Liberal Feminism

      1) "All feminist positions are founded upon the belief that women suffer from systematic social injustices because of their sex and therefore, 'any feminist is, at the very minimum, committed to some form of reappraisal of the position of women in society' (Evans, in Evans et al., 1986: 2). One of the major sites of difference, however, is in defining the 'oppressor' and locating the source of oppression - indeed, the term 'oppression' itself might be exchanged for something more moderate, since it conjures up images of tyranny which are unpalatable to liberals." pages 25- 26

      2) "Modern liberal feminists have reaped the benefits of tow centuries of liberal feminist writings, and in a sense, all current feminist positions derive impetus and inspiration from such writers, so that this tradition lies at the heart of feminist knowledge. But this legacy also brings with it certain tensions that lie at the center of liberal thought. These tensions are particularly evident in attempts by feminists to posit a model of female equality within a system of beliefs that operates on the assumed right to participate in the free market economy despite the fact that for many women, free engagement in the economy is not viable." page 34

      3) "In addition, something which potentially sets classic liberal feminists in opposition to socialist and radical feminists is the notion of the inviolable 'private sphere': in theory this would disallow them from any thorough politicization of women's existence in the home environment, including issues such as marital rape and domestic violence. In practice, critics since Betty Friedan have found it necessary to exhibit the tensions present in women's domestic and sexual lives in order to bring issues of gender inequality to the surface. There is, however, a limit to how far liberal feminists will 'pry' into individual's private social/sexual choices: for example, by virtue of their commitment to freedom of expression they are unlikely to take a hard line on issues such as pornography.

      Because of liberalism's long history of links with industrial capitalism, liberal feminists tend to be reluctant to pose any direct challenge to capitalism, which effectively leaves the option of a limited intervention in the institutions which maintain it. . . . Inevitably, Friedan's work readily illustrates, liberal feminism is centered on the needs of middle class women, and would possibly not accept class or racial difference as a significant handicap in the path to self-advancement." page 38

      4) "It [Liberal feminism] still remains popular and influential, and as Andrea Nye postulates is often the first form of feminism that women encounter: 'When a woman in the United States or Western Europe first identifies herself as a feminist, it is often as a liberal feminist, asserting her claim to the equal rights and freedoms guaranteed to each individual in democratic society' (Nye 1988:5). A woman who is a liberal feminist might rarely define herself as a feminist, although she may be happy to declare her support of women's equality in the workplace and in law. She might be quick to dissociate herself from any hint of 'extremism', and have confidence that, if most of women's demands have not already been met, that they will be achieved by lobbying and reason. In its investment in a social hierarchy that allows nominal equality on the basis of merit and effort, it reminds many feminists of early second wave errors in assuming that women's collective experience of oppression was a bourgeois one, since it addresses women who have the luxury of making choices which they often mistakenly assume are available to everyone. It is also too often a position from which the women's movement is undermined, its politics trivialized, and made indistinguishable from an anti-feminist wave, which assumes the title of 'post-feminist', and urges a reconsideration of the 'facts' of human nature - as something which 'extreme' feminism has rather too precipitately rejected. When I discuss the new 'feminist' detractors in Chapter Ten it will become clear that the most powerful quality of their rhetoric is its reasonableness, its appeal to 'normal' women, and particularly women who believe that an investment in feminism is a necessary rejection of relationships with men." p. 42-3

Marxist/Socialist Feminism

      1) "From feminists' perspective, women's subordination is in danger of implicitly becoming linked to biological destiny. Women's realms as reproducers, careers and nurturers within a monogamous family relationship are largely left untouched by Marxism's concentration on the public sphere of waged labour and the accumulation of capital." page 48

      2) "A central feature of contemporary Marxist feminist thought has been to construct a viable theoretical framework that could at once incorporate female experience outside the labour market, a framework that acknowledged women's unique relationship to familial and ideological forces, and yet could counter what was regarded as ahistorical tendencies within radical feminist politics. A starting principle was that female domestic labour - reproducing and maintaining the workforce - should be considered an aspect of production (or reproduction), which worked to the benefit of capital. In addition, it was asserted that women's role in the labour market was hugely influenced by this domestic identity, and made their relationship to production distinctly different from men's. . . . What is most problematic for contemporary feminists is that women have always been present in the labour force; and now more women ever full-time occupations, a sexual division of labour still prevails." pages 48 - 49

