feminist theory uk essay

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Feminist theory.

• Pelagia Goulimari Pelagia Goulimari Department of English, University of Oxford
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.976
• Published online: 19 November 2020

Feminist theory in the 21st century is an enormously diverse field. Mapping its genealogy of multiple intersecting traditions offers a toolkit for 21st-century feminist literary criticism, indeed for literary criticism tout court. Feminist phenomenologists (Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Toril Moi, Miranda Fricker, Pamela Sue Anderson, Sara Ahmed, Alia Al-Saji) have contributed concepts and analyses of situation, lived experience, embodiment, and orientation. African American feminists (Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Hortense J. Spillers, Saidiya V. Hartman) have theorized race, intersectionality, and heterogeneity, particularly differences among women and among black women. Postcolonial feminists (Assia Djebar, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Florence Stratton, Saba Mahmood, Jasbir K. Puar) have focused on the subaltern, specificity, and agency. Queer and transgender feminists (Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, Susan Stryker) have theorized performativity, resignification, continuous transition, and self-identification. Questions of representation have been central to all traditions of feminist theory.

• continuous transition
• heterogeneity
• intersectionality
• lived experience
• performativity
• resignification
• self-identification
• the subaltern

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Feminism: An Essay

Feminism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 27, 2016 • ( 6 )

Feminism as a movement gained potential in the twentieth century, marking the culmination of two centuries’ struggle for cultural roles and socio-political rights — a struggle which first found its expression in Mary Wollstonecraft ‘s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The movement gained increasing prominence across three phases/waves — the first wave (political), the second wave (cultural) and the third wave (academic). Incidentally Toril Moi also classifies the feminist movement into three phases — the female (biological), the feminist (political) and the feminine (cultural).

The first wave of feminism, in the 19th and 20th centuries, began in the US and the UK as a struggle for equality and property rights for women, by suffrage groups and activist organisations. These feminists fought against chattel marriages and for polit ical and economic equality. An important text of the first wave is Virginia Woolf ‘s A Room of One’s Own (1929), which asserted the importance of woman’s independence, and through the character Judith (Shakespeare’s fictional sister), explicated how the patriarchal society prevented women from realising their creative potential. Woolf also inaugurated the debate of language being gendered — an issue which was later dealt by Dale Spender who wrote Man Made Language (1981), Helene Cixous , who introduced ecriture feminine (in The Laugh of the Medusa ) and Julia Kristeva , who distinguished between the symbolic and the semiotic language.

The second wave of feminism in the 1960s and ’70s, was characterized by a critique of patriarchy in constructing the cultural identity of woman. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) famously stated, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” – a statement that highlights the fact that women have always been defined as the “Other”, the lacking, the negative, on whom Freud attributed “ penis-envy .” A prominent motto of this phase, “The Personal is the political” was the result of the awareness .of the false distinction between women’s domestic and men’s public spheres. Transcending their domestic and personal spaces, women began to venture into the hitherto male dominated terrains of career and public life. Marking its entry into the academic realm, the presence of feminism was reflected in journals, publishing houses and academic disciplines.

Mary Ellmann ‘s Thinking about Women (1968), Kate Millett ‘s Sexual Politics (1969), Betty Friedan ‘s The Feminine Mystique (1963) and so on mark the major works of the phase. Millett’s work specifically depicts how western social institutions work as covert ways of manipulating power, and how this permeates into literature, philosophy etc. She undertakes a thorough critical understanding of the portrayal of women in the works of male authors like DH Lawrence, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and Jean Genet.

In the third wave (post 1980), Feminism has been actively involved in academics with its interdisciplinary associations with Marxism , Psychoanalysis and Poststructuralism , dealing with issues such as language, writing, sexuality, representation etc. It also has associations with alternate sexualities, postcolonialism ( Linda Hutcheon and Spivak ) and Ecological Studies ( Vandana Shiva )

Elaine Showalter , in her “ Towards a Feminist Poetics ” introduces the concept of gynocriticism , a criticism of gynotexts, by women who are not passive consumers but active producers of meaning. The gynocritics construct a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature, and focus on female subjectivity, language and literary career. Patricia Spacks ‘ The Female Imagination , Showalter’s A Literature of their Own , Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar ‘s The Mad Woman in the Attic are major gynocritical texts.

The present day feminism in its diverse and various forms, such as liberal feminism, cultural/ radical feminism, black feminism/womanism, materialist/neo-marxist feminism, continues its struggle for a better world for women. Beyond literature and literary theory, Feminism also found radical expression in arts, painting ( Kiki Smith , Barbara Kruger ), architecture( Sophia Hayden the architect of Woman’s Building ) and sculpture (Kate Mllett’s Naked Lady).

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Tags: A Literature of their Own , A Room of One's Own , Barbara Kruger , Betty Friedan , Dale Spender , ecriture feminine , Elaine Showalter , Feminism , Gynocriticism , Helene Cixous , http://bookzz.org/s/?q=Kate+Millett&yearFrom=&yearTo=&language=&extension=&t=0 , Judith Shakespeare , Julia Kristeva , Kate Millett , Kiki Smith , Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Man Made Language , Mary Ellmann , Mary Wollstonecraft , Patricia Spacks , Sandra Gilbert , Simone de Beauvoir , Sophia Hayden , Susan Gubar , The Female Imagination , The Feminine Mystique , The Laugh of the Medusa , The Mad Woman in the Attic , The Second Sex , Toril Moi , Towards a Feminist Poetics , Vandana Shiva , Vindication of the Rights of Woman

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The Law That Shapes Us: "Contemporary Feminist Jurisprudence"

Chelsea Wallis DPhil Law

Law DPhil candidate, Chelsea Wallis , examines contemporary feminist jurisprudence as part of The Law That Shapes Us.

