The Diversity of Feminist Thinking

Rosemarie P. Tong
Much of feminist thought resist categorization, especially categorization based on the fathers
labels. But
- Liberal feminism is not only a variation on John Stuarts Mills
- Marxist socialist feminism is not only an improvement on Marx and Engels
- Psychoanalytic feminism not only a further articulation of Freud
- Existentialist feminism not only an addendum to Sartre
- Postmodern feminism not only a recapitulation on Lacan and Derrida.
Feminist thought is old enough to have a history complete with its own labels that remain
useful. It also shows that feminist is not a monolithic ideology, and all feminists do not think
alike, but have a range of different approaches, perspectives and frameworks:
- Liberal
- Radical (libertarian or cultural)
- Marxist-socialist
- Psychoanalytic
- Existentialist
- Postmodern
- Multicultural and global
- Ecological

Liberal Feminism
- Started with Mary Wollstonecraft Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- John Stuart Mill with his perspective on the subjection of women
- The nineteenth-century womans suffrage movement.
In present day, the main group is the National Organization for Women (NOW)
Society has a false belief that women are by nature less intellectually and physically capable
than men, so it excludes women from the academy, the forum and the marketplace.
Gender justice, requires to make the rules of the fame fair and to make certain none of the
runners in the race for societys goods and services is systematically disadvantaged.

Radical Feminism
Radical feminists think Liberals dont go far enough.
They claim the patriarchal system is characterized by power, dominance, hierarchy, and
competition. It cannot be reformed by only ripped out completely.
But it is not only patriarchys legal and political structures that must be overturned on the way to
womens liberation. Its social and cultural institutions (especially the family, the church and the
academy) must also be radically transformed.
All radicals focus on sex, gender, and reproduction as the locus for the development of feminist
thought, but within many different points of view.
There are to kinds of radical feminists
- Radical-Libertarian Feminists
- Radical-Cultural Feminists
In Gender-related issues
Radical-Libertarian Feminists call for an androgynous personality of men and women. Men
show their feminine side and women their masculine side.

Radical-Cultural Feminists are anti-androgynous.

One movement of anti-androgynous think the problem is not femininity but the low value a
patriarchal society gives to feminine qualities (supportiveness, empathy, tenderness, nurturance,
etc.) and the high values assigned to masculine qualities (assertiveness, aggressiveness,
rationality, etc.) So, society needs to appreciate feminine qualities to end o
Other anti-androgynous think femininity IS the problem, because it has been constructed by
men for patriarchal purposes. In order to be liberated, women must give new gynocentric
meanings to femininity.
Still others anti-androgynous think that women need to find the true female nature.
In sexuality issues
Radical-Libertarian Feminists think there is no correct sexual experience prescribed, each
woman should be encourage to experiment sexually with herself, other women or men. Each
woman must follow her own desired
Radical-Cultural Feminists think that through pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment,
rape, women battering, etc men have controlled womens sexuality for male pleasure.
In order to be liberated, women must escape the confines of heterosexuality and create and
exclusively female sexuality through celibacy, autoeroticism or lesbianism.
Only with other women they can discover true pleasure.
In Reproduction issues
Radical-Libertarian Feminists think that pregnancy drains energy from women, so they should
be free to take contraceptives and have abortions if they want.
Radical-Cultural Feminists think biological motherhood is the ultimate source of a womans
power. From women depends if the human species continues to exist.

Marxist Feminism
They claim it is impossible for anyone to achieve freedom in a class-based society, where the
wealth produced by the powerless many ends up in the hands of a powerful few.
Marxist feminist insist that women oppression originated in the introduction of private property,
an institution that obliterated whatever quality of community humans had previously enjoyed.
Capitalism itself, not just the larger social rules that privilege men over women, is the cause of
women's oppression. The capitalist system must be replaced by a socialist system in which the
means of production will belong to one and all. No longer economically dependent on men,
women will be just as free as men are.

