Is Feminism Dead? A Response to the VICE Debate on Feminism

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Introduction - Is Feminism Dead?

YouTuber Khadija Mbowe pointed me in the direction of a new Vice video where a group of different women debated some contemporary feminist issues. As you might expect (given that it’s Vice we’re talking about here), it was something of a shitshow; a selection of liberal, moderate, and conservative women were selected on the panel and then asked to answer broad questions within mainstream feminist discourse with very light facilitation or clarifying questions from the moderator, so that the majority of the video is women with vastly differing political perspectives talking past each other instead of articulating their similarities and differences in opinion. The overall impression is not that feminism is a serious topic that is inherently worthy of discussion, but rather that its value in our current post-feminist society is at best debatable and at worst actively harmful, merely a tool used by crazy, unreasonable feminists to push incoherent arguments. These types of “debate” programs are why the very concept of having a public political debate has become delegitimized for a lot of people: it’s obviously not a real conversation, and prevents us from learning and really honestly discussing our differences of political opinion. In most respects, this program is a waste of time and distracts us from the substance of the topics being debated, much less the actual issues.

I’d like to zoom out a bit, though, and use this as a jumping-off point for a bigger conversation. At the start of the panel, moderator Liz Landers asks the group the following question: “In today’s polarized world, is feminism dead?” It’s a strange question to ask, even within the bi-partisan (which is to say, politically moderate or centrist) ideological context in which Landers is bringing it up. Why does controversy surrounding feminist issues imply that feminism might be dead? This question, like much of Vice’s editorial output, is intentionally provocative and meant to bait extreme or even lurid reactions rather than to honestly assess the state of American feminism (and whether or not we think that this is a good thing). A more vulnerable, good faith question, such as “What is the state of feminism in the US today?”, “How do you define feminism?”, or even “What does feminism mean to you?” would encourage us to get curious, take a clear look at the issues being discussed, and maybe learn something, at least about the panelists and their beliefs on various feminist issues. Even simple questions like “How is feminism doing?”, “What is feminism?”, and “Where is feminism going?” would help to encourage productive discussion on the topic of contemporary feminism. The fact that this option was eschewed in favor of a more buzzy, hot-take discourse on whether or not feminism is “dead” (the implication that it died of natural causes being, of course, unspoken and therefore taken as a given) shows that Vice is more interested in stirring up controversy and lurid media spectacle rather than promoting political clarity and understanding; they are intentionally obfuscating the actual political issues and even reality itself to generate more clicks. But that is their whole business model, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at this news.

As you might expect, given all of the above, none of the panelists (even those who identify as feminists and supporters of social justice) really substantively answer the question as given, instead responding to its implied subtext about feminism’s political worth (or lack thereof) by staking out their rough position on this vague, nebulously-defined feminism — in the face of adversity from the other panelists — as confidently and boldly as possible. They are attempting to control the conversation and never play defense through short, punchy (and often wrong or misleading) statements. But I’d like to actually engage with the question, despite the issues with its central premise, and take this opportunity to talk about the state of feminism in the US today. I think it’s an important thing for everyone to consider, and certainly one that anti-feminists are taking seriously (since, daily reminder, they really hate us and get freaked out every time we gain even a little ground as women).

So, how is feminism doing? To be honest, it’s not doing so great. Compared to the situation in the ‘90s (or even the early-to-mid 2000s), great strides have been made in elevating feminist discourse, especially in the area of liberal intersectionality and queer theory, but when we expand our historical perspective further to consider the 20th century as a whole, it’s clear that the feminist conversation has actually gone backward in a number of respects from its high watermark in the late ‘60s, ‘70s, and early ‘80s. The neoliberal turn (and, more broadly, the reactionary turn) of the late 1970s and 1980s, heralded by the Carter and Reagan administrations, was the site of tremendous backlash against feminism and all of the gains, limited as they were, that women had won during the heyday of the women’s liberation movement a decade previously. And our national conversation on feminism has never fully recovered from that blow. But to understand how and why this happened, we need to move beyond the vague delineation of politics as articulated by Landers and define what we mean when we say feminism.

