Feminist Theory: Liberal

Feminism encompasses a wide variety of perspectives. The shared focus is on a belief that oppression or silencing of women—because they are women—has occurred and that this should be somehow rectified. It is difficult to divide feminist perspectives into a clear set of groupings; however, most scholars agree that one general category of feminism that can be examined is liberal feminism. Liberal feminism, sometimes called egalitarian feminism, rests on an assertion that men and women are similar in most ways and thus are equal. Differences between the sexes are products of social conditioning and cultural expectations, not inborn characteristics that differentiate men from women. Therefore, men and women should be afforded the same rights, roles, and responsibilities within a culture. If women are given these rights, they can individually maintain equality through their own actions, without wholesale changes to the society. Given this underlying concept, liberal feminist activity focuses on altering laws or political processes to promote equality, including voting rights, education, equal pay, reproductive rights, and domestic rights.

Liberal feminist efforts can be seen in the actions of suffragists from around the world, including British feminists of the 18th century. Fighting to obtain more equality in rights for women, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) in response to Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man (1791). Also in that time period, suffragists, including Millicent Fawcett (organizer of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies), Dame Ethel Mary Smyth, Emily Davison, and Emmeline Pankhurst (cofounder of the Women's Social and Political Union) fought with both peaceful protest and vigorous—some might say violent—action for the right to vote and be a part of the political process in Great Britain. British women (property owning and over 30) received the right to vote in the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In 1928, women received full voting equality. In that same time period, women in the United Kingdom were granted the same grounds for divorce as men (1923) and their exclusion from a variety of professions was reduced by the Sex Disqualification Act of 1919.

In the United States, we speak of feminism as having occurred (thus far) in three waves. The first wave of feminism was largely characterized by liberal feminist efforts, as the focus was on securing equal rights (specifically related to voting) for women. During that time, journalist Margaret Fuller published Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), considered the first major work of U.S. feminism to appear in print. In the same year, Lucretia Coffin Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for women's legal rights and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, a document built from the Declaration of Independence but with a focus on the historical treatment of women and the need for a refashioning of women's legal and political positions. Groups such as the American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman Suffrage Association organized efforts to fight for women's role in the political process. Women gained the right to vote in the United States on August 26, 1920.

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