The task of assessing the impact of feminist approaches to the law and to legal institutions is not a simple one. As with many social justice movements, promising developments towards substantive gender equality in some parts of the world are counterbalanced by equally significant regressions elsewhere: the progress made towards securing the rights of women and girls has never advanced in a straight line. Feminist activism and jurisprudence too have evolved in waves, gradually incorporating and eventually recentring the lived realities of the most marginalised at the core of feminist thinking by adopting a dynamic, intersectional perspective on oppression. This article considers the shape that contemporary feminist legal theory and methodology have taken, before exploring key issues in which a feminist lens has been applied to the law. These examples span both the Global North and the Global South, including reproductive autonomy and domestic abuse, as well as sexual harassment and the reverberations of #MeToo upon the criminal law and on defamation. 

Contemporary feminist jurisprudence is informed by thinkers as temporally and theoretically diverse as Mary Wollstonecraft and Kimberlé Crenshaw, united by a shared recognition of the barriers which continue to hinder gender equality within changing social, cultural, and political contexts. A key insight from feminist legal analysis is that the entrenched demarcation between public (traditionally masculine) and private (traditionally feminine) spheres continues to pervade the law, explaining how the reluctance to intervene in family life impedes the effective regulation of issues such as domestic abuse or marital rape. As Sandra Fredman explains in Women and the Law, the liberal legalism on which the public/private distinction is premised also ‘renders invisible the value and significance of reproductive labour and ignores the role of the family as one of the chief means of educating and socialising future citizens’ (17).

In the language of human rights, the consequent privileging of negative liberty – civic freedom from interference by the State – over positive duties – which oblige the state to provide for the social and economic rights of its citizens – has an abiding impact on women’s lives, including the unequal burden of domestic labour and the pressure of fulfilling unpaid caring responsibilities.  

These impacts are, predictably, felt most keenly by those who lack the resources to advocate for their rights, especially women and families in poverty, a group disproportionately comprised of people already subject to chronic marginalisation on grounds of race, class, migrant status, or disability. As well as adopting an intersectional perspective, feminist legal thinking is thus also concerned with the nexus of capitalism and patriarchy; the project of achieving substantive gender equality is intricately intertwined with the pursuit of social justice more broadly. Consequently, in addition to supplying important theoretical insights, feminist jurisprudence is a praxis and a call to action, as exemplified by grassroots groups such as India’s Gulabi Gang , Australia’s Sisters Inside ,  and the UK-based Read and Resist! collective. Within the adjacent realm of academic activism, the Feminist Judgments Project , which rewrites the judgements in key cases through a feminist lens, is ‘a political intervention which seeks to challenge the ongoing exclusion of women from legal subjectivity … Rather than accepting our (feminine) invisibility and powerlessness, we have exercised collective agency to attempt to leave a female-gendered mark on the law’ (8).

These themes of collectivisation and solidarity are equally present in feminist empirical work: Oxford DPhil candidate Ellie Whittingdale’s article on becoming a feminist methodologist foregrounds the importance of reciprocity and reflexivity in sociolegal research and within legal spaces themselves. 

The emphasis on trusting and valorising women’s voices, and especially those silenced due to intersectional oppression, is central to feminist jurisprudential thought with respect to reproductive autonomy. The traditional conceptualisation of the right to abortion solely in the negative terms of ‘privacy’ – effectively, a woman’s right to abjure interference from the State in determining whether to terminate a pregnancy – fails to appreciate the inherently context-specific social, political and cultural factors which affect the accessibility (and the stigmatisation) of abortion. It is those women who are already underprivileged that will face challenges in actualising their negative liberty. Rather, a positive, feminist approach to abortion regulation places obligations on the state to provide and facilitate access. It is critical that the right to abortion be considered as an equality right in terms of the social reality women face, not only in relation to equality with men in terms of bodily autonomy, but also in relation to the differential privilege experienced across demographics of women within and between cultures. Similarly, the reluctance of the judiciary to hold medical professionals to account in cases of negligent sterilisation resulting in ‘wrongful conception’ demonstrates the same paternalistic and patriarchal attitudes towards women’s bodily autonomy as those exercised in policing abortion access. 

The treatment of domestic abuse is also a key site of feminist legal inquiry. Now widely recognised as a  human rights issue , domestic abuse is a form of gender-based violence produced by systemic patriarchy and maintained by a legal system designed to regulate the public sphere rather than the private domain. Recent debates over the criminalisation of coercive control have revealed important cracks in the regulatory apparatus: within Australia, a focus on criminalisation, with parallels to the Council of Europe’s  Istanbul Convention , risks targeting communities that are already vulnerable to the misuse of police power. In particular,  advocates for indigenous communities have contended  that policymakers must recognise and address the intergenerational trauma that many Aboriginal women – Australia’s fastest growing incarcerated demographic  – have experienced at the hands of police, as these victims risk being disbelieved by authorities and often face pernicious stereotypes when reporting domestic violence. Similar concerns have been raised by  migrant Australians  and representatives of  minority religions . These same themes emerge from Roychowdhury’s study in the radically dissimilar context of West Bengal, where women who seek police assistance confront not only misogynistic prejudice and social alienation, but crippling systemic pressures which disable them from seeking justice. Judicial and police passivity exacerbates discrimination, inevitably privileging those who are strong enough to advocate relentlessly on their own behalf and maligning women who lack this resilience or have fewer social or financial resources.