What is Feminism?

Defining feminism can be a challenge, but by distinguishing between some of the major strains (or schools) of feminist theory and activism over the years and articulating each of their positions on feminism and women’s liberation as a whole, I believe we can clarify this matter without sacrificing nuance. In general, feminism is used to talk about the advancement of women’s social, political, and economic equality in a male-dominated world, and more broadly to refer to movements for sexual and gender equality (formally and informally) in general. Feminists generally position themselves in opposition to the domination of our society by men, which has been present throughout most of recorded history and persists to this day in the United States. But feminists often disagree about the precise nature of this male domination over women and what we should do about it. Today, I’ll be discussing four different broad schools of thought within modern feminism: cultural feminism, liberal feminism, socialist feminism, and radical feminism.

Cultural Feminism

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of early feminists (influenced by Victorian ideals of feminine modesty, domesticity, and passivity) equated their advocacy of the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and Prohibition with the fact that, as women, they were more spiritually attuned and morally wise than men, and therefore were better suited to lead society and correct its excesses of male violence through the application of gentle maternal guidance over masculine force. The idea that women should have greater participation in the public sphere because womanhood (and, by extension, femininity) is inherently, morally superior to manhood (and, therefore, masculinity) falls under what we would now call essentialist or cultural feminism. The defining feature of cultural feminism is one of essential, often biological differences between the sexes that cannot be reconciled, which provides an intellectual bulwark with which to respond to any anti-feminist argument (or merely argument against your particular version of feminism) by saying that your interlocutor is promoting “male values” because of their lack of feminine essence, woman-identification, feminine virtues, etc. These ideas returned in a different way during the 1970s with the promotion of separatist notions of women’s liberation (popularized by thinkers such as Ti-Grace Atkinson and Jane Alpert, especially with the publication of Alpert’s essay Mother Right), as well as lesbian separatists such as Charlotte Bunch and Mary Daly. They persist to this day with the continued presence of so-called feminists who promote the exclusion of trans women, sex workers, non-monogamous women, and the BDSM/kink community from the feminist movement.

By reinforcing the idea that men and women are inherently different and reasserting a hierarchy of sexual difference (just in the opposite direction from the traditional patriarchal perspective of male supremacy), cultural feminists claim to advocate for women’s liberation but often end up policing who is and who is not a “real woman” when women question or fail to live up to the traditional gender norms that they argue are an essential feature of womanhood. For example, if women’s inherent goodness is predicated on their sexual purity and modesty, then women who are promiscuous, dress in sexually provocative or androgynous ways, or otherwise pursue sexual partners who are considered impure or indelicate (whether men, women, or otherwise) are failing to live up to these standards of inherent female purity and can be accused of being enemies of the cause as a result. The intention to positively revalue femininity in a patriarchal world that often degrades its worth is admirable, but if we don’t also redefine femininity and womanhood to encompass the existence of women who engage in gender non-conforming behavior and expression (which, depending on time and place, can range from women wearing men’s clothes to just women writing, speaking, and having opinions), we limit the women’s liberation movement to only include and fight for women who fit within traditional, societally-approved definitions of femininity. Instead of fighting for gender equality within male-dominated institutions or smashing the patriarchy and replacing it with a culture that promotes political, economic, and sexual freedom for women, cultural feminism is merely inverting and mirroring the structure of patriarchy, with all of its hierarchy and mechanisms for policing gender and controlling marginalized bodies intact. If essentialist feminism is just restricting women’s sexual (and often reproductive) freedom by narrowing the definition of acceptable womanhood, in what way is this meaningfully different from sexism under patriarchy?

