Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

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Applied criminology
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FEMINIST THEORIES
Feminism involves various political and social movements as well as ideologies that work
towards defining, establishing and achieving gender equality in political, personal, social and
economic aspects. Feminism has been a movement that has been happening for centuries aiming
to ensure that women are treated equally as men and do not face oppression due to this gap
inequality. The ideology was introduced due to society’s tendency to prioritize the point of view
given by men and in the process discriminate against women and treat them unfairly. Feminism
aims to fight gender stereotyping by establishing professional and educational opportunities that
are similar for women as those given to men. It also aims to stop female oppression through
domestic violence that is pushed forward due to inequality. There are different theories that can
be used to explain feminism, two of which include the liberal and Marxist feminist theories. Both
of them focus on different aspects of feminism and explain women offending differently
(Johnson 2017).
Liberal feminism focuses on the liberty of women. It is a feminist theory that puts emphasis
on the ability of women to maintain equality to men through their own choices and actions.
Feminists that support this theory argue that society has cultured the belief that women, by
nature, are not as intelligent or as strong as men. For one to be liberal, they need to be in control
of the conditions within which they live, and these conditions are not sufficiently present in the
lives of women. This theory explains a woman’s offending as the belief that women’s entry and
success into the public world is blocked by legal and customary restraints that have been set by
society.
The theory started becoming popular in the 19th century and evolved into the 20th century.
This was because of the increasing need that women had to become liberal as individuals, and

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not be defined by their male counterparts. Before this, women were mainly dependent on their
husbands and fathers and were brought up in preparation to become wives and mothers.
However, due to the increasing oppression and cruelty that they faced from men, they started
becoming concerned about gaining their freedom from them and becoming their equals. Early
liberalists were focused on gaining opportunities that would make them ‘full people’, which
meant that they could support themselves without having to rely on men. It was also their
priority to ensure that women got the same opportunities as men and were included when human
rights and privileges were set. In the 19th century, women would encounter problems such as the
fact that only white men were considered to be ‘full people’. They were the only ones who were
considered citizens; thus, only they had a right to vote. Because of this, the political scene was
male dominant and women did not get representation in politics. Such laws prompted feminist
activists such as Judith Murray and Mary Wollstonecraft to advocate for women’s rights in terms
of including them when political decisions were made (Hahn 2010). After women were given the
right to vote and hold public office in the US in 1920, more feminist groups were created to
advocate for women’s rights. The groups worked to ensure that men and women were treated
equally, especially under democratic law.
Critics of liberal feminism say that although it has reduced the dependence of individual
women to individual men, feminism has still been unsuccessful because most systems in the
society are still predominantly led by men. This shows that women are still indirectly dependent
on men. Due to the individualistic assumption made by liberal feminism, people fail to see how
women are disadvantaged by patriarchal social values and structures (Baehr 2010). Other critics
view liberal feminism as a way through which women abandon their role as women and slowly
morph into men. These critics argue that it is right to fight for freedom of women and for them to

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not be dependent on men, but that does not mean that they have to do everything that men do,
and stop doing what women are supposed to do. They argue that there is a clear distinction
between feminism and liberalism since liberalism encourages women to forfeit their roles. In the
present century, liberal feminism is considered outdated, since the values that it stands for mostly
reflects on the values and needs of colonial white women who were from the middle class and
were heterosexual. Modern-day problems such as culture, class and race are not well represented
by the values that are upheld by the liberal feminist theory (Grant 2013).
Marxist feminism is another theory and philosophical variant used to explain feminism. It
mainly focuses on the oppression of women through social systems such as capitalism and
private property ownership. Marxist feminists argue that women can only be considered liberal if
capitalist economies are restructured and that currently, most women are not compensated for
their labour. Development of oppression according to Marxist feminism is related to human
evolution and how class and gender division has evolved to produce a society that is oppressive
to women. According to Friedrich Engels, women in the past were equal to men in terms of
labour division and had a social status that was higher than men’s because they were responsible
for producing and maintaining family lines. However, during the agrarian revolution, agriculture
was considered to be male wealth since it was the men who went out to cultivate land while
women stayed in the house and carried out domestic work. This eventually led to the
consideration of women as domestic servants. Gender oppression was then born since men were
considered to be more privileged than women and domestic labour carried out by both genders
was no longer considered to be of equal value (McCann 2010). Engels noted the extreme
oppression and degradation that women faced in the family due to the lack of equality that was
promoted by their husbands. This inequality had been unheard of in societies that did not have

