ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the impressive range of modernist feminist alternatives with a view to bringing out the consensual but often tension-ridden character of rival transformative ideas. Feminism as a political project emerges from the modernist tradition and thus comes into direct confrontation with questions related to subjectivity and difference. Liberal international feminism is derived from liberal feminist theory and may in turn be described as an essentially Kantian perspective according to which each human being has equal worth and deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Feminist standpoint theory shares many of the themes and attitudes of radical feminism. American political theorist Nancy Hartsock developed the central ideas behind feminist standpoint theory by drawing analogies to Marx's dialectical approach to class conflict in capitalist societies. As the foregoing texts have shown, the contemporary debates about international relations amongst modernist feminists come from a plethora of sources from liberal, radical, standpoint and critical theory feminists.
