Feminism and the Aspects of Its Political Ideologies - Coursework Example

Feminism as Precursor 2 Refer to the red bracket comments. The red words are just add on, ignore that. Upon examining feminism and its various aspects of its political ideologies, one might notice that it shares various aspects with other ideologies, such as liberalism and social democracy, which seem to be at odds with each other. It is rather difficult to state whether or not feminism is grounded in these ideologies or if it represents a break from them because the answer turns out to be yes and no at the same time. There are aspects of feminism which are in line with certain aspects of liberalism and social democracy, yet it also disagrees with other aspects, and this is not an unheard of idea. Therefore, it would not be correct to say that feminism is derived from, or breaks from either of these ideologies. Rather, it would be more appropriate to say that feminism is its own ideology that has a long history which aims to be more egalitarian. Due to the fact that both liberalism and social democracy have aspects of them which try to be egalitarian, though in different ways, a person may view feminism as a newer political ideology that was derived from these other ideologies. The theorist Milton Friedman is regarded as a liberalist. Liberalists are most concerned with individual freedom. In his book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman advocated for as little government involvement as possible in society, and stressed individual freedom: “Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances. ” (Friedman, 1962, pg. 10). Feminism also stresses individual Feminism as Precursor 3 freedom in a certain regard. As Friedman’s version of liberalism is sometimes referred to as “laissez-faire” liberalism, it is only appropriate that various slogans from feminist supporters of pro-choice laws and regulations equates to a similar sentiment, such as “keep your laws off of my body.” Feminists view the right to choose as very individualistic, and the philosophy behind it is that they think that women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies. Any government regulation that attempts to regulate what a person does with their body, in the view of feminists, oversteps what governments should be allowed to do. Pro-choice advocates are very similar to liberalists in that they feel as though their own reason and their ability to take rational actions should not be disrespected. This is the ultimate goal and most important aspect of liberalism: “Individuals are assumed to be capable of using reason and taking rational actions in pursuit of their interests” (Mintz et al, 2008, pg. ) Michael Oakeshott, a political theorist, held views similar to Friedman in that he was against government regulations in society. In reaction to what he perceived as a growing trend in British politics towards socialism, Oakeshott wrote in Rationalism in Politics that the rational mind would naturally be opposed to the degree to which socialism would interfere with people’s lives: “At the bottom he stands for independence of mind on all occasions, for thought free of obligations save the authority of reason” (Oakeshott, 1962, pg. 2). Of course, feminists would take issue with the use of the masculine pronoun “he” that Oakeshott used, but they would find that they would be in agreement with his ideas about reason. Again, since modern Western governments do not write laws according to religious text, they would argue that there are no ways through reason or through empiricism to state that a woman should not be able to choose to end a pregnancy. Feminism as Precursor 4 Of course, the laissez-faire approach to society is about as far as feminism concurs with conservative thinking. The concept of free markets has also influenced feminism in regards to the desire to be free to do what one desires without government interference. Classical liberalism would desire to have free markets as much as possible. The problem with this, though, is that there are inherent inequalities, making for a market in which some people are not able to compete in realistically. This, if viewed in a certain way, is not actually a free market because by nature it excludes certain people. This is what socialism tries to do, to level out these inherent inequalities so more people are able to compete in the free market. John Roemer, in A Future for Socialism, states that the market “does not perform its good deeds unaided; it is supported by a myriad cast of institutional characters which have evolved painstakingly over time, and in a variety of ways“ (Roemer, 1996, pg. 9). Feminism is not, as an ideology, an attempt to place women in a superior status to men. Feminists merely want to have equality in regards to men. For a long time, women were considered inferior and relegated to a separate social sphere, and were put at a disadvantage in regards to being able to compete in a free market. Still, there are people that think that a woman’s place is in the home, and because of this, they will not give the opportunities to women that they would to men. Through no fault of their own, women are still at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to competing in a free market, so feminists and women recognize the necessity to compensate for handicaps induced by circumstances over which they have no means by which to compensate for. Therefore, it is only natural that a person who understands the tenets of social democracy would feel as though feminism has much in common with this ideology. Of course, as mentioned, there is always room for contradiction and opposing viewpoints to exist together. Certain aspects of various ideologies might exist in multiple variations, but they are merely given less weight in some than in others. Some theorists felt as though women would Feminism as Precursor 5 bring their experience to politics. “Many also believed that women would bring virtue into politics by extending the stance of motherhood to the public sphere substituting persuasion for power, and replacing party politics with Progressive good government (Mansbridge, 1990).” There might be some who would consider democratic socialism to be a form of domination, yet feminism is obviously in part aligned with it. Here we can see how these opposing viewpoints do not cancel each other out, yet merely create a new permutation of ideologies. There have been yet other feminists who pictured reversals, “In Herland, a feminist utopian novel published six years before women won the suffrage, Charlotte Perkins Gilman painted a society peopled only by women where domination had no place (Mansbridge, 1990).” Though Gilman pictured women not using the method of domination she associated with males, she in turn was dominating men in her novel by removing them. By doing so, she was incorporating domination to show how domination could be avoided. It sounds like a contradiction, but it still works in some sense. A reductive way to attempt to explain ideologies is to view them chronologically. There is a desire to try explain things by giving starting dates for various periods of thought, and to view one ideology as a precursor of another ideology. This type of thinking would lead people to believe that if theorists did not name a certain ideology, give start and stop dates, and list all of the various tenets of these ideologies, then later ideologies, which are perceived of as being influenced by or a reaction against various other ideologies, would not exist at all or at least in a very primitive form. For example, liberalism, conservatism, and democratic socialism are all considered to be ideologies that existed before feminism as a political ideology. It is possible to examine various aspects of these ideologies and see how various aspects of feminism seem to Feminism as Precursor 6 concur with each other. As long as women have been considered to be inferior to men, feminism has existed, in an attempt equal the playing grounds. Therefore, it is not possible to say that feminism is derived from aspects of either conservatism or social democracy, though one might also make the argument that various aspects of both of these ideologies existed in various forms throughout history. With this argument, ideologies tend to morph and transform and take various aspects of new ideas into them, so stating that one ideology is derived or a complete reaction to another one is not a strong argument to make. As we can see, even with all of the inherent contradictions, feminism, conservatism, and social democracy all share various aspects in common, though none of them can lay claim to being original or the progenitor of another. NOTES: I made suggestions for changes in red. Comments are in [ ] , and are in the paper. Overall, it looks good! You do a good job making your argument. There are a couple places you need to work on, but not on the content, just on making the writing more clear. See the comments in the paper. You should never use contractions in a paper – I think I changed all of them, but be sure to double check. GOOD LUCK!! Feminism as Precursor 7 References Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Mansbridge, J.(1990) “Feminism and democracy.” The American Prospect, available from http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=feminism_and_democracy Mintz, E., Close, D. (2008) Politics, power, and the common good. Person Education Canada. Oakeshott, Michael (1962) Rationalism in politics. Roemer, John (1996) The Future of Socialism. London, Verso. Read More