Feminist movements and ideologies | PSIR Optional for UPSC

• Traditionally feminism is divided into three main traditions, sometimes known as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought: Liberal or mainstream feminism, Radical feminism and Socialist or Marxist feminism. 
• Since the late 20th century, a number of newer forms of feminisms have emerged. Many of these are viewed as branches of the three main traditions. – Mary Maynard, (1995). "Beyond the big three". 

Liberal Feminism

• Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on “achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy”. 
• It is often considered culturally progressive and economically center-right to center-left. 
• As the oldest of the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought, liberal feminism has its roots in 19th century first-wave feminism. 
• Liberal feminism works to integrate women into the structure of mainstream society. It does not directly challenge the system itself or the ideology behind women’s oppression but is more responsive to individual women’s rights. hence, it is called as mainstream feminism. 
• Politically, liberal feminists formed bureaucratic organizations which focused on the visible sources of gender discrimination, such as gendered job markets and inequitable wage scales. 
• They want women to get into positions of authority in the professions, government, and cultural institutions. 
• Specific issues important to liberal feminists include women's suffrage, reproductive rights and abortion access, sexual harassment, voting, education, fair compensation for work, affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of sexual and domestic violence against women. 
• Liberal feminist politics adopted important weapons of the civil rights movement. 
• The suffragist movement in USA was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women. It is an example of Liberal feminist approach. 
• Historically, liberal feminism, also called "bourgeois feminism", was mainly contrasted with the working-class or "proletarian" women's movements, that eventually developed into the socialist and Marxist feminism. 

Thinkers associated with liberal feminism

• Pioneers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Judith Sargent Murray, and Frances Wright advocated for women's full political inclusion. 
• As per Rebecca West, Liberal feminism "works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure.
• Hillary Clinton is often considered a liberal feminist. She has defined "feminist" as "someone who believes in equal rights." 
• According to Zhang and Rios, "liberal feminism tends to be adopted by 'mainstream' women (i.e., middle-class) who do not disagree with the current social structure." As per them, liberal feminist beliefs are dominant and "default form” of feminism. 
• As per Elisabeth Lonna (1996), Liberal feminism actively supports men's involvement in feminism. Progressive men had an important role alongside women in the struggle for equal political rights. 

Criticism

• Critics argue that even if women are not dependent upon individual men, they are still dependent upon a patriarchal state. 
• These critics believe that institutional changes, like the introduction of women's suffrage, are insufficient to emancipate women.
• One of the major critiques of liberal feminism is that it focuses too much on a "metamorphosis" of women into men, and in doing so, it disregards the significance of the traditional role of women. 
• Bell hooks’ main criticism is that they “focus too much on equality with men in their own class”. She maintains that the "cultural basis of group oppression" is the biggest challenge, in that liberal feminists tend to ignore it. 
• Another important critique of liberal feminism posits the existence of a "white woman's burden" or white savior complex. Critics such as Black feminists and postcolonial feminists assert that mainstream liberal feminism reflects only the values of middle-class, heterosexual, white women; and they fail to appreciate the position of women of different races, cultures, or classes. 

Prominence of the liberal feminism

• Liberal feminism was largely quiet in the United States for four decades after winning the right to vote. 
• In the 1960s during the civil rights movement, liberal feminists drew parallels between systemic race discrimination and sex discrimination. 
• Groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), National Women's Political Caucus, and Women's Equity Action League were created in 1960s to further women's rights. 
• Outside USA, the wave of liberal feminism hit the world, and equality has become the founding value of modern constitutions. 
• In the 21st century, liberal feminism has taken a turn toward an intersectional understanding of gender equality, and modern liberal feminists support LGBT rights as a core feminist issue. 