In the decades since the second-wave feminist movement, both gender-based violence and sexual harassment have been framed as flagship causes in the struggle for women’s social, political and economic equality. Sexual harassment reifies the same patriarchal values and preoccupation with control as in domestic abuse, although it is principally perpetrated in the public sphere. Sexual harassment is not about sex, but about the performativity of masculine dominance. A feminist jurisprudential lens is able to capture the gendered hegemony that underpins both issues; although not all harassment or abuse is perpetrated against women or nonbinary individuals, all its manifestations are nonetheless united by patriarchal values. Moreover, only an intersectional feminist framing is able to excavate the layers of oppression which operate on women of colour, those from poor and under-educated backgrounds, linguistic minorities, non-cis or non-heterosexual women, disabled women, and refugees, among others. The publicity attached to the #MeToo movement has catapulted the issue of sexual harassment in recent years, exposing the gender-based nature of the issue, but the high-profile cases of white, middle-class women have not been matched by the publicity accorded to the less privileged. These issues reflect pervasive social discourses, as MacKinnon comments : ‘#MeToo is cultural, driven principally by forces other than litigation, and is surpassing the law in changing norms and providing relief for human rights violations that the law did not – in some ways in current form could not, although law is embedded in culture and can and will change with it.’ 

Five years after #MeToo, how far has awareness and support for survivors of sexual harassment and violence progressed? To judge from the vitriolic, prejudiced, and horrifyingly misogynistic responses to the Depp v Heard defamation trial , the task of changing attitudes and understandings of gender-based violence is far from over. As Natasha Stott Despoja writes in her tract  On Violence , eliminating the abuse and harassment of women and girls ‘requires a conscious and critical conversation about gender relationships, power, and what builds and changes culture’, situating feminist jurisprudence at the juncture of law, social activism, and academic inquiry. This conversation is a continuing, dynamic enterprise that demands attention and effort from all of us, both within and beyond legal spaces. It requires that we centre the voices of diversely-oppressed women, whose contributions have so often been elided. Equally, it demands that we consider how we enact feminism in our daily lives, our homes, and our workplaces, as well as through our political and judicial will. Yet as feminist jurisprudence evolves and continues to confront the project of dismantling structural, systemic inequality, it also deserves to celebrate the collective resilience emanating from a shared dedication to ending gendered injustice on a global scale. 

Follow Chelsea on Twitter  @chelseawallis_  as well as conversations about The Law That Shapes Us via our official hashtag #TheLawThatShapesUs. 

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The Feminist Perspective on Education (UK Focus)

Liberal Feminists celebrate the progress made so far in improving girls’ achievement. They essentially believe that the ‘Future is now Female’ and now that girls are outperforming boys in education, it is only a matter of time until more women move into politics and higher paid, managerial roles at work.

Radical Feminists , however, argue that Patriarchy still works through school to reinforce traditional gender norms and to disadvantage girls – Add in details to the notes below.

Some Radical Feminist Sociologists see concern over boys’ relative underachievement as a ‘moral panic’. Boys have still been improving their achievement in the last thirty years, just not as fast as girls. The Feminist argument is that the focus on education at the moment on ‘raising boys achievement’ reflects a male dominated system panicking at the fact that old patriarchal power relations are starting to break down.

Recent research suggests that despite girls doing well at school – girls are increasingly subject to sexist bullying, something which is becoming worse with the ‘normalisation of pornography’. Read the extract from Kat Banyard over page for more details and consider how common such incidents are today. Read the extract provided for details

While girls are discouraged from using their bodies on the sports field, they often find their bodies at the centre of another unwelcome kind of activity. Chloe was one of the many women and girls I heard from during the course of my research into violence at school. ‘I had boys groping my en masse. It wasn’t just at break times – in class as well. Sometimes they used to hold me down and take it turns, it was universally accepted. Teachers pretended they didn’t notice. I would regularly hang out in the toilets at break time. I felt pretty violated; it made me hate my body.’ Having now left school, Chloe can pinpoint exactly when the sexual harassment began. ‘When my breasts grew. I went from an A to an E cup when I was fourteen.’ It became a regular feature of her school day, mostly happening when the boys were in groups. ‘People would randomly scream ‘’slut’’. One boy told me that he has a fantasy that he wanted to tie me up and viciously rape me. He was a bit of an outcast. But when he said that all the boys were high-fiving him. He got serious street-cred for saying it.’’ Classrooms are training grounds for boys aspiring to be ‘real men’ and girls like Jena and Chloe are paying the price. Humiliating and degrading girls serves to highlight just how masculine boys really are. And so, sexist bullying and sexual harassment are an integral part of daily school life for many girls.

Hayley described to me how some of the boys at her secondary school were using new technologies to harass girls. ‘They try and take pictures with their camera phones up you skirt while you’re sitting at your desk. Nobody knows what to say. They wouldn’t want to provoke an argument.’ Boys also access internet pornography on school computers. Hayley said, ‘in year seven and eight it’s quite common. Even the boys you wouldn’t expect you see getting told off by teachers for it.’ Similarly Sarah remembers pornography being commonplace at her school; ‘Every student was asked to bring in newspaper articles. Many boys saw this as a great opportunity to bring in newspapers such as the Sun, Star, Sport etc and make a point of looking at, sharing and showing the countless page-three-style images. Sarah was ‘extremely upset on a number of occasions when boys who sat near me in class would push these pages in front of me and make comments. Most of the time all the forms of harassment went completely unchallenged; I don’t think (the teachers) ever paid any attention to sexual harassment.’

