Severing the Ties That Bind: Feminism, Women, the Family, and Social Institutions

Nov 18, 2017 by Jill

by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, The Imaginative Conservative:

On the whole, at the opening of the twenty-first century, Western women enjoy a power, education, and privilege unprecedented in human history. And much of this unprecedented power and freedom has resulted from women’s political activism on behalf of themselves and other women. Just as the social institutions of the West have both impeded and facilitated women’s political activism, so has women’s political activism caused both progress and decline in those institutions. Much depends upon your perspective and upon the historical moment you are considering.

Let us begin with the political context: there can be no doubt that the political institutions of Western Europe and the United States have played a role in the emergence of modern feminism and of women’s growing role in the social, economic, and political life of Western nations. The ideals of individual freedom and political democracy are distinctly Western and without them it is hard to imagine that women would have moved as readily into political life as they have. The political vocabulary of freedom, equality, and democracy has provided women with the principal justification for their campaign to enjoy the full status of citizenship, especially since there were never principled political justifications for their exclusion from it.

Many women remain dissatisfied with the results of women’s access to political life, usually on the grounds that formal equality with men has not netted women an equal share of wealth, power, and prestige. But these days, most activists are likely to focus their attention upon social rather than political institutions and to view political activism as a weapon to effect lasting social change. The impact of women’s political activism upon social institutions has been momentous, but its ultimate consequences still remain unclear.

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