Feminism
History of Feminism
Feminism is an area of philosophy that is in part focused on understanding and critiquing the way political philosophy is usually construed—often without any attention to feminist concerns—and on articulating how political theory might be reconstructed in a way that advances feminist concerns.
Current feminist political philosophy is indebted to the work of earlier generations of feminist scholarship and activism, including the first wave of feminism in the English-speaking world, which took place from the 1840s to the 1920s and focused on improving the political, educational, and economic system primarily for middle-class women. Its greatest achievements were to develop a language of equal rights for women and to garner women the right to vote. It is also indebted to the second wave of feminism, which, beginning in the 1960s, drew on the language of the civil rights movements (e.g., the language of liberation) and on a new feminist consciousness that emerged through women's solidarity movements and new forms of reflection that uncovered sexist attitudes and impediments throughout the whole of society.
One of the first theoretical advances of second wave feminism was to separate out biological conceptions of women's identity from socially-constructed ones in order to disprove the notion that biology was destiny and hence that women's main role was as mothers and caregivers. Drawing on the social sciences and psychoanalytic theory, anthropologist Gayle Rubin developed an account of a “sex/gender system” (Ruben 1975; Dietz 2003, 401; and the entry on feminist perspectives on sex and gender).
The sex/gender distinction pointed to “a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention” (Rubin 1975, 165). While biological sex was fixed, in Rubin's view, gender was a social construction that served to divide the sexes and privilege men. Because gender was mutable, the sex/gender distinction gave feminists a powerful tool to look for ways to address women's oppression.
With this socially-constructed notion of gender, early second-wave theorists sought out an understanding of woman as a universal subject and agent of feminist politics. Just as Marxist theory sought out a universal subject in the person of the worker, feminists theorists sought it out in a shared and common condition that afflicted women across cultures.
Contemporary Approaches and Debates
Now in the second decade of the twenty-first century, feminist theorists are doing an extraordinary variety of work on matters political and democratic, including global ethics, human rights, disabilities studies, bioethics, climate change, and international development. (See the entry on topics in feminism.) Some of the tensions that came to the fore in previous decades are played out in any of these areas.
For example, in global ethics there is a debate over whether there are universal values of justice and freedom that should be intentionally cultivated for women in the developing world or whether cultural diversity should be prized. Feminist theorists have sought to answer this question in a number of different and compelling ways. (For some examples see Ackerly 2000, Ackerly & Okin 1999, Benhabib 2002 and 2008, Butler 2000, Gould 2004, and Zerilli 2009.)
Likewise new philosophical work on disabilities, as the entry on feminist perspectives on disability explains, is informed by a great deal of feminist theory, from standpoint philosophy to feminist phenomenology, as well as political philosophical questions of identity, difference, and diversity. (See also Carlson & Kittay, 2010.)
Ultimately, the number of approaches that can be taken on any of these issues is as high as the number of philosophers there are working on them. Nonetheless there are some general family resemblances to be found in certain groupings, not altogether unlike Jaggar's 1983 classification. The remainder of this entry will identify how the previous schema has changed and what new constellations have emerged.
Feminism is an area of philosophy that is in part focused on understanding and critiquing the way political philosophy is usually construed—often without any attention to feminist concerns—and on articulating how political theory might be reconstructed in a way that advances feminist concerns.
Current feminist political philosophy is indebted to the work of earlier generations of feminist scholarship and activism, including the first wave of feminism in the English-speaking world, which took place from the 1840s to the 1920s and focused on improving the political, educational, and economic system primarily for middle-class women. Its greatest achievements were to develop a language of equal rights for women and to garner women the right to vote. It is also indebted to the second wave of feminism, which, beginning in the 1960s, drew on the language of the civil rights movements (e.g., the language of liberation) and on a new feminist consciousness that emerged through women's solidarity movements and new forms of reflection that uncovered sexist attitudes and impediments throughout the whole of society.
One of the first theoretical advances of second wave feminism was to separate out biological conceptions of women's identity from socially-constructed ones in order to disprove the notion that biology was destiny and hence that women's main role was as mothers and caregivers. Drawing on the social sciences and psychoanalytic theory, anthropologist Gayle Rubin developed an account of a “sex/gender system” (Ruben 1975; Dietz 2003, 401; and the entry on feminist perspectives on sex and gender).
The sex/gender distinction pointed to “a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention” (Rubin 1975, 165). While biological sex was fixed, in Rubin's view, gender was a social construction that served to divide the sexes and privilege men. Because gender was mutable, the sex/gender distinction gave feminists a powerful tool to look for ways to address women's oppression.
With this socially-constructed notion of gender, early second-wave theorists sought out an understanding of woman as a universal subject and agent of feminist politics. Just as Marxist theory sought out a universal subject in the person of the worker, feminists theorists sought it out in a shared and common condition that afflicted women across cultures.
Contemporary Approaches and Debates
Now in the second decade of the twenty-first century, feminist theorists are doing an extraordinary variety of work on matters political and democratic, including global ethics, human rights, disabilities studies, bioethics, climate change, and international development. (See the entry on topics in feminism.) Some of the tensions that came to the fore in previous decades are played out in any of these areas.
For example, in global ethics there is a debate over whether there are universal values of justice and freedom that should be intentionally cultivated for women in the developing world or whether cultural diversity should be prized. Feminist theorists have sought to answer this question in a number of different and compelling ways. (For some examples see Ackerly 2000, Ackerly & Okin 1999, Benhabib 2002 and 2008, Butler 2000, Gould 2004, and Zerilli 2009.)
Likewise new philosophical work on disabilities, as the entry on feminist perspectives on disability explains, is informed by a great deal of feminist theory, from standpoint philosophy to feminist phenomenology, as well as political philosophical questions of identity, difference, and diversity. (See also Carlson & Kittay, 2010.)
Ultimately, the number of approaches that can be taken on any of these issues is as high as the number of philosophers there are working on them. Nonetheless there are some general family resemblances to be found in certain groupings, not altogether unlike Jaggar's 1983 classification. The remainder of this entry will identify how the previous schema has changed and what new constellations have emerged.
McAfee, Noëlle, "Feminist Political Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/feminism-political/>.