DOCSLIB.ORG

Applying a Marxist-Feminist Lens to The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Applying a Marxist-Feminist Lens to The Radical Leanings: Applying a Marxist-Feminist Lens to the Dystopian Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Margaret Atwood By Martha Hunsucker A Senior Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Major in English and the Bachelor of Arts Degree Stetson University, DeLand, FL Advisors: Dr. Mary Pollock, Dr. Michael Barnes, and Dr. Grady Ballenger Archival Copy 14 December 2016 2 Table of Contents Title Page……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1 Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………...……………………………………….2 Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………3 Essay…………………………………………………………………………………...…………………………………………4 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………..……………………………...28 Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………….………………………………………..32 3 Abstract Despite taking place in separate literary worlds and time periods, both Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale similarly exemplify feminist ideologies and social critiques of our world, past and present. Effectively showcasing the dichotomy between utopian and dystopian fiction, the novels portray the effects of class and gender division, thus inviting a Marxist-feminist interpretation. Marxist feminism focuses specifically on gendered kinship structures and their relation to social class. The juxtaposition of the two novels warns of the consequences of a patriarchal economy and reveals the extraordinary possibilities of women’s liberation from men. By dramatizing the way things could be, and the way things ought to be, Gilman and Atwood’s novels maintain their relevance in the 21st century. 4 “A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.” Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale "’[W]hy, this is a civilized country!' I protested. ‘There must be men!'" Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland A thematic link between Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale may not appear obviously during an initial reading, but upon closer examination, the two novels exemplify both feminist ideologies and social critiques of our world, past and present. Although Herland and The Handmaid’s Tale occur in separate universes, several conclusions can be drawn with a comparative analysis. The novels provide examples of the utopian/dystopian binary; Gilman’s Herland features an entirely female society stumbled upon by three men, whereas The Handmaid’s Tale presents a totalitarian regime that aggressively oppresses women. The protagonists of both books are outsiders: not entirely belonging to the worlds in which they live. The juxtaposition of the two novels provides a harrowing warning on the consequences of a patriarchal economy along with the extraordinary possibilities of women’s liberation from men. The inclusion of power struggles and class conflicts between men and women thus invites a Marxist-feminist exploration, which I conduct on both novels. “As early as 1844, in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx argued that women’s position in society could be used as a measure of the development of society as a whole,”(49) finds Heather Brown, professor of Political Sciences. University of South Carolina’s Steven Lynn supplies further background to Marxism, explaining it is the “drive to see the world in 5 terms of economic classes, to identify who is being oppressed and exploited and by whom”(145). Before these works were penned, there can be no doubt that both Gilman and Atwood observed or experienced patriarchal oppression in their personal lives. As women writers, their works reflect a desire to overcome such oppressive institutions: “Marxist criticism thus strives to see literature in terms of its relationship to society, and a work is assumed to reinforce the current social structure, or undermine it, or some combination of the two”(Lynn 148). The authors’ inclusion of Marxist themes as they exist in relation to the patriarchy can be observed in their comments on social classes, the power of collective action, and the demonization of capitalism. Both novels fundamentally question systemic gendered economic structures. An examination of Gilman’s biography may substantiate her inclusion of Marxist- feminist themes. Born July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, (Kessler 14) Charlotte Anna Perkins “inherited an illustrious and notorious lineage,”(14) notes Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Penn State, Carol Kessler. Her parents were Frederick Beecher Perkins and Mary A. Fitch Westcott, relation to author Harriet Beecher Stowe and descendant to one of Rhode Island’s founders, respectively (14). Reading with her mother during her childhood may have influenced Gilman’s later works (14), where she elevates “motherhood to…the most revered national occupation”(14). Her schooling was erratic, and ended when she was just 15 (14). The lack of schooling could not curb her desire to analyze and write about women’s economic relationship with men. Sheryl L. Meyering, professor of English at Southern Illinois University, introduces Gilman’s popular work, Women and Economics: A study of the Economic Relation between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. 