Feminism (Literary Theory)

Theory: The How's and Why's of Literature

Feminism - Part I

There are significant connections between Marxism and Feminism and their roles in contemporary literary scholarship, the most notable and well remarked being that they rise out of movements that were originally only tangentially interested in literature. Marxism, as we have discussed at length, is focused primarily on economic and social factors in a given society, while feminism is, as the name suggests, focused on gender, especially as it appears from a female perspective. Both are also concerned first with action and social reform, and only later with analysis and academic exploration. However, despite their decidedly non-literary origins, both schools of literary theory are now firmly entrenched and highly influential in literary studies programs across the world. Indeed, if one were to remove every Marxist and Feminist literary scholar from every literature department in North America, most departments would simply cease to be viable.

There are also more overt connections between Marxism and Feminism, and the term "Marxist Feminist" describes an individual who applies the principles of Marxism to the concerns of Feminism. The overlap is easy to see in outline, since the oppression of one group by another is a strong theme of both. The groups may be different (though in some very interesting ways, they too overlap), but the principles of dominance, alienation, and oppression apply equally well to both. Taking this comparison even further, some Marxist Feminists believe that the best way to ensure the interests of women are upheld is through a revolution, where the dominant male structure is toppled, and women are able to arrange a society where their rights, freedoms, and agency are prioritized. Keeping in mind that women compose more than half of the world's population, yet as a group earn far less money, own far less property, and have far fewer representatives in institutions of government, it is clear that, looked at from this perspective, they are a huge portion of the proletariat; the difference is, of course, that many have come to rely on a husband to make up for such material disadvantage, which makes the group look far smaller and less deprived than it really is.

There has also been a marked and constant resistance to Feminism throughout much of its progress, both in general and specifically in literary studies, just as there has been to Marxist theory. In a way, this is unsurprising, and adheres in the basic aims of both political and philosophical movements. Any time an idea arises that challenges the prevailing system of thought, as well as the individuals and the social institutions of a given society, those who are in positions of power will be none too pleased that this power is first being exposed, and then challenged, especially by a group that is thought to be inferior and powerless. Since both Feminism and Marxism are rooted in political action, rather than simply analysis and discourse, their very presence has made many over the last century and a half or so very uncomfortable, and even in the modern academic establishment, where both theories have such strong followings, resistance continues.

However, although the obvious and interesting links between Marxism and Feminism serve as a good transition between this and the previous focus of this series, there is far more to Feminist thought than Marxism can contain, and so I will now switch the focus to Feminism itself, how it is perceived, its origins, development, and its role in the literary community, both today and through the course of modern literary theory.

Before going any further, I feel the need to assuage some of the fears and objections I can see arising from my treatment of this most diverse and expansive array of ideas. First of all, I am not female, and for some (thought certainly not all, or even most) feminists, this precludes me from being able to justifiably write on the topic. This idea of group exclusivity is not unique to Feminism, of course, and it has often been remarked that only someone who has had the experience of a given group, be it race-based, class-based, sex-based, or what have you, can accurately and justifiably speak for that group. Allow me to state here that I am not presuming to speak on behalf of anyone, or any group, in my writing of any of these articles. My goal here is not to advocate for a particular position, nor to provide an overview of anything that attempts to speak for its membership. I am not speaking for or about all women here, and I am not speaking for or about all feminists. My goal, as it has been throughout these articles, is to provide an overview of a body of academic knowledge that a non-professional can use as a stepping stone into a more solid understanding of the field, specifically as it relates to the study of literature. I further believe that anyone can write about anything they know something about, and so while you might be more inclined to believe a story about a Native American's life from a Native American, and while you might see it as more authentic (perhaps with good reason), this does not preclude a non-native from writing a similar life story which could be very good as well. Of course, the idea of authenticity loses a lot of its value when it comes to academic, rather than creative writing. While true-life experience might do much to inform a novel about a particular kind of life and way of living, it has far less bearing on an essay about the state of studies in a given discipline, regardless of the focus of that discipline.

It must also be noted that, as you might have noticed already, that I have chosen to capitalize the noun Feminism and the adjective Feminist throughout this article, which is certainly not standard practice. My reasons for doing this are not political (I am not trying to advocate a given position through the emphasis afforded by consistent capitalization), but rather practical. Note that I have maintained this practice throughout this theory series, which is standard for some theoretical schools (Marxism, for example, especially since it is named for its founder), and non-standard for others (Deconstruction). I feel that, since my focus is on the exploration of theoretical positions, and since the rules for punctuating such can be sketchy (like Formalism, for example, which is written both with a small and a capital F), I would make this uniform throughout my writing here. In this way, I achieve an easy consistency, and at the same time I help to focus the attention of the reader on the theoretical positions which form the basis of this series. It also serves the purpose of standing all of the theories, graphically at least, at the same level, which is never a negative thing. Some I like more than others, to be sure, but by keeping the visual representation of the theories the same, I am at least not overtly putting one above another.

One of the key difficulties one faces in tackling the subject of Feminism, whether on its own or as applied to the study of literature, is the fact that the term is a highly contested one whose meaning is different for each different group that applies it to themselves. There is the culturally prevalent view of the "militant feminist," the man-hating, male-bashing woman who believes anything male is evil and worthy of destruction. This is perhaps one of the most unfortunate stereotypes associated with the theory, as it makes Feminism easy for its detractors to denounce, and scares away potential adherents. I have spoken to many students who claim that they are absolutely not Feminists, despite their belief in many principles that power Feminism as a whole. The reason for this is that Feminism and Feminist have too often been portrayed as aggressive, almost militaristic, extremes, when this in fact is more a caricature created by its opponents than an accurate description created by its adherents. There are certainly branches of Feminist thought and action that reflect this stereotype more than others, but this "definition" of Feminism is so powerfully oversimplified that it actually says more about the people who use and believe it than Feminists themselves.

