Lesson 1

Lesson 1, Part 3

What is feminism? Is there one feminism or many feminism(s)?

While many people use one word to describe feminism, there are actually many types of feminism. This is why feminism is often referred to in the plural as “feminisms”. Whether you use the plural or the singular as a generic term, you need to consider the differences between types of feminism.

Waves of Feminism (a historical view)

Feminism is often discussed in terms of waves. This model tends to argue there have been 3 dominant waves –
1) the Suffrage movement of the mid-late-19th Century;
2) the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and
3) the third wave which emerged in the 1990s,
and some people have argued that we are now entering a fourth wave.
Underpinning the wave model is the assumption that feminism as a mass political movement has risen to public prominance at various moments in the last 200 years and then “dissolved” again, like the rise and fall of a wave.
There is a second assumption in the rapid turnover of 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves in contemporary feminism that each generation of women “reinvents” feminism, according to the problems they encounter within their peer group of other women.

‘“The Feminist movement is like the sea: it comes in waves and cannot be stopped”. The actual rise and fall of feminist mobilisation is usually described in terms of ‘waves’: the first wave of feminism, the second wave, and maybe a third wave. However, the theoretical foundation of this continuity thesis needs to be clarified. Organisational as well as ideological continuity is at stake here.’   Drude Dalherup

It is worth remembering that the term ‘feminism’, as well as its political underpinnings has a long history. It was first used as a term in English as early as 1851 to refer to “qualities of females” and by 1895 was more commonly understood as the term for people recognised for their “advocacy of women’s rights”. It is derived from French féminisme (used as early as 1837) and from Latin fēminīnus and from fēmina (“woman”).
In the 1920s, after women in Britain had won full suffrage, the term feminism was used to acknowledge that attaining suffrage for women was only the beginning of a politics for and about women. Feminism remains the term for an ongoing ever-developing discussion, largely between women, about precisely the political, social, economic and theoretical stakes in women’s emancipation and activism. Feminism, because of this history, does refer to a politics centred on women.

Second-wave feminism is widely recognised as starting in the late 1960s and has been developing for over five decades now. Second-wave feminism has looked back to many earlier moments of feminism in the 20^th century and to women’s resistance in the 19^th century woman’s movement and much earlier to Medieval, Roman and Greek sources. Many second-wave feminists took inspiration from a renewed interest in Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex, first published in France in 1949.

Third wave feminism is widely regarded as a phenomenon started in the early 1990s. Many people associate third wave feminism with either “post-feminism”, or a culture of feminism amongst young women (especially given the impact of social media in the 2000s). However, after nearly 25 years of “Rriot Grrl”, “Bad Girls” and “Cyberfeminism”, it is questionable whether these assumptions about absolute generational differences within feminism in “third-wave” feminism are really accurate because of the plural ways in which “third wave” has been stretched and redefined and many questions about precisely which generation of women (or part of a generation) it refers.

So unquestioningly are feminism and a woman’s movement assumed to be co-terminous that histories of feminism are often written as histories of the women’s movement, and times of apparent quiescence of the movement are taken as symptomatic of a quiescence of feminism. This identity between feminism and a women’s movement is, moreover, part of the self-image of contemporary feminism.

Rosalind Delmar ‘What is Feminism?’ in Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley What is Feminism? (1986)

This course was developed for you to think about the relationship between feminist politics, art and feminist theory – evident in writing about women artists, contemporary art and feminism. This is a complex group of concerns – which the diagram (on the left at the top of the page) tries to indicate as a model to speak about feminisms. You cannot embark upon any study of feminism in relation to contemporary art without engaging with the question of what feminist politics is first.

This is not a question of “opting” for a brand or one type of feminism or a theoretical approach alone as “the” singular pre-fashioned lens or perspective which you will adopt and follow, nor is it a supermarket “brand” with which you can identify. If you want to engage with feminism(s), it does require re-examining your own identifications and projections and your own prejudices including those you may hold about what feminism is and how it appears in discourses about contemporary art and the works of women artists. You will need to work through or come to an understanding about your own political allegiances and their alliances as well as the many different concepts and ideas available to you in various disciplines, theories and histories.
The many dimensions of feminist thought and feminist politics require each one of us to think about how to develop our own “standpoint” and how this will inevitably be informed by our “location” (geographically, socially, metaphorically and historically). These two ideas of “standpoint” and “location” have become key in many contemporary feminist positions, both politically and theoretically.