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Radical Feminism: Definition, Theory & Examples

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

On This Page:

Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in order to eliminate patriarchy, which it sees as fundamental to the oppression of women. It analyses the role of the sex and gender systems in the systemic oppression of women and argues that the eradication of patriarchy is necessary to liberate women.

Key Takeaways

• Radical feminists believe that men are the enemy and that marriage and family are the key institutions that allow patriarchy to exist.
• For radical feminists in order for equality to be achieved patriarchy needs to be overturned. They argue that the family needs to be abolished and a system of gender separatism needs to be instituted for this to happen.
• Sommerville argues that radical feminists fail to see the improvements that have been made to women’s experiences of the family. With better access to divorce and control over their fertility women are no longer trapped by family. She also argues that separatism is unobtainable due to heterosexual attraction.

What Is Radical Feminism?

Radical feminism is a branch of feminism that seeks to dismantle the traditional patriarchal power and gender roles that keep women oppressed.

Radical feminists believe that the cause of gender inequality is based on men’s need or desire to control women. The definition of the word ‘radical’ means ‘of or relating to the root’.

Radical feminists thus see patriarchy as the root cause of inequality between men and women and they seek to up-root this. They aim to address the root causes of oppression through systemic change and activism, rather than through legislative or economic change.

Radical feminism requires a global change of the system. Radical feminists theorize new ways to think and apprehend the relationships between men and women so that women can be liberated.

Radical feminism sees women as a collective group that has been and is still being oppressed by men. Its intent is focused on being women-centered, with women’s experiences and interests being at the forefront of the theory and practice. It is argued by some to be the only theory by and for women (Rowland & Klein, 1996).

What Are The Principles Of Radical Feminism?

Below are some of the key areas of focus which are essential to understanding radical feminism:

Patriarchal institutions

Radical feminists believe that there are existing political, social, and other institutions that are inherently tied to the patriarchy.

This can include government laws and legislature which restricts what women can do with their bodies, and the church, which has long restricted women to the maternal role, and rejects the idea of non-reproductive sexuality.

Traditional marriage is also defined as a patriarchal institution according to radical feminists since it makes women part of men’s private property.

Even today, marriage can be seen as an institution perpetuating inequalities through unpaid domestic work, most of which is still done by women.

Control over women’s bodies

According to radical feminists, patriarchal systems attempt to gain control over women’s bodies. Patriarchal institutions control the laws of reproduction where they determine whether women have the right to an abortion and contraception.

Thus, women have less autonomy over their own bodies. Kathleen Barry stated in her book Female Sexual Slavery (1979) that women in marriage are seen to be ‘owned’ by their husband.

She also suggested that women’s bodies are used in advertising and pornography alike for the male use.

Women are objectified

From a radical feminist standpoint, the patriarchy, societal sexism, sexual violence, and sex work all contribute to the objectification of women.

They accuse pornography of objectifying and degrading women, displaying unequal male-female power relations. With prostitution, radical feminists argue that it trivializes rape in return for payment and that prostitutes are sexually exploited.

The struggle against pornography has come to occupy such a central position in the radical feminist critique of male supremacist relations of power.

Campaigns against this are intended to tell women how men are willingly being trained to view and objectify them (Thompson, 2001).

Violence against women

Radical feminists believe that women experience violence by men physically and sexually, but also through prostitution and pornography.

They believe that violence is a way for men to gain control, dominate, and perpetuate women’s subordination. According to radical feminists, violence against women is not down to a few perpetrators, but it is a wider, societal problem.

They claim there is a rape culture that is enabled and encouraged by a patriarchal society.

Transgender disagreement

There is disagreement about transgender identity in the radical feminist community. While some radical feminists support the rights of transgender people, some are against the existence of transgender individuals, especially transgender women.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERF) are members of the radical feminist community who do not acknowledge that transgender women are real women and often want to exclude them from ‘women-only’ groups.

For this reason, TERFs often reduce gender down to biological sex differences and do not support the rights of all those who identify as being a woman.

What Are The Goals Of Radical Feminism?

Structural change.

Radical feminists aim to dismantle the entire system of patriarchy, rather than adjust the existing system through legal or social efforts, which they claim does not go far enough.

They desire this structural change since they argue that women’s oppression is systemic, meaning it is produced by how society functions and is found in all institutions.

They believe that institutions including the government and religion are centered historically in patriarchal power and thus need to be dismantled.

They also criticize motherhood, marriage, the nuclear family , and sexuality, questioning how much culture is based on patriarchal assumptions. They would like to see changes in how these other institutions function.

Bodily autonomy

Radical feminists emphasize the theme of the body, specifically on the reappropriation of the body by women, as well as on the freedom of choice. They want to reclaim their bodies and choose to be able to do what they want with their bodies.

They have argued for reproductive rights for women which would give them the freedom to make choices about whether they want to give birth.

This also includes having access to safe abortions, birth control, and getting sterilized if this is what a woman wants to do.

End violence against women

Radical feminists aim to shed light on the disproportionate amount of violence that women face at the hands of men. They argue that rape and sexual abuse are an expression of patriarchal power and must be stopped.

Through dismantling the patriarchy and having justice for victims of violence on the basis of sex, radical feminists believe there will be less instances of this violence.

Many also argue that pornography and other types of sex work are harmful and encourage violence and domination of men over women and should be stopped. They believe that sex work falls under the patriarchal oppression of women and is exploitative, although some radical feminists disagree with this position.

