Socialist Feminism

Abstract

Abstract The term, socialist feminism, most often represents theories and practices initiated by the mid‐1970s, which work to analyze male domination and socioeconomic oppression and exploitation as inter‐related institutions and cultures. This analysis counters prior arguments, including Marxist perspectives, suggesting that once class (or racial or global economic) disparities could be leveled, sex‐based discrimination would end. Simultaneously, it inserted a socialist critique of women's marginalization in capitalist economic structures into liberal feminist arguments suggesting that changing laws and attitudes, but not necessarily economic structures, would create equality for women. For socialist feminists, analysis that confronts only male domination or economic and material injustice is insufficient in explaining or altering women's marginalized status.