Historically, gender occurred as behavior patterns and personality traits differentiated along lines of biological sex. These later became associated with cultural norms for the meanings of ômasculinityö and ôfemininityö (Tong, 1989). For example, early hominids lived in communities of some sort that offered protection, belonging, food shelter, and a sense of belonging. Because of this early need of community, and the needs of those in the community, there was a break down of duties and a separation of labor early on. Men, being usually bigger, became the hunters and gatherers, while the women stayed at home to tend the fields, cook, and care for the children. In exchange, a woman was offered protection from wild animals as well as from other men who might want to ôclaimö her, while the man was provided with a home and nest where he was offered physical comfort in all its forms. Although times changed, this exchange of labor somehow became set in stone. As Gloria Steinem (1970) puts it, ôthese are preconceptions imbedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are thereö (p. 1). Ever since, gender has somehow become linked to sex. This paper will discuss how liberal feminism and post-modern feminism, has sought to break that link.
There is no one single definition of feminism, especially since there are some many branches that have developed recently in feminist studies. However, liberal feminism has been defined as a philosophy based on the belief that inequality of women stems from the denial of equal rights and from their learned reluctance to exercise such rights. Liberal feminists fight for the extension to women of those rights and privileges being offered to men through social and legal reform. Liberal feminists are best exemplified as those who fought for suffrage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Creaser & Li, 2001).
Two basic strata of liberals are ninete...