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systems that assigned a class to people. This happened over a long period of time and later
resulted in an equality gap between men and women. Engel made many arguments that
suggested unfair treatment of women, including how domestic violence and rape had been built
into the family and mainly affected women and how marital monogamy in families was
hypocritical since the concept seemed to only apply to women and not men.
Labour can be categorized as productive or unproductive. In capitalism, the work of
maintaining a family which is mainly done by women is seen to have a low material value since
it does not produce any products and cannot be considered as productive labour. Marxists argue
that the work of maintaining a family is productive, and claiming that it is not is a form of female
oppression. Family maintenance has service value and is equal to the circulation of commodities
in the market. Because of this, activism related to advocating for wages for housework became
common for Marxist feminists. They advocated for the inclusion of housework in the capitalist
economy for waged work. They viewed female oppression as being a result of forcing women
into private spheres and proposed the solution for this to be locating, recognizing and valuing
them in the public sphere (Burns 2011). Currently, Marxist feminists have identified the problem
of affective labour, where women are expected to show reproductive and productive labour
which essentially makes them work double shifts. Women are expected to work like men in the
public sector and still carry out their duties of domestic work at home like they do not have
work. This essentially puts a lot of stress on women especially those who are mothers and wives
and Marxist feminists, are working to bring light to this issue. This became clearer with the rise
of working-class women. Initially, the general work of women had been to produce children to
carry on the family line, with those women from upper-classes seen as the key whose main
function was to produce children that would one day inherit the family fortune. The function of

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the working-class woman was to produce children who would one day continue as a generation
of workers in the family. This meant that women were only supposed to carry out their duties in
the privacy of their own homes and were seen as the main servants in the house, and those who
wanted to work in the public sector were seen as illegible to carry out family duties. This stress
that is faced by women from working-class families is seen up to date. It is worse for families
that do not earn enough to hire help to help with house chores such as cooking, laundry and other
forms of work.
The ability of Marxist feminists to promote change socially contributed to their engagement in
activism. They often challenge capitalism to ensure that the status of women is known. Unlike
liberal feminists, they use optimal methods to come up with views and ways of achieving female
liberation. Critics of this form of feminism say that it has not considered the problem that class
status of different women would cause. The difference in class and culture found in society
would most likely hinder them from achieving their goals since women from upper and lower
classes do not face the same struggles. They also argue that Marxist feminists are rigid and only
give utopian demands and that demanding anything less than this would not produce adequate
long-term solutions (Sheivari 2014). This issue has historically been seen not just to be
advocated for by women, but by revolutionary leaders who were both male and female (Harquail
2019).
Liberal and Marxist feminism do not always go hand in hand, and it is believed that efforts to
achieve one form of feminism might hinder efforts to achieve the other. Liberal feminism mainly
focuses on individual liberation of women from men, while Marxist feminism focuses on the
inclusion of women’s work in the public sector and in capitalism. The disparity comes from the
fact that liberation mainly focuses on women working on their own to achieve the same status as

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men while Marxism includes working with men to improve the working conditions that women
face. For example, in order to ease the stress that women face from being required by modern-
day society to perform as both productive members of the society and responsible wives and
mothers, families are discouraged from having defined gender roles that have been set in history
by the society on the duties that women and men are supposed to carry out around the house.
Women and men are encouraged to work together to run the household and divide housework
equally among them so that it does not fall on the shoulders of one gender. This is especially
emphasized for households where both the man and the woman are working. An exception is
made for women who decide to be full-time housewives. The Marxist theory however still
emphasizes on the liberation of women since it started with the observation of how women were
being oppressed and treated like they were second class in the society and in families (Smith
2013).
The concept of feminism has been used for centuries to advocate for women’s rights and
gender equality. Because feminism has been happening for very long, there are different theories
that have been developed over time to explain the different forms of feminism (Gates 2017).
Liberal and Marxist feminist theories are two of them that basically describe women liberation in
different ways, with liberal feminism explaining it in the form of individual liberation from male
dominance and Marxist feminism describing it as female liberation in terms of capitalism. Both
theories have achieved a lot since they were formed, but with the world evolving it is important
for them to evolve with the world and consider modern-day problems when rising up issues that
they are concerned with.

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Reference
Baehr, A. R. (2010). Varieties of Feminist Liberalism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Burns, E. (2011). What Is Marxism? Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace.
Gates, F. (2017). EARLY MODERN FEMINISM. A Brief History of Feminism.
doi:10.7551/mitpress/11328.003.0004
Grant, J. (2013). Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory.
London, England: Routledge.
Hahn, J. S. (2010). Aleksandra Kollontai and Feminism: From Criticism of Liberal Feminism
to Socialist-Radical Feminism. 러러러러러, 18(2), 287-345. doi:10.22414/rusins.2008.18.2.287
Harquail, C. V. (2019). Feminism: A Key Idea for Business and Society. London, England:
Routledge.
Johnson, J. M. (2017). Feminism and Science. Funding Feminism.
doi:10.5149/northcarolina/9781469634692.003.0008
McCann, C. R. (2010). Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. London,
England: Psychology Press.
Sheivari, R. (2014). Marxist Feminism. Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, 1142-1148.
doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_682
Smith, S. (2013). Marxism, feminism and women's liberation. Retrieved from
https://socialistworker.org/2013/01/31/marxism-feminism-and-womens-liberation