Socialist Feminism
They agree with Marxist feminism that capitalism is the source of womens oppression, and
with radical feminists that patriarchy is the source of womens oppression.
The way to end womens oppression is to kill the two-headed beast of capitalist patriarchy or
patriarchal capitalism.
Womens condition is overdetermined by the structures of production (as Marxist feminists
think), reproduction and sexuality (as radical feminists believe) and the socialization of
children, (as liberal feminists argue).

Socialist Feminism is unique because of its concerted effort to interrelate the myriad forms of
womens oppression.
For example: Alison Jaggar used the unifying concept of alienation to explain how, under
capitalism, everything (work, sex, play) and everyone (friends, family) that could be a source of
womans integration as a person instead becomes a cause of her disintegration.
The emphasis of socialist feminism is on unity and integration both in the sense of interrelating
all aspects of womens lives and in the sense of producing a unified feminist theory.
Liberal, radical and Marxist-Socialist feminists focus on the macrocosm (patriarchy or
capitalism)

Psychoanalytic and Gender Feminists

Psychoanalytic and gender feminists retreat to the microcosm of the individual, claiming that
the roots of womens oppression are embedded deep in her psyche.
For Psychoanalytic feminists, a focus on sexualitys role in the oppression of women arises out
of Freudian theory: Oedipal stage (et. al.)
- Because the Oedipus complex is the root of male rule, or patriarchy, some psychoanalytic
feminists speculate it is nothing more that the product of mens imagination a psychic trap that
everyone, especially women, should try to escape.
It is not necessary to accept the Freudian version, according to which authority, autonomy, and
universalism are labeled male whereas live, dependence, and particularism are labeled
female. These labels, meant to privilege that which is male over that which is female, are not
essential to the Oedipus complex. Rather, they are simply the consequences of a childs actual
experience.
- Dual parenting, and dual participation in the workforce would change the gender valences of
the Oedipus complex.
There are important differences between psychoanalytic feminists who focus on pre-Oedipal
and Oedipal themes on the one and so-called Gender Feminists, who focus on the virtues and
values associated with femininity on the other hand.
Simone de Beauvoir provided and ontological-existential explanation for womens oppression.
In The Second Sex, she argued that woman is oppressed by virtues of their otherness. Woman is
the other because she is a not-man. Man is the free, self-determining being who defines the
meaning of his existence; woman is the other, the object whose meaning is determined for her.
If woman is to become a self, a subject, she must, like man, transcend the definitions, labels,
and essences limiting her existence. She must make herself be whatever she wants to be.
Postmodern Feminists take de Beauvoirs understanding of otherness and turn it on its head.
Woman is still the other, but rather than interpreting this condition as something to be rejected,
postmodern feminists embrace it. They claim womans otherness enables individual women to
stand back and criticize the norms, values, and practices that the dominant male culture
(patriarchy) seeks to impose on everyone, particularly those who live on its periphery. Women
are not unitary selves, essences to be defined and then ossify. On the contrary, women are free
spirits.
Multicultural and Global Feminists
Multicultural and Global Feminists agree with postmodern feminists that the so-called self is
fragmented, or at least divided. However, for Multicultural and Global Feminists, the roots of
this fragmentation are cultural and national rather than sexual and literary.
E.g.: Hispanics in the United States

Global feminists also have a schizophrenic sense of self. In their estimation, European and
North American colonizers robbed the people of many developing nations not only of their land
and resources but also of their self-identities.
E.g.: Africa and the sense of black vs. white identity.
- Once a mind is colonized, it is very difficult to liberate it.

Ecofeminists
Ecofeminists offer the broadest and also the most demanding conception of the selfs
relationship to the other. According to Ecofeminists, we are connected not only to each other but
also to the nonhuman world: animal and even vegetative.
The only way not to destroy ourselves it to strengthen our relationship to each other and the
nonhuman world.

Although all of these perspectives cannot be equally correct, there is no need here for a final
say. There is always room for growth.