Excursus: The History of Feminism

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There are two types of feminism in the world today - Christina Hoff Sommers has named them "equity feminism" and "gender feminism".

Equity Feminism

Equity feminists are people such as Mary Wollenscroft and John Stuart Mill. They are distinguished by their wish for equal treatment for women and men, rather than superior treatment for either sex. While writers such as those named above had written of equality, the feminist movement did not really get started until the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The American women's movement, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organised the first women's convention in New York, in 1848, but they were prevented from holding it by the (male) owners of the venue. This group issued a declaration very similar to the Rights of Man, and struggled on with the support of some men and women for some years. The big advantages for women did not come until the war period, when women worked at the same jobs as men (except military service) and so proved their value as workers, without reference to their sex. It was after World War 1, in 1920, that American women were given the right to vote, 1928 in the UK.

Unfortunately, many of the gains from the war and interwar years for women were taken away after the second world war. Women were systematically subjected to an ideology, the "feminine mystique". This ideology persuaded women of all ages that it was socially (but not legally) unacceptable for women to work outside the home, to aim for high academic qualifications or not to get married and have children. Betty Freidan, in the 1960s wrote "The Feminine Mystique", giving a name to the sense of alienation from the prevailing ideology sensed by many American women. She lamented that the daring woman of the interwar years had become the "happy housewife" and said this unnatural subjection and idea of women as a sex object rather than a thinking human was damaging to the mental health not only of women, but of their children and husbands too.

Equity feminism uncovered a hidden ideology and criticised it, but it did not become an ideology itself, unlike gender feminism.

Gender Feminism

This movement ("Women's Liberation") was more strident than equity feminism and said the problem was more than injustice and could not be solved by merely gaining equal rights before the law. They declared war on men and said even men of good will oppress women. They did not accept any appeal to men's higher nature, but insisted upon an inherent tendency to oppress women.

This movement came to the fore in the late '60's with its more militant form in the person of Valerie Solanas. In 1968 she famously shot Andy Warhol, declaring war on men, together with her group, S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) with the aim:

"SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM. Men in the Men's Auxiliary are those men who are working diligently to eliminate themselves, men who, regardless of their motives, do good, men who are playing pall with SCUM. A few examples of the men in the Men's Auxiliary are: men who kill men; biological scientists who are working on constructive programs, as opposed to biological warfare; journalists, writers, editors, publishers and producers who disseminate and promote ideas that will lead to the achievement of SCUM's goals; faggots who, by their shimmering, flaming example, encourage other men to de-man themselves and thereby make themselves relatively inoffensive...If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President's stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade...The few remaining men can exist out their puny days dropped out on drugs or strutting around in drag or passively watching the high-powered female in action, fulfilling themselves as spectators, vicarious livers or breeding in the cow pasture with the toadies, or they can go off to the nearest friendly suicide center where they will be quietly, quickly, and painlessly gassed to death." SCUM Manifesto (External Link)

In 1969 Kate Millett published "Sexual Politics" which was the political analysis for gender feminism. She described patriarchy as parallel to race superiority and class sratification and more enduring than those. Some who followed her lead declared matriarchy to be the first form of society, and a better form than patriarchy.

Gender feminists declared that our concepts of "male" and "female" are not biologically determined but socially determined. They attacked the family as a vehicle of patriarchy, teaching the young about gender roles. They also attacked religion as the foundation of patriarchy.

Equity feminism is a moral movement hoping to shame men into granting equality, gender feminism says this is not enough.

In 1994 Christina Hoff Sommers wrote "Who Stole Feminism? How Women have Betrayed Women". She analysed gender feminism, and identified it as the enemy of equity feminism. She exposed the false figures and facts presented by gender feminists in order to further their aims. She asked why so many were prepared to believe things which could not be true? Gender feminists saw their struggle as a war, and therefore utilised propaganda ("the first casualty of war is truth"). Feminism is now identified with gender feminism and womens studies courses were being used to indoctrinate women into gender feminist ideas. Women were being encouraged to do womens studies rather than science subjects, and science was interpreted as a vehicle of male domination. Iris Murdoch called it a "new female ghetto" and such actions reinforce old stereotypes about women's intellectual abilities.

Gender feminists are "enraged and engaged" and have formed a resentful community. Their beliefs are like a religion to them, and an attack on their ideas, as heresy (Hoff Sommers came in for a lot of criticism for her book).

In 1992 there was a conference of Womens Studies, and a split was formed when women of colour took exception to white (mainly middle-class) women speaking for them. Gender feminists tend to be white middle-class well-educated women, who believe they can speak for all women, everywhere.