FEMINIST THOUGHT FIFTH EDITION FEMINIST THOUGHT A MORE COMPREHENSIVE INTRODUCTION Rosemarie Tong University of North Carolina, Charlotte and Tina Fernandes Botts California State University, Fresno First published 2018 by Westview Press Fifth Edition: July 2017 Published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tong, Rosemarie, author.
| Botts, Tina Fernandes, author. Title: Feminist thought : a more comprehensive introduction / Rosemarie Tong, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and Tina Fernandes Botts, California State University, Fresno. Description: Fifth edition. | Boulder, CO : Westview Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016058505| ISBN 9780813349954 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780813350707 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Feminist theory. Classification: LCC HQ1206 .4201—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.gov/2016058505 ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-4995-4 (pbk) LSC-C Print book interior design by Trish Wilkinson Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction The Diversity of Feminist Thinking 1 Liberal Feminism Conceptual Roots Before the “First Wave”: Equal Education “First Wave” Liberal Feminism: Equal Liberty and the Suffrage “Second Wave” Liberal Feminism: Equal Rights Toward “Third-Wave” Liberal Feminism: Sameness Versus Difference and Egalitarianism “Third-Wave” Liberal Feminism: Intersectionality Critiques of Liberal Feminism Conclusion Questions for Discussion 2 Radical Feminism Radical-Libertarian Feminism in General Radical-Cultural Feminism in General Controversies Between Radical-Libertarian and Radical-Cultural Feminists Critiques of Radical Feminism Conclusion Questions for Discussion 3 Marxist and Socialist Feminisms Some Traditional Marxist Concepts and Theories Classical Marxist Feminism: General Reflections Contemporary Socialist Feminism: General Reflections Contemporary Women’s Labor Issues Critiques of Marxist and Socialist Feminisms Conclusion Questions for Discussion 4 Women-of-Color Feminism(s) in the United States Women-of-Color Feminism(s) and the “First Wave” Women-of-Color Feminism(s) and the “Second Wave” Women-of-Color Feminism(s) and the “Third Wave” Distinct Women-of-Color Feminism(s) Critiques of Women-of-Color Feminism(s) in the United States Conclusion Questions for Discussion 5 Women-of-Color Feminism(s) on the World Stage: Global, Postcolonial, and Transnational Feminisms Global Feminism in General Postcolonial Feminism in General Transnational Feminism in General Critiques of Global, Postcolonial, and Transnational Feminisms Conclusion Questions for Discussion 6 Psychoanalytic Feminism Classical Psychoanalytic Thought: Focus on Sigmund Freud Anglo-American Critiques and Appropriations of Freud: Focus on Dorothy Dinnerstein, Nancy Chodorow, and Juliet Mitchell Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thought: Focus on Jacques Lacan Critique of Jacques Lacan “French” Psychoanalytic Feminism: Focus on Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva Critiques of Freudian, Lacanian, and Psychoanalytic Feminist Thought Conclusion Questions for Discussion 7 Care-Focused Feminism The Roots of Care-Focused Feminism Critiques of Care-Focused Feminism The Roots of Maternal Ethics Critiques of Maternal Ethics Conclusion Questions for Discussion 8 Ecofeminism Some Roots of Ecofeminism Early Conceptions of Ecofeminism Women, Nature, and Culture: Some Tensions Nature Ecofeminism Spiritual Ecofeminism Transformative Ecofeminism Global Ecofeminism Vegetarian Ecofeminism Environmental Ecofeminism Critiques of Ecofeminism Conclusion Questions for Discussion 9 Existentialist, Poststructural, and Postmodern Feminisms Existentialism: Focus on Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialist Feminism: Focus on Simone de Beauvoir Critiques of Existentialist Feminism Poststructuralism: Focus on Michel Foucault Poststructural Feminism: Focus on Judith Butler Critiques of Poststructural Feminism Postmodernism: Focus on Jacques Derrida Postmodern Feminism: Focus on Hélène Cixous Critiques of Postmodern Feminism Conclusion Questions for Discussion 10 Third-Wave and Queer Feminisms Third-Wave Feminism Critiques of Third-Wave Feminism Feminist Queer Theory Critiques of Feminist Queer Theory Conclusion Questions for Discussion Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Preface The two of us have enjoyed working together on the fifth edition of Feminist Thought—even though one of us was in Charlotte, North Carolina, retired as an emeritus professor of philosophy, and the other was an assistant professor of philosophy at California State University, Fresno. Committed to making the fifth edition of the book the best yet, we expanded it from seven to ten chapters. Although Chapter 1 on liberal feminism, Chapter 3 on Marxist and socialist feminisms, Chapter 8 on ecofeminism, and Chapter 9 on existentialist, poststructural, and postmodern feminisms remain somewhat the same, we added better critiques and more recent data.
We have recast Chapter 2 on radical feminism to better accommodate some of our most recent ideas about sexuality and particularly reproduction. In addition, we now have two chapters on women-of-color feminism. One focuses on women of color in the United States and the other on women of color worldwide (global, postcolonial, and transnational). We have also split Chapter 6 on psychoanalytic and care-focused feminism into two chapters: Chapter 6 on psychoanalytic feminism and Chapter 7 on care-focused feminism.
Finally, we have added Chapter 10 on third-wave feminism and feminist queer theory and significantly updated and reconfigured our bibliography. This fifth edition of Feminist Thought contains several substantial changes in addition to many cosmetic ones. We believe that nothing currently on the market is more inclusive of the rich diversity and intersectionality of feminist thought. Acknowledgments As usual we have relied on the help of many people to bring this book to market.