Women-centered strategies

A main part of radical feminism is that they want strategies to be put in place to help women. This can include the creation of shelters for abused women and better sex education to raise awareness of consent.

Many radical feminists strive for establishing women-centered social institutions and women-only organizations so that women are separated from men who may cause them harm.

For instance, they may be against having gender neutral public bathrooms as this increases women’s risk of being abused by a man.

This is also where TERFs can be critical of transgender people as they do not want them in women-only spaces since they do not see a transwoman as a woman.

The History Of Radical Feminism

Radical feminism mainly developed during the second wave of feminism from the 1960s onwards, primarily in Western countries. It is influenced by left-wing social movements such as the civil rights movement.

It is thought to have been constructed in opposition to other feminist movements at the time: Liberal and Marxist feminism. Liberal feminism only demanded equal rights within the system of society and is criticized for not going far enough to make actual change.

Marxist feminism , on the other hand, confined itself to an economic analysis of women’s oppression and believed that women’s liberation comes from abolishing capitalism.

Although becoming popularized in the 1960’s there are believed to be radical feminists decades before this time.

For example, some of the actions of the women in the women’s suffrage movement in the early 20th century can be considered radical.

Likewise, a 1911 radical feminist review in England titled The Free Woman published weekly writings about revolutionary ideas about women, marriage, politics, prostitution, sexual relations, and issues concerning women’s oppression and strategies for ending it.

It was eventually banned by booksellers and many suffragists at the time objected to it because of its critical position on the right to vote as the single issue which would ensure women’s equality (Rowland & Klein, 1996).

Radical feminism as a movement is thought to have emerged in 1968 as a response to deeper understandings of women’s oppression (Atkinson, 2014). The early years of second wave feminism were marked by the efforts of young radical feminists to establish an identity for their growing movement.

They argued that women needed to engage in a revolutionary movement which goes beyond liberal and Marxist movements.

A significant radical feminist group which emerged around this time is the New York Radical Women group, founded by Shulamith Firestone and Pam Allen.

They attempted to spread the message that ‘sisterhood is powerful’. A well-known protest of this group occurred during the Miss America Pageant in 1968.

Hundreds of women marched with signs proclaiming that the pageant was a ‘cattle auction’. During the live broadcast of this event, the women displayed a banner that read ‘Women’s Liberation’, which brought a great deal of public awareness of the radical feminist movement.

A noteworthy writing prior to this time which may have been influential to the movement is Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 book titled The Second Sex .

In this book, she understands women’s oppression by analyzing the particular institutions which define women’s lives, such as marriage, family, and motherhood.

Another influential writing is Betty Friedan’s 1963 book titled The Feminine Mystique which addresses women’s dissatisfaction with societal standards and expectations.

Her book gave a voice to women’s frustrations with their limited gender roles and helped to spark widespread activism for gender equality.

Strengths And Criticisms Of Radical Feminism

Radical feminism is thought to expand on earlier branches of feminism since it seeks to understand and dismantle the roots of women’s oppression. It is considered stronger than liberal feminism which only seeks to make changes within the already established system, which is considered not enough to make actual change.

Radical feminism has also been responsible for many of the advances made during the second wave of feminism . This is particularly true when it comes to women’s choice over their bodies and violence against women.

Due to the activism of radical feminists, sexual violence such as rape and domestic violence are now considered crimes in most Western countries.

It has also been recognized that violence against women is not a series of isolated cases, but rather a societal phenomenon. Radical feminists have thus increased awareness of this issue.

A prominent criticism of radical feminism is the transphobia associated with TERFs. Many people who relate to a lot of the original ideas of radical feminism may have stopped identifying as a radical feminist due to its association with TERFs.

It is not only transphobic but is part of a wider movement which encompasses its feminist stance to partner with conservatives, with a goal to endanger and get rid of transgender people.

While radical feminism may have been progressive during its peak, the movement can be criticized for lacking an intersectional lens. It views gender as the most important axis of oppression and sees women as a homogenous group collectively oppressed by men.

It does not always take into consideration the different experiences of oppression suffered by women with disabilities, women of color, or migrant women for instance.

As with a lot of branches of feminism, radical feminism is often dominated by white women. Radical feminists are often criticized for their paradoxical views of bodily autonomy.

They promote freedom of choice when it comes to women and what they do with their bodies, but they do not support women who choose to engage in sex work. They argue that all sex workers are oppressed, without recognizing that a good number of them use this work to reappropriate their own bodies or even to play on male domination.

The critical view that radical feminists have about sex work has contributed to the further stigmatization of this industry and it contradicts their message of ‘my body, my choice’ and their opposition to conservative views of sexuality.

If they supported bodily autonomy, then they should be happy to see a woman choosing to engage in sex work, as long as this is what she is choosing to do.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there different types of radical feminists.

According to Rosemarie Tong (2003), there are two types of radical feminism: libertarian and cultural.Radical libertarian feminists assert that an exclusively feminine gender identity limits a woman’s development, so they encourage women to become androgynous, who embody both masculine and feminine characteristics.

Radical cultural feminists argue that women should be strictly female and feminine and should not try to be like men. However, not all radical feminists fit into one of these categories.

What are radical feminists’ views on crime?

Radical feminists recognize that there is a disproportionate amount of violence against women, including domestic abuse. In the 1970’s radical feminists labored to reform the public’s response to crimes such as rape and domestic violence.

Before the revision of policies and laws, rape victims were often blamed for their victimization. Due to the help of radical feminists, there is more justice for victims of gender-based violence.

