist or Marxist feminism sometimes did or does. 
 Radical feminism opposes patriarchy, not men.
 Radical feminism focuses on male oppression of females both privately and politically.
 Radical feminists claim that the central issue is the subordination of women by men
within the private and political spheres.
  Radical feminism was rooted in the wider radical contemporary movement. Women who
participated in the anti-war and New Left political movements of the 1960s found
themselves excluded from equal power by the men within the movement, despite the
movements' supposed underlying values of empowerment. 
 Many of these women split off into specifically feminist groups, while still retaining much
of their original political radical ideals and methods. 

Key Issues and Tactics

 Reproductive rights for women, including the freedom to make choices to give birth,
have an abortion, use birth control, or get sterilized
 Evaluating and then breaking down traditional gender roles in private relationships as
well as in public policies
 Understanding pornography as an industry and practice leading to harm to women,
although some radical feminists disagreed with this position
 Understanding rape as an expression of patriarchal power, not a seeking of sex
 Understanding prostitution under patriarchy as the oppression of women, sexually and
economically
 A critique of motherhood, marriage, the nuclear family, and sexuality, questioning how
much of our culture is based on patriarchal assumptions
 A critique of other institutions, including government and religion, as centered historically
in patriarchal power

3. Marxist feminism

 Marxist feminism is feminism focused on investigating and explaining the ways in which

women are oppressed through systems of capitalism and private property.
 According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be achieved through a
radical restructuring of capitalist economies, in which, they contend, much of
women's labor is uncompensated.
 Marxism follows the development of oppression and class division in the evolution of
human society, revolving around the evolution and organisation of wealth and
production, and concludes the evolution of oppressive societal structure to be relative
to the evolution of oppressive family structures.
 Marxist feminists look on class and gender inequalities as dual systems of oppression,
with both being very powerful and independent systems. 
 Marxist feminists often argue that class and gender inequalities reinforce each other and
create groups that are doubly oppressed.
 Various relationships, such as those between males and females, relationships in the
family, prostitution, surrogate mother hood, etc. may appear to express equality, but
because of the underlying unequal power relations conceal great inequalities.

4. Socialist Feminism

 The phrase "socialist feminism" was increasingly used during the 1970s to describe a
mixed theoretical and practical approach to achieving women's equality.
 Socialist feminist theory analyzed the connection between the oppression of women
and other oppressions in society, such as racism and economic injustice.
 Like Marxism, socialist feminism recognized the oppressive structure of a capitalist
society. Like radical feminism, socialist feminism recognized the fundamental
oppression of women, particularly in a patriarchal society.
 However, socialist feminists did not recognize gender and only gender as the
exclusive basis of all oppression.
 Rather, they held and continue to hold that class and gender are symbiotic, at least
to some degree, and one cannot be addressed without taking the other into
consideration.
 Socialist feminists wanted to integrate the recognition of sex discrimination within
their work to achieve justice and equality for women, for working classes, for the poor
and all humanity.
 Women are the most oppressed of every oppressed group.
 No one needs revolutionary transformation of society worse than they do and no
other group has the capacity to unite the oppressed in a mighty, working class
movement that addresses all the injustices suffered by the dispossessed under
capitalism: racism, poverty, homophobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ageism, and
war.
 The profit system survives on women’s unpaid labor in the home and low-waged
labor in market place.
 Both men and women have a stake in changing their unequal relationship. The
subjugation of females lays the basis for ruling class exploitation of poor and working
class males of all races, nationalities, abilities and sexual orientations.
 The profit system, and the oppression of women which keep it afloat, must be
overthrown for women, children and men to be free of economic insecurity and
discrimination.
 Working class men who are feminists know that when they fight for women’s rights,
they are making a stand for all the exploited including themselves.
 Socialist feminism would turn capitalism and the subjugation of women and all other
underdogs upside down.
 First, because socialism replaces the current system of wealth for a few with a
system that can meet the human needs of the majority.
 Secondly, because the fight for women’s equality, with the lowest paid and most
oppressed in the leadership, would guarantee everyone wins, because when those at
the bottom of the economic ladder rise up, everyone moves up with them.

