Mother Talkers

Radical or Political Feminism?

by Sue in Queens

Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 03:10:41 PM PDT

My DD (16yo, Junior in HS) is in the middle of a weeks long project - ending with a historical paper for US History.  They have to ID an event of the late 20th century, research secondary and primary sources, come up with a thesis, and then write a paper defending their thesis.

After much discussion, she has come up with the following thesis:  That radical events and/or radical language that were used early in  the women's movement led to only incremental change; significant changes came when the women's movement used political (legislation and courts) to effect change.

It's meant to be a "debatable" thesis - taking a potentially provocative point of view and then defending it as well as possible.  

She's looking for both supporting arguments and arguments against, so she knows how to make her paper stronger.  All of her arguments have to be supported (either by a primary source from a time period, or from a secondary source, written as a historical piece).

So - whaddya think?  She's open to all comments as long as they're not flames LOL

Tags: feminism, history (all tags)

Permalink | 31 comments

  • wow! (0 / 0)

    i don't know what i think- except what an interesting thing to study!  i feel a little jealous.

    by thankgodforairamerica on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 04:18:52 PM PDT

  • Definintions? (0 / 0)

    To which changes is she referring? How is she defining "radical"? By political, does she mean cultural feminism? Or is she refering to feminist political thought? Which early women's movement? First wave? Second wave? Third wave?

    Sorry to be such a pest, but I want to give her useful not random resources!

    by GiGi on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 04:35:05 PM PDT

    • you're putting me to shame (0 / 0)

      i didn't say or ask anything remotely helpful

      by thankgodforairamerica on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 04:46:00 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

    • Let's see if I can answer your question (0 / 0)

      Leah's paper is cutting pretty broad strokes, so she's not really looking at waves of feminism.  She's defining "political" feminism as those who are more interested in using laws and courts to make change.  At the end of her paper, she will discuss Ruth Bader Ginsberg as an example of someone who has worked from the inside to effect change.  By "radical" she's referring to both actions and words.  She discusses Alice Paul and some of the actions of early suffragettes.  I didn't even know who Alice Paulwas LOL.

      Anyway, this is a 5-10 page paper, that could easily fill a book (or two), so it's skimming over some stuff, but if there are things you think she needs to look into, let us know!

      by Sue in Queens on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 05:20:40 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      • Yikes (0 / 0)

        broad strokes...hard to narrow it down considering she's using a 2nd waver for one piece and a first waver for the other. Let me think about it and I'll try to post some good sources for her tomorrow morning. When is the paper due?

        I'm still not quite sure what she's trying to do. Is she going to compare what Bader Ginsberg accomplished as a lawyer for NOW and the ACLU with what Alice Paul accomplished as an activist who worked for the passage of the 19th Amendment or for her work on the ERA, or for her part in forming the NWP or ???  Is your DD thinking that the failure of the ERA is somehow linked to radical feminism?

        by GiGi on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 05:30:31 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        • agree (0 / 0)

          perhaps Leah should concentrate on a "case study" - like the failure to pass the ERA, or the success of passing the 19th amendment, or Title IX, for example. That way there is a good natural limit so she doesn't feel like she's drowning in possible comparisons!

          by Rachel on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 10:01:18 PM PDT

          [ Parent ]

          • seconded (0 / 0)

            papers with too much material to comment on are actually more difficult than those that are more tightly focused. When you have a tight focus, you can "prove" almost anything :).

            I remember in college one of my best friends wrote a paper on how Socrates didn't actually employ what is now considered the Socratic method in Plato's written works. He argued the pants off it and got this comment from the teacher: "great paper. You're wrong though. B+."

            by lilianna28 on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 06:55:05 AM PDT

            [ Parent ]

      • My little point on language (0 / 0)

        I learned this both from seeing an exhibit in London on the British suffragists and then writing a paper in grad school on women & language: be sure to use the word "suffragist."  "Suffragette" was a word that was coined by journalists in England to belittle the women involved in the right to vote movement, much like the word "bachelorette."  

        I also learned that when women first started receiving master's degrees, they were called "mistress of arts," because surely a woman couldn't be referred to as a "master" of anything.  Very interesting.

        by cynmill on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 03:05:47 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

  • didn't do women's studies (0 / 0)

    so I can't comment on the topic as such. But I did study political economy in grad school, and it sounds to me like your daughter is analysing the women's movement from a structuralist perspective - i.e., what's more important in a system - the role of the individual, the state, or the institution (like NOW, ACLU, the Suffragettes).

    I can't suggest books off the top of my head, but perhaps Leah would want to examine her thesis using a structuralist framework - examining the successes of the women's movement by analyzing the impact of the classic triad - ideology, interest groups and institutions - to see which was more powerful in achieving outcomes. It seems as though she's saying that institutions are more important than interest groups in that the movement was more "successful" when it pursued institutional remedy through legislation and litigation than when it used interest group-based approaches (protests and the like).

    I would also suggest that Leah first develop a measure for success; it is not easy to measure interest group success because outcomes are intangible. It is easy to identify a legislative or judicial success because legislation that is passed or court cases that are won are concrete markers. It'll help her prove her thesis if she develops that first!

