{"id":32,"date":"2023-10-09T23:19:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T23:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/?post_type=chapter&p=32"},"modified":"2025-01-07T20:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T20:21:12","slug":"liberal-feminism","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/chapter\/liberal-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Feminism"},"content":{"raw":"

Lauren Fitzharris, Pierce Marra, and Vivian Niemi<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\r\nDifferent from pre-existing feminist branches like anarcha and radical feminism, liberal feminism focuses on less extreme approaches to reform leaving room for future adaptations to politics and everyday living. Liberal feminism sets itself apart from the other feminist ideologies with its yearning for \u201cpolitical and legal reform within the framework of a liberal democracy and informed by a human-rights perspective\u201d (Wikipedia 2023). Liberal feminism\u2019s infrastructure was designed to be malleable as women gained political and personal autonomy overtime, consequently establishing it as one of the most recognized forms of feminism today (Baehr 2021).\r\n\r\nLiberal feminism began to take shape in the late 1700s as women began to advocate for individual liberty. Founding figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Judith Sargent Murray advocated for female political inclusion with hopes to reduce discrimination\u00a0 towards women and therefore increase women\u2019s rights. It was early liberal feminists that began drawing parallels between sex discrimination and race discrimination, such as John Stuart Mill,\u00a0 one of the first documented men to be interpreted as a liberal feminist. Mill advocated for equal rights for both sexes under law. In his book The Subjection of Women, Mill argues that without equal rights, women do not have the opportunity to be sufficient in marriages, society, or academia.\r\n\r\nThree centuries later, modern liberal feminists like Vice President Kamala Harris, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Malala Yousafzai are still advocating for equal rights today. With the right to vote now in American women\u2019s hands, many liberal feminists have swung their focus to other political reforms like the right to abortion, equal pay, and the general escape from gender norms while maintaining an emphasis on legal and social reform rather than total radical anarchy. Instead of demanding complete abolishment of the patriarchy, liberal feminists look to build an equal society, one legal reform at a time.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nProtestors call for unification in the sex work industry at a 2019 rally, aiming to strengthen and protect the industry.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: Kathy Willens, AP, 2019\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHistorically, liberal feminism was spearheaded by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As a U.S. Supreme Court justice, RBG had access to create political reforms in order to advocate for the feminist movement. In 1972, eleven years before she became a justice, Ginsburg founded the ACLU\u2019s Women\u2019s Rights Project, which prioritized correcting injustice on the basis of sex (American Civil Liberties Union 2007). One of the most significant cases that the Women\u2019s Rights Project worked with was Reed v. Reed, a case that addressed a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment\u2014 in this case, the automatic preference of men over women (Wikipedia 2023). Divorcees Salley and Cecil Reed met in court to decide who was to gain the estate of their late son and dispute the Idaho code stating that men were preferred over women in this situation. The case reached the Supreme Court, its fate being that the code was unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s Equal Protection Clause.\r\n\r\nToday, liberal feminists are still fighting with the U.S. government to achieve equal rights for women. Most recently, liberal feminists were united in the wake of the shocking overturn of Roe V. Wade. On June 24th, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overruled the bill, thus placing women\u2019s reproductive rights in the hands of individual states. This power change has left \u201c22 million women of reproductive age\u201d without access to a safe abortion (Damante & Jones 2023). This injustice has led present day liberal feminists to unite in order to protest for corrective legal action and women\u2019s rights in general.\r\n\r\nThis unison provides confidence in the future of liberal feminism. Many women are realizing the most effective route to change, no matter how long it takes, is through legal reform supported by the United States government. Liberal feminism was designed for anyone who believes that women should have equal personal and political autonomy protected by law no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs, or religion.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nPro-choice rally in the streets of New York City, 2022.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPhoto Credits: Desiree Rios, NYT, 2022\r\n\r\n \r\n

Bibliography<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n\r\nBaehr, Amy R. 2021. \u201cLiberal Feminism.\u201d Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2021. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/feminism-liberal\/#ClasLibeFemi.\r\n\r\nDamante, Becca, and Kierra Jones. 2023. \u201cA Year after the Supreme Court Overturned Roe v. Wade, Trends in State Abortion Laws Have Emerged.\u201d Center for American Progress. June 15, 2023. https:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/article\/a-year-after-the-supreme-court-overturned-roe-v-wade-trends-in-state-abortion-laws-have-emerged\/.\r\n\r\n\u201cFAQs: The ACLU Women\u2019s Rights Project and Women\u2019s History Month.\u201d 2007. American Civil Liberties Union. 2007. https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/documents\/faqs-aclu-womens-rights-project-and-womens-history-month#:~:text=The%20ACLU%27s%20Women%27s%20Rights%20Project.\r\n\r\nGrant, Melissa Gira. 2019. \u201cLiberal Feminism Has a Sex Work Problem.\u201d The New Republic. October 24, 2019. https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/155481\/liberal-feminism-sex-work-problem.\r\n\r\nHopkins, Sarah. 2013. \u201c\u2018It\u2019s Time for One of Us\u2019: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of \u2018It\u2019s Time for One of Us\u2019: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s First Term in Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s First Term in Congress.\u201d https:\/\/openworks.wooster.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=12013&context=independentstudy.\r\n\r\n\u201cThousands Protest End of Constitutional Right to Abortion.\u201d The New York Times<\/i>, June 24, 2022, sec. U.S. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2022\/06\/24\/us\/roe-wade-abortion-supreme-court.\r\n\r\nLazo, Azad. 2022. \u201cThe Story of Malala: The Girl Who Stood up for Equal Right to Education.\u201d Culture Project for Art, Feminism and Gender. March 19, 2022. https:\/\/cultureproject.org.uk\/the-story-of-malala-the-girl-who-stood-up-for-equal-right-to-education-2\/#:~:text=After%20campaigning%20for%20changes%20within.\r\n\r\n\u201cLiberal Feminism.\u201d 2023. Wikipedia. September 22, 2023. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Liberal_feminism#:~:text=to%20gender%20feminism.-.\r\n\r\nParveen, Sadie. 2021. \u201cThe Feminist Case against Kamala Harris.\u201d Sunstroke Magazine. May 22, 2021. https:\/\/www.sunstrokemagazine.com\/archive\/2021\/5\/22\/the-feminist-case-against-kamala-harris.\r\n\r\n\u201cReed v. Reed.\u201d 2023. Wikipedia. September 13, 2023. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reed_v._Reed#:~:text=In%20Reed%20v.\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

Lauren Fitzharris, Pierce Marra, and Vivian Niemi<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Different from pre-existing feminist branches like anarcha and radical feminism, liberal feminism focuses on less extreme approaches to reform leaving room for future adaptations to politics and everyday living. Liberal feminism sets itself apart from the other feminist ideologies with its yearning for \u201cpolitical and legal reform within the framework of a liberal democracy and informed by a human-rights perspective\u201d (Wikipedia 2023). Liberal feminism\u2019s infrastructure was designed to be malleable as women gained political and personal autonomy overtime, consequently establishing it as one of the most recognized forms of feminism today (Baehr 2021).<\/p>\n

Liberal feminism began to take shape in the late 1700s as women began to advocate for individual liberty. Founding figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Judith Sargent Murray advocated for female political inclusion with hopes to reduce discrimination\u00a0 towards women and therefore increase women\u2019s rights. It was early liberal feminists that began drawing parallels between sex discrimination and race discrimination, such as John Stuart Mill,\u00a0 one of the first documented men to be interpreted as a liberal feminist. Mill advocated for equal rights for both sexes under law. In his book The Subjection of Women, Mill argues that without equal rights, women do not have the opportunity to be sufficient in marriages, society, or academia.<\/p>\n

Three centuries later, modern liberal feminists like Vice President Kamala Harris, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Malala Yousafzai are still advocating for equal rights today. With the right to vote now in American women\u2019s hands, many liberal feminists have swung their focus to other political reforms like the right to abortion, equal pay, and the general escape from gender norms while maintaining an emphasis on legal and social reform rather than total radical anarchy. Instead of demanding complete abolishment of the patriarchy, liberal feminists look to build an equal society, one legal reform at a time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Protestors call for unification in the sex work industry at a 2019 rally, aiming to strengthen and protect the industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Kathy Willens, AP, 2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Historically, liberal feminism was spearheaded by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As a U.S. Supreme Court justice, RBG had access to create political reforms in order to advocate for the feminist movement. In 1972, eleven years before she became a justice, Ginsburg founded the ACLU\u2019s Women\u2019s Rights Project, which prioritized correcting injustice on the basis of sex (American Civil Liberties Union 2007). One of the most significant cases that the Women\u2019s Rights Project worked with was Reed v. Reed, a case that addressed a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment\u2014 in this case, the automatic preference of men over women (Wikipedia 2023). Divorcees Salley and Cecil Reed met in court to decide who was to gain the estate of their late son and dispute the Idaho code stating that men were preferred over women in this situation. The case reached the Supreme Court, its fate being that the code was unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s Equal Protection Clause.<\/p>\n

