ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with an assessment of some of the most creative feminist thinkers who found their voices in social theory through the emerging ideas of that era. It reviews various approaches to feminist social theory and provides a history of the development of many of these influences. Marxian and neo-Marxian feminist theory, as well as more structurally oriented psychoanalytic and cultural theories, characterized much of early contemporary feminist thought. Feminist Marxists in Great Britain, such as Juliet Mitchell, worked to promote a critical feminism aimed at emancipatory social change. Sandra Harding recognizes the ways in which feminist theory can make good use of perspectives that have been developed by white European males to better understand the extent of the oppression of women. For Patricia Hill Collins, the feminist Afrocentric view of community stands in opposition to other feminist models and to the concept of community that prevails throughout white culture.
