Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:49:33.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

(In)Quest of Liberal Feminism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

I am interested in exploring the usefulness and limits of traditional categories of feminist theory, such as those laid out by Alison Jaggar (1977; 1983). I begin the analysis by critically comparing various treatments of liberal feminism. I focus throughout this investigation on uncovering ways that current frameworks privilege white authors and concerns, recreate the split between theory and activism, and obscure long histories of theoretical and practical coalition and alliance work.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrètt, Michele, and Phillips, Anne, eds. 1992. Destabilizing theory: Contemporary feminist debates. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Boris, Eileen. 1994. Home to work: Motherhood and the politics of industrial homework in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bryson, Valerie. 1992. Feminist political theory: An introduction. New York: Paragon House.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, Berenice. 1986. Direct action and constitutional rights: The case of the ERA. In Rigfits of passage: The past and future of the ERA. See Hoff‐Wilson, 1986.Google Scholar
Clarke, Adele, and Wolfson, Alice. 1990. Class, race, and reproductive rights. In Women, class, and the feminist imagination: A socialist‐feminist reader, eds.Hansen, Karen V. and Philipson, Ilene J.Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Cott, Nancy. 1987. The grounding of modem feminism. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela. 1981. Women, race, and class. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Echols, Alice. 1989. Oaring to be bad: Radical feminism in America, 1967‐1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Eisenstein, Zillah R. 1993. The radical future of liberal feminism. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara. 1980. Personal politics: The roots of women's liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara 1989. Born for liberty: A history of women in America. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Kathy E. 1993. The man question: Visions of subjectivity in feminist theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foner, Philip S., ed. 1992. Frederick Douglass on women's rights. New York: Da Capo Press.Google Scholar
Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and where I enter: The impact of black women on race and sex in America. Toronto: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Goldman, Emma. 1988. Mary Wollstonecraft: Her tragic life and her passionate struggle for freedom. In A vindication of the rights of woman: An authoritative text, backgrounds, the WoUstonecraft debate, criticism. See Poston 1988.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1986. The instability of the analytical categories of feminist theory. Signs 11(4): 645–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff‐Wilson, Joan, ed. 1986. Rights of passage: The past and future of the ERA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Hooks, Bell. 1984. Feminist theory: From margin to center. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 1977. Political philosophies of women's liberation. In Feminism and philosophy, eds.Vettering‐Braggin, Mary, Elliston, Frederick A., and English, Jane. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M 1983. Feminist politics and human nature. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Kensinger, Loretta. 1996. (In)quest of feminisms: A critical comparison of texts on liberal, radical, and socialist feminisms. Ph.d diss., Purdue University.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. A. 1979. Sexual harassment of working women: A case of sex discrimination. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. A 1987. Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. A 1993. Only words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Poston, Carol H., ed. 1988. A vindication of the rights of woman: An authoritative text, backgrounds, the Wollstonecraft debate, criticism 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Sandoval, Chela. 1991. U.S. Third World feminism: The theory and method of oppositional consciousness in the postmodern world. Genders (10): 124.Google Scholar
Sklar, Kathryn Kish. 1995. Florence Kelley and the nation's work: The rise of women's culture, 1830‐1900. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1988. Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Tong, Rosemarie. 1989. Feminist thought: A comprehensive introduction. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Minh‐Ha, Trinh T. 1991. When the moon waxes red: Representation, gender and cultural politics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wexler, Alice. 1988. Afterword. In A vindication of the rights of woman: An authoritative text, backgrounds, the Woustonecraft debate, criticism. See Poston 1988.Google Scholar
Young, Iris. 1984. From fireworks to frameworks. Review of Feminist politics and human nature, by Alison Jaggar. Women's Review of Bool. 1(4): 1112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar