Liberal feminism, the dominant tradition in feminist history, is an individualistic form of feminist theory which focuses on women's ability to maintain their equality through their own actions and choices.
Liberals have advocated gender and racial equality in their drive to promote civil rights and a global civil rights movement in the 20th century achieved several objectives towards both goals. Other goals often accepted by liberals include universal suffrage and universal access to education .
Feminism asserts that women are opposed by social structures and relationships in society that privilege men and male views of social priorities, excluding and devaluing women and women's view of society. This leads to the oppression of women, particularly those with little social economic power. What does this oppression derive from?
Feminism asserts that women are opposed by social structures and relationships in society that privilege men and male views of social priorities, excluding and devaluing women and women's view of society. This leads to the oppression of women, particularly those with little social economic power.
The goal for liberal feminists beginning in the late 18th century was to gain suffrage for women with the idea that this would allow them to gain individual liberty. They were concerned with gaining freedom through equality, diminishing men's cruelty to women, and gaining opportunities to become full persons.
Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests.
Liberal feminism is a particular approach to achieving equality between men and women that emphasizes the power of an individual person to alter discriminatory practices against women.
The core concepts in feminist theory are sex, gender, race, discrimination, equality, difference, and choice. There are systems and structures in place that work against individuals based on these qualities and against equality and equity.
Feminism, as a political movement, works to fight inequality and the social, cultural, economic, and political subordination of women. The goal of feminist politics is to end the domination of women through critiquing and transforming institutions and theories that support women's subordination.
Where liberal feminists prefer to focus on equality, not just between people but between the sexes more generally, radical feminists tend to see sexual difference as something instituted by power. So in a curious way, neither approach, however at odds with each other, takes sexual difference seriously.
Contemporary liberal feminism emerged in the U.S. in the early 1960's. It was associated with Betty Friedan's book, The Feminine Mystique. In 1966 the National Organization for Women was founded with Friedan as president; it became and remains the premier liberal feminist organization.
Critics of liberal feminism point to a lack of critique of basic gender relationships, a focus on state action which links women's interests to those of the powerful, a lack of class or race analysis, and a lack of analysis of ways in which women are different from men.
Traditionally feminism is often divided into three main traditions, sometimes known as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought: liberal/mainstream feminism, radical feminism and socialist or Marxist feminism.
British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) is widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism, with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) expanding the boundaries of liberalism to include women in the political structure of liberal society.
Liberalism in Britain was based on core concepts such as classical economics, free trade, laissez-faire government with minimal intervention and taxation and a balanced budget. Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty and equal rights. Writers such as John Bright and Richard Cobden opposed both aristocratic privilege and property, which they saw as an impediment to the development of a class of yeoman farmers.
Not to be confused with Libertarianism. Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.
The two key events that marked the triumph of liberalism were the abolition of feudalism in France on the night of 4 August 1789, which marked the collapse of feudal and old traditional rights and privileges and restrictions as well as the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August.
By the end of the 19th century, the principles of classical liberalism were being increasingly challenged by downturns in economic growth, a growing perception of the evils of poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation present within modern industrial cities as well as the agitation of organised labour.
The diversity of liberalism can be gleaned from the numerous qualifiers that liberal thinkers and movements have attached to the very term "liberalism", including classical, egalitarian, economic, social, welfare state, ethical, humanist, deontological, perfectionist, democratic and institutional, to name a few. Despite these variations, liberal thought does exhibit a few definite and fundamental conceptions.
The importance of Constant's writings on the liberty of the ancients and that of the "moderns" has informed understanding of liberalism, as has his critique of the French Revolution. The British philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin has pointed to the debt owed to Constant.