LIBERAL FEMINISM

INTRODUCTION
• The ‘first wave’ of feminism is generally associated with liberal feminism.
• The pre-eminence of this perspective owes much to the fact that it
encompasses a wide range of related but distinct views that fit
comfortably within the framework of political liberalism.
• It does not fundamentally challenge capitalism; nor does it recommend
separatism like the radical feminists.
• Instead, it aims to extend the full range of freedoms in a liberal
democratic society to women, criticizing practices that deny women
equal protection under the law and laws that de facto discriminate
against women.
INTRODUCTION
• Liberal feminists reject utopian visions of an ideal society in favour of
one that eliminates coercion and promotes autonomous choices
among all its citizens.
LIBERAL FEMINISM IN THEORY
• Liberal feminism has its roots in the writings of, among others, Mary
Wollstonecraft (1759 -1797), John Stuart Mill (1806 -1873) and Harriet
Taylor Mill (1507 – 1858).
• Many writers before Wollstonecraft, such as Rousseau had explicitly
argued that men and women were by nature not merely different in
kind but different in natural rank, with women being weaker physically,
intellectually, and emotionally.
• Men were said to be more rational and women more emotional.
LIBERAL FEMINISM IN THEORY
• Mary Wollstonecraft was a British feminist whose feminism drew on an
enlightenment liberal belief in reason and a radical humanist
commitment to equality.
• In ‘Vindication of the Rights of Women’ (1792), Wollstonecraft wrote
that many of the supposed differences between the sexes were either
fabricated or exaggerated and therefore could not be used as the basis
for differential rights and roles.
• She stressed the equal rights of women, especially in education based
on the notion of ‘personhood’.
LIBERAL FEMINISM IN THEORY
• Imposing different educational expectations on men and women was
not only unjust but also counterproductive, tending to create less
productive female citizens with ‘artificial, weak characters’.
• She argued that both sexes can reason; hence both should be
educated to enhance their rationality, which she defined as the ability
to act as fully responsible moral agents.
LIBERAL FEMINISM IN THEORY
• John Stuart Mill echoed Wollstonecraft’s sentiments in ‘The Subjection
of Women’ (1869).
• He described sex roles as a kind of caste system in which women were
assigned lower status and were restricted in what they were permitted
to do simply because of their sex even though there were no
categorical differences between the sexes that could justify it.
• This not only stunted the moral development of women but also
denied them the self-fulfillment that comes only with the freedom to
pursue one's own good.
LIBERAL FEMINISM IN THEORY
• However, Mill thought that when provided with the same educational
and civic opportunities that men had, most women would choose to
remain wives and mothers, improving domestic life for the family.

• Mill’s wife -- Harriet Taylor Mill disagreed. She argued that women
would choose to participate more fully in public life, going beyond
simply voting and performing charity work.
• Women would choose to become the partners of men in productive
industries and would have fewer children.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
• Liberal feminism began in the 18th and 19th centuries and has
continued through to the present day.
• Throughout its history, the liberal feminist movement has been and
continues to be focused on eliminating female subordination, “rooted
in a set of customary and legal constraints blocking women’s entrance
to and success in the so-called public world.”
• Its long history is a testament to how well it has been able to adapt
and change to the many issues confronting women.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
• The basic tenets of liberal feminism are :
(1) Personal Autonomy:
Feminists hold that women should enjoy personal autonomy. That is,
they hold that women should live lives of their own choosing.
Some authors like MacKenzie offer “procedural” accounts of personal
autonomy. These accounts suggest that to say women should enjoy
personal autonomy means they are entitled to a broad range of
autonomy–enabling conditions.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
On this view, the women's movement should work to identify and
promote these conditions.
Identifying these enabling conditions requires careful attention to the
particular ways in which autonomy deficits are produced in diverse
women's lives.
Some of the enabling conditions are: Being free of violence and the
threat of violence, being free of the limits set by patriarchal
paternalistic and moralistic laws, having access to options, etc.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
(2) Individualism:
The philosophical basis of liberal feminism lies in the principle of
individualism, the belief that the human individual is all important and
therefore that all individuals are of equal moral worth.
If individuals are to be judged, it should be on rational grounds, on the
content of their character, their talents, or their worth.
Liberals express belief in the demand for equal rights: all individuals
are entitled to participate in or gain access to, public or political life.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
J.S. Mill argued in favour of citizenship and political rights. The entire
suffrage movement was based upon liberal individualism and the
conviction that female emancipation would be brought about once
women enjoyed equal voting rights with men.
Similarly, Betty Friedan’s work has aimed at breaking down the
remaining legal and social pressures that restrict women from pursuing
careers and being politically active.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Liberal feminism is essentially reformist: it seeks to open up public life
to equal competition between women and men, rather than to
challenge what many feminists see as the patriarchal structure of the
society itself.
In particular, liberal feminists generally do not wish to abolish the
distinction between the public and private spheres of life.
Reform is necessary they argue, but only to ensure the establishment
of equal rights in the public sphere: the right to education, the right to
vote, the right to pursue a career, and so on.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Undoubtedly, significant reforms have been achieved in the
industrialized West, notably the extension of the franchise, ‘liberation’
of divorce law and abortion, equal pay, and so forth.
Nevertheless, far less attention has been given to the private sphere:
the sexual division of labour and distribution of power within the
family.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
(3) Role of the State:
There is substantial agreement among liberal feminists that the
gender system or the patriarchal nature of inherited traditions and
institutions, plays an important role in perpetuating morally
objectionable deficits in personal autonomy and women's lives, and
that the state can and should take action to remedy them.
There is also substantial agreement among liberal feminists
concerning what the state should do.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Liberal feminists hold that the state must effectively protect women
from violence.
They also hold that sexist, paternalistic, and moralistic laws are an
unjust use of state power. Such laws place control over women's lives
in the hands of others.
Laws restricting access to abortion are of particular import in this
context and together with the cultural assignment of caregiving duties
to women, steer women into the social role of mother.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Some liberal feminists also argue for removing privileged legal
position which marriage enjoys and treat it legally more like other
associations.