The idea of a feminist standpoint was strongly advocated in social science research by Sandra Harding, to encourage a consciousness articulation of the position of the researcher in relation to the knowledge they produced. Donna Haraway developed another parallel idea about “situated knowledges” (1984) to emphasise the location of knowledge in science and the political choices the decisions to pursue certain questions, approaches or areas of enquiry would entail.

A politics of location which could embrace the complexities of race, sex, class developed from the many calls for a politics which could articulate the complex forms of identity, subjectivity and personal stories of life experiences of women within a feminism where multiple women’s voices could be heard and their diversity acknowledged.
In the late 1990s, there was a call for a ‘revised politics of location – “revised” because, unlike, its initial articulation, the relation between experience and knowledge is now seen to be not one of correspondence, but fraught with history, contingency, and struggle.’ (Lata Mani ‘Multiple Mediations’ in Carole E. McCann and Seung-Kyong Kim Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives (Routledge, 2003) p.366)

Political Definitions of Feminism

While there are common threads within feminist thought – particularly a critique of patriarchal and patriarchal thinking – there are many different forms of analysis, different belief systems, and different feminists have offered diverse solutions for change, reform or revolution of our everyday lives, government/ institutions and the relations between the sexes.

Alison Jaggar’s influential characterisation of these strands within feminism outlines the different emphasis in approach and she summarises the key tendencies within feminism(s) as Liberal, Radical, Marxist and Socialist. Her book is about the political philosophy of human nature in relation to these strands of feminisms:

‘There are many ways of being a feminist. Contemporary feminists are united in their opposition to women’s oppression, but they differ not only in their views of how to combat that oppression, but even in their conception of what constitutes women’s oppression in contemporary society. Liberal feminists…believe that women are oppressed insofar as they suffer unjust discrimination; traditional Marxists believe that women are oppressed in their exclusion from public production; radical feminists see women’s oppression as consisting primarily in the universal male control of women’s sexual and procreative capacities; while socialist feminists characterize women’s oppression in terms of a revised version of Marxist theory of alienation.’
Alison Jaggar Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Rowman and Allanheld/Harvester, 1983) p.353

There are many attempts to define feminism in terms of different groups and politics: the distinctions follow a politics of left and right across a traditional spectrum of positions but they focus on feminism’s anti-capitalist and democratic tendencies. Many of the different strands named above have overlapped or formed alliances with each other dependent on which issue, campaign, perspective or group of ideas have been discussed.

We live today in a highly globalised world of international exchange and dynamic change. There are today, for example, different brands of conservative feminism, (some of which are also nationalist and xenophobic) which borrow ideas from liberal feminism about ending discrimination and may even promote some ideas of “equality” or “rights for women” on an international stage (even gay marriage), but have been orientated towards particular models of free market capitalist politics and “survival of the fittest” arguments. Conservative and neo-liberal policies and ideas are often extremely negative about any collective action amongst women and often strident in their insistence on individual responsibility for one’s situation or predicament, ignoring many forms of collective action for change or any analysis of how larger economic or social forces determine one’s life chances or responses.

The purpose of separating different strands in feminist politics is to understand them better and think through what is being claimed and why, the purpose is not to add labels to people or to find easy classifications for people’s ideas or their work. Lived reality is different from theoretical analysis.

As an anti-dote to the tendency to classify:
read or listen to Audre Lorde “There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions”

There is No Hierarchy of Oppressions – by Audre Lorde
(Read by Lauren Lyons)

Different movements or groups within 1970s feminism

Many women have joined the following early feminist/women’s liberation groups or have found inspiration in learning about their ideas and their methods of protest. You can browse different resources about these groups online, using these links to texts and archive material. This is only a selective list, it is not comprehensive. There were many other smaller groups involved.

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What is Feminism?
Waves, standpoint, location

Political Definitions of Feminism
Liberal, Socialist, Marxist and Radical

Different Groups within 1970s Feminism
Rivolta Femminile
Red Stockings / Rodstrumpa
Women’s Liberation Movement
W.I.T.C.H
Dolle Mina
New York Radical Feminists
N.O.W.