    If Leah would like to bounce around ideas, I've actually dug out my notes from lectures on structuralist approaches, and I'm happy to help/suggest. My e-mail address is mtrachel(at)gmail(dot)com. If she e-mails me there, I'll respond from my home address.

    Finally, a good reference for her search for primary and secondary sources: Jstor. It's a collection point for academic journals; I used it all the time at LSE. She might be able to request a free subscription through her school.

    by Rachel on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 09:56:46 PM PDT

    • Measures for Success. (0 / 0)

      This is a really great point:

      I would also suggest that Leah first develop a measure for success; it is not easy to measure interest group success because outcomes are intangible. It is easy to identify a legislative or judicial success because legislation that is passed or court cases that are won are concrete markers. It'll help her prove her thesis if she develops that first!

      It would be interesting to see how much, and how quickly, legislative successes translated into social change. Just because you mandate equality by law doesn't mean it necessarily happens.

      "You're never more alone than when you're alone in a crowd."

      by Expat Briton on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 07:07:21 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      • true (0 / 0)

        and that brings up another, complicating, facet. Once law is passed or a judgement is made, it's often up to interest groups to "police" enforcement, which could in fact be another positive for "radical" feminism - through their actions, they kept the light trained on the institutions charged with enforcement and promulgated roll-out of legislation.

        As for the measure of success, I learned that the hard way in my masters thesis! Very hard to prove a point to economists unless you have a measure for success or failure! ;-D

        by Rachel on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 03:22:14 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

  • recently did my thesis (0 / 0)

    and part of it was layering the waves of feminism on waves of environmentalism.  anyway, for a 5-10 page paper you really need to go an inch wide and a mile deep.  right now the thesis needs to be tightened up as it is a mile wide and an inch deep.
    have her take a narrower view of an event or one wave or era and go deep.
    a site I like and I think you can buy a month to month subscription is questia.com
    perhaps she could debate the possibility of passing the ERA today?  

    "The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution." Paul Cezanne

    by educonfidential on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 10:53:28 PM PDT

  • i hope (0 / 0)

    my 21 month old will grow into a young woman interested in writing a paper on feminism!  you must be so proud!

    by stellasmomma on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 05:49:24 AM PDT

  • Sounds a lot like (0 / 0)

    some of the back and forth that has gone on between Hillary and Obama with regard to the civil rights movement. Hillary saying that change happened because of legislative efforts (political) and Obama saying that change came from the bottom up (radical). I feel like the truth lies somewhere in between. There must be some public discourse that evokes passion in the people and to foster that passion strong language seems appropriate and necessary. However, that language often must be watered down in order to be palatable for those that require convincing. Emotional appeals are great for motivation but effective legislation must try to stick to the empirical facts as much as possible.

    by hardlyaclue on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 06:33:33 AM PDT

  • Great stuff Sue (0 / 0)

    Isn't it grand to watch our teens dig in like this?  My dd has a similar project for English where she is writing a 10 page paper including thesis on Kazuo Ishiguro's 3 novels; Never Let Me Go, When We Were Orphans and Remains of the Day. It was fun discussing ideas for her thesis.  

    I didn't recognize Alice Paul either until I read your comment and clicked on the link.  It will be interesting to hear what Leah decides.  

    This is one of those payoffs you get to see when your kids hit teen years.  Pretty exciting.  Congrats Sue!

    by parentalunit1 on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 09:40:47 AM PDT

  • Resources (0 / 0)

    Part of the trouble here is that without radical feminism, political feminism would not exist (at least IMHO)...but, here goes some online resources:

    Alice Paul
    and this one

    Ginsberg and the ERA

    Primer on radical vs. liberal feminism

    Let me know if you need more specific info or scholarly texts and I'll post them...

    by GiGi on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 01:32:10 PM PDT

  • radical feminism (0 / 0)

    when i studied it back in the early 80s -- was the feminist theory that looked at the root (the true meaning of 'radical') cause of sexism. In other words, to effect true change for women and men, the patriarchy - the root cause of sexism and treating women differently only because they are women-   would have to change. Very all encompassing change -- deep. One of the great radical feminist books was The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone. The big problem with radical feminism was: how to effect this change? women do need equal pay for equal work, access to credit, etc. Well, the answer in real life seems to be with liberal or political feminism. Which, to me, feeds off radical feminism -- things like consciousness raising groups, women-only spaces (think "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" as a kind of variation on that theme). One way to look at radical feminism is as an R&D lab -- provocative, uncomfortable. Important to get things started but has a short lifespan.

    Other great books to read are the novels Small Changes and Vida, both by Marge Piercy, which lay out the different types of feminism through her characters.  Other radical feminists of the time: Robin Morgan, Alex Kates Shulman, Andrea Dworkin. Gigis links has names of the groups that were around then.

    Another, forgotten theory of feminism: Socialist Feminism. This linked feminism to socialism and said that socialism wouldn't succeed without also making feminism equally aas important as class.

    by brave on Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 06:18:33 PM PDT

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