Starting at what is most basic and common to all brands of Feminism, we come first to what is most important and obvious. The root of the word Feminism is shared with the root of the word female, feminine, femininity, and so on, all of which indicate the presence of and focus on females persons, especially women. The origins of the word female stretch back millennia, and it was first used in a purely biological sense, especially to differentiate any species on the basis of reproductive abilities. This gradually came to be applied more strictly to human beings, especially in the alternate forms of the word. Thus, one might hear a female gorilla being spoken about, but one is far less likely to hear (unless it be in some sort of comedy), the feminine characteristics of the gorilla being spoken of. However, since the other forms of female have taken on such specific and politically loaded connotations within Feminism, I will for now stick to the primary and original word female and what it indicates. Basically, Feminism is concerned with the female human being and her place, role, experience, and life in human society. The Female is defined first biologically, and while there are social constructivist Feminists who would argue that woman and female are social constructions (more on this later), there are not many who would argue against the fact that one must have the appropriate chromosome configuration and biological traits to be considered female. Current debates about the position of trans-gendered individuals aside, it is clear that, on this most basic of foundational issues, Feminists find their common link.

The focus on the female, however, is a very broad central interest indeed, and it is certain that this is, while necessary, not sufficient to describe even the most rudimentary Feminist position. After all, male pornographers and pimps have for millennia focused on the female, and no one, least of all themselves, would argue that they are Feminists. Many misogynists have made a career of focusing their attentions on women, but to the detriment of women. Obviously, a focus on women, and on the female, as something positive, is a necessary starting point. This too is not sufficient, but it is a useful and necessary starting point.

So far, we have defined biological femaleness and a positive judgment of women as necessary to Feminist thought, and we can confidently add to this a belief that this positive view of women is not shared by most members of a given society, most especially (though not limited to) men. There is a reason, for example, Masculinism (or Masculism) has not risen to prominence in the literary or any academic community. Thinking back to Marxism and capitalism for a useful analogy, we can see that the group which is unhappy with the status quo is the group that is going to band together under the banner of a useful, descriptive "-ism," and define itself as opposing the dominant ideology. So, Marxism arises as a critique of capitalism, and has become an important theoretical approach. Capitalism, on the other hand, because it is the status quo, the dominant against which Marxism pitted itself, does not gain the same theoretical power (in literary studies, at least). The reason for this is whatever is dominant is simply how thing are, and how things are done; the resistance, defined as being against the norm, is against it in a particular way, and so gains and identity that the massive and diffuse status quo cannot hope to achieve.

Thinking back to Masculinism, it would have made little or no sense for this term to emerge much before the present day (where one does occasionally hear it, albeit not often very seriously, barring some notable exceptions). Since men occupied the vast majority of positions of power, and dominated the public sphere, the norm involved an intense focus on men, and the exclusion of women, perhaps unconsciously, but all the more powerfully as a result. This way of being which put the male ahead of the female was so ingrained in culture (and I can say this with a strong amount of confidence in its cross-cultural validity), that it was for the most part invisible and taken for granted. So, it is clear that the interesting, revolutionary, idea and movement would not be Masculinism; males were not being oppressed, and their identity was essentially the touchstone for human identity. Instead, the interesting new idea was the one, is always the one, that looks at the prevailing structure and begins to ask intelligent questions about it. Why are things the way they are? Are the suppositions we take as common sense really true? Are there other ways of living, being, and thinking that are superior to this one, and that would serve to make me and the rest of the society happier and better off? That is why Feminism emerged as a distinct way of looking at the world, and a powerful literary school. It is only in relatively recent years, when Feminism has grown into a strong and durable entity, that the term Masculinism even became a viable idea. At its worst, it is a petty reaction to the negative stereotype of the male-bashing we discussed earlier. At its rare best, it is a way of focusing on the unique needs of men in a thoughtful and intelligent way. In any event, that is all I will say on the matter of Masculinism. It is not an approach to literature that has any currency in the literary academy, and while I think some versions of it contain some useful insights that can help men better understand themselves, most of what I have seen of it is not of a desirable or useful nature.

So, to quickly recap the statements made thus far to describe the core of Feminist thought, Feminism requires a focus on the female human, seeing women as good and positive, especially when the society at large sees women as inferior to men. Let us further add that Feminism is not only the exposing of the oppressive attitudes which act to keep women in an inferior position, but also a call to action, designed to make significant changes in a given society or even in the world as a whole. Feminism's most basic goal is to make society a better place to be for women. It is often far more than this, but this is a core goal that has motivated all Feminist thought from the time of Mary Wollstonecraft to the present day.

It might seem to some that I am taking baby-steps in my definition of what Feminism is, and in a way I admit that I certainly am, but there is an excellent reason to approach this topic with caution, and to build from the ground up. Feminism, as I have mentioned previously, is an incredibly broad field, and there are as many kinds of Feminist theory as there are academic disciplines that Feminism has paired with (like Marxist Feminism we discussed earlier). Like any critical field, and perhaps even more than all non-political theories, there are internal debates and disagreements that often dominate the discourse within the field. Thus, much of the focus in a well developed, historically rich theoretical and practical discipline like Feminism is on the differences within it, rather than the common foundational premises that unite the disparate brands though which it manifests itself in the present day. So, since this is a general introduction, I wanted to be sure that I began by talking about what Feminism, as a whole and upon its inception, was, and on the things that carry forth from the start of the movement to the present day. Now, many critics speak of "Feminisms" to underline the diverse array of viewpoints and approaches Feminism encapsulates, but before we delve into these, I think it important to understand what is central to Feminism and Feminist thought in general.

