Feminism, Future Hope, and the Crisis of Modernity

Abstract

Current cultural forms, shaped by patriarchy, cannot accommodate feminist aspirations for inclusive justice and must be modified. We need to search across world's diversity of cultures for a new synthesis of forms that can accommodate those aspirations that should be common to all people. is usually understood to mean both a point of view and a social movement that stresses equality of women with men. Feminism affirms equivalent personhood of women with men and seeks to overcome disabilities that women suffer in religious, cultural, and social structures that have been shaped by patriarchy. As such, feminism might not suggest a global vision of future hope, but simply inclusion of women in liberal ideologies that stress human and in democratic social systems that stress equality of opportunities. There are different views of feminism depending on how radically one sees prevalent social systems and ideologies to be determined by male hegemony and hence radicality of social and cultural transformations necessary to really overcome it. I agree with those perspectives that believe feminist aspiration (or any aspiration for inclusive justice) cannot be fully accommodated within prevalent liberal/capitalist socioeconomic system and cultural ideologies. Feminism calls for a profound transformation of classical and modern western ways of understanding reality and organizing social relations. This does not mean I reject incremental reforms in existing social systems. Yet these incremental reforms need to be defined in ways that open way to more far-reaching vistas. To understand fuller vision of future hope called for by feminism, one must first recognize how deeply has structured classical and modern Western Christian culture and social relations. I speak here only of Christianity and Western Europe/North America as my context, but clearly women from other cultures and contexts may have parallel critiques of their contexts, such as, for example, South Korean women shaped by ShaBuddhist-Christian Studies 18 (1998). ? by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 05:01:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ROSEMARY REDFORD RUETHER manism, Confucianism, Buddhism, American Christianity, neocolonialism, and capitalism. The term patriarchy means the rule of father. This refers not just to male power over females but a comprehensive social system based on domination of patriarch or male head of family-clan over all persons and things over whom he rules, who are defined in various ways as dependent on him and serving him: wife (wives), children, clients, dependent relatives, servants, slaves, animals, and land. Classical patriarchal societies linked such clans together in a political system in which patriarchs formed a ruling class in public assemblies, with a king ruling over