Today, liberal feminists are still fighting with the U.S. government to achieve equal rights for women. Most recently, liberal feminists were united in the wake of the shocking overturn of Roe V. Wade. On June 24th, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overruled the bill, thus placing women\u2019s reproductive rights in the hands of individual states. This power change has left \u201c22 million women of reproductive age\u201d without access to a safe abortion (Damante & Jones 2023). This injustice has led present day liberal feminists to unite in order to protest for corrective legal action and women\u2019s rights in general.<\/p>\n

This unison provides confidence in the future of liberal feminism. Many women are realizing the most effective route to change, no matter how long it takes, is through legal reform supported by the United States government. Liberal feminism was designed for anyone who believes that women should have equal personal and political autonomy protected by law no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs, or religion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pro-choice rally in the streets of New York City, 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo Credits: Desiree Rios, NYT, 2022<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/h1>\n
\n

Baehr, Amy R. 2021. \u201cLiberal Feminism.\u201d Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2021. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/feminism-liberal\/#ClasLibeFemi.<\/p>\n

Damante, Becca, and Kierra Jones. 2023. \u201cA Year after the Supreme Court Overturned Roe v. Wade, Trends in State Abortion Laws Have Emerged.\u201d Center for American Progress. June 15, 2023. https:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/article\/a-year-after-the-supreme-court-overturned-roe-v-wade-trends-in-state-abortion-laws-have-emerged\/.<\/p>\n

\u201cFAQs: The ACLU Women\u2019s Rights Project and Women\u2019s History Month.\u201d 2007. American Civil Liberties Union. 2007. https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/documents\/faqs-aclu-womens-rights-project-and-womens-history-month#:~:text=The%20ACLU%27s%20Women%27s%20Rights%20Project.<\/p>\n

Grant, Melissa Gira. 2019. \u201cLiberal Feminism Has a Sex Work Problem.\u201d The New Republic. October 24, 2019. https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/155481\/liberal-feminism-sex-work-problem.<\/p>\n

Hopkins, Sarah. 2013. \u201c\u2018It\u2019s Time for One of Us\u2019: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of \u2018It\u2019s Time for One of Us\u2019: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s First Term in Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s First Term in Congress.\u201d https:\/\/openworks.wooster.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=12013&context=independentstudy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThousands Protest End of Constitutional Right to Abortion.\u201d The New York Times<\/i>, June 24, 2022, sec. U.S. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2022\/06\/24\/us\/roe-wade-abortion-supreme-court.<\/p>\n

Lazo, Azad. 2022. \u201cThe Story of Malala: The Girl Who Stood up for Equal Right to Education.\u201d Culture Project for Art, Feminism and Gender. March 19, 2022. https:\/\/cultureproject.org.uk\/the-story-of-malala-the-girl-who-stood-up-for-equal-right-to-education-2\/#:~:text=After%20campaigning%20for%20changes%20within.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiberal Feminism.\u201d 2023. Wikipedia. September 22, 2023. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Liberal_feminism#:~:text=to%20gender%20feminism.-.<\/p>\n

Parveen, Sadie. 2021. \u201cThe Feminist Case against Kamala Harris.\u201d Sunstroke Magazine. May 22, 2021. https:\/\/www.sunstrokemagazine.com\/archive\/2021\/5\/22\/the-feminist-case-against-kamala-harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cReed v. Reed.\u201d 2023. Wikipedia. September 13, 2023. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reed_v._Reed#:~:text=In%20Reed%20v.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-32","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/32\/revisions\/132"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/32\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openpress.digital.conncoll.edu\/feministtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}