Liberal Feminism

Responding to these issues with cultural feminism in both the first and second wave of American feminism, other strains of feminism emerged to articulate different ideas about what a woman is and what she could be. These schools of feminist thought, or tendencies, can be differentiated by their perspective on the presence of male domination in society and what we can/should do about it. The predominant tendency, since at least the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963, has been capitalist or liberal feminism, which is defined by its focus on the advancement of women’s rights within the political and economic institutions of liberal democracy. The goal for liberal feminists is to secure women’s access to participation in the workforce, legislature, universities, courts, etc. so women can integrate into the current structure of society and assume their place as the equals of men within the capitalist, liberal democratic framework. Liberal feminism continues to be the mainstream position within feminism, and to some extent within liberal American culture more broadly, and has dominated popular discourse on the subject since the feminist sex wars of the ‘80s. As a result, this conception of feminism is probably familiar to you and may seem obvious and not particularly noteworthy, perhaps even the default and clearly correct position with regard to women’s issues. After all, we want women to achieve political and economic equality with men, right? But not all feminists subscribe to the liberal position; in point of fact, many (myself included) might criticize liberal feminism for attempting to assimilate women into a patriarchal society rather than changing the cultural and economic structure of that society which allows for women’s oppression in the first place. To a socialist or radical feminist (which we’ll discuss more below), liberal feminism seems woefully naive to the limitations of formal equality in patriarchal institutions when, after a hundred years of women’s suffrage in the US (and most other developed nations with democratic systems of government), women still occupy a small fraction of the seats in all branches of government, leadership positions in major industry, and the ranks of published non-fiction authors. Some feminists (especially in the corporate DEI world) have tried to shift the conversation away from pure equality to equity, which emphasizes the concept of fairness over strict numerical equality, but there continue to be valid concerns within the public discourse about the ability of women to achieve gender equality by playing by all the rules of a male-dominated, patriarchal society. As Audre Lorde famously said, in response to her experiences of classism and racism within the women’s movement of the late 1970s, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” To a liberal feminist, the problem of sexism is one of successfully integrating and assimilating women into liberal society; to a socialist or radical feminist, the capitalist patriarchal structure of liberal society is the problem that feminism needs to destroy in order to liberate women.

Socialist and Radical Feminism

Marxist or socialist feminism, inspired by the anti-capitalist liberatory ethos of the Civil Rights Movement and New Left of the 1960s, posits that women are oppressed by racial capitalism just as much (if not more so) than sexism and the patriarchy. Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism by Zillah Eisenstein and Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis are key texts in this school of feminism. It views feminism as a necessary addendum to the socialist movement, rather than as an isolated women’s liberation movement or one faction within the electoral framework of liberal democracy. Issues surrounding domestic/emotional labor, social reproduction, intersectionality, and women’s alienation from their work (both on the job and in the home) are of importance to socialist feminists. Due to the socialist critique of liberal democracy and its association with the class inequality that underlies the capitalist system, socialist feminists usually assert the need for anti-capitalist revolution, in order to overturn the class system and smash the patriarchy, rather than advocating for reform within the framework of the current social structures (as liberal feminists would recommend). Critics of socialist feminist often argue that its goals of revolution are admirable but unclear, impractical, and overly grandiose, and perhaps even suggest that socialist feminism is too focused on issues of class at the expense of the oppression specifically faced by women. The latter claim is often raised by radical feminists, who are influenced by and generally share the anti-capitalist sentiments of their socialist feminist sisters, but go a step further in stating that it is not capitalism but rather patriarchy that is the primary structure of oppression in society, at least for women. If and when radical feminism posits an overall theory of systemic oppression and coercive power structures, it tends to view patriarchy and misogyny as lying at the center of that structure. This is due to its deep historical roots in comparison to more-modern forms of oppression (such as capitalism and white supremacy), which radical feminists usually consider to be manifestations of the evolving arms and interests of the patriarchy over time rather than separate and unrelated institutions.