Like any human movement, it is difficult to trace the precise origins and exact birth date of Feminism. I think a good starting point, and one that is certainly not uncommonly mentioned, is Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Published in 1792, it is considered by many to be the first detailed treatment of Feminist issues from a Feminist perspective. Although Feminism has since gone in many different directions (some of which disagree with much of what Wollstonecraft had to say), we can see that its origins adhered in a criticism of the society in which it was composed. Wollstonecraft took as her basic premise that the intellect was the most important consideration in the evaluation of a human being, and that women were capable of exercising, developing, and displaying this intellect just as men were. She admitted that this development and display was not nearly common enough, but outlined many reasons for this that powered Feminist thought for many years, and are still in the popular consciousness to this day. Her goal was not to disparage women, accusing them of not living up to their potential. Rather, she was attempting to identify the causes, as she saw them, of women's generally poor intellectual development, so that women (and even men) who read what she was writing could take steps to make sure that the factors that worked against the development of women's minds were, at least in a preliminary way, overcome.

Wollstonecraft's treatise encompassed many aspects of the negative impact existing social norms, attitudes, and structures had on the development of women and their intellects, as well as their ability to contend and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with men in the public sphere. One of her most enduring critiques comes from the system of education that was present during her time, which served to cultivate learning and reason in men, while it fostered more "practical" household, domestic skills for women. Boys would be taught, from an early age, about the arts and sciences, languages, arithmetic, history, and philosophy; in short, they would be given a base of knowledge, and instruction in how to apply and expand that knowledge. It has been claimed that one cannot be taught to think, and while this view has perhaps some merit if interpreted strictly, it cannot be argued that one can be "educated" in a way that makes thinking in certain ways, and about certain things, far more difficult. After all, if I (taking the position of a women for a moment) am told constantly from the time I am old enough to know anything, that philosophical thought and reason are the sole provenance of men, and that I can best lead my life as a capable and loving support of a man, the way I think about the world and my role in it will be very different from a man's. The way I see things, and the things I consider most valuable to know, will be conducive to a life spent in the service and support of another. I may well see my place, and the place of those like me, as important, but my importance arises from the extent to which I am able to be of assistance to the man who is the reason for my doing and knowing anything at all. If I am led to believe that my value arises from my utility to my husband, and the rearing of our (his) children, my ambition to become someone who sees myself as inherently valuable is severely limited.

Wollstonecraft herself, of course, is evidence that the effects of such indoctrinating education can be overcome, and that the role imposed on her by society and education is not completely determinate of her sense of self and value. Any man or woman reading her prose could not ignore the plain fact that she was possessed of a remarkable intellect, a powerful sense of reason, and an eloquence rivaling that of the most erudite and philosophical man. However, as she points out in her treatise, the strong social bias that existed resulted in many men (and even women) dismissing women who were able to overcome imposed limitations as rare exceptions, or even, more vehemently and belligerently, as unwomanly aberrations who were evidence of the perversion of society's values. This, of course, is a poor argument, for the premises which ground it (that women are intellectually inferior to men), are turned into absolutes that invalidate empirical evidence to the contrary (any woman of superior intellect must be a perversion of the social order, since women, everyone knows, are inferior). Wollstonecraft saw and exposed all of this chopped logic, and though she was attacked and berated for her views, her words had a lasting impact that would be most fully realized decades or perhaps even centuries after she had written them. In the beginning, even most women resisted her claims, and while it is easy to lay blame, it must be said that flying in the face of everything you have grown up to believe, everything that you see around you, is no easy or pleasant task.

Wollstonecraft identified what we would now call systemic sexism, the infantilizing of women by men which pervades every aspect of culture, its productions, institutions, and the minds of the people running them and living within them. This is not a conspiracy theory, though many who stand to lose from such a revelation might have referred to it as such, and many continue to do so to this day. It is not and was not the case that men consciously decide amongst themselves that they are going to keep women down, and that they spend their hours plotting ways of ensuring their dominance continues. Rather, people are born into a society which values and practices certain ways of being which are considered good, right, and proper. They internalize these attitudes and beliefs, live their lives with these ideas as unquestionable truths, and then pass these values on to the next generation. Indeed, the very power of these ideas and attitudes comes from the fact that no one living has consciously decided on the state of affairs as they are; if this were the case, the ideas simply would not have the permanence, power, and simple value of "obviousness" that such ideas possess.

Many of you reading this last sentence or two might balk at the idea that the oppression of women is something that you could ever consider normal or ok, and imagine that if you were alive at the time Mary Wollstonecraft, you would have leaped to her defense, seeing the obvious correctness and value of what she was saying. I am certainly not going to claim this is impossible, as Wollstonecraft even in her own time had supporters both male and female, but I will claim that it is highly unlikely that anyone, myself included, would have done much differently than the majority of people did at that time. Certainly, if you were somehow transported there now, having been raised in present culture in the Western world, you would possess the views you do now, and likely agree with Wollstonecraft. However, and this strikes to the heart of Wollstonecraft's point, had you been raised in that society, into a system of thought that took as obvious and basic truths that women were intellectually inferior to men, your resistance to these values would have been largely crippled, if it had ever sprung up at all. This is the pernicious nature of systemic sexism; it becomes the natural mode of thought over all it governs, and breaking free from a paradigm is one of the most difficult things a human mind can do.

A more contemporary example can be found in the dark, ugly history of slavery and racism in the United States. For most of us (and I sincerely believe and hope, the vast majority), it is unfathomable to believe that black people are intellectually inferior to white people as a part of their very nature. These italics are not incidental, as this idea of naturalness is what motivates both racism and sexism. If I believe that blacks are naturally inferior to whites, I will see any accomplishment by a black person as an exception and anomaly, and will see any American ghetto as proof that I am correct. However, as the civil rights movement has pointed out, it is this very belief that serves as the cause of so much racism and black poverty. When the social system is committed to the belief that blacks are inferior, it will ensure, often unconsciously (though sometimes very intentionally) that ample "evidence" for this abounds. However, as both civil rights activists and early Feminists showed, the racist or sexist attitudes and beliefs ingrained in society and its structures cause the very things which are claimed as proof for inferiority.