6 Meyering describes Gilman’s writings as including, “what could be called questions of economics”(iii). Gilman was no stranger to the economic struggle: she separated from her first husband in 1888, and experienced difficulty supporting herself and her daughter (Kessler v). Although in her utopian fiction she elevated motherhood to the highest degree, “the world in which she resided was no utopia”(Lane 179). She sought to overcome the hardships of her life; her residual poverty ultimately gave her an economic “perspective and vision she might otherwise have lacked”(Lane 232). Gilman began to recognize that financial dependency on men forced women’s social role to become sexualized and exploited (Kessler iv). In the short Women and Economics, Gilman calls attention to the fact that human beings are the “only animal species in which the female depends on the male for food, the only animal species in which the sex-relation is also an economic relation”(3). She posits that women have been kept from becoming active members of society by the limits of their prescribed social role of “women’s work”—often including motherhood, cleaning, cooking, organizing the house, and so forth. Because of the economic system’s current setup, women “work under another will; and what they receive depends not on their labor, but on the power and will of another”(4). Women’s ability to produce their own capital is severely restricted in that their labor is entirely uncompensated; a woman’s labor is considered to be a part of her “functional duty”(7)—not employment. “Thus,” she claims, “we have painfully and laboriously evolved and carefully maintain among us an enormous class of non-productive consumers,—a class which is half the world, and mother of the other half”(59). Gilman points out “the salient fact in this discussion is that, whatever the economic value of the domestic industry of women is, they do not get it”(8). Despite the 7 numerous hours of backbreaking labor put in everyday by a wife and mother, her work is still seen to be easier and less important than a man’s—and not deserving of pay. In Women and Economics, Gilman shows that economic dependence “made women slaves of men and thereby hindered social evolution”(Kessler 31). Written in 1915, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland is a feminist-utopian novel focusing on three men who are lured by the prospect of an all-female world. While this group of women demonstrates a socialist society: sharing labor, goods, and responsibilities in the community, they also exemplify the possibility of a successful Marxist society, free from social classes. In Herland, private property does not exist; instead, the women embrace cooperative ownership. Fueled by a desire to conquer, the three men underestimate the power of the women. They are taken prisoner and forced to learn the women’s ways. In doing so, they begin to doubt their own capitalistic and patriarchal tendencies. When the three men first arrive in Herland, they automatically assume that other men must be the driving force of the women’s success. Instead, Terry, Jeff, and Van find out that no men have lived in Herland for over 2,000 years. They question the women’s ability to work together and their social classes, soon realizing that no such classes exist: “These women evidently relied on numbers, not so much as a drilled force but as a multitude actuated by a common impulse”(Gilman 36). In the beginning of the women’s civilization, Van notes, “[T]hey worked together, growing stronger and wiser and more and more mutually attached”(48). This camaraderie created a society free from the restrictions of capitalistic social classes. For the women of Herland, motherhood is the source of their connection and sisterly love: “[t]hese women… whose essential distinction of motherhood 8 was the dominant note of their whole culture”(50). Van is astonished to learn “they had no wars. They had no kings, and no priests, and no aristocracies. They were sisters, and as they grew, they grew together—not by competition, but by united action”(51). When Somel, a woman in charge of educating the three men, describes the education system of Herland, Van shamefully remarks, “We boast a good deal of our ‘high level of general intelligence’ and our ‘compulsory public education,’ but in proportion to their opportunities they were far better educated than our people”(55). Without a divide in wealth or perceived differences, all children receive equal upbringing and education. The women of Herland are able to accomplish what American socialists of this time period could only dream of: liberation from restrictive social classes. The patriarchal canon of Terry, Jeff, and Van clouds their ability to believe the women could create such a powerful symbiosis. Terry exemplifies a chauvinistic attitude when he tries to disprove the viability of the women’s successful society: “They would fight among themselves… Women always do.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More
    THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE OF MARXISM AND FEMINISM TOWARDS A MORE PROGRESSIVE UNION Heidi I . Hartmann This paper argues that the relation between marxism and feminism has, in all the forms it has so far taken, been an unequal one . While both marxist method and feminist analysis are necessary to an understanding of capi- talist societies, and of the position of women within them, in fact femi- nism has consistently been subordinated . The paper presents a challenge to both marxist and radical feminist work on the "woman question", and argues that what it is necessary to analyse is the combination of patriarchy and capitalism . It is a paper which, we hope, should stimulate considerable debate . The 'marriage' of marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of husband and wife depicted in English common law : marxism and feminism are one, and that one is marxism (1). Recent attempts to integrate marxism and feminism are unsatisfactory to us as feminists because they subsume the feminist struggle into the 'larger' struggle against capital . To continue our simile further, either we need a healthier marriage or we need a divorce . The inequalities in this marriage, like most social phenomena, are no accident . Many marxists typically argue that feminism is at best less impor- tant than class conflict and at worst divisive of the working class . This political stance produces an analysis that absorbs feminism into the class struggle . Moreover, the analytic power of marxism with respect to capital has obscured its limitations with respect to sexism . We will argue here that while marxist analysis provides essential insight into the laws of historical development, and those of capital in particular, the categories of marxism are sex-blind .
