Why I Disagree with Liberal Feminism

 by Tara Bell

(image by: Cotidiano Mujer) 

Liberal feminism has become the face of mainstream feminism. It highlights the need for a reform of the political system to achieve gender equality within it, by ‘breaking the glass ceiling’. However, it fails to acknowledge the socioeconomic restrictions imposed upon marginalised women, including women of colour and women from lower classes, meaning that only privileged women can actually break this ceiling and climb the political ladder. 

For example, whilst many companies publicly express desires for diversity within the workplace, liberal feminists would view a woman on a board of directors as a win for feminism, despite the fact she is contributing to the capitalistic system which continues to oppress less privileged women. This is because, under capitalism, the clear class divide leaves lower-income families with less disposable income, meaning children from lower classes will most likely be put into education provided by the state, and when private school students have 32% more A*s than state school students, some children will be provided with less educational opportunities, based merely on the class they were born into. 

This introduces intersectionality, as a large part of the lower class is made up of ethnic minorities, meaning they, too, face the same unequal opportunities. So, whilst constrained in the racial and social hierarchy of our capitalist society, BAME women or lower-class women would not be able to ‘break the glass ceiling’ and climb the corporate ladder; liberal feminism fails to realise that whilst a woman on a board of directors is an individual success story of female empowerment, it does not promote the collective empowerment of women. In this case, the term feminism has been boiled down to a vehicle of self-promotion, merely elevating the privileged few. This, ironically, contradicts the idea of ‘equality’ that liberal feminists aim to strive for, as only those already socially, economically, and culturally privileged benefit.

This is also why I am inclined to disagree with liberal feminism’s desire for ‘gender equality’. An example would be how Emma Watson portrays feminism to the public, as I think she has set back the way we view women’s rights. She said, ‘feminism is not here to dictate…we're here to give you a choice, if you want to run for Prime Minister you can, but if you don't that's wonderful too’. This shows a clear lack of intersectionality, as she completely fails to realise that for some women, under the social, class and race restrictions of our society, the ability to just ‘run for Prime Minister’ is not an available choice. This is a clear embodiment of white-washed, liberal feminism.

Emma Watson, as my example spokesperson of liberal feminism, continuously advocates for the idea of gender equality; she said, ‘if you stand for equality then you're a feminist, I’m sorry to tell you … you might be one of those inadvertent feminists… and for this I applaud you’. I think this is a very bad message to give to the wider public, that if you so much as believe the genders to be equal then you should be applauded as a feminist: this is praising people for the bare minimum. As stated above, you can believe in equality, yet still believe in contributing to the system that actively oppresses women. 

This is not, as I would call it, feminism. Instead, I would argue that only if you actively advocate for women's liberation, outside of the structures of capitalism, then you can be called a feminist. I would also like to add that I don’t think we should strive solely for this utopian concept of ‘gender equality’; I don’t want women have what men have, whether that be systemically oppressing the opposite gender in the workplace, or sexually assaulting the opposite gender, or having the same suicide rates as men, to name a few. Instead, I think we should liberate women against the system, and uproot the social, racial and class structures, so that all genders can have equal opportunities, not just by appearance – through equal representation on a board of directors, and the like – but by non-differentiated political, social and racial prospects. And this, in turn, will liberate men away from the patriarchal effects of toxic masculinity and high suicide rates, to name a couple. In a more figurative way of putting it, I do not want women to have an equal seat at the table with men, but rather to get rid of the table completely.

 Sources

https://markinstyle.co.uk/private-school-vs-public-school-statistics/