Evaluation 

• As one of the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought, liberal feminism is often contrasted with socialist and radical feminism. However, in contrast to them, liberal feminism seeks gradual social progress and equality on the basis of liberal democracy rather than a revolution or radical reordering of society. 
• Liberal feminism and mainstream feminism are very broad terms, frequently taken to encompass all feminism that is not radical or revolutionary socialist/Marxist. 
• It includes many different varieties, such as equality feminism, social feminism, equity feminism, and difference feminism. State feminism is often linked to liberal feminism. 
• While rooted in first-wave feminism and traditionally focused on political and legal reform, the broader liberal feminist tradition may include parts of subsequent waves of feminism, especially third-wave feminism and fourth-wave feminism. 

Conclusion 

• Liberal feminism is inclusive and socially progressive. On the one hand, it broadly supports existing institutions of power in liberal democratic societies, and at the same time it seeks reformism. 
• In 1920, after nearly 50 years of intense activism, women were finally granted the right to vote and the right to hold public office in the United States. It paved the way for equality in a legal system worldwide. 

Socialist Feminism

• Socialist feminism is grounded in Marxist and socialist ideologies, which attribute women’s oppression principally to the capitalist economic system where global corporate power prevails. 
• Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. – Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, (2008).
• Socialist feminists argue that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural oppression of women. 
• They see patriarchy as the major force behind women’s subjugation. It severely criticizes the family as a source of women's oppression and exploitation. 
• Socialist Feminists argue that male-dominated government policies put the state's interests before those of women. 
• They argue that raising the salaries of women doing traditional women's jobs could give the majority of women economic resources that would make them less dependent on marriage or state benefits as a means of survival. 

Thinker’s Views

• Socialist feminism can be traced back to Mary Wollstonecraft's “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1792) and William Thompson's utopian socialist work in the 1800s. They conceptualized the women's private, domestic, and public roles in society. 
• William L. O'Neill introduced the term "social feminism" in his 1969 history of the feminist movement Everyone Was Brave: The Rise and Fall of Feminism in America. 
• These ideas about overcoming patriarchy and taking the personal problems to public level were explained by Carol Hanisch in 1969 in her ‘the personal is political’. This was the time when second wave feminism started to surface which is really when socialist feminism kicked off. 
• As per Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, social feminism is defined as "a movement which saw the root of sexual oppression in the existence of private property". 
• Kristen Ghodsee argues in her book ‘Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism’ that free markets capitalism discriminates against women, as big bosses consider women to be less reliable, weaker and more emotional which leads to the gender pay gap. 
• George Bernard Shaw quotes "Capitalism acts on women as a continual bribe to enter into sex relations for money". 

Central idea

A two-pronged theory

• Socialist feminism is a two-pronged theory that broadens Marxist feminism's argument for the role of capitalism in the oppression of women and radical feminism's theory of the role of gender and the patriarchy. 
• Socialist feminists reject radical feminism's main claim that patriarchy is the only or primary source of oppression of women. 
• Rather, Socialist feminists assert that women are oppressed due to their financial dependence on males. Women are subjects to male domination within capitalism due to an uneven wealth distribution.

Historical materialism

• It views how the material and historical conditions of people's lives are related. 
• Thus, Socialist feminists consider how the sexism and gendered division of labor of each historical era is determined by the economic system of that time. 

Class struggle

• Socialist feminists reject the orthodox Marxist notion that class and class struggle are the only defining aspects of history and economic development. 
• Marx asserted that when class oppression will overcome, gender oppression will vanish as well. 
• Socialist feminists specify how gender and class together create distinct forms of oppression and privilege for women and men of each class. 
• For example, the women's class status is generally derivative of her husband's class, e.g. a secretary that marries her boss assumes his class status. 

Gender pay gap

• Socialist feminist theories highlight the economic disparities amongst women on a global scale. 
• There are concerns from uncompensated labor inside the home to the discriminated pay outside the home.
• Feminist philosopher Rosemarie Tong presents three common reasons for the gender wage gap: 
  
  • Concentration of women in low-paying, female-dominated jobs; 
  • High percentage of women who work part-time rather than full-time; and 
  • outright wage discrimination against women. 