    [Show full text]
  • Escaping the Master's House: Claudia Jones & the Black Marxist Feminist
    Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Senior Theses and Projects Student Scholarship Spring 2017 Escaping the Master’s House: Claudia Jones & The Black Marxist Feminist Tradition Camryn S. Clarke Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses Part of the Feminist Philosophy Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons Recommended Citation Clarke, Camryn S., "Escaping the Master’s House: Claudia Jones & The Black Marxist Feminist Tradition". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2017. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/608 Escaping the Master’s House: Claudia Jones & The Black Marxist Feminist Tradition Camryn S. Clarke Page !1 of !45 Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Introduction 5 To Be Black: Claudia Jones, Marcus Garvey, and Race 14 To Be Woman: Claudia Jones, Monique Wittig, and Sex 21 To Be A Worker: Claudia Jones, Karl Marx, and Class 27 To Be All Three: Claudia Jones and the Black Marxist Feminist Tradition 36 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 44 Page !2 of !45 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I cannot express enough thanks to my advisors for their support, encouragement, and enlightenment: Dr. Donna-Dale Marcano and Dr. Seth Markle. Thank you for always believing in me in times when I did not believe in myself. Thank you for exposing me to Human Rights and Philosophy through the lenses of gender, race, and class globally. Thank you. My completion of this project could not have been accomplished without the support and strength of the Black Women in my life: my great-grandmother Iris, my grandmother Hyacinth, my mother Angela, my sister Caleigh, and my aunt Audrey.
    [Show full text]
  • De Beauvoir and the Second Sex: a Marxist Interpretation
    THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL De Beauvoir and The Second Sex: A Marxist Interpretation being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD in the University of Hull by Angela Shepherd, BA (hons) Philosophy, MA Philosophy of Mind and Body December 2015 1 ABSTRACT The Second Sex is Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal text. There have been numerous interpretations and critiques of this text since its inception in 1949. Most notable is the reading of her work as merely incorporating Sartrean existentialism and applying it to the social position of women. However recent theoretical discussion recognises her work as also an exploration of Marxism and this thesis follows that line of argument as, read in this context, the distinctiveness of her philosophical contribution can be made visible. Chapter one, endorses Marx’s historical materialism. Historically variable material conditions lead to historically variable human characteristics. De Beauvoir’s focus is with regard to women. Chapter two introduces the One and Other as a feature of human consciousness and a feature of women’s social oppression. Her account of why this structure explains women’s oppression is inspired by Marx’s historical materialism. Chapter three concerns the myths of femininity which also contribute to women’s oppression and are ideological in the Marxist sense of the word. Myths are productive, yet distorting and false, with the aim being to promote the interests of the powerful at the expense of those who are powerless. Chapter four expresses de Beauvoir’s views on the body insisting that the experience of biology as oppressive is a consequence of what culture makes of the body, again, utilising Marx’s historical materialism.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter One Introduction
    Chapter One Introduction The 1960s marked the appearance of movements for the liberation of women in virtually every capitalist country, a phenomenon that had not been seen for half a century. Beginning in North America, this sec- ond wave of militant feminism spread quickly. Great Britain and the nations of Europe reacted first to the North American stimulus, and a new feminist con- sciousness emerged as well in such places as Japan, India, Iran, and Latin America. Although reminis- cent of earlier feminism, the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s necessarily constituted a specific response to new social conditions. Not the least of its peculiarities was the existence of a significant trend within it known as socialist feminism or Marxist femi- nism, which sought to merge the two traditions so self-consciously linked together. Socialist feminism, argued its proponents, represents ‘a unique politics that addresses the interconnection of patriarchy and capitalism, with the goal of dealing with sexism, class conflict, and racism’.1 The emergence of a socialist-feminist trend in the late 1960s was an extremely important develop- ment. Socialist feminism stood in solidarity with anti- imperialist and progressive struggles both at home and abroad. Simultaneously, it placed itself in opposition 1. Red Apple Collective 1978, p. 39. While socialism and Marxism are of course not synonymous, I use the terms socialist feminism and Marxist feminism interchangeably, following ordinary practice within the contemporary women’s movement in the United States. Socialist feminism is not, moreover, the exclusive province of women: the New American Movement called itself a socialist-feminist organisation.
