History of Feminist Thought

Essentially, the feminist movement has as its goal the elimination

of the social, political, economic, and cultural oppression of
women, although the emphasis placed on these different elements
has varied during the history of the movement. While there has
been feminist activism in other countries, the Western feminist
movement is taken to define the boundaries of the theories and
goals of feminism.

(Catherine Villanueva Gardner, Historical Dictionary of Feminist Philosophy

(2007), xxiv-xxv)

Consider Gardners statement that the Western feminist movement is taken

to define the boundaries of the theories and goals of feminism. WHO takes
western feminism as the yardstick of feminism? Why should agency be
obscured by the use of the passive voice?
Are there any other implications? [e.g., WHO is eliminated from making a
choice?]
 FEMINIST WAVES
(womens movements classified historically & in terms of
content)

FIRST WAVE FEMINISM [the late 18th early 20th centuries in

Europe & the U.S.] = womens organized social & political
movements militating for emancipation, including the right to
SUFFRAGE;
SECOND WAVE FEMINISM [the 1960s-1970s in Europe & the
U.S., after the mid-1960s reorientation of liberal feminism towards
economic equality for women & the advent of radical feminism];
THIRD WAVE FEMINISM, a.k.a. POWER FEMINISM,
POSTFEMINISM ( the end of feminism), etc. [from the mid-1980s
onward] = a more self-critical theorizing than second-wave feminism
accepting a multiplicity of feminisms, linked to theoretical
reflections on femininities as well as masculinities.
 FEMINIST WAVES

FIRST WAVE FEMINISM [late 18th early 20th cc.] = womens organized
social & political movements militating for emancipation:
primary demand: women should be recognized as equal with men in every
respect (sociopolitical & economic) so as to stop womens (political)
oppression the right to SUFFRAGE;
expansion of womens religious activities, opening up new religious roles.
SECOND WAVE FEMINISM [the 1960s-1970s]:
context: the legal & civil equalities previously granted to women had not
been enough to eliminate the oppression of women reorientation of
liberal feminism towards economic equality for women;
it took a strongly self-reflexive, theoretical & critical turn, expressing
itself in militant feminist theory & politics;
primary concern: consciousness raising so as to make women demand
that they be recognized as different from men in order to stop womens
oppression theoretical diversification of feminism (e.g. Black
feminism, lesbian feminism, etc.);
internationalization of feminism; (First World feminists) issue: global
sisterhood;
institutionalization of feminism in the academy & other fora (e.g. the 1st
U.N. Decade of Women: 1975-85).
 FEMINIST WAVES
FIRST WAVE FEMINISM [late 18th early 20th cc.]
SECOND WAVE FEMINISM [the 1960s-1970s]
THIRD WAVE FEMINISM, POWER FEMINISM, POSTFEMINISM (
the end of feminism), etc. [from the mid-1980s onward] = feminist forms that
have emerged from the ongoing contest over the meaning of feminism:
a more self-critical theorizing than second-wave feminism, fuelled by
contemporary theory (psychoanalysis, poststructuralism [generally
postmodernism] & postcolonialism), which also affected the development
of gender studies that, in turn, had evolved out of womens & feminist
studies;
context: the challenge by black feminist theorists to mainstream,
predominantly white feminism;
concern: sexual oppression cannot be eliminated without also addressing
racial & economic oppressions
accepting a multiplicity of feminisms, linked to theoretical reflections on
femininities as well as masculinities;
Africana womanism & Third World feminism: critique of the universalizing
claims of white First World feminism;
some forms of third wave feminism are a conservative reaction to second
wave feminism.
FEMINIST THOUGHT: thematic classification

liberal
radical (libertarian & cultural)
Marxist-socialist
psychoanalytic & gender/cultural
existentialist
postmodern
multicultural & global
ecological

Are there any problems with categorizing feminist thinkers / thought?

Are there any advantages in doing so?
 Feminist thoughts old labels remain useful:

1. to signal to the broader public that feminism is not a monolithic ideology

& that, like all other time-honoured modes of thinking, feminist thought
has a history;

2. to serve as useful teaching tools: they help mark the range of different
approaches, perspectives & frameworks a variety of feminists have used
to shape both their explanations for womens oppression & their
proposed solutions for its elimination.
Most schools of feminist thought favour a relational view of the
self. In their respective explanations of womens oppression
feminists focus on:

the MACROCOSM (society: either patriarchy or capitalism):

- LIBERAL FEMINISTS: source of womens oppression = patriarchal lack
of political rights / the rights of the citizen (property holding in ones own
name & suffrage = the voting right);
- RADICAL FEMINISTS: source of womens oppression = patriarchal
construct of sexuality & sexual behaviour;
- MARXIST-SOCIALIST FEMINISTS: source of womens oppression =
capitalist lack of economic rights / the right to economic justice.

the MICROCOSM (the individual): the roots of womans

oppression are embedded deep in her psyche
- PSYCHOANALYTIC & GENDER FEMINISTS.
 Much of contemporary feminist theory defines itself in reaction
against traditional LIBERAL FEMINISM, whose classic
formulation appeared in:

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797): A Vindication of the

Rights of Woman (1792);

Harriet Taylor-Mill: Enfranchisement of Women (1851) &

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): Subjection of Women (1869);

the 19th-century womans suffrage movement.