Liberals tend to reject laws prohibiting prostitution. They advocate

instead the legal regulation of sex trade, prioritizing women's safety
and women's control over their own working conditions.
Regarding work, they support the right to collective bargaining to
secure decent wages and working conditions as well as a guaranteed
minimum income.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
They also support laws against sex discrimination in education and
employment

Liberal feminists also hold that a significant source of women's

reduced options is the structure of the workplace, which assumes that
workers are free of caregiving responsibilities.
Therefore, feminists such as Anne L. Alstott argue that the state must
ensure that the socially essential work of providing care to dependents
does not unreasonably interfere with the personal autonomy of
caregivers.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Policies proposed to ensure sufficient personal autonomy for
caregivers include parental leave, state-subsidized high-quality
daycare, and flexible work schedules.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
(4) Public deliberation and electoral politics:
Some liberal feminists, who emphasise the importance of political
autonomy – that women be the co-authors of the conditions under
which they live – focus on participation in the processes of democratic
self-determination.
These processes include both political deliberations in the many
arenas of public political discourse and electoral politics.
Liberal feminists hold that the conditions under which women live lack
legitimacy because women are inadequately represented in these
processes.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Attempts to increase women's participation in public deliberation and
electoral politics confront the vicious circle of women's exclusion.
The gender system leads to women being underrepresented in
influential forums of public deliberation, including in elected law-
making bodies in the following manner:
(a) Women have less free time to engage in public deliberations because
of the double burden they carry of paid and unpaid labour.
(b) Sex stereotyping leads many to think that women (especially women
from a particular ethnic and cultural group) are less capable of
leadership than men.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
(c ) The electoral politics is understood to be masculine.
(d) Issues of particular interest to women are seen as personal and not
political issues.
(e) Women lack power in many institutions (like churches, universities and
think tanks) that influence public debate etc.
Liberal feminists believe that the above-mentioned situation will not
change until and unless women are underrepresented in the public
sphere.
It is unlikely that the justice of the gender system will become the subject
of public conversation or its dismantling, a target of legislative action.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Liberal feminists also explored ways to escape this vicious circle.
Because women are excluded from important forums of public
deliberation and electoral politics in complex ways, remedies must
address a variety of problems.
Linda McClain argues that all children must receive civic education –to
equip them for democratic citizenship – including instructions on
women's equality.
She also argues that the state may use its persuasive power to put
traditionally excluded issues like violence against women or the
dilemma of balancing work and family agenda for public deliberation.
BASIC TENETS OF LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Others recommend legal mechanisms for the inclusion of women in
electoral politics. For example, Karen Green argues for guaranteed
equal representation of both sexes in Parliament.
However, there is a diversity of opinion among liberal feminists about
the justice and efficacy of such mechanisms.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• Early liberal or moderate feminists believed that there were very few
sex differences. Those that do exist are minimal, even irrelevant, and
due to socialization rather than differences in anatomy or some other
biological factor.
• Therefore, because women and men are so similar, women should be
treated similarly to men.
• Striving for equality between men and women is justified because men
and women are essentially the same.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• The type of equality sought by liberal feminists is equality of opportunity,
as opposed to equality of condition/ outcome.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtaHO3Waq4
• This means that women should be allowed into the same schools as men.
They should be allowed to try for the same jobs, promotions, pay raises,
contracts etc as men.
• Liberal feminists are not saying that all women should be provided the
same opportunities, they are not saying that all women should share
equal wealth. Rather, they believe that within society, there is a hierarchy
and that opportunities should be given to both men and women at each
of those levels of the hierarchy.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• Liberal feminists believe that if there is equality of opportunity then a
certain type of equality of condition will follow.
• Once women have achieved equality of opportunity, there will be an
equal number of men and women at each level of the hierarchy.
However, a hierarchy of socio-economic status will still exist; that is,
some women will still have a higher status, income, etc compared to
other women, and the same would be true for men.
• However, early liberal feminists were criticized for two reasons:
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
This view favour middle-class white women and excluded the
experiences of minority women and women of lower socio-economic
status.
Some believed that all women should be equal and there should be only
one level in society.