    [Show full text]
  • Subjectivity to (Transnational) Governance Networks Mariana Valverde University of Toronto
    UC Irvine Law Review Volume 4 Issue 1 “Law As . .” II, History As Interface for the Article 15 Interdisciplinary Study of Law 3-2014 The Rescaling of Feminist Analyses of Law and State Power: From (Domestic) Subjectivity to (Transnational) Governance Networks Mariana Valverde University of Toronto Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucilr Part of the Law and Gender Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Mariana Valverde, The Rescaling of Feminist Analyses of Law and State Power: From (Domestic) Subjectivity to (Transnational) Governance Networks, 4 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 325 (2014). Available at: https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucilr/vol4/iss1/15 This Article and Essay is brought to you for free and open access by UCI Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in UC Irvine Law Review by an authorized editor of UCI Law Scholarly Commons. The Rescaling of Feminist Analyses of Law and State Power: From (Domestic) Subjectivity to (Transnational) Governance Networks Mariana Valverde* Introduction .................................................................................................................... 325 I. Feminist Legal Theory Rescaled: Geography, Cultural Difference, and the Invisibilization of “Ordinary” Feminine Subjectivity .................................. 330 II. Whatever Happened to the Critique of Marriage and Domesticity? ............... 344 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 350 INTRODUCTION In the mid- and late 1980s—a time that could arguably be described as the golden age of feminist legal thought, for North America at any rate—empirical researchers as well as theorists were virtually obliged to take sides in the cross- disciplinary debate (or dialogue of the deaf) concerning “postmodernism.”1 The intrafeminist fights often focused on the work of feminist philosopher Judith Butler.
    [Show full text]
  • Autonomism and Anarchy
    Toward Anarchist and Autonomist Marxist Geographies Nathan Clough1 University of Minnesota, Duluth [email protected] Renata Blumberg University of Minnesota, Twin Cities [email protected] Introduction In recent months, the Occupy movement has reinvigorated the imagination of the Left in the United States and elsewhere, by moving radical politics in new directions and creating spaces based upon participatory and non-hierarchical modes of organizing. Anarchist, autonomist Marxist and libertarian socialist ideas have played critical roles in imagining and enacting Occupy spaces, achieving renewed influence in the process. Writing about this turning point in politics for The Nation, Nathan Schneider states: “The anarchists’ way of operating was changing our very idea of what politics could be in the first place. This was exhilarating” (2011 unpaginated online source). This volume brings together geographic scholarship on anarchism and autonomist Marxism for the first time. Even before Occupy Wall Street, anarchism and autonomist Marxism as political ideologies and radical methodologies have been on the rise in the West at least since the 1999 World Trade Organization 1 Published under the Creative Commons licence: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works Towards Anarchist and Autonomous Marxist Geographies 336 protests in Seattle, when anarchistic protesters exploded onto the international media landscape due to their successful application of direct action tactics to stop the trade ministerial meeting (De Armond, 2001; Sheppard, 2002; Graeber, 2004; Levi, 2006). That anarchism and autonomist Marxism have been deeply implicated in the alter-globalization movement of the past decade cannot be denied. For example, radical movements such as Ya Basta!, the edu-factory movement, European movements of students and precarious workers, and the contemporary Industrial Workers of the World union in the United States have integrated autonomist Marxist theory into their broadly anti-authoritarian and anarcho- syndicalist perspectives.