So, what is radical feminism then? Like socialist feminism, modern radical feminism formed in the late 1960s as a response to the Civil Rights Movement and New Left, especially the Black Power Movement and its calls for liberation through the self-determination of marginalized groups. Criticism of the male chauvinism that dominated the Left at this time led to the establishment of women’s groups, who tried to articulate the importance of women to the larger Movement and the injustice of sexism being perpetuated by male socialists and anti-racists in the name of justice. Radical feminism quickly split off from socialist feminism, though, in its focus on having women-only spaces (in addition to co-educational leftist organizations) as a place for women to engage in consciousness-raising, feminist political education, and organizing specifically for women’s issues. Socialist feminists, who broadly viewed the issue of patriarchy as important but still ultimately subordinate to the larger Struggle against racial capitalism, considered the establishment of separate women’s spaces to be counterproductive to the needs of the Left as a whole; they hoped to shift leftist men in a more feminist direction on the subject of women’s emancipation, but in their eyes, the primary contradiction was not patriarchy but capitalism, so feminism was a means for achieving socialist revolution rather than an end in itself. Radical feminists, on the other hand, were of the opinion that patriarchy rather than capitalism was what primarily oppressed women, and therefore any attempt to liberate women needed to address both of these systems of oppression rather than address women’s material position under capitalism from a purely economic perspective. To this end, radical feminism argues that the cultural and social role of women in society also needs to be transformed in order to achieve women’s liberation. Key texts for this school of feminism include The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone, Sexual Politics by Kate Millett, and This Bridge Called My Back by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga. Firestone summarizes the radical feminist position thusly: “the end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally” (emphasis in original). This is a much more radical position than women’s economic and political equality with men, under capitalism or socialism: it is essentially advocating for the abolition of gender roles based on differences of biological sex, prefiguring the work of contemporary queer/trans theorists and gender abolitionists such as Judith Butler. From the perspective of radical feminism, the natural state of humanity is androgyny, and women and men should be free to adopt whatever social role or set of masculine/feminine traits they desire, regardless of biology. Because we live in a patriarchal society, though, both women and men are indoctrinated into the false dichotomy of the patriarchal gender binary, and so the process of feminist political education is necessarily one of consciousness-raising: women unlearning the internalized misogyny that mandates passivity, deference to men, and compulsory heterosexuality, so that they have a space to build their own feminist consciousness about the world rather than the one they were raised with. Raising the feminist consciousness of individuals and small groups (including men) could then expand into broader organizing, eventually leading to a mass shift in the culture writ large which would upend capitalism, racism, and the patriarchal family system: “building the new world in the shell of the old,” in the words of the New Left.

Where has Feminism Been? Where is Feminism Going?

The radical feminist position was not widely regarded by other feminist strains, though. Liberal and socialist feminists alike often derided radical feminism’s focus on women’s spaces and consciousness-raising as distracting from real issues and leaving out liberal and leftist men, who feminists needed to ally with in order to accomplish any of their goals. Many, feminist or not, also criticized radical feminism for breaking so thoroughly with mainstream norms around love, sexuality, and gender roles that it called into question basic tenets of American life, such as fashion, popular culture, family values, and the institution of marriage, which could not or ought not to be changed if Western society was to be preserved intact. Radical feminists responded, and continue to respond, to these claims by stating that women, even if they seek coalition with men on some issues (such as class and race), need to organize for their own liberation if they want to dismantle the patriarchy, and that this work is necessary to achieve true sexual equality whether or not it is disruptive or impractical to the present cultural norms of daily life (most of which, then and now, are extremely misogynistic) in the US.