Intersectionality:

• Intersectionality explains how factors of social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance. 
• These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. 
• Intersectionality broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, which largely focused on the experiences of white, privileged, and middle-class women. Intersectional feminism includes the different experiences of women of color, poor women, immigrant women, and other groups. 
• Feminist historian Linda Gordon asserts that socialist feminism is inherently intersectional, because it takes into account both forms of oppression, i.e., gender and class. 
• Kum-Kum Bhavani, a socialist feminist scholar, assert that racism in the socialist feminist movement stems from the failure of many white feminists to recognize the institutional nature of racism. 
• Race, class, and gender are inextricably linked, and the exclusion of any one of these factors result in an incomplete understanding of the systems of privilege and oppression. 
• Socialist feminists attempted to integrate the fight for women's liberation with the struggle against other oppressive systems based on race, class, sexual orientation, or economic status. 

Motherhood and the private sphere

• Anna Wheeler and William Thompson, in “The Appeal of One Half the Human Race” describe how women's work contributes to capitalism's continuance. 
• They assert that cooking, cleaning, and all other activities that are deemed domestic work do constitute actual work. However, this is invisible as far as the market is concerned. 
• Wheeler and Thompson assert that people, or labor, are needed for capitalism to function and that without women producing children as well as fulfilling these domestic activities, capitalism would fail. 

Toxic masculinity

• Toxic masculinity can be observed in everyday life such as "locker-room talk" and "boys will be boys". 
• In locker-room talk, men spew comments about women that are most commonly sexual. Because these men are in a certain environment, this behavior is normalized. However, such talk is extremely harmful especially because it enforces the gender hierarchy that socialist feminism aims to diminish. 
• The phrase "boys will be boys" also exemplifies toxic masculinity. It makes exceptions for men to behave however they wish to behave with women. 

Criticism

• It is based on utopian assumptions. 
• It does not give solutions. It just remained as a criticism of capitalism and patriarchy. 
• These critics believe that social feminists ignore the role of institutional changes, like the introduction of women's suffrage. 
• Social feminism disregards the traditional gender role of women. 
• Like many feminist movements before and after it, it was dominated by white women. 

Radical Feminism

• Radical feminism arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism. It was rooted in the wider contemporary radical movement. The ideology emerged in the 1960s. 
• It calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts. 
• Radical feminists view society as fundamentally patriarchy. 
• Radicals want to liberate everyone from an unjust society by challenging existing social norms and institutions such as sexual objectification of women, violence against women, and the concept of gender roles. 
• They recognised that women's experiences are affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. 

Prominent Thinkers of Radical feminism

• In 1963, Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique helped voice the discontent that American women felt. 
• Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex views that “Woman has always been man’s dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shared the world in equality. And even today, the woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change.”
• Shulamith Firestone in The Dialectic of Sex (1970) views that " Unlike the first feminist movement, the end goal of feminist revolution must be not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself. i.e. Genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally." 
• For feminists ‘personal is political’ which shows that state is an instrument of patriarchy. – Kate Millett in ‘Sexual Politics’ (1971). She attempts to redefine politics as "power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another.” 
• It considers the male-controlled capitalist hierarchy as the defining feature of women's oppression. Hence, the total uprooting and reconstruction of society is necessary. – Alice Echols (1989) in her “Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America” 

Issues raised by radical feminism

Central issues engaged by radical feminists include:

• Reproductive rights for women, including the freedom to make choices to give birth, have an abortion, use birth control, or get sterilized. 
• Breaking down traditional gender roles in private relationships as well as in public policies. 
• 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. (Personal is political) 
• Understanding pornography as an industry and practice leading to harm to women. 

Methods used by radical feminism

• Opposing the sexual objectification of women. 
• Use of consciousness-raising groups to raise awareness of women's oppression. 
• Organizing public protests and putting on art and culture events. 
• Women's studies programs at universities are often supported by radical feminists as well as more liberal and socialist feminists.

