Feminist Political Theory An Introduction Second Edition Valerie Bryson Feminist Political Theory Also by Valerie Bryson Feminist Debates: Issues of Theory and Political Practice Contemporary Political Concepts: A Critical Introduction (edited with Georgina Blakely) Feminist Political Theory An Introduction Second Edition Valerie Bryson Consultant Editor: Jo Campling © Valerie Bryson 1992, 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition 1992 Reprinted eight times Second edition 2003 Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–94570–0 hardback ISBN 0–333–94568–9 paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 1098 7654321 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Creative Print & Design (Wales), Ebbw Vale Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Early feminist thought 5 Seventeenth-century feminism in Continental Europe and Britain 6 Early British feminism and the ideas of Mary Astell 7 The Enlightenment and early liberal feminism 11 Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman 16 The utopian socialists and feminism 20 Wheeler and Thompson’s Appeal On Behalf of Women 25 2 Liberalism and beyond: mainstream feminism in the mid-nineteenth century 28 Feminism in the United States: Maria Stewart and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 29 Evangelical Christianity and the temperance and anti-slavery movements 29 The Seneca Falls Convention 32 The analysis of sexual and personal oppression 35 Education, religion and the Woman’s Bible 37 Class, ‘race’ and feminism 38 The difference/equality debate 40 Feminism in Britain and Mill’s Subjection of Women 41 The spread of feminist ideas 41 John Stuart Mill’s Subjection of Women 45 3 The contribution of Marx and Engels 56 Classic Marxist theory 56 Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State 58 Recent criticisms of Engels 61 The relevance of Marxist concepts 63 4 Mainstream feminism: the vote and after, 1880s–1939 70 The situation of women in the late nineteenth century 70 The suffrage campaign 73 v vi Contents Equality or difference? 74 Anti-democratic strands in the suffrage campaign 75 Socialism, black feminism and the suffrage campaign 77 Christabel Pankhurst 79 After the vote: the re-emergence of contradictions 83 Equal rights v. welfare feminism in the United States 85 Equal rights v. welfare feminism in Britain 88 Birth control 91 5 Socialist feminism in Britain and the United States 94 Britain 94 Sylvia Pankhurst 96 The United States 97 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 98 Emma Goldman’s anarchist feminism 101 Mary Inman and American communism 103 6 Marxist feminism in Germany 105 Bebel’s contribution 105 Clara Zetkin 107 Hostility to bourgeois feminism 107 Lily Braun and the revisionist debate 110 Modification of Zetkin’s position 111 7 Marxist feminism in Russia 114 Early Russian feminism 114 The ideas of Alexandra Kollantai 117 Practical achievements 118 Sexual morality and communism 119 The family, childcare and motherhood 122 8 Feminism after the Second World War 126 The situation of women in the mid-twentieth century 126 Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex 128 Existentialism applied to women 130 Feminist responses to The Second Sex 131 De Beauvoir’s life and influence 137 9 Liberalism and beyond: feminism and equal rights from the 1960s 139 Betty Friedan and the politics of NOW 140 Subsequent developments 143 From ‘backlash’ to ‘power feminism’ 143 Contents vii Richards, Okin and a feminist theory of justice 146 Critical analysis and debate 147 Equality 148 Power and the state 153 The public/private distinction 155 Individualism and individual rights 156 Reason, knowledge and ethical thought 158 Feminism, equal rights and liberalism today 162 10 Radical feminism and the theory of patriarchy 163 The origins of radical feminism 163 Kate Millett and the theory of patriarchy 165 Criticisms of the concept of patriarchy 167 Politics and personal life 167 A merely descriptive approach? 168 An over-generalised and a-historical account? 170 Women good, men bad: an essentialist view of sex difference? 172 The concept of patriarchy today 174 11 Patriarchy and private life: the family, reproduction and sexuality 175 Patriarchy and the family 175 Domestic labour 176 Sexual exploitation and violence within the home 177 Psychoanalytic theory: parenting and the acquisition of adult sexual identity 178 Pro-family arguments 180 Patriarchy and reproduction 181 Reproductive technology 182 Mothering and eco-feminism 185 Patriarchy, sexuality and sexual violence 187 The attack on heterosexuality 188 Patriarchy, sexual violence and pornography 191 12 Patriarchy: the public sphere 196 Patriarchy and the state 196 Patriarchy and the economic system 197 Patriarchy, ‘man-made language’ and knowledge 198 Conclusions: the impact of radical feminism 201 13 Marxist and socialist feminism from the 1960s 203 The domestic labour debate 205 Women and the labour market 207 viii Contents Two systems or one? ‘Dual systems’ v. ‘capitalist patriarchy’ 209 Social reproduction 211 Ideology, the family and ‘structures of oppression’ 214 Alienation 217 Feminist standpoint theory 218 Recent developments in Marxist feminist thought 220 Socialist feminist strategies 221 Socialist and Marxist feminism today 224 14 Black and postmodern feminisms 226 Black feminism 226 The critique of white feminism 227 Black women: from margin to centre? 228 Black women’s centrality questioned 231 Postmodernism 233 Language, power and identity 233 Postmodern feminisms 235 Feminist criticisms of postmodernism 239 Feminism and postmodernism today 241 15 Feminist theory in the twenty-first century 243 Notes 251 Bibliography 253 Index 275 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Politics team at Huddersfield University for enabling me to have a sabbatical semester to work on this revised edition and for providing such a supportive academic environment. Thanks too to many of the students on my Women, Politics and Society module for their hard work and enthusiasm. Thanks to my friends and family for practical, emotional and intellec- tual support, and for putting up with my neglect as the enormity of the task became apparent and the time available shrank. And thank you, Alan Pearson. VALERIE BRYSON ix Introduction For most of its history, western political theory has ignored women. We seldom appear in its analyses of who has or should have power; when it has deigned to notice us it has usually defended our exclusion from public affairs and our confinement to the home; only rarely have we been seen as political animals worthy of serious consideration. Even today, this exclu- sion of half the human race is frequently either perpetuated or dismissed as a trivial oversight, while the inequalities that may exist between men and women are seen as of little practical importance or theoretical interest. Most feminist political theory, in contrast, sees women and their situation as central to political analysis; it asks why it is that in virtually all known societies men appear to have more power and privilege than women, and how this can be changed. It is therefore engaged theory, which seeks to understand society in order to challenge and change it; its goal is not abstract knowledge, but knowledge that can be used to guide and inform feminist political practice. The term ‘feminist’ first came into use in English during the 1880s, indi- cating support for women’s equal legal and political rights with men. Its meaning has since evolved and is still hotly debated: in this book I will use it in the most broad and general terms to refer to any theory or theorist that sees the relationship between the sexes as one of inequality, subordination or oppression, that sees this as a problem of political power rather than a fact of nature, and that sees this problem as important for political theory and practice. I will also provisionally use it to include those contemporary writers who are concerned with exploring the meanings attached to ‘woman’ and the ways in which these are constructed, but who deny that we can talk about ‘women’ or ‘men’ as stable political identities. The following chapters explore something of the history of feminist political theory from medieval times to the present day. They do not claim to be comprehensive, partly because there is not the space to include everything and partly because the rich heritage of feminist thought is still being rediscovered. It is also important to remember that our view of the past and our interest in it are inevitably filtered by our concerns in the present, and that these help determine which tiny fractions of what has gone before are recalled and presented as history.