Abstract
Questioning old assumptions is central to much feminist thought today. In the past feminism relied on the assumption that all women had something in common. In current feminist literature, by contrast, it is suggested that to talk of ‘woman’ is problematic. The idea that women can be discussed in general, as a group in society with something in common, is said no longer to hold.
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Notes
Margaret Ferguson and Jennifer Wicke, Feminism and Postmodernism, Duke University Press, 1994, p2
Anna Coote and Bea Campbell, Sweet Freedom: The Struggle for Women’s Liberation, Basil Blackwell, 1987. This book provides a useful history of the women’s movement and its political approach.
Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley, What is Feminism? Blackwell, 1986. Essays in this anthology describe the process feminism went through in trying to theorise women’s oppression.
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory, Routledge, 1993, p3
Lynne Segal, Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism, Virago Press, 1987, pix
Sara Hinchliffe has written extensively on the issue of feminism and its preoccupations in the 1990s for Living Marxism.
Anna Coote and Bea Campbell, Sweet Freedom, Basil Blackwell, 1982, p5
Maggie Humm (Ed), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. This collection of essays provides useful examples of the different feminist approaches. It suggests, however, that such a range of opinion is testament to feminism’s power.
Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, Virago, 1970 cited in Maggie Humm (Ed), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, p64
Sheila Rowbotham, Women’s Liberation and the New Politics, Spokeswomen pamphlet No 17, 1969. In this formative feminist tract, Rowbotham accuses Marxism of having failed to take subjectivity into account when she writes that: ‘Unless the internal process of subjugation is understood, unless the language of silence is experienced from the inside and translated into the language of the oppressed communicating themselves, male hegemony will remain. Without such a translation, Marxism will not be really meaningful.’ Cited in Anna Coote and Bea Campbell, Sweet Freedom: The Struggle for Women’s Liberation, Basil Blackwell, 1982, p9
Michèle Barrett, Women’s Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis, Verso, 1980
Heidi Hartmann, ‘The unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism: towards a more progressive union’, cited in Maggie Humm (Ed), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992
Heidi Hartmann, ‘The unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism: towards a more progressive union’, cited in Maggie Humm (Ed), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, p105
Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, Jonathan Cape, 1971, p2
Maggie Humm (Ed), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, p87
Paul Smith, Domestic Labour and the Marxist Theory of Value, in Annette Kuhn and Ann Marie Wolpe (Ed), Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. This essay is a useful explanation of the Marxist position on the domestic labour debate.
Karen Guldberg, ‘Introduction’ to F Engels, The Origins of the Faintly, Private Property and the State, Junius, 1995.
Frank Füredi, ‘Introduction’ to Franz Jakubowski, Ideology and Superstructure in Historical Materialism, Pluto, 1990
Joan Phillips, Policing the Family, Junius, 1988
Sheila Rowbotham, Women’s Consciousness, Man’s World, Penguin, 1973
Valerie Bryson, Feminist Political Theory: An Introduction, Macmillan, 1992
Lynne Segal, Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism, Virago, 1987
Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, Jonathan Cape, 1971
Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley, What is Feminism? Basil Blackwell, 1986, p1
‘Despite the repeated affirmation of ‘sisterhood’ in slogans and manifestoes, the Women’s Liberation Movement was never really united, and, as time went by, an ideological rift between radical and socialist feminists widened, culminating in a bruising confrontation at the 1978 annual conference in Birmingham, the last national conference of the whole of the WLM.’ Joni Lovenduski and Vicky Randall, Contemporary Feminist Politics: Women and Power in Britain, Oxford University Press, 1993, p4
Anna Coote and Bea Campbell, Sweet Freedom: The Struggle for Women’s Liberation, Basil Blackwell, 1982
Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Women’s Press, 1981
Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Women’s Press, 1979 cited in Maggie Humm (Ed), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, p168
Sheila Jeffreys, Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution, Women’s Press, 1990, p3
Sheila Jeffreys, ‘Sexology and anti-feminism’, in Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G Raymond, The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, Pergamon Press, 1990, p22
Lynne Segal, Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism, Virago, 1987
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory, Routledge, 1993, p51
Anna Coote and Bea Campbell, Sweet Freedom: The Struggle for Women’s Liberation, Basil Blackwell, 1982, p24
Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction, Unwin Hyman, 1989, p179
Heidi Hartmann, ‘The unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism: towards a more progressive union’, cited in Maggie Humm (Ed.), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, p105
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism, Routledge, 1993, p46
Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (Eds), What is Feminism? Basil Blackwell, 1986
Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (Eds), What is Feminism? Basil Blackwell, 1986, p2
Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (Eds), What is Feminism? Basil Blackwell, 1986, p2
Rosalind Delmar, ‘What is feminism?’ in Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (Eds), What is Feminism? Basil Blackwell, 1986, p28
Rosalind Delmar, ‘What is feminism?’ in Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (Eds), What is Feminism? Basil Blackwell, 1986, p9
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism, Routledge, 1993
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism, Routledge, 1993, p147
Anne Phillips, Democracy and Difference, Polity, 1993, p71
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism, Routledge, 1993, p4
Sondra Farganis, Situating Feminism: From Thought to Action, Sage, 1994, p24
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism, Routledge, 1993, p132
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism, Routledge, 1993, p134
Sondra Farganis, Situating Feminism: From Thought to Action, Sage, 1994, p41
Sondra Farganis, Situating Feminism: From Thought to Action, Sage, 1994, p2
Neil Lyndon, No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism, Mandarin, 1994, p6
Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex, Fourth Estate, 1993
Val Coultas, ‘Feminists must face the future’, in Feminist Review, No 7, 1981, p36
Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosh, Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate, Virago, 1992, p4
Ann Bradley, ‘Rape: reopening the case’, in Living Marxism, No 40, p 10
Katie Roiphe, The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism, Hamish Hamilton, 1993, p6
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© 1996 Suke Wolton
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Lee, E. (1996). Marxism and feminist theory. In: Wolton, S. (eds) Marxism, Mysticism and Modern Theory. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24669-4_5
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