Wollstonecraft's identification of sexism as not merely an individual, but also a social way of constructing reality, is another cornerstone of Feminist thought, and all branches of Feminism, regardless of their more specific stances on the origins and current status of sexist thought, adhere to this basic principle. After all, if sexism were merely confined to the belief systems of various individuals and not enmeshed in the very fabric of a given society, it would be far easier to identify and route out. If I have come to believe that women are inferior to men on my own, without the strong support of social structures, I would be considered a maverick, a social outcast or dissenter rather than one of the many who are upholding a widely socially accepted and enforced point of view. Without a systemic social basis for sexism, it would not be a social issue one could even organize a group against, and Feminism would have a far different character as a result, if it came into being at all.

Wollstonecraft did an excellent job of exposing the sexist structure of her society, and was a fine advocate for the dismantling of these unjust structures. However, she went further than this, and in a move which showed her rhetorical aptitude and her awareness of her audience, she attempted to address not only women, but also the men who held the positions of political and cultural power in her society. This makes great sense, since most of the readers of her work would have been male, and since, as she recognized, men were in the best position to effect changes which would see her ideas take a greater immediate force. Her strategy here consists of pointing out some female behaviors that she, and many men, regarded as unfortunate or foolish, as well as showing how the improvement of women, though education and the liberty to exercise their faculties of reason to their fullest potential, would improve their own lot not at the expense of men, but rather along with the lives of men, by the betterment of social life taken as a whole.

She points to the ease with which women she has observed are tricked by cunning, unscrupulous men who foretell the future, or perform other feats of "magic" that are both illusions rooted in deception, and an affront to Christian religious belief (which was seen as an unbridled good by most in Wollstonecraft's time). Women were often blamed for being drawn into these unholy deceits, but Wollstonecraft argues that it is because they are not permitted a proper education that their faculties of reason are so easily overcome by these deceptive charlatans. She makes a similar argument about the undue attention and importance women give to novels, which, because women are indoctrinated to be beings of the passions, rather than beings of the mind, have the effect of creating false notions and undue, romantic, irresponsible attitudes in the hearts of women (Madame Bovary is a later, but excellent, example of the consequences which Wollstonecraft saw potentially befalling women who engaged in such reading without the proper, rational, preparation of the mind). Such propensities as visits to the homes of fortunetellers and magicians, as well as the over-indulgence in novels, would have been strong arguments appealing to husbands of the time who did not, in general, approve of such practices. Not content to stop there, however, Wollstonecraft went further, beyond the realm of relative annoyance, and into the very heart of the values of her society.

The most powerful arguments for the improvement of women come after her more trivial ones to end the final section of her treatise. Here, she takes up the issue of childrearing, a practice which, she states, is seen in her society as the task of women, if not solely, then certainly primarily. Wollstonecraft does not dispute the assumption that women are and should be primarily responsible for bringing up and taking care of the children; indeed, she seems to see this as a good and natural state of affairs. Many modern Feminists would fault Wollstonecraft for this view, because, they believe, men and women should be equal partners in all aspects of life, childrearing especially among them. It is hard work to raise a child well, but it is incredibly important work and worth putting as much effort into as possible. If only one parent bears this responsibility, an injustice is being done both to that parent, and to the child.

It is hard to dispute this argument, since, as the saying goes, it actually takes a village to raise a child, and contemporary psychologists have stressed the importance of children being presented with same-gender role models. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that Wollstonecraft knew she had a mountain of prejudice to overcome that was rooted firmly in the bedrock of tradition. Driving right at the base of the edifice of society was not likely to get her very far on its own, and so she knew that she would have to pick her battles and make what gains she could in a measured, gradual manner. Despite this, her ideas were still seen as radical by many who commented on her work, and though she does not seem to go far enough by the standards we might employ today, she was certainly taking some great risks for her time and place.

Instead of attacking the deeply entrenched view that women should raise children (which remains with us to this day to a significant degree), Wollstonecraft takes this as a given, and then points out how great a mother's responsibility is to here children, to the next generation, and thus to society as a whole. Women, she says, are said to be more caring and compassionate, and therefore better mothers as a result. However, she cautions, while caring and compassion are positive things, unless they are set in the context of a strong rational faculty, they may give way to passions that are simply not becoming of a mother. Since the mother is the prime example of human life her children see first and most often, if she is overly sensitive and prone to emotional outbursts directed against others, the children are likely to pick up and mimic this behavior. Further, it is of unquestioned importance that the children be taught to see the world clearly, as accurately and as completely as possible. In order to achieve this, they must be taught well, as Wollstonecraft discusses earlier in her treatise, but teaching begins far before any school is attended or tutor's help is sought. The first teacher is the mother, who is in constant contact with her children, and if she is not permitted to explore the full range and scope of her intelligence, she will be a poorer teacher as a result. This means that the children are being deprived of a strong opportunity to improve, and society as a whole, because its members do not have this early advantage, is constantly going to suffer.

It is possible that there are many Feminists who have been reading this series so far, and criticizing the fact that I have spent so much time with Mary Wollstonecraft, whose views are often seen as being proto-Feminist within the Feminist community. The reason I have begun with her writing is that much of what she believes serves to lay the groundwork for Feminist thought over the next 100 to 150 years. Her general focus, goals, and strategies are also mirrored by many later branches of Feminism, and much of what she writes shows what unites Feminists of many different stripes. Further, I felt it important to recognize the pioneering contribution of a woman who was taking enormous risks for the good of women in her society, and I feel like this is one of the hallmarks of Feminism through the ages, from her time to the present.