• Also, after women began to enter the traditionally masculine work

arenas, some began to experience dissatisfaction. While these early
feminists believed that once they gained the same opportunities as men,
they would be happy and equality would be achieved, in actuality this
was not true.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• Many of the women who delayed having children to begin careers
either regretted not having children or began to realise that their
biological clock was ticking and some experienced difficulty conceiving
due to age-related infertility.
• Others who had children and who had established careers were
exhausted from managing the demands of both and began to realise
that they could not “have it all” and do all of it well.
• For these reasons, liberal feminism began to change.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• Whereas early liberal feminists believed that males and females are
essentially the same (equal), second-stage liberal feminists began to
question the assumption that males and females are essentially the
same.
• Thinking evolved such that these later feminists began discussing the
possibility that males and females are different.
• For instance, the second stage feminists discussed the trait of
nurturance. The second stage liberal feminists began to believe that
perhaps women really are more nurturant than men.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• In fact, such differences between men and women make women
superior to men, at least in some ways. For centuries, women were
told that their feminine characteristics made them inferior to men.
Now the second stage feminists said just the opposite.

• Also, the second stage feminists believed that these sex differences are
learned – for example, girls are taught to be more nurturant than boys
while boys are taught to be more competitive and aggressive than
girls. This implies, then, that society encourages girls to aspire to be
better human beings than boys.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• The traditional home atmosphere that has kept women in a
subordinate position in society for so long may have actually
encouraged their growth towards a preferable concern for humanity,
to be morally superior beings.

• Whereas early liberal feminists argued that equality of opportunity

should be granted to women because men and women were
essentially the same, now second stage liberal feminists believed that
equality between men and women should be granted because women
are superior to men in some ways.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• For example, it was argued by the second stage liberal feminists that the
world would be a better and a safer place if women were in positions of
authority (such as the President of the USA ) instead of men.
• Since women are more concerned about other people, they would be
less likely to start a nuclear war or a war.

• This implied that instead of women, men should change.

• Whereas early liberal feminists saw nothing wrong with women trying
to become more like men, the second-stage liberal feminists suggested
that perhaps men should become more like women.
LIBERAL FEMINISM and SEX-GENDER
DISTINCTION
• This discussion highlights the difference in perspectives between the
early liberal feminists and the second-stage liberal feminists.
• However, it may be pointed out that although liberal feminists may
vary in their views about sex/ gender distinction, they all agree that
the way to achieve equality between the sexes is to work for equality
of opportunity and to work for women’s advancement within the
already existing institutions of society.
CRITICISM OF LIBERAL FEMINISM
(1) Classical liberals are critical of liberal feminism because liberalism
cannot support the rights of some people over others. Coercive
interference may be required to promote the autonomous capacities
of others, such as we find in an affirmative action programme, or in
the substantial taxation that would be necessary to fund the social
programmes liberal feminists endorse.
CRITICISM OF LIBERAL FEMINISM
(2) Conservatives worry about the radical implications of liberal
feminism, its willingness to put women's autonomy ahead of institutions
and norms on which many people rely for their well-being. They
emphasize the loss that is in liberation.
(3)Liberal feminists have been criticised and variously derided as
“bourgeois/ middle class” feminists for their failure to understand that
in any society that is fundamentally unequal in its economic and social
structure, “equality of opportunity” is a fairly meaningless concept. In a
society divided along class lines and driven by economic exploitation,
women, like working-class men, are at a fundamental economic
disadvantage.
CONCLUSION
• Emphasising equal individual rights and liberties for women and men
and downplaying sexual differences, liberal feminism is the most
widely accepted social and political philosophy among feminists.
Liberal feminists defend the equal rationality of the sexes and
emphasise the importance of structuring social, familial, and sexual
roles in ways that promote women’s autonomy for self-fulfillment.
• They emphasise the similarities between men and women rather than
the average differences between them, attribute most of the
personality and character differences between the sexes to the social
construction of gender and tend to promote a single set of
androgynous virtues for both women and men.