Criticism 

• The movement lacks a comprehensive view, as it views gender as the most important axis of oppression. 
• Like many feminist movements before and after it, it was dominated by white women and lacked a racial justice perspective. 
• This ideology accepts the notion that identities are singular and disparate, rather than multiple and intersecting. 

Conclusion 

• The school of radical feminism turned women’s attention to sexuality and to the disparities of power that pervade heterosexual relationships in patriarchal cultures. 
• Liberal, Socialist and Radical feminists, all schools, aim at the emancipation of women from the oppressions faced by them, but they differ in the approaches opted and the outlook to solve the issues. 
• Radical feminists view society as fundamentally a patriarchy, in which men dominate and oppress women. Radical feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy to liberate everyone from an unjust society by challenging existing social norms and institutions.  

Personal is Political

• The phrase "the personal is political", or “The private is political” was coined by Carol Hanisch in the second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. This is the fundamental phrase of radical feminism. 
• It underscored the connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. 
• Earlier, the idea that women being unhappy in their roles as housewives and mothers in homes was seen as a private issue. 
• However, "the personal is political" emphasizes that women's personal issues (e.g sex, childcare, care providers at home) are all political issues that need political intervention to generate change. 
• Radical feminists highlight the neglect of woman perspective.
• For feminists ‘personal is political’ which shows that state is an instrument of patriarchy. – Kate Millett in ‘Sexual Politics’ (1971). She attempts to redefine politics as "power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another.”

Mechanism 

• The oppression and deprivation of women begin at home. And as, the state has generally been dominated by men, this oppression continues at the political level. 
• One of the consequences of the separation of the personal and political resulted in the marginalization of women in politics or decision making institutions. 
• The lack of representation of women ensured that state also remains patriarchal which is reflected in the laws made by state. 
• In order to secure justice to woman, the sphere of purely personal relations between man and woman will also have to be regulated by the state. 
• State is an instrument of regulation of the public sphere. Hence, the state should interfere and check male domination in the private life. 
• The phrase "the personal is political", or “The private is political” arose in the second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. It underscored the connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. 

Thinker’s views

• The origin of neglect can be attributed to Aristotle who made separation between personal and political i.e. between family and state. It was assumed that woman concerns can be taken care of by the master, the male, adult who is considered as citizen. He deprived woman from the status of citizens. 
• Hegel goes to the extent of suggesting that family is a sphere of ‘altruism’. Thus, ignoring the fact that women face violence, exploitation, subordination not only outside family, but within family also. 
• Catherine MacKinnon, while analyzing the laws made by US on rape laws, says that when ‘she looks at the state, state appears male’ because these laws are full of loopholes and it becomes extremely challenging to convict the criminal. 

Conclusion 

• Radical feminists have been the opponents of the thought that “politics stop at the front door” and proclaimed “the personal is the political”. It means that the female oppression operating in all walks of life originates in the family itself. 
• They focused on “the politics of everyday life”.  Liberal feminists also warned against the dangers of politicizing private sphere which is realm of personal choice and individual freedom.

Other Modern Feminism

Ecofeminism

• Ecofeminists see men's control of land as responsible for the oppression of women and destruction of the natural environment. Example, Chipko Movement. 
• Ecofeminism has been criticized for focusing too much on a mystical connection between women and nature. 
• Scholars of eco-feminism: Eugene Dubois, Mary Daly (GYN ECOLOGY), Vandana Shiva. 
• It is explained in details as a separate topic. 

Social constructionist ideologies – Post Structural feminism 

• The social construction of gender is a theory in feminism about the manifestation of cultural and social origins of gender perception and expression in the context of social interaction. 
• This ideology emerged in the late 20th century. 
• Feminists began to argue that gender roles are socially constructed, and it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and histories. 
• It started to argue that the concept of gender is created socially and culturally. 
• The social construction of gender views that gender roles are an achieved "status" in a social environment, which implicitly and explicitly categorize people and therefore motivate social behaviors. – Linda Lindsey (2015) in “The sociology of gender” 

Black feminism

• According to them, there is a difference in the situation of white women and black women. Thus their concerns are different. 
• Scholars: Bell Hooks, Angela Davis. 

