The foundations and central theoretical contributions of liberal feminism and radical feminism

1 Gender Question 1: Liberal feminism and radical feminism have gained great importance for feminist theorizing. a) Explain and discuss the foundations and central theoretical contributions of liberal feminism and radical feminism Radical feminism provides an essential foundation for other feminist schools of thought.

It is perceived to be one undesirable element of feminism and the breeding ground for many of the ideas that emanate from feminism. These ideas get pounded or shaped in various ways by the other branches of feminism. Radical feminism was the cutting edge of feminist theory from 1967 to 1975 (Mohanty, 2002). Kate Millet is considered to be the mother of radical feminism.

The radical–liberal feminist perspective on rape posits that the assault is motivated by power and control rather than sexual gratification. Radical feminists have criticized reformist elements of the liberal approach, arguing that sexual assault is merely a symptom of a greater social problem. The radical feminists further postulated consciousness-raising as a means of challenging oppression.

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2 They affirmed that they remain an essential force to challenge female oppression today. It touches on the various ways patriarchal structures silence women, how consciousness-raising undercuts this silencing by giving women a collective voice, and how social media can amplify this voice.

Its usage is subsequently deteriorating given that it is no longer universally accepted the way it used to be, nor does it provide a foundation for many other forms of feminism, such as cultural feminism. The term refers to the feminist movement that emerged from the civil rights and peace movements from 1967 to 1968 (Mohanty, 2002). This group has been regarded as radical because they view the oppression of women as the most fundamental form of oppression, one which cuts across the boundaries of culture, race, and economic class. It was a movement of intent on social change. Kate Millet's ideas fueled much of the women's equality movement (Badowska, 1998). She talks about the power men had over women in society and affirms that oppression is socially constructed. Men's control over society was claimed over time, and it is not biological. Radical feminists assisted in translating the radical protest for racial equality, which many had experienced during the struggle for women's rights. They took up the cause and advocated for various issues affecting women, including access to credit and abortion rights.

Liberal feminism entails a variety of feminism that works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure. Its roots can be attributed to the social contract theory of government, which the American Revolution instituted. This is how it used to operate in the days of the suffragist movement and again with the emergence of radical feminists.

Proponents such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Abigail Adams were there from the beginning, proposing equality for women. However, they started on a gradual note, getting little done amongst the compromises until some radical movement showed up and pulled the various

3 compromises left of center (Mohanty, 2002). Wollstonecraft denied that women are, by nature, more pleasure-seeking and pleasure-giving than men. She reasoned that men would develop the same flawed characters if they were confined to the same cages that trap women. What Wollstonecraft most wanted for women was personhood." Although usually interpreted as a classical liberal or republican thinker, Wollstonecraft is better understood as a feminist care theorist (Badowska, 1998). She aimed at a revolutionary transformation of liberal society by emphasizing the importance of caregiving duties.

Liberal views tend to regard rape and sexual violence as a gender-neutral assault on individual autonomy, likening it to other forms of assault and/or illegitimate appropriation and focusing primarily on the harm rape does to individual victims (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). More radical views, in contrast, contend that rape must be recognized and understood as an important pillar of patriarchy.

Liberal feminists of the eightieth to the twentieth century asserted women's ability to participate in public life, at least through suffrage. They examined the institution of marriage and the legal framework of property laws and divorce (Mohanty, 2002). The movement also challenged the practice of denying women access to the same quality education as men and to the professions. They sought to end the treatment of women as legal dependents on their fathers and husbands. They significantly contributed to helping women use their abilities and democratic process to help women and men become equal in the public sphere, such as equal access to education and equal pay, among others. b) Describe and reason about similarities and differences between these feminisms.

The main difference between liberal and radical feminism is that radical feminism advocates for a radical restructuring of the existing systems. In contrast, liberal feminism does

4 not advocate a complete change of the existing system. The two are significant forms of feminism that exist. Radical feminism is a strand of feminism that identifies patriarchy as the root of all gender issues and advocates a complete reordering of society to eliminate mare supremacy. Liberal feminism is considered a strand of feminism that pushes for the need to eliminate gender inequality through women having the same rights as men within the existing system (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). Radical feminism is a more militant form of feminism than liberal feminism, as the former entails more extreme views. As much as radical feminism advocates for a complete restructuring of society, liberal feminism does not advocate for a complete restructuring.

As for the similarities, they both accept that women should be granted the same rights and privileges as men in all spheres of life, including the social, economic, and political fields.

More so, they both view the structure of our present society as being unfairly tipped to the side of males and that this must be changed more drastically. On a more negative note, these views of feminism do not have a solid intersectional component. Liberal and radical feminism emerged during the second wave of feminism and focused more on the oppression of women by men as a whole group. This lacks an understanding of the role of race, socioeconomic class, and the status of an individual as transgender.

