The early German socialist movement was a largely male affair, with widespread sexist attitudes compounding a state ban on women taking part in politics. But by the 1900s, a proletarian women's movement had forced working-class women's demands onto the agenda — insisting that they didn't need fathers and husbands, or bourgeois ladies, to speak on their behalf.
Amia Srinivasan’s new essay collection, The Right to Sex, is less a manifesto than an attempt to think through the concerns of contemporary feminism. Where the book succeeds, it offers the intellectual heft to power a reinvigorated movement to transform the world.
The feminism I fight for does not snuggle comfortably in the lap of capitalism. It is rooted in the understanding that capitalism is the problem, and that a feminism rooted in democratic, egalitarian, anti-capitalist principles is the solution.
Simone de Beauvoir’s reputation as a feminist pioneer is well-established, but the influence of Marxism on her thinking is too often overlooked. She wanted to build a socialist movement that would fight class and gender oppression at the same time.
The inclusion of more women at the top of oppressive power structures shouldn’t be confused with women’s liberation. We need a radical, socialist feminism, not a repackaged version of Sheryl Sandberg’s corporate-friendly "lean-in" brand.
Elite feminism at times substitutes a culture of contempt for a culture of care. If we are truly devoted to gender equality, we must ditch the assumption that all men enjoy similar privilege.
Liberal feminism’s laser-like focus on winning formal equality between the sexes has distracted us from what should be feminism's true aim: winning a world where everyone has their basic needs met and everyone can flourish.
The Moynihan Report naturalized patriarchy and rationalized inequality. Fifty years later, it's still doing damage.
Sarah Polley’s film Women Talking depicts the brutal true story of rape in a Mennonite colony. It’s a poor fit for the oversimplified, “you go, girl” feminist message of its framing.
The alternative is to change our view of what kind of work is socially valuable and to recognize that what happens outside of wage labor should be held in equal esteem.
The memory of riot grrrl deepens the divide between cultural and material feminism, hobbling critiques of inequality by mistaking self-improvement for revolution.
Argentina’s mass movement for abortion rights has produced an insurgent, class-based feminism that intends to grow alongside the emancipation of the whole working class.
Feminism provided me with the tools to work toward a new kind of socialism.
Let us borrow a definition from bell hooks: feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression.
Confusing marginality with insight leaves movements vulnerable to reactionary mimicry. A renewed engagement with Karl Marx’s structural account of exploitation can give feminism a path out of standpoint theory’s dead end.
Ann Snitow was at the heart of the radical feminist movement in the 1960s and '70s. She spent the next several decades working for a feminism that never shied away from robust debate — but always demands liberation.
Vivian Gornick’s brilliant half-century writing career can’t be captured in a single essay or volume. To engage with her writing is to be left wanting more of her writing.
Anti-porn feminism takes away power from the women who make porn and want control of their work.
A feminism based on lionizing hyper-successful women obscures the unjust structures that need to be dismantled.