New Feminism

• It recommends mutual respect between men and women.
• Women have some essential qualities, and they should enjoy that such as motherhood. 

Feminist views on transgenders

• Third-wave feminists viewed that the struggle for the rights of transgenders is an integral part of intersectional feminism. 
• Fourth-wave feminists also tend to be trans-inclusive. 
• As per Terry O'Neill said the struggle against transphobia is a feminist issue. 
• National Organization for Women (NOW) has affirmed that "trans women are women, trans girls are girls."

Eco-feminism

• Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism that examines the connections between women and nature. 
• Ecofeminist theory asserts a feminist perspective of Green politics that calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group. - Carolyn Merchant (2005) in "Ecofeminism: Radical Ecology”. 

Central Idea

• Ecofeminism uses the basic feminist tenets of equality between genders. Specifically, this philosophy emphasizes the ways both nature and women are treated by patriarchal (or male-centred) society. 
• Ecofeminists explores the connections between women and nature. They address the parallels between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women in every culture, economy, religion, politics, and literature. 
• These parallels attack the objectification of women and nature as property and materialist thing. 
• They see men as the curators of culture and women as the curators of nature. As per them, men dominate women, and hence, humans dominate nature. 
• Ecofeminists assert that capitalism is the main cause of oppression of women and nature, as it reflects only paternalistic and patriarchal values. Capitalism has led to a harmful split between nature and culture. Ecofeminists view that this split can only be healed by the feminine instinct for nature. 
• They argue that women relate to nature not because they female or "feminine"; but because of their similar states of oppression by the same male-dominant forces. 
• The marginalization is evident in the gendered language, such as "Mother Earth" or "Mother Nature". Nature is associated with 'femininity' such as nurturing or caring, because of its role as a nurturer and caregiver. – Stoddart (2011), “Ecofeminism, Hegemonic Masculinity” 
• Ecofeminist Vandana Shiva views that “women in subsistence economies produce wealth in partnership with nature”. But it is not recognized by the capitalist and patriarchal paradigms, because these have labeled women, nature, and other groups not growing the economy as "unproductive". 
• Carol Adams, (2007) in her “Ecofeminism and the Sacred” views that “ecofeminism emphasizes that both women and nature must be respected”. 
• The term was coined by the French writer Francoise d’Eaubonne in her book Le Feminisme ou la Mort (1974). He called upon women to lead an ecological revolution in order to save the planet. 
• According to Françoise d'Eaubonne, ecofeminism relates the oppression and domination of all marginalized groups (women, people of color, children, the poor) with the oppression and domination of nature (animals, land, water, air, etc.). 
• Ecofeminism developed out of anarcha-feminist concerns with abolishing all forms of domination, while focusing on the oppressive nature of humanity's relationship to the natural world. – Tuana and Tong (2018). 
• By the late 1980s, ecofeminism had grown out of its largely academic environment and become a popular movement. Many scholars cite the feminist theorist Ynestra King as the cause of that popularization. 

Criticism of ecofeminism

• 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. She has also stated that rather than being a forward-moving theory, ecofeminism is an anti-progressive movement for women. 
• A. E. Kings has criticized ecofeminism for limiting itself to focusing only on gender and the environment, and neglecting to take an intersectional approach. 

Conclusion 

• Ecofeminism has encouraged women to participate in environmental movements. 
• Now, environment and gender issues are seen as interrelated issues. In India, in the state of Uttarakhand in 1973, women took part in the Chipko movement to protect forests from deforestation. Non-violent protest tactics were used to occupy trees so that loggers could not cut them down. 
• Resting upon the Marxist feminism, ecofeminism seeks for equality for gender and nature.