This paper will discuss how liberal feminism and post-modern feminism, has sought to break the link between gender and sex.
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 nineteenth century liberals and twentieth century liberals. Nineteenth century liberal feminists did not actively seek to separate gender from sex. The focus was simply advocating for the rights of that class or gender associated with the female sex. Twentieth century liberal feminists, however, have determined that the single most important goal is to free women from oppressive gender roles (Tong, 1989). As Tong (1989) points out, nineteenth century classical liberals believed that the ôideal state protects civil libertiesö (p. 12). An example of a nineteenth century liberal feminist would be John Stuart Mill who wrote The Subjection of Women in 1869. Although Mill appeared to desire that legal barriers to womenÆs right be removed, he did not carry this need for equality into the division of labor that occurred in a marriage. He did, however, strive for there to be more of a ôFriendshipö or comradeship approach to marriage as opposed to the ôMaster-servantö relationship that seemed to be the norm in society (Shanley, 1991).
Twentieth century liberal feminism, however, is different in that the focus is on economic justice versus civil libert...