The Rise of of Cultural Feminism

A more vexing challenge, however, came from the nascent second wave of cultural feminism which emerged in the early ‘70s. As described above, many feminists at this time agreed with the radical feminist position that women needed to organize in women-only spaces in order to develop a feminist consciousness in the face of widespread patriarchal cultural domination, but diverged on the subject of translating that energy into a mass movement. Instead of redefining and disrupting the category of woman so that the importance of sex differences within society and culture are gradually eliminated, this new generation of cultural feminists saw biological sex differences as proof of women’s inherent moral and intellectual superiority over men, and wanted to redefine the value of femininity and womanhood thusly in order to replace a culture of male privilege with one of female privilege. They believed that, due to women’s natural connection to nature, the earth, and healing, the ascent of this matriarchal ideology would be able to end war, the climate crisis, sexual domination, and all forms of violent aggression.

Within these circles, a culture quickly developed of trying to define who was a real woman/feminist and who was a traitor to the cause promoting “male values”, whether by dating/being married to men (euphemistically referred to as “sleeping with the enemy”), talking openly about their sexual desires, engaging in lesbian butch/femme sexual dynamics, cross-dressing, or simply being too promiscuous. As a result, cultural feminists often were (and are) diametrically opposed to issues championed by radical feminists, such as sexual freedom, trans rights, pornography, BDSM/kink, lesbian sex, non-monogamy/polyamory, protections for sex workers, and bisexuality. Confusing matters, these feminists often called themselves radical feminists and insisted that they were the vanguard of the women’s movement, even though their insular definition of who counted as a real woman tended to narrow their view of the movement to just issues concerning women who fit into traditional notions of White, heteronormative, cisgender, middle-to-upper-class, non-disabled, sexually modest, respectable femininity, which precluded a mass women’s movement entirely. When women of Color, working women, and queer women brought up the way their concerns and experiences were often dismissed by cultural feminists' definition of universal womanhood, cultural feminists often responded by saying that the concepts of race and class were created and defined by men, so they didn’t apply in the new “women’s space” being created by the movement. Suffice it to say, this strain of feminist thought struggled to gain mass acceptance even during its modern heyday of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and, reduced to numerous insular sub-cultures, largely died out as an organized political movement by the start of the 1990s (except in the UK, where it has recently been making a comeback).

The Decline of Radical Feminism

Cultural feminism persists in small pockets, mostly in the groups now commonly referred to as TERFs (trans-exclusive radical feminists) and SWERFs (sex worker-exclusive radical feminists), but they were successful in coopting radical feminism with their own essentialist corruption of it in the 1970s, a loss that radical feminism has yet to come back from. The fact that cultural feminists continue to associate themselves with radical feminism (including their use of the term itself) and the culture at large doesn’t recognize the difference between the two is a testament to the magnitude of the damage dealt to radical feminism as an organized political movement. Some radical feminist ideas persist in the mainstream liberal discourse (mostly through the rhetoric of liberal and male-centric/”gender neutral” queer theory) and, very recently, in socialist feminist discussion about social reproduction and women’s reproductive/domestic role under capitalism, but outside of that radical feminism is largely absent from our collective feminist discourse, unable to define itself on its own terms. Most people don’t even know about the history of the socialist/radical feminist split, much less the distinction between radical and cultural feminism (if you’d like to learn more about it, I highly recommend Alice Echols’ Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975, which was hugely educational for me as I started to dig into the history of the 20th-century feminist movement; Becky Thompson’s essay “Multiracial Feminism” has also provided perspective on the largely White-dominated histories of the women’s movement, including that of Echols). This is particularly depressing and disheartening to see among socialist feminists, who hold so much in common with the radical feminist position and could benefit greatly from a relationship of mutual support between the two schools of thought, but are so often ignorant of their shared history and overlapping areas of concern. As a radical feminist with strong ties to the socialist feminist tradition (and who often finds herself working in coalition with socialist feminists when organizing around feminist and other issues), I would like to advocate for my own political perspective and build a future where our two strains of feminism can once again interact and support each other, even on the points upon which we disagree.