What are radical feminists’ views on the family?

Adrienne Rich (1980) analyzed the compulsory nature of heterosexuality and claims that men fear that women could be indifferent to them and only allow them emotional and economic access on their own terms.

She suggests that the compulsory nature of heterosexual relationships allows men access to women as natural and their right. The family is considered to be an institution, which starts off with marriage and a legal contract where the reproduction of children naturally follows.

Many radical feminists may engage in political lesbianism, refuse to marry, and remain child-free as a way to not feel tied down by patriarchal institutions.

Atkinson, T. G. (2014). The Descent from Radical Feminism to Postmodernism. In presentation at the conference “ A Revolutionary Moment: Women’s Liberation in the Late 1960s and the Early 1970s,” Boston University.

Barry, K. (1979).  Female sexual slavery . NyU Press.

Cottais, C. (2020). Radical Feminism. Gender in Geopolitics Institute. Retrieved 2022, August 19, from: https://igg-geo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Technical-Sheet-Radical-feminism.pdf

De Beauvoir, S. (2010). The second sex . Knopf.

Friedan, B. (2010). The feminine mystique . WW Norton & Company.

Greer, G. (1971). The female eunuch .

Greer, G. (2007). The whole woman . Random House.

Nachescu, V. (2009). Radical feminism and the nation: History and space in the political imagination of second-wave feminism.  Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 3 (1), 29-59.

Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 5 (4), 631-660.

Rowland, R., & Klein, R. (1996). Radical feminism: History, politics, action.  Radically speaking: Feminism reclaimed , 9-36.

Thompson, D. (2001).  Radical feminism today . Sage.

Tong, R., & Botts, T. F. (2003). Radical Feminism. Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories . London: Routledge.

Feminist Theory in Sociology

An Overview of Key Ideas and Issues

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Feminist theory is a major branch of sociology that shifts its assumptions, analytic lens, and topical focus away from the male viewpoint and experience toward that of women.

In doing so, feminist theory shines a light on social problems, trends, and issues that are otherwise overlooked or misidentified by the historically dominant male perspective within social theory .

Feminist Theory Key Takeaways

Key areas of focus within feminist theory include:

• discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sex and gender
• objectification
• structural and economic inequality
• power and oppression
• gender roles and stereotypes

Feminist Theory Overview

Many people incorrectly believe that feminist theory focuses exclusively on girls and women  and that it has an inherent goal of promoting the superiority of women over men.

In reality, feminist theory has always been about viewing the social world in a way that illuminates the forces that create and support inequality, oppression, and injustice, and in doing so, promotes the pursuit of equality and justice.

That said, since the experiences and perspectives of women and girls were historically excluded for years from social theory and social science, much feminist theory has focused on their interactions and experiences within society to ensure that half the world's population is not left out of how we see and understand social forces, relations, and problems.

While most feminist theorists throughout history have been women , people of all genders can work in this discipline today. By shifting the focus of social theory away from the perspectives and experiences of men, feminist theorists have created social theories that are more inclusive and creative than those that assume the social actor is always a man.

Part of what makes feminist theory creative and inclusive is that it often considers how systems of power and oppression interact , which is to say it does not just focus on gendered power and oppression, but on how this might intersect with systemic racism , a hierarchical class system, sexuality , nationality , and (dis)ability, among other things.

Gender Differences

Some feminist theory provides an analytic framework for understanding how women's location and experience of social situations differ from men's.

For example, cultural feminists look at the different values associated with womanhood and femininity as a reason why men and women experience the social world differently. Other feminist theorists believe the roles assigned to women and men within institutions better explain gender differences, including the sexual division of labor in the household .

Existential and phenomenological feminists focus on how women have been marginalized and defined as  “other”  in patriarchal societies . Some feminist theorists focus specifically on how masculinity is developed through socialization, and how its development interacts with the process of developing femininity in girls.

Gender Inequality

Feminist theories that focus on gender inequality recognize that women's location in and experience of social situations is not only different but also unequal to men's.

Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral reasoning and agency, but that patriarchy , particularly the sexist division of labor, has historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning.

These dynamics serve to shove women into the  private sphere  of the household and exclude them from full participation in public life. Liberal feminists point out that gender inequality exists for women in a heterosexual marriage and that women do not benefit from being married.

Indeed, these feminist theorists claim that married women have higher levels of stress than unmarried women and married men. Therefore, the sexual division of labor in both the public and private spheres needs to be altered for women to achieve marriage equality.

Gender Oppression

Theories of gender oppression go further than theories of gender difference and gender inequality by arguing that not only are women different from or unequal to men, but that they are actively oppressed, subordinated, and even abused by men .

Power is the key variable in the two main theories of gender oppression: psychoanalytic feminism and  radical feminism .

Psychoanalytic feminists attempt to explain power relations between men and women by reformulating Sigmund Freud 's theories of human emotions, childhood development, and the workings of the subconscious and unconscious. They believe that conscious calculation cannot fully explain the production and reproduction of patriarchy.

Radical feminists argue that being a woman is a positive thing in and of itself, but this is not acknowledged in  patriarchal societies  where women are oppressed. They identify physical violence as being at the base of patriarchy and think patriarchy can be defeated if women recognize their value and strength, establish a sisterhood of trust with other women, confront oppression critically, and form female-based separatist networks in the private and public spheres.

Structural Oppression

Structural oppression theories posit that women's oppression and inequality are a result of capitalism , patriarchy, and racism .