      3) "Women who undertake paid labour still tend to suffer the effects of low pay, or the insecurity of part-time or outwork, which they often endure because of additional commitments of housework and childcare. Recent equal pay legislation (in the UK, the Equal Pay Act of 1975) has had a negligible effect on women's pay conditions, primarily because the majority of women workers are concentrated in a handful of jobs containing very few male workers." page 49

      4) "The fact is that for working-class families the sexual division of labour is potentially divisive - if, for example lower-paid women are regarded as taking away men's 'rightful' jobs in a time of recession. This is an important area of analysis for feminists. It profoundly affects the utility of a Marxist model of labour relations when it is working-class men themselves who are brought into direct conflict with their fellow women workers. This situation is ultimately sustained by the notion that women are secondary status workers, able to undercut the higher wage demands of men. The labour movement has compounded such conflict by consistently defending the male labourer's unquestioned right to earn his family wage. For this reason women's wage labour tends to be viewed as a disruptive, competitive element in the labour market, instead of ground for legislating for wage parity in real terms across gender (or indeed racial) divides." page 51

      5) "From a feminist perspective, there is clear evidence that economic relations of production overspill into domestic labour: 'Since the production and reproduction of labour power take place substantially within the family through the labour of the housewife, then it is clear that her labour is in one way or another crucial to the generation of surplus value' (Kuhn and Wolpe 1978: 57). In other words, domestic labour underpins capitalist profit margins by recreating the availability of labourers, and providing a haven from the alienating effects of waged labour." page 52

      6) "Feminist questions are at odds with the class-based nature of Marxist critiques; to set women apart as a class (or classes) of their own was perceived by classic Marxists as introducing divisive and diversionary debates to a political framework which depended on unity within class regardless of gender. . . . Feminists highlighted the conceptual problems of classic Marxist analysis and showed that women's relations to class were at best equivocal; they probed the so-called 'private sphere' of the home in order to assess the extent to which domestic labour (including reproduction of the workforce) might be viewed as functional for capitalism, and exposed the prevailing sexual/racial inequalities within the labour market itself. It was in a real sense impossible for classic Marxism to assimilate such critiques of its own analytical structure unless it was prepared to transform its own definitions of the real source of oppression." page 63

      7) "It seems, then, that classic Marxism, in common with classic liberalism, is of strictly limited use to contemporary feminist thought, in that fundamentally to both positions is the assumption that woman is socially subordinate to a politically, materially, and ideologically dominant man." page 65

Radical Feminism

      1) "Cultural transformation is a dominant aspect in the work of such feminists [for example, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and her novel, Herland] , although many would emphasize women's essential difference from men to a greater extent than later radicals did." page 65

      2) "Radical feminists eschewed existing political structures or male-oriented philosophies, in favour of creating a space for women to lay claim to - to write, to think or to speak as their feelings and personal experiences dictated. Its almost wholesale departure from an older tradition of feminism was particularly evident in the stance adopted towards sexuality and the representation of women in the mass media.

      Radical feminism, therefore, attempts to create a discursive arena freed from the tyrannies of male-oriented political discourse. . . The radical stance is often inaccurately taken to be synonymous with lesbian feminist politics; in truth the dominant issues brought to the fore by radical feminism were often subjected to heterosexist or ethnocentric analysis, and both lesbian and black feminists were critical of what they perceived to be significant gaps in radical theory. Nonetheless radical feminism's ground-breaking work in investigating the spheres of female sexuality and female socialization, provided the impetus for the creation of a new kind of feminist theoretical space, facilitated by radicals' negation of phallocratic political hegemony." pages 67 - 68

      3) "However, Bonnie Kreps, provides a useful characterization of radical feminism as a tendency:

      Which chooses to concentrate exclusively on the oppression of women as women (and not as workers, students, etc.). This segment therefore concentrates its analysis on institutions like love, marriage, sex, masculinity, and femininity. It would be opposed specifically and centrally to sexism, rather than capitalism. (Koedt et al 1973: 328).

      4) "Such feminists were convinced that a female revolution in consciousness was the most crucial primary step towards a social revolution, and their wholesale commitment to consciousness raising is testimony to this. Consciousness raising was conceived as the most effective means of encouraging all women to acknowledge their entrenched secondary status, by accepting that no aspect of their lives - particularly their lives - was innocent of patriarchal influences. . ." page 71

      5) "A democratic 'structureless' group does not of course guarantee equitable discussion, and can just as easily allow the most vocal members to take over and create an unacknowledged internal hierarchy . . ." page 72

      6) "While socialist and liberal feminists embarked primarily on a discussion of social structures and women's unequal position within them, radicals tended to focus on the personal lives of women, an area to which consciousness raising inevitably directed their attention. . . . . Many radical activities focused on the development of a 'woman's culture' through explorations into literature, art, music, and health, although it could be argued that such endeavours risk leaving the dominant culture uninterrogated.