Liberal political thought holds a conception of human nature

that locates our uniqueness as human persons in our capacity
for rationality.
 Liberal feminisms main emphasis (still felt in contemporary
groups, e.g., NOW = the National Organization for Women,
founded by Betty Friedan):

1. Female subordination is rooted in a set of customary & legal

constraints blocking womens entrance to & success in the
public world = policy of womens exclusion (from the
academy, the forum & the marketplace) because society has
the false belief that women are by nature less intellectually &
physically capable than men the true potential of many
women goes unfulfilled.
2. Gender justice requires:
- to make the rules of the game fair;
- to make certain no group is systematically disadvantaged.
 RADICAL FEMINISTS

the patriarchal system

is characterized by power, dominance, hierarchy &
competition;
cannot be reformed must be uprooted:
- patriarchys legal & political structures &
- its social and cultural institutions (especially the family, the
church & the academy)
issue RADICAL- RADICAL-CULTURAL FEMINISTS
LIBERTARIAN
FEMINISTS
GENDER to permit each and 1. some anti-androgynists: the problem is not femininity
every person to be in & of itself but rather the low value patriarchy assigns
androgynous = to to feminine qualities (e.g. gentleness, modesty,
exhibit a full range of humility, supportiveness, empathy, tenderness,
masculine and nurturance, intuitiveness, sensitivity, unselfishness) &
feminine qualities the high value it assigns to masculine qualities (e.g.
a sense of assertiveness, aggressiveness, the ability to think
wholeness logically, abstractly & analytically, the ability to control
emotion)
2. other anti-androgynists: the problem is femininity
because it has been constructed by men for patriarchal
purposes in order to be liberated, women must give
new gynocentric meanings to femininity: femininity
should no longer be understood as those traits that
deviate from masculinity; on the contrary, femininity
should be understood as a way of being that needs no
reference point external to it
3. still other anti-androgynists: nature theory = despite
patriarchys imposition of a false/unauthentic feminine
nature upon women, many women have nonetheless
unearthed their true/authentic female nature
issue RADICAL-LIBERTARIAN
FEMINISTS
SEXUALITY no specific kind of sexual
experience should be prescribed as
the best kind for a liberated
woman: each and every woman
should be encouraged to
experiment sexually with herself
[autoeroticism], other women
[lesbianism], & men
[heterosexuality]
REPRODUCTION biological motherhood drains
women physically &
psychologically women should
be free to use the old reproduction-
controlling technologies (to prevent
or terminate unwanted pregnancies)
& the new reproduction-assisting
technologies (to enable them to
have children) on their own terms
RADICAL-CULTURAL
FEMINISTS
to be liberated, women must escape
the confines of heterosexuality &
create an exclusively female
sexuality through celibacy,
autoeroticism or lesbianism
biological motherhood is the
ultimate source of womans power =
women determine whether the
human species continues they
must guard & celebrate this life-
giving power, for without it men will
have even less respect & use for
women than they have now
MARXIST & SOCIALIST FEMINISTS claim it is impossible for anyone,
especially women, to achieve true freedom in a class-based society;
womens oppression originated in the introduction of private property
(owned by relatively few persons, originally all male).

SOCIALIST FEMINISTS agree with:

MARXIST FEMINISTS that capitalism is the source of womens
oppression;
RADICAL FEMINISTS that patriarchy is the source of womens
oppression.
GENDER FEMINISTS & PSYCHOANALYTIC FEMINISTS
examine womens psyches.

PSYCHOANALYTIC feminists focus on Freudian theory

(pre-Oedipal & Oedipal themes).

GENDER feminists focus on the virtues & values associated

with femininity (e.g. the relationship between womens
psychology & morality) which they deem superior to
masculine virtues/values.
 EXISTENTIALIST FEMINISM

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) explained in The Second Sex (Le

Deuxime sexe, 1949) that woman is oppressed by virtue of her otherness.

Woman is the other because she is not-man:

man = the free, self-determining being who defines the meaning of his
existence;
woman = 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 & essences limiting her existence = she must make
herself be whatever she wants to be.
POSTMODERN FEMINISTS turn on its head de Beauvoirs
understanding of womans otherness:

womans otherness enables individual women to stand back & criticize the
norms, values & practices that patriarchy seeks to impose on everyone,
particularly those who live on its periphery

otherness = advantage = a way of existing that allows for change &

difference
 MULTICULTURAL & GLOBAL FEMINISTS

agree with postmodern feminists that the so-called self is fragmented,

or at least divided;
maintain that the roots of this fragmentation are cultural & ethnic
rather than sexual & literary: the dominant culture sets the basic
parameters for an ethnic womans survival as one of its minority
members.

Global feminists schizophrenic sense of self:

European and North American colonizers robbed the people of many
developing nations not only of their land & resources but also of their
self-identities.
ECOFEMINISTS offer the broadest & also the most
demanding conception of the selfs relationship to the other:
human beings are connected not only to each other but also to
the non-human world (animal & even vegetative).