Question 2: The body is highlighted and discussed in various ways in the book Genus. (a) What significance does the body have for feminist theorizing?

For feminists, the opposition between the body and mind has been correlated with the opposition between males and females. Here, the female is regarded as enmeshed in her bodily existence, which makes the attainment of rationality more questionable. Women are considered

5 to be more natural and more corporeal. Women have been obliged to challenge such assumptions by confronting corporeality to elucidate and confront constructions of sexed difference (Mohanty, 2002). Women have continued campaigning for sexual equality and control over their bodies. The issue of reproduction has been highlighted in the right and left political philosophies.

Motherhood is also becoming a concern of the state and public duty. Attention has also been drawn to how society tends to prescribe norms concerning which subjects regulate their bodies and those of others. It has been underscored that bodies are trained, impressed, and shaped with the prevailing historical forms of femininity ad masculinity. Women have also been portrayed as beings whose bodies carry social meanings. This signals the availability, sexual desirability, respectability, or participation in social groupings within specific contexts.

Again, the performances employing which our bodies tend to be gendered vary in different contexts, as this is likely to change over time. In the physical acts that bring out gendered positionality, there is a sense in which other social positions tend to be carried along so that it becomes possible to disentangle a strand of gender that is universally present (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019).

The body has also been looked at as a source of vulnerability. Mohanty (2002) was preoccupied with how susceptibility to illness interrupted their ability to forge ahead with their lives. However, this is a more general view as opposed to a feminist perspective. However, there is a celebration of the female body as a source of sensual pleasure. The risk of pregnancy subsequently constrains this. The emergence of campaigns to forcefully examine women was eventually viewed as a violation of women's rights. Eventually, there were campaigns against rape and sexual violence and for access to birth and abortion (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). As far as

6 feminist health movements are concerned, most of these aspects stress women's rights to control what tends to happen to their bodies.

Much has been theorized about the relationship between the body and the self. The body is said to yield sensory experiences and exists as an entity that negotiates for its world (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). It is also a body encountered by others whose response to it mediates our sense of being. The bodily existence, the point of view it provides, and the response it tends to garner are often different for men and women. Biology has also portrayed women more negatively as compared to men. Women are said to be weaker than men, i.e., have less muscular strength or can lift less muscular weights than men. b) Explain and discuss similarities and differences between two feminist approaches to the body. For example, you can describe and compare Judith Butler's and Toril Moi's theorizing about gender and body.

There are some differences between the various feminist approaches to the body. For instance, Butler extended ideas of individual rights, which are embedded in liberal political philosophy, to the rights over one’s body (Moi, 2001). As a result, many things were happening, most of which were subsequently viewed as violations of the rights to which women were entitled. Other theorists also came with different philosophical standings about the body. For instance, Freud developed psychoanalysis by bringing in other aspects such as the self, conscious sense, and the ego. In this case, the ego is, first and foremost, a bodily ego. Toril Moi noted that the narrow understanding of concepts in feminist theory leads to a kind of moral policing of feminist usage. As a result, scholars working on feminism and gender feel they have to apologize before using certain words to ensure they do not use them in a "bad" way. This has a gender

7 connotation (Moi, 2001). There is also a sense that some parts are theorized to be significant compared to others.

At the same time, some are linked to experiences of pleasure and pain, e.g., the possibility of effective agency (the hands) to relations with others (the face). This kind of insight of Freud and others (Schilder) informed much of the critical theorizing around the body that followed. Other theorists, such as Beauvoir (1949), also took a different view on their perceptions about the body. The central aspect of Beauvoir's account was that it provides a complex and non-reductive picture of the consolidation of the material and the cultures in forming sour embodied selves. Beauvior is also lauded for being the first to come up with the gender and sex dichotomy, which has been very important to the feminists who theorized in the 1970s (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). This is evidenced in one of his famous quotes "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." More so, socialist feminism, like postcolonial feminism, includes more than gender in its analyses of the living conditions of women. In contrast, radical feminism and liberal feminism do not consider differences between women (Mohanty, 2002).

Question 3: Postcolonial feminism is critical of central elements in feminist theory formation. (a) What critique has postcolonial feminism advanced? Explain and discuss the main features of this criticism.

Contrary to liberal feminism, postcolonial feminism acknowledges that gender inequality has interconnected social, political, and economic dimensions in which power inequalities and discriminatory norms are embedded. It is tailored towards challenging and transforming dominant racial, economic, and patriarchal power structures in the private and public domains.