      Perhaps more than any other branch of modern feminist thought, radical feminism's activities transformed the foundations of what could be defined as 'political', not least because 'our theory is that practicing our practice is our theory' (Chester in Feminist Anthology Collective 1981: 69). In other words, radical feminist writings are consciously deemed inseparable from group tactics, rather than as a discrete contribution to an abstract philosophical position. Theory and practice, personal and political combined were to be the means by which women might transform their lifestyles, at the same time as militating for social transformation." page 73

      7) "All radical feminists seemed to agree upon the need for separatism, but the scale of separatism varied considerably, ranging from political separatism (women-only discussion groups, dealing purely with issues that affect women), to complete separatism (communes, etc.) - or as complete as was economically or practically viable." page 74

      8) "Radical feminism is potentially more wide ranging than either socialist or liberal feminism - not the least because it often explores means by which women can reconceive their relationship to the current social reality, in order to resist it. Rather than putting all its energies into either reform or future resistance, it implicitly argues for constant acts of rebellion within both personal and public lives, to revivify the movement." page 77

      9) "For radicals, patriarchy is the means for articulating the way in which every aspect of a woman's life appears to be tainted by male domination. It is for this reason that they are accused of failing to recognize that different men have differing degrees of access to power, and of denying the possibility that some men are sympathetic to feminist issues and do not consciously wield their potential power. Radicals largely argue that all men profit from patriarchal systems of oppression and therefore all men are answerable for its continuance - for this reason, the policy of individual acts of resistance by women in their personal lives was seen as an important precursor to collective activism. Although such a position can be deemed weak and a recipe for political fragmentation, it might also be characterized as one of the most potentially far-reaching oppositional strategies devised by feminists - especially when it is accompanied by a call to separatism." page 85

Lesbian Feminism

      1) "Lesbian feminists preferred to celebrate woman-to-woman bonds, in all their manifestations, as empowering symbols of female strength and mutual support, and they celebrated the fact that men found the idea of massed bands of women rejecting any reliance upon males profoundly intimidating." page 91

      2) "The Radicalesbians' evocation of the 'woman identified woman', is intended to be more than a depiction of sexual preference; they sought to end the competitiveness that divided women in patriarchy, thence to strengthen political and personal bonds. . . .This aspect of lesbian feminism, which has become especially prominent in the analysis of literary texts, allows an important focus on something which has never been as central in much heterosexual feminist thought - that is the social and political importance of female bonding, and the means by which a patriarchal ideology attempts to suppress its importance." page 94

      3) "The institution of 'compulsory heterosexuality', Rich argues, facilitates the worldwide sexual exploitation of women from the pimp's 'protection' of the prostitute, to the battered wife's feeling of dependency and guilt towards her husband; and most of all services the supposed uncontrollability of the male sexual drive - a mythification which endorses male sexual aggression." page 95

Analysis

      1) "If feminism is to liberate women, it must address virtually all forms of domination because women fill the ranks of every category of oppressed people." quote from Alcoff and Potter 1993, p4

      2) How antifeminists distort feminist messages:

      "The radical feminist notion that all women are potential victims of male power because of the tenacity of patriarchy, is supplanted by a notion of victimhood as a form of unconscious abdication of responsibility." page 141

      3) "As I have argued throughout, although feminism as an object of study is going forward, feminism as a political methodology engaged in the material and social problems of women's oppression, has remained depressingly static. Feminism needs to re-emerge from the mire of 'identity politics' in order to fully engage with and interrogate the nature of subtle ideological and material shifts which have occurred since the beginnings of its second wave." page 146

      4) ". . . calls for liberation from sexual repression seemed perfectly compatible with women's liberation and the demand that women should have control over their own reproductive capacities. However women soon discovered that participating in the heretofore forbidden fruits of sexual freedom revealed many conceptual problems with sexuality itself. Female sexual desire had been defined and categorized by men; the terms themselves required redefinition in order to cleanse them of patriarchal connotations." page 147