First, we wish to acknowledge each other as responsive, responsible, and self-critical coauthors. Second, we want to thank everyone at Westview Press who cheerfully and skillfully aided us. In particular, we want to thank our editors, Elizabeth Hansen and Nikki Ioakimedes; our publisher, Cathleen Esposito; and our editorial director, Grace Fujimoto. In addition, we give special thanks to our project editor, Michael Clark, for shepherding our project through the production process, and our copyeditor, Jennifer Kelland, for polishing our manuscript.
Their help unified and improved our two distinct styles. Finally, we wish to thank our patient and conscientious typist, Pamela Eudy, who kept track of our many draftings and redraftings. We cannot overemphasize her dedication to the fifth edition. Introduction The Diversity of Feminist Thinking While working on the fifth edition of Feminist Thought, we have become increasingly convinced that feminist thought resists categorization into tidy schools.
“Interdisciplinary,” “intersectional,” and “interlocking” are the kinds of adjectives that best describe feminist thinking. There is an exhilaration in the way we feminists move from one idea to the next, revising our thoughts in midstream. Yet, despite the very real challenges that accompany trying to categorize the thought of an incredibly diverse and large array of feminist thinkers, feminist thought is old enough to have a history complete with a set of labels: liberal, radical, Marxist/socialist, women-of-color, global, postcolonial, transnational, psychoanalytic, care-focused, ecofeminist, existentialist, poststructural, postmodern, third-wave, and queer. To be sure, this list of labels is incomplete and contestable.
It probably does not capture the full range of feminism’s intellectual and political commitments to women and society in general. Yet feminist thought’s traditional labels remain serviceable. They signal to the public that feminism is not a monolithic ideology and that all feminists do not think alike. The labels also help mark the number of different approaches, perspectives, frameworks, and standpoints that a variety of feminists have used to shape both their explanations for women’s oppression and their proposed solutions for its elimination.
Because so much of mainstream feminist theory reacts against traditional liberal feminism, liberalism is as good a place as any to begin a survey of feminist thought. This perspective received its classic formulation in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,1 John Stuart Mill’s “The Subjection of Women,”2 and the nineteenth-century women’s suffrage movement. Its main thrust, an emphasis still felt in such groups as the National Organization for Women (NOW), is that female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that block women’s entrance to and success in the public sphere. To the extent that society holds the false belief that women are, by nature, less intellectually and physically capable than men, it tends to discriminate against women in the academy, the forum, and the marketplace.
As liberal feminists see it, this discrimination against women is unfair. Women should have as much chance to succeed in the public realm as men do. Gender justice, insist liberal feminists, requires us, first, to make the rules of the game fair and, second, to ensure that none of the runners in the race for society’s goods and services are systematically disadvantaged. But is the liberal feminist program robust enough to undo women’s oppression? Radical feminists think not.
They claim that power, dominance, hierarchy, and competition characterize the patriarchal system. It cannot be reformed but only ripped out, root and branch. Radical feminists insist that it is not enough for us to overturn patriarchy’s legal and political structures on the way to women’s liberation; we must also thoroughly transform its social and cultural institutions (especially the family and organized religion). As in the past, we remain impressed by the diverse modalities of thinking that count as radical feminist thought.
Although all radical feminists focus on sex, gender, and reproduction as the loci for the development of feminist thought,3 some stress the pleasures of sex (be it heterosexual, lesbian, or autoerotic) and view as unalloyed blessings for women not only the old reproduction-controlling technologies but also the new reproductionassisting technologies. In contrast, other radical feminists emphasize the dangers of sex, especially heterosexual sex, and regard as harmful to women the new reproduction-assisting technologies and, in a different way, the old reproduction-controlling technologies. As in the previous edition of Feminist Thought, we sort this varied array of radical feminist thinkers into two groups: radical-libertarian and radical-cultural feminists.4 With respect to issues related to sexuality, radical-libertarian feminists argue that no specific kind of sexual experience should be prescribed as the best.5 Every woman should be encouraged to experiment sexually with herself, with other women, and with men. Although heterosexuality can be dangerous for women within a patriarchal society, women must nonetheless feel free to follow their own desires, even if that means embracing men.
Radical-cultural feminists disagree. They stress that through pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, rape, and woman battering,6 through foot binding, suttee, purdah, clitoridectomy, witch burning, and gynecology,7 men have controlled women’s sexuality for male pleasure. Thus, to become liberated, women must escape the confines of heterosexuality and create a distinct female sexuality through celibacy, autoeroticism, or lesbianism.8 Only alone, or with other women, can women discover the true pleasure of sex. Radical feminist thought is as diverse on issues related to reproduction as it is on matters related to sexuality.
Radical-libertarian feminists claim biological motherhood drains women physically and psychologically.9 Women should be free, they say, to use the old reproduction-controlling technologies and the new reproduction-assisting technologies on their own terms—to prevent or terminate unwanted pregnancies or, alternatively, to have children when they want them (pre- or postmenopausally), how they want them (from their own womb or that of another woman), and with whom they want them (a man, a woman, or alone). Some radical-libertarian feminists go further than this, however. They look forward to the day when ectogenesis (extracorporeal gestation in an artificial uterus) entirely replaces the natural process of pregnancy. In contrast to radical-libertarian feminists, radical-cultural feminists claim biological motherhood is the ultimate source of women’s power.10 Women, in their view, determine whether the human species continues—whether there is life or no life.
Women must guard and celebrate this life-giving power, for in its absence, men will have even less respect and use for women than they do now.11 Unconvinced by the liberal and radical feminist agendas for women’s liberation, Marxist and socialist feminists claim it is impossible for anyone, especially women, to achieve true freedom in a class-based society, where the wealth produced by the powerless many ends up in the hands of the powerful few.