Social feminism is a feminist movement that advocates for social rights and special accommodations for women. It was first used to describe members of the women's suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were concerned with social problems that affected women and children. They saw obtaining the vote mainly as a means to achieve their reform goals rather than a primary goal in itself. After women gained the right to vote, social feminism continued in the form of labor feminists who advocated for protectionist legislation and special benefits for women. The term is widely used, although some historians have questioned its validity.
William L. O'Neill introduced the term "social feminism" in his 1969 history of the feminist movementEveryone Was Brave: The Rise and Fall of Feminism in America. He used the term to cover women involved in municipal civic reform, settlement houses and improving labor conditions for women and children. For them, O'Neill said, "women's rights was not an end in itself, as it was to the most ardent feminists".[1] O'Neill contrasted social feminism with the "hard-core" feminism of women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who saw obtaining women's rights or women's suffrage as the main objective. Social feminists typically accepted traditional views of women as compassionate, nurturing and child-centered, while O'Neill's “hard-core feminists” were often alienated from these conventions.[2]
Naomi Black in Social Feminism (1989) distinguishes social feminism from "equity feminism". Equity feminism may be liberal, Marxist or socialist, but it demands equal rights for women within the male-defined framework. Social feminism, either maternal, cultural or radical, is based on female values. It aims to expand the role of women beyond the private sphere, and to fundamentally transform society.[3] Social feminist organizations should therefore exclude men to maintain their distinctive female characteristics.[according to whom?] They should not attempt to be like men, since their distinctive nature may be a strength in politics. There is inevitably a risk[neutrality is disputed] that social feminists will align with conservative causes.[4] In the short term social feminism is separatist, but in the longer term it is transformative, since men have lost the exclusive power of decision-making.[5]
Social feminism is sometimes associated with maternal feminism. This philosophy considers that mothering should be used as a model for politics, and women's maternal instincts uniquely qualify them to participate in a "female" sphere. However, feminists are not all necessarily maternalist, and maternal thinking does not necessarily promote the goals of all forms of social feminism.[6]
In France in the 1890s feminism was mainly confined to bourgeois women. Women such as Eugénie Potonié-Pierre try to broaden the movement by combining their social concerns with their feminism, and to bring working-class women into the feminist movement.[7] The Fédération Française des Sociétés Féministes was founded at the start of 1892 and held a well-attended congress in 13–15 May 1892, with both social feminists, mainstream feminists and socialists. The congress did not succeed in developing practical proposals or a coherent policy.[8] Their cautious attempts at social feminism were not successful. Instead, a working women's movement developed within the socialist movement.[7]
A final attempt to create a social feminist movement in France was made by Marguerite Durand, founder of the social feminist paper La Fronde, who arranged the 1900 international women's rights congress.[9] Durand saw social feminism as more than an expression of concern about social issues, but as a means to expand the base of the feminist movement. She felt that working women would create the feminist revolution, although bourgeois women would remain in control. She included moderate socialists on the organizing committee.[10]
Most of the 500 attendees at the congress were wealthy women. They were willing to vote for an eight-hour day for factory workers, but baulked at giving the same terms to their maids. There were two socialist women, Elizabeth Renaud and Louise Saumoneau, who were not willing to simply accept Durand's lead. In the end, the congress finalized the split between feminists and working women.[11] Saumoneau became hostile to feminism, seeing the class struggle as more important.[12] She denounced "bourgeois" feminism and took little interest in problems unique to women.[13]
America
Social feminists in the US around the turn of the century were more interested in broad social issues than narrow political struggles, and saw early feminists like Anthony and Stanton as selfish in their demand for the vote for its own sake. They saw the vote as a means by which they could improve society.[14] The social feminist and conservative Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) led by Frances Willard (1839–98) was not interested in women's suffrage, and perhaps actively opposed, until around 1880. At that time it came round to the idea that suffrage was the only way to gain the changes in legislation needed to advance temperance. The goal was still temperance, and suffrage was an expedient means to achieve that goal. In the long term the WCTU brought more women into the suffrage movement, but in the short term it was a competitor to suffrage organizations.[15]
In America the mainstream of the women's rights movement were social feminists. Often they saw women as inherently different in their point of view from men. They campaigned for social improvements and protection of the interests of women. Issues included education, property rights, job opportunities, labor laws, consumer protection, public health, child protection and the vote.[16]Florence Kelley (1859–1932) and Jane Addams (1860–1935) exemplified social feminists. They believed that gaining the vote was essential for them to achieve their social objectives.[16]