Political types of feminism
Anarchism/Anarcha-Feminism
Marxist feminism/Material Feminism
Socialist feminism
Womanism/Black feminism
Radical Feminism/Lesbian Separatism
Eco-Feminism

Extra Resources for this lesson
You can find many different examples of how feminism is divided into tendencies or groups e.g.:

Alison Jaggar Feminist Politics and Human Nature (1983)

Rosemary Tong’s book Feminist Thought (2009) [introduction as PDF]

Editors: Gillis, S., Howie, G., Munford, R. (Eds.)
Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration (Palgrave, 2007)

Gurminder Bhambra’s online resource
Global Social Thought

Feminism: Controversies, Challenges, Actions
BCRW, 2005 Director: Rebecca Haimowitz
This film features interviews with different members of the Barnard Center for Women’s Studies team in the USA, since the early 1970s. It was included in issue 3.3/4.1 of webjournal S&F Online ( barnard.edu/sfonline/sfxxx/film.htm ), “The Scholar & Feminist XXX: Past Controversies, Present Challenges, Future Feminisms.”

Rivolta Femminile
Their manifesto is also the preface of an edition of Carla Lonzi’s text Let’s Spit on Hegel: In italian  – ‘Sputiamo su Hegel’

In English – Let’s Spit on Hegel
In Spanish – in a collection of her writings, p.25 onwards: https://traficantes.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/TDS_map52_Escupamos%20sobre%20Hegel_web.pdf

Women’s Liberation Movement
Read the 6 original UK demands of WLM from early 1970s in the Feminist Archive North Chronology https://feministarchivenorth.org.uk/herstory/wlm-chronology/

Red Stockings / ‘Rodstrumpa’;
on the group in New York:
http://redstockings.org/index.php/rs-manifesto
or this page on the Danish Red Stockings (1970-1985)
https://konmuseum.dk/udstilling/rodstromperne/
OR
Drude Dahlerup Rødstrømperne. Den danske Rødstrømpebevægelses udvikling, nytænkning og gennemslag 1970-85. Vol.I, 655 pages, vol.II, 500 pages. Gyldendal 1998. (The Redstockings. The rise and fall, the ideas and the impact of the Danish Redstockings Movement, 1970-85, vol I-II. 1998).
The Red Stocking movement was also a strong presence in Iceland and the Women’s Strike of 1975.

Witches – Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell –
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/bring_back_the_feminists_of_witch
Robin Morgan on the Hex of New York Stock Exchange in 1969
– http://www.makers.com/moments/practical-witches

Dolle Mina, a radical left group in the Netherlands
https://atria.nl/en/kennis/artikelen/dolle-mina-tijdbalk

There are many other smaller activist groups and national movements for feminism which have arisen since the 1970s and continue to arise today, for example, feminists within the peace movement or the protests to remove American nuclear arms from US bases in the UK at Greenham Common in the late 1970s-mid-1980s.
There are many political campaigns which are feminist or feminist-inspired and argue that they represent movements or organisations which aim to improve women’s equality. Since the mid-1970s there has been an explosion of non-governmental organisations with feminism and women’s rights as a key part of their agenda. Some of the most common today focus on increasing women’s representation in governance / women’s leadership, improving aspects of women’s health and health care, working against domestic violence, against early or forced marriage of girls and against violence against women.

Feminism as a result of its political analysis and tendencies proposes many different solutions to improve the position of women.
These have included:
-advocating women’s rights as human rights;
-measures to ameliorate the feminisation of poverty;
-equal pay for equal work;
-improvements to women’s access to health care, especially around sexual health and reproduction;
-equal opportunities in education and work;
-legal, educational and health care measures to end sexual violence and abuse of women and girls and provide safe houses to support them;
-greater political and social representation;
-different forms of social justice campaigns, for changes in the law and in legal representation

These are all solutions, or propositions, widely debated by feminists and non-feminists, to change for the better the position of women in society. The rationale for these campaigns have been argued in many terms: “ending discrimination”, providing access to “human rights”, claiming “social responsibilities”, providing “social justice” or “an end to women’s second-class status” and their “social injustice”.

You may also have heard of feminism in relation to some of the following types of political feminism.

The texts below have been selected to serve as a fast (and sketchy) introduction to their approach, particularly their early history, and some for their online availability. This is not a definitive guide to these areas. They have also been chosen to demonstrate some of the “blurred lines” and/or “distinctions” between different approaches:

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