ABSTRACT
The premise of what follows is the proposition that as political actors feminists are involved necessarily in the politics of the state. A relatively centralized state structure is conducive to the rationalized social reform orientations of the new class, the class which makes its political, cultural and economic claims on the basis of its cultural capital, its knowledge claims. Essentially, all feminist claims impacting on issues of the distribution of social goods and values are made as claims on the state's role in directing or influencing distributive mechanisms and outcomes. Stated differently, this new context for the politics of the state means that feminists can no longer contain their politics of the state within what O'Connor and Offe after him have called the legitimation functions of the state. This chapter expresses that historically feminist politics has been tied to the politics of the state, and that any redistributive politics is tied to the politics of the state.