Socialist feminists agree with  Karl Marx  and Friedrich Engels that the working class is exploited as a consequence of capitalism and seek to extend this exploitation not just to class but also to gender.

Intersectionality theorists seek to explain oppression and inequality across several variables, including class, gender, race, ethnicity, and age. They offer the important insight that not all women experience oppression in the same way and that the same forces that work to oppress women and girls also oppress people of color and other marginalized groups.

One way structural oppression of women, specifically the economic kind, manifests in society is in the gender wage gap , which shows that men routinely earn more for the same work than women.

An intersectional view of this situation shows that women (and men) of color are even further penalized relative to the earnings of white men.

This strain of feminist theory in the late 20th century was extended to account for the globalization of capitalism and how its methods of production and accumulating wealth center on the exploitation of women workers.

Kachel, Sven, et al. "Traditional Masculinity and Femininity: Validation of a New Scale Assessing Gender Roles." Frontiers in Psychology , vol. 7, 5 July 2016, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00956

Zosuls, Kristina M., et al. "Gender Development Research in  Sex Roles : Historical Trends and Future Directions." Sex Roles , vol. 64, no. 11-12, June 2011, pp. 826-842., doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9902-3

Norlock, Kathryn. "Feminist Ethics." Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . 27 May 2019.

Liu, Huijun, et al. "Gender in Marriage and Life Satisfaction Under Gender Imbalance in China: The Role of Intergenerational Support and SES." Social Indicators Research , vol. 114, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 915-933., doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0180-z

"Gender and Stress." American Psychological Association .

Stamarski, Cailin S., and Leanne S. Son Hing. "Gender Inequalities in the Workplace: The Effects of Organizational Structures, Processes, Practices, and Decision Makers’ Sexism." Frontiers in Psychology , 16 Sep. 2015, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01400

Barone-Chapman, Maryann . " Gender Legacies of Jung and Freud as Epistemology in Emergent Feminist Research on Late Motherhood." Behavioral Sciences , vol. 4, no. 1, 8 Jan. 2014, pp. 14-30., doi:10.3390/bs4010014

Srivastava, Kalpana, et al. "Misogyny, Feminism, and Sexual Harassment." Industrial Psychiatry Journal , vol. 26, no. 2, July-Dec. 2017, pp. 111-113., doi:10.4103/ipj.ipj_32_18

Armstrong, Elisabeth. "Marxist and Socialist Feminism." Study of Women and Gender: Faculty Publications . Smith College, 2020.

Pittman, Chavella T. "Race and Gender Oppression in the Classroom: The Experiences of Women Faculty of Color with White Male Students." Teaching Sociology , vol. 38, no. 3, 20 July 2010, pp. 183-196., doi:10.1177/0092055X10370120

Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations." Journal of Economic Literature , vol. 55, no. 3, 2017, pp. 789-865., doi:10.1257/jel.20160995

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What is feminism?

At its core, feminism is the belief in full social, economic, and political equality for women. Feminism largely arose in response to Western traditions that restricted the rights of women, but feminist thought has global manifestations and variations.

In medieval France philosopher Christine de Pisan challenged the social restrictions on women and pushed for women’s education. In 18th-century England Mary Wollstonecraft ’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman became a seminal work of English-language feminist philosophy. Feminism in the United States had a number of prominent activists during the mid- to late-19th century. Notable mainstream activists included Lucretia Mott , Elizabeth Cady Stanton , and Susan B. Anthony . Less mainstream but similarly important views came from Sojourner Truth , a formerly enslaved Black woman, and Emma Goldman , the nation’s leading anarchist during the late 19th century.

Intersectionality is a term coined by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how different social categories interact, sometimes resulting in compounding effects and tensions. Her paper on the subject argued that discrimination specifically against Black women is different from general anti-woman discrimination or anti-Black racism. Instead, it involves the unique compound experience of both sexism and racism. Initially used in the context of discrimination law, the concept saw a resurgence in the 21st century among left-wing activists who broadened intersectionality to include categories such as class and sexual orientation.

Feminism has provided Western women with increased educational opportunities, the right to vote, protections against workplace discrimination, and the right to make personal decisions about pregnancy. In some communities, feminism has also succeeded in challenging pervasive cultural norms about women. Outside of the Western world, activists such as Malala Yousafzai have highlighted issues such as unequal access to education for women.

feminism , the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. Although largely originating in the West, feminism is manifested worldwide and is represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.

Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere, while public life was reserved for men. In medieval Europe, women were denied the right to own property , to study, or to participate in public life. At the end of the 19th century in France, they were still compelled to cover their heads in public, and, in parts of Germany, a husband still had the right to sell his wife. Even as late as the early 20th century, women could neither vote nor hold elective office in Europe and in most of the United States (where several territories and states granted women’s suffrage long before the federal government did so). Women were prevented from conducting business without a male representative, be it father, brother, husband, legal agent, or even son. Married women could not exercise control over their own children without the permission of their husbands. Moreover, women had little or no access to education and were barred from most professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue today. See also egalitarianism .

History of feminism

There is scant evidence of early organized protest against such circumscribed status. In the 3rd century bce , Roman women filled the Capitoline Hill and blocked every entrance to the Forum when consul Marcus Porcius Cato resisted attempts to repeal laws limiting women’s use of expensive goods. “If they are victorious now, what will they not attempt?” Cato cried. “As soon as they begin to be your equals, they will have become your superiors.”