      5) "Later sexologists such as Kinsey and Masters and Johnson refuted Freud in his distinction between the clitoral and vaginal orgasm - and therefore the notion of a female transition from an immature to mature sexual behavior - by asserting that all orgasmic sensations emanated from the clitoris. Such findings suggested that sexual intercourse was not necessarily the most effective means by which women could receive sexual pleasure, prompting a degree of moral confusion about the legitimacy and normality of other types of stimulation. It announced the legitimization of sexual pleasure in women as natural for any healthy woman, and constructed a model fulfilling 'married love' via the simultaneous orgasm, after the woman had been dutifully 'prepared' for intercourse:

It is not so much denial of the clitoris that is striking as its appearance and disappearance in favor of the mythologized vagina, in defense of the penis as the organizing principle of the sexual act."             page 153

What 'sexual revolution'? I am struggling in a feminist revolution. The so-called sexual revolution, from my point of view, did nothing to liberate women or men. Men got a screw for free and it was done out in the open and under the liberal-radical guise of a revolution against antiquated sex attitudes. Women still wanted those men for lifetime companions because they gave away their bodies and minds and found identity in the man instead of in themselves. Men still maintain the top position in the job market, in women's magazine stories, in bed and in the mind of the female psyche. So really the sexual revolution advertised something I already knew. Women are treated as objects. Only in this 'revolution' the oppressed didn't gain a thing. The oppressor began the 'sexual revolution' through rock music, the cosmetic market, Hugh Hefner, etc., but we weren't liberated from our roles, only more objectified."             page 158

      8) "Many feminists would agree with her assertion that 'sex as we know it under male supremacy is the eroticized power difference of heterosexuality' (Jeffreys 1990: 3), but few would be currently willing to accept that only an outright rejection of heterosexuality as a form of object choice would pave the way for a feminist revolution." page 166

      9) "The main problem with Anticlimax is that Jeffreys' arguments are inconsistent, because she draws upon biological and cultural considerations simultaneously. On many issues she is incisive - for example that libertarian approaches to sexuality effectively block the development of a political interrogation of sexuality; if the premise is that one's private pleasures are sacrosanct, then there is no space to proscribe certain practices, which may well not involve the full consent of both parties - for example paedophilia. Nevertheless her consequent dismissal of writers such as Foucault and Weeks as libertarians is debatable, since neither of them appear to have a clear investment in retaining the public/private divide as it now operates, or to perceive this as individually liberating." pages 168 - 169

      10) "Although heterosexual women could not conceive of total separatism as a viable feminist alternative to their current social arrangements, critiques of the means by which prevailing norms within heterosexual practices reaffirm female subordination demanded that heterosexual relations be scrutinized and revised. No matter how well-meaning pro-feminist men appeared to be, at the level of sexuality and relationships they were all implicated as having a vested interest in the status quo. One of the single most important pamphlets in circulation during the late '60s was Anne Koedt's 'The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm' (1968), which cited the findings of Kinsey and Masters and Johnson that the clitoris and not the vagina was the site of orgasmic pleasure in women. If penetrative intercourse was viewed as the central determining feature of heterosexual union, it was not conceived as a sexual practice defined only in terms of male desire - a focus which had not appeared to shift despite the emergence of the so-called 'permissive' era." pages 178- 179

"The feminist case against postmodernism would seem to consist of several related claims. First, that postmodernism expresses the claims and needs of a constituency (white, privileged men of the industrialized West) that has already had an Enlightenment for itself and that is now ready and willing to subject that legacy to critical scrutiny. Secondly, that objects of postmodernism's various critical and deconstructive efforts have been the creations of a similarly specific and partial constituency (beginning with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle). Third, that mainstream postmodernist theory (Derrida, Lyotard, Rorty, Foucault) has been remarkable blind and insensitive to questions of gender in its own purportedly politicized rereadings of history, politics, and culture. Finally, that the postmodern project if seriously adopted by feminists, would make any semblance of a feminist politics impossible."             quoted from Nicholson 1990 pp. 75 -76

      12) "Women's magazines and newspapers alike are encouraging women to blame feminism for their exhaustion and disillusionment rather than a political structure which profits, quite literally, from the inequalities it perpetuates." page 221

"As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. Beyond that, it is not necessary to beat up a woman to beat her down. A man can simply refuse to hire women in well-paid jobs, extract as much or more work from women than men but pay them less, or treat women disrespectfully at work or at home. He can fail to support a child he has engendered, demand the woman he lives with wait on him like a servant. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women, whether mate, acquaintance, or stranger; he can rape or sexually molest his daughters, nieces, stepchildren, or the children of a woman he claims to love. The vast majority of men in the world do one or more of the above."
quoted from The War Against Women by Marylin French 1992 p. 184

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