In the early 20th century social feminist leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) such as Maud Wood Park (1871–1955) and Helen H. Gardener (1853–1925) worked for women's suffrage. Their approach involved quiet lobbying of leading male politicians, while the more radical National Woman's Party took a more aggressive approach with demonstrations and picketing.[16] Social feminism endorsed many traditional views of gender roles, did not threaten patriarchal power and may even have reinforced traditional arrangements, but the strategy was successful in 1920 in the campaign for the vote.[17] After this breakthrough the National Woman's Party proposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA was bitterly opposed by the social feminists who saw it as undermining many of gains they had made in the treatment of women workers.[16]
In the period after the vote had been won there was a decline in social feminism in the US. According to William O'Neill "Adventure was now to be had, for the most part, in struggling against not social problems but social conventions. Drinking, smoking, dancing, sexual novelties, daring literature and avant-garde art now filled the vacuum created by the collapse of social feminism."[18] However, Labor feminists continued to agitate for reform in the workplace.[19] Labor feminists did not want to end all distinctions based on sex, only those that hurt women. For example, they felt that state laws that put in place wage floors and hour ceilings benefited women.[19]
Elizabeth Cady Stanton supported various reform causes before focusing exclusively on women's rights.
Jane Addams was a social feminist who supported women's suffrage.
Critique
The concept of social feminism is useful in defining a range of activities, but the idea that it is incompatible with radical feminism may be[weaselwords] misleading.[20] In The Ideas of the Woman's Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 (1965), Aileen S. Kraditor contrasted belief in the natural justice of women having the right to vote, common among suffragists up to the end of the 19th century, with belief in the "expediency" of women having the vote so they could address social issues, more common in the early 20th century.[21] However, Kraditor saw a gradual shift in emphasis from "justice" to "expediency" in the rationales for women's suffrage rather than a conflict between the two positions.[22] Organizations such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union were primarily social feminist while the National American Woman Suffrage Association was primarily "hard-core" in O'Neill's sense, but there was considerable overlap in their membership.[20] Activists such as Mary Ritter Beard, Florence Kelley and Maud Younger fall into both categories.[23]
Cobble, Dorothy S. (August 2005). "The Forgotten American Feminists". Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Working Women. 48.
Cott, Nancy F. (December 1989). "What's in a Name? The Limits of 'Social Feminism;' or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women's History". The Journal of American History. Organization of American Historians. 76 (3): 809–829. doi:10.2307/2936422. JSTOR2936422.
Feminism demonstrates the capacity of women to generate evidence for their own existence in society and in history. This may require ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes, or it may require women to call into question their desire for inclusion in patriarchal society on political, economic, personal, social or ideological grounds. Feminists take women's absence from history as a priori rather than any one gender stereotype.
Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy. It is often considered culturally progressive and economically center-right to center-left. As the oldest of the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought, liberal feminism has its roots in 19th century first-wave feminism that focused particularly on women's suffrage and access to education, and that was associated with 19th century liberalism and progressivism. Liberal feminism "works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure." Liberal feminism places great emphasis on the public world, especially laws, political institutions, education and working life, and considers the denial of equal legal and political rights as the main obstacle to equality. As such liberal feminists have worked to bring women into the political mainstream. Liberal feminism is inclusive and socially progressive, while broadly supporting existing institutions of power in liberal democratic societies, and is associated with centrism and reformism. Liberal feminism tends to be adopted by white middle-class women who do not disagree with the current social structure; Zhang and Rios found that liberal feminism with its focus on equality is viewed as the dominant and "default" form of feminism. Liberal feminism actively supports men's involvement in feminism and both women and men have always been active participants in the movement; progressive men had an important role alongside women in the struggle for equal political rights since the movement was launched in the 19th century.
The history of feminism comprises the narratives of the movements and ideologies which have aimed at equal rights for women. While feminists around the world have differed in causes, goals, and intentions depending on time, culture, and country, most Western feminist historians assert that all movements that work to obtain women's rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not apply the term to themselves. Some other historians limit the term "feminist" to the modern feminist movement and its progeny, and use the label "protofeminist" to describe earlier movements.
Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles in society has been conceptualized, or thought about, can be traced back to Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and William Thompson's utopian socialist work in the 1800s. Ideas about overcoming the patriarchy by coming together in female groups to talk about personal problems stem from Carol Hanisch. This was done in an essay in 1969 which later coined the term 'the personal is political.' This was also the time that second wave feminism started to surface which is really when socialist feminism kicked off. Socialist feminists argue that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression.
First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on securing women's right to vote. The term is often used synonymously with the kind of feminism espoused by the liberal women's rights movement with roots in the first wave, with organizations such as the International Alliance of Women and its affiliates. This feminist movement still focuses on equality from a mainly legal perspective.
Women's suffrage in Japan can trace its beginnings back to democratization brought about by the Meiji Restoration, with the suffrage movement rising to prominence during the Taisho period. The prohibition of women from political meetings had been abolished in 1922 after demands from women's organizations led by activists such as Hiratsuka Raichō and Ichikawa Fusae. The movement suffered heavy setbacks during and after the Great Depression, when support for democracy began to wane and military influence over civilians increased dramatically. The first election by universal suffrage without distinction of sex was held in 1946, but it was not until 1947, when the constitution for post-war Japan came into effect, that universal suffrage was established In Japan.
Feminism in the United States refers to the collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending a state of equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women in the United States. Feminism has had a massive influence on American politics. Feminism in the United States is often divided chronologically into first-wave, second-wave, third-wave, and fourth-wave feminism.
Feminism is one theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, even though many feminist movements and ideologies differ on exactly which claims and strategies are vital and justifiable to achieve equality.
Aline Valette (née Alphonsine Goudeman was a French feminist and socialist. She believed that society should provide support to women engaged in motherhood, the most important of all occupations.
Eliska Vincent was a Utopian socialist and militant feminist in France. She argued that women had lost civil rights that existed in the Middle Ages, and these should be restored. In the late 1880s and 1890s she was one of the most influential of the Parisian feminists. She created extensive archives on the feminist movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but these have been lost.
Louise Saumoneau was a French feminist who later renounced feminism as being irrelevant to the class struggle. She became a union leader and a prominent socialist. During World War I she was active in the internationalist pacifist movement. In a change of stance, after the war she remained with the right of the socialist party after the majority split off to form the French Communist Party.
The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such issues are women's liberation, reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. The movement's priorities have expanded since its beginning in the 1800s, and vary among nations and communities. Priorities range from opposition to female genital mutilation in one country, to opposition to the glass ceiling in another.
The Groupe Feministe Socialiste was founded in 1899 by Louise Saumoneau and Élisabeth Renaud, both working class socialists who wished to bring feminism to the working class in France. The socialist movement and the feminist movement both existed, but had little overlap prior to this point.
Maternal feminism is the belief of many early feminists that women as mothers and caregivers had an important but distinctive role to play in society and in politics. It incorporates reform ideas from social feminism, and combines the concepts of maternalism and feminism. It was a widespread philosophy among well-to-do women in the British Empire, particularly Canada, from the late 19th century until after World War I (1914–18). The concept was attacked by later feminists as accepting the paternalist view of society and providing an excuse for inequality.
Marianne Rauze was a French journalist, feminist, socialist, pacifist and communist.
The National Council of French Women is a society formed in 1901 to promote women's rights. The first members were mainly prosperous women who believed in using non-violent means to obtain rights by presenting the justice of the cause. Issues in the first half century included the right to vote, legal equality between husband and wife, paternal child support, social support for children, equal employment opportunity, equal pay for equal work and acquisition of citizenship on marriage. The National Council of French Women is affiliated with the International Council of Women (ICW). Now the oldest of French feminist organizations, it continues to work for causes related to the rights of women.
White feminism is a term which is used to describe expressions of feminism which are perceived as focusing on white women but are perceived as failing to address the existence of distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges. The term has been used to label and criticize theories that are perceived as focusing solely on gender-based inequality. Primarily used as a derogatory label, "white feminism" is typically used to reproach a perceived failure to acknowledge and integrate the intersection of other identity attributes into a broader movement which struggles for equality on more than one front. In white feminism, the oppression of women is analyzed through a single-axis framework, consequently erasing the identity and experiences of ethnic minority women the space. The term has also been used to refer to feminist theories perceived to focus more specifically on the experience of white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied women, and in which the experiences of women without these characteristics are excluded or marginalized. This criticism has predominantly been leveled against the first waves of feminism which were seen as centered around the empowerment of white middle-class women in Western societies.
Élisabeth Renaud, was a French teacher, socialist activist, and feminist.
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