8 - There are many feminisms: the advent of sexual politics

Summary

Feminism began in Europe with the deceptively straightforward call to extend suffrage and the liberal “rights of man” to women. Yet it immediately became clear that this project required expansion beyond the liberal state into domains of life largely ignored as apolitical or “private” by liberal politics. Perhaps more than any other ideological map, feminism moved the politics of the “private” into the public square: from personal psychology and household labour to erotic desire and religion. So powerful has feminism's remoulding of these areas been, that no major ideological map has remained wholly untouched by it. Progressives and conservatives, socialists and nationalists, have all found it necessary to wrestle with feminist criticism, sometimes modifying their practices despite strenuous resistance.

Consider, for instance, that no mass movement in the West calls for rolling back the entirety of feminism's revolution. Every ideology now includes among its own ranks members who embrace some of feminism's innovations, such as: female access to education and the professions, the loosening of dress codes and social taboos, and so on. The boundary line on acceptable gender expressions may be vastly different according to rival ideological groups, but the line has undoubtedly moved – and the name of the mover, historically speaking, is feminism. Indeed, even the most traditional and reactionary ideological factions appear unlikely to ever fully return to the cultural norms that prevailed before feminism's arrival.

All this might lead one to hastily conclude: “we are all feminists now!” However, this would be premature. Not only do pockets of resistance to feminism persist, but males still dominate the chief institutions of power, with women also regularly experiencing inequality both in the home and the workplace. In this sense, one could just as easily declare: “there is no truly feminist society on Earth!”

The apparent paradox of feminism's universal triumph and endless postponement is resolved by recognizing that feminism is not one thing but a multiplicity of competing maps. Indeed, feminism's ideological mutations are commonly clustered into three distinct “waves”.