However, to stop with the Feminism or proto-Feminism of Wollstonecraft would be to end prematurely indeed, for Feminist thought has developed significantly in the last 200 years, as has the position of women in the Western world. Because of the changing realities of society and culture, and because of the successes of various aspects of Feminism social movements, Feminism has had to adapt itself to the political and cultural landscape in which it exists in each passing generation. After all, if Feminists today were battling for the same specific things in the same ways as their ancestors did, nothing much would be happening at all. Progress has rendered many goals of the earliest Feminists already achieved, and so the history of Feminism is one of change, rooted in essential bedrock (as we discussed at the start of this series introduction) of shared goals, but constantly on the move so that these goals can be best reached to the fullest possible extent.

Feminism has been historically and politically demarcated into many different sub-groups, with different groups gaining dominance at different times, some largely ceasing to exist, others rising and ebbing in importance. The most basic ordering principle uses the idea of waves, each of the three waves of Feminism being historically situated in a given chronological order. The first wave, which covers the longest temporal period, starts from the beginning of the Feminist movement (which some place on the shoulders of Wollstonecraft, and others place somewhat later) and runs throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Feminists of the first wave did not even call themselves Feminists in the beginning, although they did eventually coin the term that would adhere even to the present day. Their concerns, as we can see in Wollstonecraft's writings, are as basic as one can imagine, and form the foundation of Feminism's goals. Women at the time were as far from having anything like equality with men as they have ever been throughout the course of Feminism, and as a result, their goals were both foundational and, by current standards, modest, although at their time they were seen as highly ambitious and controversial. This period of Feminism was dominated by what has come to be known as liberal Feminism, a branch of Feminist thought that is present even today, and which has risen and receded in importance through the course of Feminist history.

As the name suggests, liberal Feminism is rooted in the idea of liberalism, a political position that argues for the maximum amount of liberty in a society, to be restrained only by prohibitions on actions that would be harmful to others. This is similar in many ways to libertarianism, with its stress on individual autonomy and the free reign of individual human will in the pursuit of its own ends, but liberalism defines "harm to others" in a more inclusive way, and sees the legal system, for example, as being harmful to the ability of women engage in the quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the hallmarks of American freedom. Feminism got a powerful kick-start when the controversies surrounding slavery became central political concerns late in the 18th century and throughout the 19th. Many women-run groups opposed slavery and argued for the equal treatment under the law for people of all colors. Part of the problem, of course, was that the definition of "people" or human beings was not agreed upon, and that blacks were not considered fully human under the law. If they had been, slavery would have had to have been illegal, and so the recognition of the humanity of people of different races was a first important obstacle to be overcome.

Of course, this brought many of the women who were protesting for the rights of others to an unexpected conclusion; they were arguing for others to have rights that they themselves didn't even have! Unlike blacks, women were considered people officially, but they were not granted the same rights under the law as their male counterparts, and so, even in the most basic legal sense, were not treated as being fully human. The problems that Feminists of the first wave wanted to see remedied, coming from their liberal perspective, were rooted in the legal, official discrimination leveled against women. These legally enforced double standards resulted in a society where women were considered unequal at every level of society, from the opinion of the random passer-by on the street to the highest courts and political offices of the land.

Feminists thus turned their attentions to the legal and institutionally enshrined sexism that they saw everywhere, and which they saw (quite rightly, of course), as flying in the face of a political system based on the essential freedom of every person (be this in Britain or America, where Feminist movements first took root). The central issue, from both a practical and symbolic standpoint, was the right of women to vote, known as suffrage. In allowing only men to vote, the idea of democracy was a half-hearted illusion at best, for more than half the population of the world, and (almost always) of any given society, is female. As a result, in order to make this kind of intentional exclusion work from the standpoint of logic, either there was no democracy and equal rights, or women were not people. Neither of these prospects was agreeable, of course, for to deny the democratic ideal was to tear down the entire basis of government, and to maintain women were not people flew in the face of logic, biology, morality, and common sense. Practical arguments were made by anti-suffragists which argued that women were not capable of reason to the extent necessary to be effective participants in democracy, and moral arguments were made against women taking in part in public life, since it would apparently destroy the family and society as a whole, since domestic duties would take a back-seat, and children would be poorly raised.

Of course, we know how the story of suffrage ends here in the Western world; Feminist groups were successful in securing the vote for women, and democracy as we understand it is no longer the same kind of contradiction it was in the 19th century. However, the extension of the vote to women, while being an important first step on the road to equality under the law, and the implicit acknowledgement of women as full persons under the law, was not the last legal hurtle to overcome. Although women could vote, they were not permitted to run for or hold many political offices, meaning that while they could participate in democracy, they could not be full participants like men could. Aside from political offices, many other public and private positions were off limits to women, including military service, a slew of jobs, and executive positions in companies. Gaining the vote was therefore an important first step for liberal Feminism, but it was only a preliminary and necessary move which would prepare the way for full legal and political freedom, legally speaking, to be achieved.

Of course, just because Feminism had achieved so many official legal and political victories does not mean that women actually received equal treatment in everyday life, or that they were not, in practice, being subjugated by the rule of the males who ran the societies and set the rules of both the public and private spheres. The first wave of Feminism might have gone a long way toward achieving legal equality between men and women, but there is a marked difference between equality under the law and equality more broadly considered in actual experience. After first wave liberal Feminists had achieved so much and got so far, it became clear that the next step in the progress of Feminism would have to involve something of a change in focus, and this is precisely what happened in the early 1960s, especially in America and Britain.

