Feminism
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equal treatment regardless of their gender, race, colour, creed or religion. If individuals are to be judged, it should be on rational grounds, on the content of their character, their talents, or their personal worth. Any form of discrimination against women that constrains their ability to participate in, or gain access to, public or political life should therefore be prohibited. Wollstonecraft, for example, insisted that education, in her day the province of men, should be opened up to women. J. S. Mill argued in favour of equal citizenship and political rights. Indeed, the entire suffrage movement was based on liberal individualism and the conviction that female emancipation would be brought about once women enjoyed equal voting rights with men. Liberal feminists have, nevertheless, usually assumed that women and men have different natures and inclinations, and therefore accept that, at least in part, women’s leaning towards family and domestic life is influenced by natural impulses and so reflects a willing choice. In The Second Stage (1983) Friedan thus discussed the problem of reconciling the achievement of ‘personhood’, made possible by opening up broader opportunities for women in work and public life, with the need for love, represented by children, home and the family. Although such a stance has encouraged some liberal feminists to proclaim that women can ‘have it all’ – that is, a successful career as well as the satisfaction of motherhood and homemaking – radical feminists have criticised it for contributing to a ‘mystique of motherhood’. Finally, the demand for equal rights, which lies at the core of liberal feminism, has principally attracted those women whose education and social backgrounds equip them to take advantage of wider educational and career opportunities. For example, nineteenth-century feminists and the leaders of the suffrage movement were usually educated, middle-class women who had the opportunity to benefit from the right to vote, pursue a career or enter public life. Female emancipation, in the liberal sense, may mean that other forms of social disadvantage – for example, those linked to social class and race – are ignored. Liberal feminism may therefore reflect the interests of white, middle-class women in developed societies but fail to address the problems of working- class women, black women and women in the developing world. Socialist feminism Although some early feminists subscribed to socialist ideas, socialist feminism only became prominent in the second half of the twentieth century. In contrast to their liberal counterparts, socialist feminists have not believed that women simply face political or legal disadvantages that can be remedied by equal legal rights or the achievement of equal opportunities. Rather, they argue that the relationship between the sexes is rooted in the social and economic structure itself, and that nothing short of profound social change – somewould say a social revolution– canofferwomen the prospect of genuine emancipation. The central theme of socialist feminism is that patriarchy can only be understood in the light of social and economic factors. The classic statement of this argument was developed in Friedrich Engels’ The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State ([1884] 1976). Engels suggested that the position of women in society had changed fundamentally with the development of capitalism and the institution of private property. In pre-capitalist societies, family life had been communistic, and ‘mother right’ – the inheritance of property and social position through the female line – was widely observed. Capitalism, however, being based on the ownership of private property by men, had overthrown ‘mother right’ and brought about what Engels called ‘the world historical defeat of the female sex’. Like many subsequent socialist feminists, Engels believed that female
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