ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors discuss liberal, radical, socialist, black, philosophical, and empirical forms of feminism. It then discusses criticisms that other forms of feminism. Liberal feminism appeared to have its greatest triumph in Britain when all women became eligible to vote in 1928. In other countries, this was attained later – in France after the Second World War – while in Switzerland, women only received the vote in 1970. Radical feminism, as indicated from its critiques of other positions, takes the view that feminism ought to deal with the position of women independently of other ideological commitments. As MacKinnon argues, ‘feminism is the first theory to emerge from those whose interests it affirms’. Even though socialist feminists would not accept extreme left-wingstrictures against feminism as being inherently bourgeois and adistraction from class struggle, they tend to see the concern of radicalfeminists with lifestyle and sexuality as the product of a middle-classoutlook that ignores the problems faced by women workers.
