Feminist Theories

A theory is an explanation for something that happens in the world. It tries to explain something socially constructive. One of the major theories in today's society is feminism. Feminism does not have one single defined ideology. It's concerned with the conditions for women and an active desire to change the quality of women's lives. Feminism has a range of feminist ideologies, but I will only be discussing three: liberal feminism, marxist feminism, and radical feminism.

Liberal feminism believes women are equally capable of reason as men and therefore should have equal opportunity. They believe women oppression will end once women have achieved legal equality and equal opportunity with men. Women have been disadvantaged by the opportunities offered to men both personally and socially. In the legal system that have been major differences between men and women concerning laws and how situations are handled such as divorce, property, domestic violence and martial rape. If you want to search domestic violence before the 50s you will have to search wife disobedience and men could not be charged with martial rape because women were seen as a vessel and they were there to serve their husbands. However, every theory has its limitations. Liberal feminism is too simplistic because of the idea of choice and what that means. Women say they have a choice now to decide for themselves but is that really the case? Do when really have the freedom to decide something or is the society constructed for women to think they have a choice.

Marxist feminism believes women's oppression is based on the capitalist system of social organization and therefore argue it has primarily economic base. Marxist feminist see sexism as a symptom of class oppression which would resolved by a socialist revolution. They argue that the social, sexual, and emotional aspects of women's lives are insignificant politically because they fall within the personal and private sphere. Within the political world, women are pushed into the private sphere because they are not judged on the plans or view points but rather how they are handling running for office and managing their household and how their kids are affected by having a mom in the work force. The limitations for this theory are class and capitalism obscures women's experiences in the private sphere.

Radical feminism believes the cause of women's oppression is patriarchy which is a male dominance and oppression of women on the basis of sex. They see this as the oldest form of oppression and all men oppress all women. It focuses on sexuality, reproduction, rape and violence against women. A limitation here is the question of is gender truly the most fundamental form on inequality between men and women. This is the image people think of when someone says feminist. This radical theory has led people to believe in the feminist stereotype that all feminist are bra burning women who are passionate about hating men. However, in reality, a feminist is a combination of many different aspects of theories and their beliefs are determined based on their own experiences with oppression.