    [Show full text]
  • Module on Marxist and Socialist Feminism
    Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Sujata Patel Professor Department of Sociology University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Anurekha Chari Assistant Professor Wagh Department of Sociology Centre for Advanced Studies Savitribai Phule Pune University Content Writer/Author Sudeshna Mukherjee Assistant Professor (CW) Centre for Women‘s Studies Bangalore University Content Reviewer (CR) Anurekha Chari Assistant Professor Wagh Department of Sociology Centre for Advanced Studies SavitribaiPhule Pune University Language Editor (LE) Anurekha Chari Assistant Professor Wagh Department of Sociology Centre for Advanced Studies SavitribaiPhule Pune University Module Structure: 1. Introduction , 2. Basic tenets of Marxism and subordination of gender perspective under class perspective, 3. Engel‘s on a) Productive and reproductive labor and b) The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State 4. From Marxism to Marxist Feminism : ( Thinkers: Margaret Benston , Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James) 5. Issues: Socialization of Domestic work Wages for House work Theory of comparable worth 6. From Marxist Feminism to Socialist Feminism 7. Emergence of Socialist Feminism: A synthesis of Marxist Feminism, Radical Feminism and Psychoanalytic Feminism 8. Socialist Feminism on Patriarchy and Capitalism 9. Dual System Theory(Juliett Mitchell , Heidi Hartmann) 10. Unified System Theory(Irish Young , Alison Jagger ) 11. Contemporary Socialist Feminism 12. Critiques of Marxist and Socialist Feminism 13. Socialist feminism in Indian Context (B) Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Sociology Paper Name Sociology of Gender Module Name/ Title Marxist and Socialist Feminism Module ID Pre-requisites Objectives The basic postulates of the Marxian model of class oppression based on economic determinism. Gender blind nature of ‗oppression‘ under Marxism and necessary push initiated by 2 Marxist feminists to address gender based oppression along with class oppression.
    [Show full text]
  • Marxist Feminism and Postmodernism
    Journal of Language and Culture Vol.1(3). pp. 28-34, November, 2010 Available online http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC ISSN 2141-6540 ©2010 Academic Journals Review Marxist feminism and postmodernism Mohammad KhosraviShakib Department of Persian Language and Literature, Human Science Faculty, Lorestan University, I. R. Iran. E- mail: Khosravi_fafa@yahoo. Accepted 25 August, 2010 Arguing that it is too easy to release postmodernism as just another example of Western intellectual's separation from activism, this essay considers the connection between feminism and postmodernism as a largely anti-Marxist endeavour. The type of post-modern feminist theory that has blossomed, has presented distinct and well-documented challenges. It has destabilised previously secured categories and encouraged theorists to analyse meaning and relationships of power in a way that has called into question unitary, universal concepts and radically opened discussions concerning subjectivity, sex and gender. Taking into consideration postmodernism as a historically-situated occurrence rather than an intellectual abstraction or movement, the author contends that feminists and their allies need the fragmentation of identities not as a cause for celebration or an oppositional strategy, but rather as an effect of oppressive structures that must be analyzed within the context of their historical, political and economic specificity. It is this tension in postmodernism (between what is expressed and its expression between the latent and manifest) and its parallelism in feminist theory that is the interest of the study. It is the contention of the study that feminist postmodernism, like any other system of thought, has internalised contradictions that heightened during the 1980s and are now becoming self- evident.
    [Show full text]
  • Theory, Feminism, and Feminist Theory
    Theory, Feminism, and Feminist Theory Prof. Reicha Tanwar Former Director, Women’s Studies Research Centre, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra As we begin to consider feminist theory, we must examine a number of important and central issues, including: • What is “theory”? What does it mean to theorize? • What is specifically feminist about feminist theory? • Are there specific methods for feminist theorizing? • What is the relation of theory to everyday experience and practice? • What are the implications of the diversity of feminist theories? The Editors of Feminist Frameworks suggest the following regarding theory: A theory offers a general account of how a range of phenomena are systematically connected; by placing individual items in a larger context, it increases our understanding both of the whole and of the parts constituting the whole. Theory is a systematic, analytic approach to everyday experience.… Feminist Theory • Attempts to develop a comprehensive account of the subordination of women, including its supposed essence and origin; • Is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to liberate women; • Identifies the underlying causes of women’s subordination. Feminist theory attempts to describe women’s oppression, to explain its causes and consequences, and to prescribe strategies for women’s liberation. In “Women Do Theory,” Jane Flax suggests that theory is a systematic, analytic approach to everyday experience. Flax argues that everybody does this unconsciously and that to theorize is to bring this unconscious process to a conscious level so that it can be developed and refined. All research operates on theories, though most of them are implicit. We screen out certain things; we allow others to affect us; we make choices and we don’t always understand why.