That rebellion proved exceptional, however. For most of recorded history, only isolated voices spoke out against the inferior status of women, presaging the arguments to come. In late 14th- and early 15th-century France, the first feminist philosopher, Christine de Pisan , challenged prevailing attitudes toward women with a bold call for female education. Her mantle was taken up later in the century by Laura Cereta, a 15th-century Venetian woman who published Epistolae familiares (1488; “Personal Letters”; Eng. trans. Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist ), a volume of letters dealing with a panoply of women’s complaints, from denial of education and marital oppression to the frivolity of women’s attire.

The defense of women had become a literary subgenre by the end of the 16th century, when Il merito delle donne (1600; The Worth of Women ), a feminist broadside by another Venetian author, Moderata Fonte, was published posthumously. Defenders of the status quo painted women as superficial and inherently immoral, while the emerging feminists produced long lists of women of courage and accomplishment and proclaimed that women would be the intellectual equals of men if they were given equal access to education.

The so-called “debate about women” did not reach England until the late 16th century, when pamphleteers and polemicists joined battle over the true nature of womanhood. After a series of satiric pieces mocking women was published, the first feminist pamphleteer in England, writing as Jane Anger, responded with Jane Anger, Her Protection for Women (1589). This volley of opinion continued for more than a century, until another English author, Mary Astell, issued a more reasoned rejoinder in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697). The two-volume work suggested that women inclined neither toward marriage nor a religious vocation should set up secular convents where they might live, study, and teach.

The feminist voices of the Renaissance never coalesced into a coherent philosophy or movement. This happened only with the Enlightenment , when women began to demand that the new reformist rhetoric about liberty , equality, and natural rights be applied to both sexes.

Initially, Enlightenment philosophers focused on the inequities of social class and caste to the exclusion of gender . Swiss-born French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau , for example, portrayed women as silly and frivolous creatures, born to be subordinate to men. In addition, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , which defined French citizenship after the revolution of 1789, pointedly failed to address the legal status of women.

Female intellectuals of the Enlightenment were quick to point out this lack of inclusivity and the limited scope of reformist rhetoric. Olympe de Gouges , a noted playwright, published Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (1791; “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen”), declaring women to be not only man’s equal but his partner. The following year Mary Wollstonecraft ’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the seminal English-language feminist work, was published in England. Challenging the notion that women exist only to please men, she proposed that women and men be given equal opportunities in education, work, and politics. Women, she wrote, are as naturally rational as men. If they are silly, it is only because society trains them to be irrelevant.

The Age of Enlightenment turned into an era of political ferment marked by revolutions in France, Germany, and Italy and the rise of abolitionism . In the United States, feminist activism took root when female abolitionists sought to apply the concepts of freedom and equality to their own social and political situations. Their work brought them in contact with female abolitionists in England who were reaching the same conclusions. By the mid-19th century, issues surrounding feminism had added to the tumult of social change , with ideas being exchanged across Europe and North America .

In the first feminist article she dared sign with her own name, Louise Otto, a German, built on the work of Charles Fourier , a French social theorist, quoting his dictum that “by the position which women hold in a land, you can see whether the air of a state is thick with dirty fog or free and clear.” And after Parisian feminists began publishing a daily newspaper entitled La Voix des femmes (“The Voice of Women”) in 1848, Luise Dittmar, a German writer, followed suit one year later with her journal, Soziale Reform .

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2 Feminist Legal Theory and the Rights of Women

• Published: March 2004
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It would be a misconception to believe that legal feminism as an idea came about only in the late 20th century. Issues regarding feminist thought have for a very long time been issues of great concern. In the context of law, modern feminist texts today encompass arguments for the rights of women and the achievement of equal political and legal status that were advocated as early as the 18th century. This chapter examines the relationship between modern campaigns and the feminist analyses of law which attempts to utilize human rights codes in obtaining equality, autonomy, and justice for women. The chapter identifies some of the different methods that have been developed within feminist legal theory such as liberalism. It also discusses various issues that are brought up within this context. The chapter also explores the feminist critiques that involve theories of political and legal rights, and investigates the models that are developed along with critical race theory that intend to provide better reconstructions of these rights.

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Feminist Theory

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Feminist Theory champions and shapes feminist debates globally, providing a vital critical forum for publishing and reading cutting-edge discussions of feminist theory and feminist theoretical praxis. The journal is committed to speaking to the broadest spectrum of feminism, and of gender and sexual politics, as understood across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Feminist Theory is available on SAGE Journals Online and is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal promotes:

• debate among theorists from diverse perspectives
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• challenges to existing theoretical orthodoxies and conventional definitions of theory
• empirically grounded theorizing as well as more conceptual work
• writing which is politically engaged and which explores links between theory and practice
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Interchanges In addition to longer articles, Feminist Theory publishes short "think pieces", comments on past articles and theoretical reflections on topical issues. Readers are encouraged to respond to these contributions, thus fostering ongoing debate and exchanges of ideas.

Reviews Feminist Theory publishes solicited review essays which set several recent books within the context of contemporary debates.

Feminist Theory champions and shapes feminist debates globally, providing a vital critical forum for publishing and reading cutting-edge discussions of feminist theory and feminist theoretical praxis. The journal is committed to speaking to the broadest spectrum of feminism, and of gender and sexual politics, as understood across the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Feminist Theory is available on SAGE Journals Online and is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

• Feminist Theory is an international peer-reviewed journal that advances key contemporary debates within feminist theory and feminist theoretical praxis.
• The Editorial Collective is committed to publishing a multiplicity of feminist voices and intersectional positions.
• The journal promotes work from diverse perspectives as well as critical engagements with shifting disciplinary hierarchies, whilst both contesting and shaping the field of feminist theory itself.

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