Whereas the first wave focused on achieving equal rights and on making law applicable equally across the gender divide, the second wave realized that all of the legal progress, while an important and necessary first step, was just the beginning, an opening of possibility. There is a remarkable difference, as all of us are aware, between the laws in place at a given time, and the enforcement and exercise of those laws, and it was in this gap that second wave Feminism found its inception. While the first wave was primarily concerned with the manifest institutional sexism which pervaded their society, second wave Feminism concerned itself with the covert institutional or structural sexism which colored the daily experience of all women, and all men for that matter, in a hue that did not support the spirit of the laws the Feminists of the first wave had worked so hard to change.

Although much of the second wave of Feminism could be described in similar terms to those of the first wave, under the term liberal, it is here that many of the Feminist sub-types came to the fore, including radical Feminism. Perhaps no prefix to the word Feminist has caused more controversy and opposition than the word radical; and consider for a moment that Marxist is one such prefix, which might not seem so controversial now, but which was tantamount to a swear word throughout the Cold War which lasted more than half a century! Indeed, radical Feminists have long been derided by opponents as militant Feminists, a derogatory term intended to present such Feminists as belligerent and dangerous, in some sense even armed and ready for battle versus men.

Theory: The How's and Why's of Literature

Feminism - Part II

Allow me to take some time to discuss what radical Feminism consists of before I delve more generally into the goals and beliefs of second wave Feminism. Since radical Feminism is an important aspect of the second wave, this discussion certainly isn't a digression, and it will go a long way toward outlining what the second wave is all about, and what sorts of conflicts arose within Feminist thought during this wave. When we think of the word radical, many things come to mind, from the benign, innocuous California surf slang (radical dude!) of the late 80s and 90s, to the word's use as an adjective for describing extreme points of view (radical Islam, to use a contemporary and politically charged example). In the laid-back counter culture of the California surf scene, radical was used to denote something that was out of the ordinary in its intensity, with a side of rebellion thrown in to boot; the conformist, materialistic society of America in the 1980s saw the non-ambitious, thrill-seeking, pleasure-loving surfers as radical in that they lived a lifestyle far outside the socially accepted norms, and thumbed their noses at the establishment. The counter-culture embraced its radical-ness, and the word became part of their vernacular. Its spread did not end when the word lost currency, however, as its somewhat altered meaning (intense and outside the norm) survives to this day in the language of "extreme" sports.

The roots of the word radical, however, do not have as much to do with extremity and intensity as the word has come to in more recent years. The word itself comes from the same root as radius, which refers to the center of something, its origin, or its root. The origin or root which is being evoked by the word radical in radical Feminism is not the earliest stages of Feminism, but rather the origin and root of the problems in society that Feminists strive against. It is tempting (and important) to look at the way things are and to criticize the institutions and practices that uphold sexism, which was one of the primary contributions of first wave Feminism. They saw the problems with the laws and with the denial of legal rights to women, and worked to correct them. However, they were looking largely at structures that rested on the surface of underlying and far more invidious and pervasive social systems. Radical Feminists, therefore, do not look at the oppression of women as being located in any given specific structure, but rather as being embedded in the very fabric of human society, both today and back into the earliest human societies. Radical, therefore, in the term radical Feminism, is a reference to the belief that human society, from its very roots, from its base and origins, is predicated on an overarching system of sexism that manifests itself in every aspect of society. What we see on the surface is merely a manifestation of the basic sexist character of human societies that has not changed in any significant way, despite the efforts of Feminists to alter the ways in which it can emerge in society. It might have been forced to be more covert, but it is nonetheless substantial and carries an incredible amount of influence. The word radical Feminists (and later, Feminists of many different specific orientations) use to describe this basic, underlying structure of sexism is patriarchy, and they see this as the proper and most important target of Feminist effort. Until you can dismantle the patriarchy, all changes will be superficial, and society will retain its sexist character.

Patriarchy is a remarkably important term in contemporary Feminist discourse, and it is a term that serves as a touchstone for radical Feminism. Breaking the word down, we can see that it is composed of two words with Latin origins; patri indicates male or father (like in paternal), and archy, which refers to rule or governing (as in oligarchy or anarchy). So, what we have here is a word that describes that male control of society, and male governance of human society broadly conceived. This term is not merely used to describe specific governments which are run entirely or primarily by men (which would be almost every government on earth), but rather to describe the power structures of society as a whole, where male control, in both official and unofficial ways, is pervasive. It is possible, for instance, to escape a particular instance of male control, but to escape it completely is impossible. This is because societies the world over are powered by the undercurrent of patriarchy.

Looking back through human history, we can see that males were the heads of families, the leaders of people (or the leaders of men, more appropriately), the chiefs of tribes, and so on. Positions of public and social importance were occupied by men, and as a result, society was run in a way that underlines and privileges male characteristics while diminishing the value of female ways of thinking and being. Men could impose their rule and authority because they happen, on average, to be larger and stronger than women. This is known as sexual dimorphism, and occurs in many species, usually making the male larger than the female. This simple biological difference led to men becoming the public figures responsible for the protection of their families. After all, when you are under threat from animals, the elements, and other families or tribes, the person who is strongest will best be able to provide this protection. Because of the size differences, men were generally faster as well as stronger, making them better suited to pursuing activities such as hunting, not to mention warfare, which took them far outside the sphere of their daily lives. This served to create the original distinction between the public and domestic division of labor, where men take on public roles, allowing them the freedom to roam as they would, while women were bound far more closely to their responsibilities at home. Needless to say, this is a kind of primitive social system which is predicated on biology.

