Liberal feminism, a white, racist bourgeois movement?

Résumé du document

Women have always been considered as the ‘weak sex', in opposition to the ‘strong sex' represented by men. Hence, they have always suffered from being oppressed and subordinated to men. Yet in order to be no longer discriminated against a condition which they did not chose, women managed to develop a social movement which aim is to stand up against all the inequalities they faced. Such an initiative was very challenging since society had the false belief that women were by nature less intellectually capable than men. Thus, feminism can be defined as a social movement dedicated to ending subordination of woman. However, it is a broad term which can be regarded and understood in function of different philosophies. ‘Liberal feminism' is one of the first mainstreams. Its initial aim was to liberate women from their limited housewife life. This movement focuses on rational arguments to educate the public and emphasizes the irrationality of discrimination.

Extraits

[...] Mary Wollstonecraft argued that women need political rights to make independent rational choices. Beside women should be economically independent from men. This new status given to them would involve the ‘control of love and passion' so that love would be subordinated to reason, and marriage and motherhood based on rational choice.[6] Similarly, Wollstonecraft stood up for women's education which was a chance to develop women's God-given intelligence'.[7] The kind of women's education proposed by Rousseau was very different from the one from Wollstonecraft. [...]

[...] Friedan came up with different conclusions across time. First, in the Feminine Mystique, she assumed that being just a wife or a mother would limit a woman in her development as a full human person.[9] However later, in The Second Stage, she changed her position and considered the difficulties for women to deal with a career and a family at the same time. Finally her last solution for real equality between men and women is in The Fountain of Age where she supports an androgynous society in which women would develop their masculinity and men, their feminity. [...]

[...] Foxley), London: Dent Saul, Jennifer, Feminism, Issues And Argument, Oxford: Oxford University Press Tong, Rosemarie P. Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd Edition, Oxford: Westview Press Walters, Margaret, Feminism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press Valerie Bryson, Feminist Political Theory (London: Macmillan, 1992) p.64. Rosemarie, P. Tong, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Westview Press, 1998) p.37. Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), p.18. Tong, Liberal Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile (translated by Barbara. Foxley) (London: Dent, 1957), p.322. Bryson, Theory, 24-25. [...]

[...] How Marxist and socialist feminist complete and dismiss the liberal theory Liberal feminists have fought for more equality. However, one should distinguish ‘formal equality of opportunity' from the ‘equality of fair opportunity'. ‘Formal equality of opportunity' requires positions of the society to be legally open to all. ‘Equality of fair opportunity' requires not only this, but also that, all should have a fair chance to attain them. As said by Rawls ‘those who are at the same level [ ] should have the same prospect of success regardless their initial place in the social system.'[22] In other words, women from middle class might have better chances and better opportunities than women from the working class. [...]

[...] But when they could be exploited, punished and repressed in a sexual way, they were locked into their exclusively female role.[31] Similarly, we can dismiss the effects of liberal feminism by looking at its understanding of the relationship between women and religion. Liberal feminism was a movement developed by white Christian women, and therefore they did not help, or even try to understand women from other religions. Elizabeth Stanton, a liberal feminist which shifted from being liberal to radical sought to overcome this limitation in the Women's Bible. [...]