Critique on the Different Forms of Feminism - Essay Example

In this respect a feminist can be defined by this model as being a person that believes that this model fundamentally fits the given situation that is faced by women more appropriately as compared to how it fits the situation faced by men, this is regardless of the society in which the person is seen to be in.

However, of note is the fact that this definition does not imply that all different types of feminists believe that the prime oppressors of women are men – some types of feminists tend to believe that the main real oppressor is the society we live in and that men too are also oppressed by the actual rigidity of the roles that society is seen to force them to adopt.

There are several different types of feminisms each with its own established beliefs and philosophy. The different types of feminisms are seen to variously include:
- Socialist feminism,
- Radical feminism,
- Equity Feminism

Social feminism is seen to be primarily bent on the development of political practice and theory that will serve to essentially synthesize the best aspects of the Marxist tradition and radical feminism while at the same time attempting to escape the innate problems that are seen to commonly be associated with them. Socialist feminism is seen to share a common view with radical feminism in that social feminists tend to believe that the existing older political theories are rather quite incapable of giving a relatively adequate account of the oppression faced by women and that it is, therefore, necessary to develop a new set of economic and political categories. Also similarly to radical feminism, social feminism believes that these categories must be developed in a manner that they will be able to give a modern way of understanding childrearing, personal maintenance, childbearing, and sexuality in economic and political terms (Jaggar, 536-537).

One of the aspects of social feminism that I tend to agree with is that socialist feminism tends to recognize all the existing differences such as sex and age as being constituent parts of contemporary human nature and subsequently seeking a possible manner of understanding them in both a historical and materialistic manner. Perhaps the most agreeable aspect of this type of feminism is that it also does not view humans as being genderless and abstract individuals with women generally being indistinguishable from men as is the common belief in some aspects of Marxism and it is this that can be viewed as providing this form of feminism with the best justification (Jaggar, 539-549).

Radical Feminism. In addition to the shared belief that the older established political theories are generally incapable of giving an adequate account of the oppression that is seen to be faced by women, radical feminists also believe that the application of historical materialist methods that were originally developed by Engles and Marx is required in the adequate accounting of capitalist patriarchy. I believe that the best justification seen to be afforded to radical feminism essentially pertains to the fact that the main political theory governing radical feminism tends to only recognize the two differences of sex and age, and usually views these two as being determined biologically (Jaggar, 533-536). In this respect, I believe that radical feminism is seen to wrongly conclude that the liberation of women will require a biological revolution that will involve the use of biotechnology such as artificial reproduction and modification that will cause men to be able to breastfeed and give birth and women to inseminate. This aspect of radical feminism is however quite disagreeable as it seems to be rather far-fetched and an attempt to try and reverse the course of nature. I believe that it is also quite questionable if the majority of women will be able to willingly partake in the use of such technology to reverse their traditional biological roles.

Equity/Liberal Feminism. The main philosophy of liberal feminism is seen to help in the provision of its best justification as it is seen to be emphasized by liberal feminism is that this type of feminism, argues that as opposed to the attainment of equality between women and men being achieved by radical goals seen to be entrenched in radical feminism, it will be achieved by the seeking of the equality of professional opportunity. Equity feminism is also seen to be against most of the principles seen to be adopted by radical feminism (Sommers, 274-275).

I believe that liberal feminism is perhaps the best form of feminism as its beliefs can be perceived to be more easily acceptable by society as compared to those upheld by social and radical feminism. However, I believe that liberal feminism can be further enhanced by the adoption of the view that society can at times play a crucial role in the establishment of equality for women and as opposed to only being majorly concentrated on seeking professional opportunity equality, equality feminism can also attempt to try and attain social equality as well.