Proponents of male-dominance (harder to come by today than in the past) or anti-feminists (not so hard to come by) often cite this biological, historical reality either as a reason men should be regarded as superior, or why men at least have no blame for the situation as it has arisen. The arguments go that, since men have historically been, and continue to be, larger and stronger, this puts them in a position of dominance that has continued from the earliest human societies. Therefore, it is natural for men to take on the leadership roles they do, and it is natural for women to take on their domestic roles. At the very least, since men have inherited this situation, and have not created it, they should not be to blame for the system of patriarchy that has arisen, nor the specific sexist structures that have emerged from it. These arguments support human biology and "naturalness" as the basis for moral and rational behavior, but when we consider the "natural" human, or the state of nature as a whole, it is difficult to support an argument for their value as moral examples.

Looking to nature as a guide to living the best life, and having the best society, is highly problematic, and not very effective. Taking the human being as an example, we can see that, naturally, we really, really enjoy the taste of foods that are high in calories, like fat and sugar. This explains the incredible popularity of the donut (which is perhaps the ultimate synthesis of both fat and sugar, which are substances with a remarkable caloric density), but it does absolutely nothing for showing me how I should live my life. Evolutionarily speaking, it makes adaptive sense that we would have developed a taste for the things that contain the most calories. After all, when you are trying to find enough food to survive from day to day, meal to meal, it is most advantageous to consume the foods that have the highest concentrations of calories. So, those who liked the taste of high-calorie foods would tend to seek them out most often, and this would result in their greater success, resulting in the production of more offspring. These offspring would be more likely to inherit the parent's genetic disposition for finding high-calorie foods the most appealing, and would therefore be more likely to pass this onto their children, who would again have more reproductive success as a result, and so on through the course of human (and pre-human) history. I find all of this interesting, and could talk about other examples of adaptive functions in humans and other mammals, but in the end, it says nothing about the best way of running a human society.

Let us consider for a moment the most natural human disposition for enjoying the taste of high calorie foods, and its consequences. For almost all of the course of human history, this taste for calories would have been a great benefit, allowing human beings to survive more easily, and to ensure their genes, as well as the species as a whole, continued on through to the present day. Now, let us consider this firmly entrenched, genetically inherited benefit in the present day, especially in America and the rest of the developed West. Since we have such a taste for high calorie foods, as well as the resources to make such foods in massive quantities, getting a 1200 calorie shot in the belly can be accomplished for about five dollars at any fast-food restaurant. It tastes very, very good, doesn't cost much, and satisfies a very primitive desire. Of course, this taste for high calorie foods is no longer adaptive in a society that (for the most part) has access to all the food it could ever want. As a result, America, and much of the developed and developing world, is facing an epidemic of obesity that is truly daunting for its sheer magnitude (no pun intended). Here, we can see a natural human characteristic, developed over thousands of years, actually becoming maladaptive because of a novel cultural situation. Obesity is known to decrease the span of one's life through a host of factors, diabetes and heart disease among them. Dying before your ability to produce offspring has ended is an obvious indication of reproductive disadvantage. In a less direct but no less real way, obesity indicates against reproductive success in a purely aesthetic way as well. We are not well wired, all other things being equal, to being sexually attracted to obesity in a person. We often hear of people being sexually attracted to someone in spite of their obesity (as there is more than pure genetics and biology behind attraction), but almost never because of such obesity. Obviously, then, even from a purely biological perspective, our completely natural taste for sugar and fat is more harmful than good in our current niche.

Taken from different perspectives, other than the evolutionary gold standard of reproductive success, we can see that our natural taste for calories is not helpful in living our lives. It makes us less healthy, and also makes it harder to be active. Activity often takes place outside the home, and so obesity tends to encourage one to remain inside one's home. This often results in relative isolation, which is terribly stressful for a social species, and more than that, for someone whose happiness and well-being are intimately tied to positive interactions with others. Even when the obese person does go out, he or she is often met with negativity, partly because, as I mentioned before, we are not naturally disposed to appreciating obesity. This helps to encourage the social stigma connected with obesity, and people can be remarkably cruel. There are many, many reasons why people become obese in our society, but the fact remains that if we did not have such a natural taste for high calorie foods wired into us, these reasons would be largely irrelevant. It feels good to eat good tasting foods, and this is totally natural, but this is simply not a good or useful tendency upon which to base good decisions for living.

Through this and countless other examples, it becomes glaringly clear that what is "natural" is not necessarily what is best, either in a purely physical way, nor a moral way. The argument, therefore, that since human males were traditionally and historically the heads of communities and families because of their superior strength and size, it is naturally best for them to continue in these positions in the present day, is simply false. The way things have been, regardless of how long they have been that way, is not an argument for the way things should be, nor does it necessarily show the best way for things to be. Is and ought are not the same, as philosophers are fond of telling us, and although it is both interesting and important to dig into the roots, biological, evolutionary, and otherwise, of why things might be the way they are in human beings and human society, these roots are not determinate of the way things must or should be now.

So, although radical Feminism recognizes and lays out the possible roots for patriarchy's development, they are not resigned to the fact that it is inevitable. In fact, of course, they are determined to oppose it on the grounds that it is unjust and discriminatory. Human society, and especially ethics, is no longer based on the principles of the survival of the fittest and might is right. In the democratic West, government strives to ensure that the rule of law is upheld, meaning that citizens do not have to fear unbridled physical harm as they once did. People who enact violence against others are subject to stiff penalties, and the state maintains a police force and legal system to ensure that such actions are prevented where possible, and punished otherwise. Rule is not for the physically strongest, but for the democratically elected, and is supposed to be conducted to the maximum benefit of the people. The old standard of human conduct and the reasons for the gendered division of labor (separating the public and domestic especially) cease to be in such a society, and to try to maintain them flies in the face of the supposed principles that make the society free, equal, and democratic. We have chosen values that do not correspond with our primitive, natural states in many ways, and the maintenance of the patriarchy runs contrary to these modern values.

Through the identification of the root causes and development of patriarchy, radical Feminists hope to first expose it to the fullest degree possible, and then to dismantle it through positive action and change. Exposing it might seem like an easy matter, but in reality, they would argue, it is so deeply ingrained and pervasive in our society that it is present everywhere, even in the most unexpected places. As such, radical Feminism is perhaps the most well known controversial group within Feminism because they see the patriarchy everywhere, and therefore criticize all institutions, both public and private. As a result, many individuals and groups resent the barbs that get sent their way, and many accuse them of tarring everything, whether justifiably or not, with the same brush. Be that as it may, radical Feminists have raised the world's consciousness of female oppression, and by questioning all structures, make it difficult for sexism to maintain a strong foothold, or at least an invisible (and therefore more dangerous) one.

The routing out of concealed structures of sexism is the provenance of second wave Feminism, and whether radical or not, the wave brought along a sweeping tide of new objectives for Feminists and women. Many of the arguments of the first wave rested on the quest for legal equality for women, whereas the focus turned to actual, realized equality in the second wave. Like the first wave, the second wave was also closely related to the oppression of blacks in America, who had achieved freedom in principle, but not in practice. The women who rallied around this cause had a similar kind of revelation as the first wave Feminists, and added themselves to the list of people whose rights needed to be upheld in more powerful and effective ways.

The Feminism of the first wave is often known as an equality Feminism, which is rooted in the notion that men and women are equal in every aspect of their being, save the obvious biological differences. As a result, first wave Feminists demanded all the same legal rights as men, and women like Wollstonecraft encouraged women to rise to the level of men. The second wave, however, noticed and showed some of the difficulties and limitations of this approach. After all, it was fine to say that women were legally allowed to occupy the same positions as men, but it was quite another to convince the men who ran the world, on both the micro and macro scales, that they should do anything to try to encourage this. Thus, while the legal reform of the first wave paved the way for access to public life for women, it did not unseat the actual brokers of power, most of whom liked the status quo which had them in excellent positions. As a result, it was not enough to have laws which gave the same legal opportunity. Instead, there needed to be laws that made certain kinds of actions, which up till then had been considered individual matters, illegal, and punishable.

Laws providing specific protections again discrimination based on gender were a recognition that such discrimination was widespread, and would no longer continue to be acceptable. It was also a recognition that, even given the same "permission" to enter a given field, women faced significant disadvantages based on pervasive sexism. Thus, the laws which were formulated were a tacit acknowledgement that sexism existed not only in official forms (like refusing women the vote), but also in unofficial forms, in the general opinion of men in position of power. Further, such laws acknowledged that such unofficial sexism would not be tolerated, spreading the anti-sexist objectives of the Feminists into a far wider realm.

Legislation that provided specific provisions for women was an important step in the progress to a successful difference Feminism. The strategy of the first wave was relatively blunt and direct because it had to be. By arguing that women and men were the same in every way save the obviously biological, and that women were as capable of intellectual success as men, they strove to undermine the baseless beliefs that women were intellectually inferior to men, and unsuited to the same public positions. Equality was therefore the catchword, and in many ways this also pointed toward a mental and practical identity between men and women. This strategy, however, failed to account for various additional difficulties that women would encounter in public life. Second wave Feminism focused on these difficulties, and developed their difference Feminism out of them.

One prominent example is the fact that women have babies. The process and control of reproduction was a very controversial issue in the 1960s, and the second wave began to campaign powerfully for such control to be held by the women who were having babies, rather than by any other group or individual. The legality and mass production of the birth control pill put reproductive control in the hands of women in an unprecedented way, and laws recognizing the right of women to control of their own bodies, including the right to abort a pregnancy legally without the consent of the father, focused on the important differences between the potential life experiences of men and women. Further, laws regarding women in the workplace who decided to have children arose, thanks to the pressure and actions of Feminists, to combat the practice of replacing a pregnant woman who took time off work to have her child with another employee on a permanent basis; in other words, firing women for having children and missing work as a result. In all of these cases, women are considered distinct from men in some important ways, and these distinct features and experiences are protected by law. This does not rout out patriarchy per say, but it certainly goes a long way toward forcing it to hide in deeper and more isolated pockets.

Another of the main thrusts of the second wave was the exhortation of women to escape from the domestic bondage that was keeping them from achieving their full potential as free, liberated, women and human beings. Even into the 1960s, despite all the progress women had made in achieving various liberties, most families in the democratic West were nuclear, with the male as the head and breadwinner, and the female as the domestic caretaker and care provider to the children. A woman's place was "in the kitchen" to quote an oft cited slogan, and those who ventured into the public sphere often ran into the "glass ceiling": an artificial, unofficial barrier to promotion which kept women out of the top positions in business and industry. Unequal pay for the same positions was also common, and further made it clear that while some female presence would be tolerated in the workforce, it was never really welcomed, and certainly not embraced. Feminists attacked these double standards and contradictions, exhorting women to venture out of the home and take whatever place they wanted in the world. They challenged the dominant notion, in place beyond memory, that women could only be productive and meaningful in the context of the home, and as we can see today, their efforts produced significant change. Many would argue that more must still be done, but few if any would claim that large strides have not been made against this limiting, stifling notion.

Difference Feminism also manifested itself in more obvious and, well, simply more different ways than I have been discussing so far, in ways that served to divide the Feminist community. On one side, we have Feminists that believe the differences between men and women are largely (if not entirely) socially constructed, and that the usual characteristics which are attributed to each are simply not true. For example, women are generally considered more emotional, and more emotionally expressive, but less rational; men, on the other hand, are considered quite rational, but not very emotional or emotionally expressive. It is this kind of stereotype that many Feminists believed (and still believe) are constructions of the patriarchy designed to show women as mentally inferior to men and less stable, thus making them unfit for public positions.