Liberal feminism  

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Liberal feminism, also known as "mainstream feminism," asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism and theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices. Liberal feminism looks at the personal interactions of men and women as the starting ground from which to transform society into a more gender-equitable place.Liberal feminism tends to have a neutral vision towards different gender; it requires women to mould themselves to fit a citizenship that had already been constructed in the welfare of men. There are several critiques to Liberal Feminism for overemphasizing on equality, which not only make it fail as a response to development of women’s citizenship, but also provide enough evidence that communitarian is a more attractive alternative for feminism. According to liberal feminists, all women are capable of asserting their ability to achieve equality, therefore it is possible for change to happen without altering the structure of society. Issues important to liberal feminists include reproductive and abortion rights, sexual harassment, voting, education, "equal pay for equal work," affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of sexual and domestic violence against women.

Contents

Critics

Main critiques

Critics of liberal feminism argue that its individualist assumptions make it difficult to see the ways in which underlying social structures and values disadvantage women. They 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 more prevalent critiques of liberal feminism is that it, as a study, allows too much of its focus to fall on a "metamorphosis" of women into men, and in doing so, disregards the significance of the traditional role of women. One of the leading scholars who have critiqued liberal feminism is radical feminist Catherine A. MacKinnon, an American lawyer, writer and social activist. Specializing in issues regarding sex equality, she has been intimately involved in the cases regarding the definition of sexual harassment and sex discrimination. She, among other radical feminist scholars, views liberalism and feminism as incompatible because liberalism offers women a "piece of the pie as currently and poisonously baked".

bell hooks' main criticism of the philosophies of liberal feminism 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.

White woman's burden

Another important critique of liberal feminism posits the existence of a "white woman's burden" or White savior complex. The phrase "white woman's burden" derives from The White Man's Burden. Critics such as black feminists and postcolonial feminists assert that mainstream liberal feminism reflects only the values of middle-class, heterosexual, white women and fails to appreciate the position of women of different races, cultures or classes. With this, white liberal feminists reflect the issues that underlie the White savior complex. They do not understand women that are outside the dominant society but try to "save" or "help" them by pushing them to assimilate to their ideals of feminism. According to such critics liberal feminism fails to recognize the power dynamics that are in play with women of color and transnational women which involve multiple sources of oppression.

See also

feminism liberalism




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Liberal feminism" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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