Cultural Feminism Short Notes PDF

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Cultural feminism is the ideology of a female nature or female essence reappropriated by feminists themselves to re-validate undervalued female attributes. Cultural feminism emphasizes essential differences between men and women in terms of biology, personality and behaviour. Women are seen to have different and superior virtues that provide the foundation for a shared identity, solidarity and sisterhood. For cultural feminists, the enemy of women is not merely a social system or economic institution or set of backward beliefs but masculinity itself and in some cases male biology. Cultural feminist politics revolve around creating and maintaining a healthy environment-free of masculinist values and all their offshoots such as pornography. Cultural feminists argue that what they define as traditional male behaviours, including aggressiveness, competitiveness, and domination, are harmful to society and to fields within society, including business and politics. Since by nature women are inherently viewed as kinder, cooperative and gentler than men, it follows that if women were in power, the world would be a better place. The three main aspects of cultural feminism that are critiqued by other kinds of feminism have been essentialism (the idea that male and female differences are part of the essence of male and female), separatism, and the idea of a feminist vanguard, building the new culture rather than transforming the existing one through political and other challenges. While a radical feminist might critique the traditional family as being an institution of patriarchy, a cultural feminist might work to transform the family by focusing on the nurturing and caring that a woman-centred family can provide in life. Radical feminism was a political movement dedicated to eliminating the sex-class system, whereas cultural feminism was a countercultural movement aimed at reversing the cultural valuation of the male and the devaluation of the female. Liberal feminists critique radical feminism for essentialism, often believing instead that male/female differences in behaviours or values are a product of current society. Liberal feminists oppose the depoliticization of feminism which is embodied in cultural feminism. Cultural feminists’ critique liberal feminism, claiming that liberal feminists accept male values and behaviour as the “norm” to work for inclusion into....