5. Psychoanalytical Feminism

 Psychoanalysis is concerned with analysis of mind i.e. the psyche’s structure and its
relation to the body, and use that as the basis for treating certain kinds of sickness.
 The two major schools of psychoanalytic feminism are Freudian and Lacanian.
1. Freudian feminists, mostly Anglo-American, are more concerned with the
production of male dominance and the development of gendered subjects in
societies where women are responsible for mothering,
 2. Whereas Lacanian feminists, mostly French, analyze links between gendered
identity and language. 
 Psychoanalytic feminism is a theory of oppression, which asserts that men have an
inherent psychological need to subjugate women. The root of men's compulsion to
dominate women and women's minimal resistance to subjugation lies deep within the
human psyche.
 This branch of feminism seeks to gain insight into how our psychic lives develop in order
to better understand and change women's oppression.
 The pattern of oppression is also integrated into society, thus creating and sustaining
patriarchy.
 Through the application of psychoanalytic techniques to studying differences between
women and men as well as the ways in which gender is constructed, it is possible to
reorganize socialization patterns at the early stages of human life.
 Societal change, or a “cure,” can be developed through discovering the source of
domination in men's psyche and subordination in women's, which largely resides
unrecognized in individuals' unconscious.
 Psychoanalysis is closely associated with gender, sex, familial relations and the fact that
their expression and construction are not always available to the conscious mind which
is also central interest to feminism.
 Psychoanalytic and gender feminists believe “women’s way of acting is rooted deep in
women’s psyche.”

6. Postmodern feminism

 The goal of postmodern feminism is to destabilize the patriarchal norms entrenched in

society that has led to gender inequality.
 Postmodern feminism is a new branch of feminism that strives for equality for women
within the category of women. While doing so, they take into account the differences
among the women on the basis of class and race.
 Postmodern feminists seek to accomplish this goal through rejecting essentialism,
philosophy, and universal truths in favor of embracing the differences that exist amongst
women to demonstrate that not all women are the same.
 These ideologies are rejected by postmodern feminists because they believe if a
universal truth is applied to all woman of society, it minimizes individual experience,
hence they warn women to be aware of ideas displayed as the norm in society since it
may stem from masculine notions of how women should be portrayed.
 Postmodern feminists seek to analyze any notions that have led to gender inequality in
society. Postmodern feminists analyze these notions and attempt to promote equality of
gender through critiquing logocentrism, supporting multiple discourses, deconstructing
texts, and seeking to promote subjectivity.
 Postmodern feminists are accredited with drawing attention to dichotomies in society
and demonstrating how language influences the difference in treatment of genders.
 The postmodern feminist theorist intend to:
 Identify feminist perceptive of society.
 Examine the way social world affects women.
 Analyse the role played by power and knowledge relationships in shaping the women’s
perception of the social world.
 Devise the ways through which social world can be changed.

 Women are required to put themselves in words.

 Postmodern Feminists accept the male/female binary as a main categorizing force in our
society.
 Women must write about themselves outside the world that man has constructed for
them.
 Cixous insists women to write as their writings will transform the way western world
“thinks, speaks and acts”. This will eventually change the cultural and social standard.
 Postmodern feminists share a political agenda with the American feminism who believe
that regardless of one’s perspective each feminist aims to change social and political
order to end women’s oppression.
 Political action is a necessary step to redress the injustices done to women.
 By uniting women as one category, feminists reflect the interests of the higher status
women.
 As a result, they ignore the interests of the black women, women from the third world
and lesbians.
 Postmodern feminism's is perhaps the argument that sex, or at least gender, is itself
constructed through language, a view notably propounded in Judith Butler’s work.
 Butler criticises the distinction drawn by previous feminisms between (biological) sex and
(socially constructed) gender. She asks why we assume that material things (such as
the body) are not subject to processes of social construction themselves
 Women’s subordination has no single cause or single solution; postmodern feminism is
thus criticized for offering no clear path to action. Butler herself rejects the term
"postmodernism" as too vague to be meaningful.