    [Show full text]
  • Marx, Engels, and the Abolition of the Family - Richard Weikart*
    History of European Ideas, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 657-672, 1994 0191-6599 (93) E0194-6 _ . Copyright c 1994 Elseyier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0191-6599/94 $7.00+ 0.00 MARX, ENGELS, AND THE ABOLITION OF THE FAMILY - RICHARD WEIKART* 'It is a peculiar fact' stated Engels a few months after Marx died, 'that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes to the foreground'.' By the mid- to late-nineteenth century it was clear to advocates and opponents alike that many socialists shared a propensity to reject the institution of the family in favour of 'free love', if not in practice, at least as an ideal. The Prussian and German Reich governments tried to muzzle the socialist threat to the family by drafting legislation in 1849,1874,1876 and 1894, outlawing, among other things, assaults on the family.2 However, the Anti-Socialist Law that Bismarck managed to pass in 1878 contained no mention of the family. The Utopian Socialists Charles Fourier and Robert Owen had preceded Marx and Engels in their rejection of traditional family relationships, and many nineteenth-century leftists followed their cue. The most famous political leader of the German socialists, August Bebel—though he was a staunch Marxist— wrote his immensely popular book, Die Frau und der Sozialismus, under the influence of Fourier's ideas. However, not all socialists in the nineteenth century were anti-family. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who wielded great influence in French socialist and anarchist circles, wanted to retain the family institution, which he loved and revered.
    [Show full text]
  • Recovering Socialism for Feminist Legal Theory in the 21 St Century Cynthia Grant Bowman Cornell Law School, [email protected]
    Cornell University Law School Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository Cornell Law Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 11-2016 Recovering Socialism for Feminist Legal Theory in the 21 st Century Cynthia Grant Bowman Cornell Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub Part of the Law and Gender Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Cynthia Grant Bowman, "Recovering Socialism for Feminist Legal Theory in the 21 st Century," 49 Connecticut Law Review (2016) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 49 NOVEMBER 2016 NUMBER 1 Article Recovering Socialism for Feminist Legal Theory in the 21 st Century CYNTHIA GRANT BOWMAN This Article argues that a significant strand offeminist theory in the 1 9 1970s and 80s-socialistfeminism-haslargely been ignoredby feminist jurisprudence in the United States and explores potential contributions to legal theory of recapturing the insights of socialistfeminism. It describes both the context out of which that theory grew, in the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-imperialiststruggles of the 1960s, and the contents of the theory as developed in the writings of certain authors such as Heidi Hartmann, Zillah Eisenstein, andIris Young, as well as theirpredecessors in the UK, and in the practice of socialistfeminist groups in the United States during the same period.
    [Show full text]
  • A Classification of Feminist Theories Karen Wendling
    Document generated on 09/23/2021 5:37 p.m. Les ateliers de l'éthique The Ethics Forum A Classification of Feminist Theories Karen Wendling Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2008 Article abstract In this paper I criticize Alison Jaggar’s descriptions of feminist political URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1044593ar theories. I propose an alternative classification of feminist theories that I think DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1044593ar more accurately reflects the multiplication of feminist theories and philosophies. There are two main categories, “street theory” and academic See table of contents theories, each with two sub-divisions, political spectrum and “differences” under street theory, and directly and indirectly political analyses under academic theories. My view explains why there are no radical feminists Publisher(s) outside of North America and why there are so few socialist feminists inside North America. I argue, controversially, that radical feminism is a radical Centre de recherche en éthique de l’Université de Montréal version of liberalism. I argue that “difference” feminist theories – theory by and about feminists of colour, queer feminists, feminists with disabilities and ISSN so on – belong in a separate sub-category of street theory, because they’ve had profound effects on feminist activism not tracked by traditional left-to-right 1718-9977 (digital) classifications. Finally, I argue that, while academic feminist theories such as feminist existentialism or feminist sociological theory are generally Explore this journal unconnected to movement activism, they provide important feminist insights that may become important to activists later. I conclude by showing the advantages of my classification over Jaggar’s views.
    [Show full text]