Liberal Feminism.Liberal feminismfollows classical liberal political theory and
focuses on the individual woman’s rights and opportunities (Kraditor, 1981).
Liberal feminists want to remove structural obstacles (institutional forms of
discrimination in the public arena) that stand in the way of individual women’s
entry and mobility in their occupation or profession or the political arena. Liberal
feminists have been at the forefront of campaigns for equal wages and comparable
worth, as well as reproductive choice. The Equal Rights Amendment, which nearly
passed as a constitutional amendment in the 1970s, is an example of a liberal
feminist political agenda. The amendment states simply that: “Equality of rights
under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State
on account of sex.”
Liberal feminists have identified and sought to remove many of the remaining
legal, economic, and political barriers to women’s equal opportunity. Critics, how-
ever, claim that the focus on removing barriers to individual rights ignores the root
causes of gender inequality, that liberal feminists tend to be largely White and
middle class, and that their focus on career mobility reflects their class and race
background (Dworkin, 1985, 2002; hooks, 1981, 1989).
Radical Feminism.Radical feminismstates that women are not just discriminated
against economically and politically; they are also oppressed and subordinated by
men directly, personally, and most often through sexual relations (Brownmiller,
1976; Dworkin, 1985). Radical feminists often believe that patriarchy is the original
form of domination and that all other forms of inequality derive from it. To radical
feminists, it is through sex that men appropriate women’s bodies. And they are really
angry about it.
Radical feminists have been active in campaigns to end prostitution, pornog-
raphy, rape, and violence against women. Many radical feminists argue that it is
through “trafficking” in women’s bodies—selling their bodies as prostitutes or mak-
ing images of that trafficking in pornography—that gender inequality is reproduced
(MacKinnon, 1988). Pornography provides a rare window into the male psyche: This
is how men see women, they argue. “Pornography is the theory, rape is the prac-
tice,” is a slogan coined by radical feminist writer Robin Morgan, who argues that
women possess an essential, intuitive bonding that could confront male power and
transform gender relations. All women are sisters, Morgan says, and “sisterhood is
powerful” (1976).
Radical feminists have been successful in bringing issues of domestic violence
and rape to international attention. They have created a growing worldwide con-
cern for a new and revived sex slave marketplace, in which young, mostly Third
World, women are often drugged and kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery
throughout the world.
However, radical feminism relies too much on unconvincing blanket statements
about all men and all women, without taking into account differences among men
and among women. Thus, it’s often “essentialist,” claiming that the single dividing
line in society is between men and women. That is, of all feminists, it may be radi-
cal feminists who believe that men are from Mars and women from Venus. Their
claims about universal sisterhood have not been convincing to Black feminists who
feel that when radical feminists say “women,” they really mean “White women” (see
hooks, 1981).
Multicultural Feminism.Does liberal feminism or radical feminism apply equally to
all women? Do Black women or Latino women or older women or rural women
have the same set of issues and problems as middle-class suburban White women?
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