Radical Feminism Socialist feminism

b. Radical Feminism

In one sense, all feminism is by definition ‘radical’, challenging the central tenets of legal and political thought and demanding full citizenship for women in society. The emergent woman’s movement of the late 1960s and the political activity of women confronting the prevailing mores in western society represented a radical departure from women’s conventional roles and stereotypes. 28 According to Alison Jaggar the feminist philosopher, radical feminist is biological determinism for an explanation of men’s behavior, defining women’s oppression under patriarchy as seamless and absolute with women as absolute victims, and focusing on the construction of woman-culture as the sole political strategy. 29

c. Socialist feminism

Socialist feminism appeared as an organized current of feminism in most western capitals in the mid-1970s. It expressed the outlook and many of the early assumptions of women’s liberation, a self conscious movement of women that first emerged in the closing years of the civil rights and student movements of the 1960s. Although socialist feminist flourished within the wider movement in the 1970s, it 28 Hilaire A. Barnett, Introduction to Feminist Jurisprudence, London: Cavendish Publishing Limited 1998, p. 163 29 Margaret A. Simons, Beauvoir and the Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism Maryland :Rowman Littlefield publisher Inc, 1999, p. 146-147 conference often became bogged down in abstract debate about some of the least creative areas of Marxist thought. 30 Socialist feminism appears to adopt some of the same tenets of Marxism, but instead of focusing on economic determinism as the primary source of oppression, the socialist feminist sees the oppression as having psychological and social roots. 31 They share a genuine concern for women that transcends politics. Their focus is on people, not profits. To the socialist feminist, the prostitute is a victim of the corruption of a society which accompanies class distinctions. The oppression of class in a materialistic society degrades people by categorizing them in a particular class and objectifying them so that they are merely parts of a mechanism that can be replaced by other parts of the same description. In both the socialist feminist and Marxist feminist perspectives prostitution is discouraged, but neither school of thought seeks a legal remedy for its elimination. They believe that the cause of prostitution is in the structuring of society, and that is where the solution will reside. 32

d. Marxist feminism