8 A postcolonial feminist critique by Lorde affirms that Postcolonial feminists seek to tackle the ethnic conflict and racism that still exist and aim to bring these issues into feminist discourse. In the past, mainstream Western feminism has largely avoided the issue of race, relegating it to a secondary issue behind patriarchy and somewhat separate from feminism (Lorde, 2003). However, there is a push by women to push for their issues across all cadres and races. As a theoretical framework, the black feminist theory evolved as a means of bringing the experiences of black women to the center of discussion—by allowing black women to speak for themselves, similar to the ways in which postcolonial feminisms want to make room for Third World women to speak for themselves (Hooks, 1998). Lorde, in her 1984 essay “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," called upon the white women to recognize their unconscious racism and compared it to the patriarchy, given that they were both to be considered tools of oppression. Lorde encouraged women instead to embrace the idiosyncrasies and differences between all women everywhere and see them as the strength and source of unity that can make the feminist movement sustainable (Lorde, 2003).

Given the criticism of feminism theory building, the development of feminist theory has been associated with numerous phases. They include feminist critique, where the feminist readers examine the ideologies behind the literary phenomena; gynocritics, whereby the woman is the producer of textual meaning; and gender theory, where the ideological inscription and the literary effects of gender are explored. The theory has been criticized from the perspective that it is a deterministic model for female subjectivity (Moi, 2001). As for the criticism of postcolonial theory building, socialist feminism, like postcolonial feminism, includes more than gender in its analysis of women's living conditions, while radical feminism and liberal feminism do not consider differences between women. Further, socialist feminists believe that women are

9 exploited by a dual system: capitalist and patriarchal. They reject radical feminism's idea that patriarchy is the only system at the root of gender inequality. Conversely, Liberal feminism offers an incomplete framework and an inability to explain the patriarchy and why it persists (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). Moreover, it is a framework that excludes class struggle that stresses empowerment over solidarity.

As opposed to portraying people as passive ad powerless victims as done by precolonial feminism, there is a need for the development agendas to hear the voices and incorporate the ideas of those they aim to affect. Postcolonial feminists likely argue that this implies a sense of superiority and creates violence (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). Therefore, there is a need that development strategies should be tailored toward working with local populations and enlarging individual agencies.

Given the push tailored toward ending gender injustice, it has been recommended that frameworks recognize girls' and women's roles as individuals that can serve as agents of change.

It should be underscored that they are not, in fact, intrinsically vulnerable, but that they are relatively more disadvantaged by simply the unequal patriarchal structures that come along with the power that acts as jails, preventing them from being in a position to exercise their agency. To ensure and strive to enlarge women's agency, there is a need for the focus to be directed at the immediate problems women and girls face in the various contexts but, more importantly, affirming the reality that patriarchal structures of power are frantically challenged and transformed (Chambers & Watkins, 2012).

Considering the liberal conception of empowerment advanced by precolonial feminism, there is a sense in which it removes 'power' from the equation. Thus, it looks at women’s empowerment as only an instrument for development priorities such as poverty eradication or the

10 building of democracy, not as the transformation of the self and the collective as a means to dismantle patriarchy. Moreso, liberal feminism tends to disregard the importance of mobilization, political organization, and collective action tailored toward challenging the current state of things and engendering transformative changes (Tlostanovaa et al., 2019). As such, it suffices to say that the agendas anchored in liberal feminism have to a greater extent, failed when it comes to ending gender injustice issues. b) How can this criticism also be understood in relation to at least one other orientation?

The criticisms can be understood concerning other orientations in the sense that there have been voices calling for development tailored towards respecting individual agency and allowing the interest of people of different orientations to set the agenda. There are other feminized "groups," which include the marginalized populations, and the LGBT community, among others. Such individuals can only be considered free if they can make adequate choices.

Just like the predicament of women, the other orientations ought to be granted an adequate opportunity to reason about what they exactly want and be able to choose what is in their society's best interest freely.

11 Reference List Badowska, E. 1998. The anorexic body of liberal feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, 17(2), 283– 303.

Butler, J., 1990. Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, London.

Chambers, C., & Watkins, S. 2012. Postcolonial Feminism? The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 47(3): 297–301.

Lorde, A. 2003. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Feminist postcolonial theory: A reader, 25, 27.

Mohanty, C. T., 2002. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity.

Duke University Press, (kapitel 1, 26 s). Ebok.

Moi, T. 2001. What is a woman?: and other essays. Oxford University Press on Demand.

Morton, S. 2007. Gayatri Spivak: Ethics, subalternity and the critique of postcolonial reason.

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Tlostanovaa, M., Suruchi, T., & Ina, K. 2019. "Do We Need Decolonial Feminism in Sweden?”

NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 27(4): 290–295 (6 s).