Dani Scarratt, Assistant Director of CASE, reviews three feminist works in a two-part series that reflects on the history and trajectory of the feminist movement.
"Feminism is not a single unified movement, as will become increasingly obvious over the course of this article. If there was a time when even a widely accepted answer could be given to the question ‘what is feminism’ it is well past. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Kirsten Birkett wrote:
There is hardly a feminist movement today… no united battlefront… Hundreds of lobby groups and individuals follow their own goals, and, as long as these goals somehow impinge upon women, they are able to attach the label ‘feminist’. Within this label can be found totally contradictory ideas.[i]
The years since Birkett wrote have seen feminism become even more splintered. The one thing everyone agrees on when it comes to feminism is that there is a great deal of disagreement about what it is! Perhaps at the highest level of generalisation we might find some consensus. If we said that feminism seeks to bring about conditions in which women are not socially, politically or economically disadvantaged by comparison with men most ‘feminists’ would probably be happy to sign up. But as soon as the conversation starts getting specific about what it looks like to be a thriving woman, or what equality with men looks like, or which conditions need to change for us to get to any of these destinations, conflict quickly surfaces."
