18.1.4

Difference, Egalitarian & Intersectionality

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Difference and Egalitarian Feminism

Equality or egalitarian feminists seek equality for men and women in society whereas difference feminists argue that men and women have a fundamentally different nature from one another.

Egalitarian feminism

Egalitarian feminism

  • The main goal of egalitarian feminism is to achieve full equality with men.
  • Liberal feminists have emphasised the goal of equal legal and political rights in the public realm.
  • Radical feminists extend demands to full equality in the domestic sphere, including sexual equality.
  • Socialist feminists believe equal rights have no meaning without full social and economic equality.

Difference feminists

  • Difference feminists disagree with these egalitarian goals and argue that women should not desire to be "like men".
  • They believe that men naturally more aggressive, competitive and domineering, whilst women are naturally more empathetic, compassionate and creative than men.
  • They should seek a pro-woman position instead and celebrate these differences separately e.g in a “sisterhood".

Intersectionality

Intersectionality, a newer strand of feminism, argues that black and working-class women’s experiences of patriarchy are different from white, middle-class women.

Post-modern thinking

Post-modern thinking

  • Recent post-modern thinking criticises earlier feminists for giving too little attention to the plight of the most vulnerable groups of women e.g. black, gay and poor women.
  • This led to the new notion of “intersectionality”, a term developed by Kimberley Crenshaw in 1989, which focuses on the multiple identities and complex issues of modern life.
bell hooks

bell hooks

  • bell hooks (she choose lower-case) is a prominent writer on intersectionality.
  • She wanted to show how issues of racism and sexism are inextricably linked.
  • This has then spawned other women’s movements e.g. black, LGBT, working-class and so on, though the danger of this is the perception of further fragmentation of feminism.
Identity

Identity

  • A belief in intersectionality appears to have weakened women’s gender identity, though this was never its goal.
  • Rather, it strives to modernise thinking to represent more effectively the widely different experiences and identities of women seen in today’s world.
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