Socialist and radical feminists agree on a lot (particularly their distrust and suspicion regarding liberal/cultural feminism), but when their disagreements on the subject of interlocking oppressions, the precise structure of capitalist patriarchy, and how to dismantle it are brought up, they can lead to quite acrimonious disputes. When radical feminists try to address issues of sexism within the contemporary Left (whether Marxist, anarchist, or more moderate), socialist feminists often accuse them of unfairly demonizing the Left as misogynistic "brocialists" due to their supposed liberal bias. Meanwhile, the lack of clarification of the differences between radical, cultural, and liberal feminism by radical feminists often lead to honest questions asked by socialist feminists to understand being met with hostility and suspicion. With the nascent return of social democracy and democratic socialism (as espoused by Bernie Sanders, AOC, the Occupy Movement, and the like) to mainstream US discourse since 2016, socialist feminism is seeing something of a resurgence, but both socialist and radical feminism remain marginal compared to liberal feminism and the male-dominated wing of the socialist Left. The fact that both of these factions are so often tearing each other apart instead of attempting to build feminist, anti-capitalist coalition is a frustrating and demoralizing one to all who believe in an intersectional women's liberation movement.

Conclusion - What Do We Want Feminism to Be?

Which brings us back to the state of feminism today. Despite the best efforts of socialist feminists, radical feminists, and other progressive activists over the past 50 years or so, the situation in which we find ourselves today is woefully limited compared to where it once was. Feminism may still be alive and has to some extent become mainstream, but that only applies to liberal feminism, the only feminist school of thought which retains a major foothold in contemporary feminist discourse. Within mainstream feminist discussion, liberalism is assumed to be the default position on most if not all issues, even when considering ideas (such as anti-capitalism and the Black/lesbian feminist notion of intersectionality) that are fundamentally opposed to liberal politics. Socialist feminism is starting to gain a little ground again, but is eclipsed by the largely White, male-dominated Left within which it is subsumed. Meanwhile, the ghost of cultural feminism is still haunting our discussion of women’s issues due to the complete lack of radical feminist consciousness to exorcise it, allowing remaining pockets of cultural feminists to appropriate the term for themselves and associate feminist radicalism not with the social expansion of gender and sexual freedom, but rather with policing of women using essentialist notions of female purity rooted in inherent biology, sex-negativity, and respectability politics. As painful as it may be to admit it, radical feminism is dead. And for those disillusioned by the mainstream liberal consensus and desiring an intersectional feminist movement that is queer and anti-capitalist, the absence of radical feminism in our collective discourse is a lack that is sorely missed.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity to revive it, though. Ideas never really die, as long as they are remembered or rediscovered, and like the idea of feminism itself, radical feminism is an idea that will continue to live on in spirit as long as we don’t lose sight of it. And if we all come together in that spirit of radical feminism, there is an opportunity for it to be reborn in the flesh, and potentially change the history of feminism again, as it did back in the ‘70s. For both socialist and liberal feminists, a resurgence of radical feminism would create more space for accurate, nuanced, intersectional political education; consciousness-raising about our daily lived experience as women and the ways those personal experiences intersect with our political realities; more opportunity to create connections and sisterhood between women across both our similarities and differences, including differences of age, race, and class; and the potential for building a mass political movement of women, one with the power to actually fight back against the growing resurgence of reactionary conservatism, transphobia, and anti-feminism instead of leaving matters to the male-dominated political establishment. It is a potential that could reshape the foundations of our world. But we’re never going to get there through conversations, like those promoted by Vice, which start and end with the question “Is feminism dead?”

We need to have deeper conversations, which give us space to ask (and answer) more profound, if simple, questions: What is feminism? How is feminism doing? Where has feminism been, and where is it going? and, perhaps most significantly, What do we want feminism to be? What do we want the world to be? If women keep asking these questions among ourselves and coming together to try to find answers, we can build a radical women’s movement again. A revolutionary movement for all women who seek to build something new in the shell of the old. And if (or when) that movement comes and breaks through that shell, it will shake the world.

Sources and Further Reading

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