Feminist Politics Human Nature

by Jaggar

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Genres: Feminism, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Womens, Politics, Gender, Sociology

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1983

Reviews

[Maja Solar]

Although the book was written many years ago and examined feminist currents that have evolved since then, it is still regarded as one of the fundamental feminist works. And it is undoubtedly still preferable to the way feminism views the so-called waves (which is a completely wrong approach that assumes universalist temporality and spatiality, all according to the criteria of white middle-class feminism). The major significance of this book is that it demonstrates how feminism, above all, is feminism in plurality (as feminisms), and that different feminisms are not merely distinct ways of thinking that peacefully coexist in some ideologically presumed neutral universe of knowledge, but are often antagonistic. This is due to the fact that feminism is a political issue rather than a topic for scholarly debate. And while the book may contain a lot of information about the four main currents of feminism (liberal, radical, traditional-Marxist, and socialist feminism), it is obvious that a lot has changed since those times. For instance, Marxist feminism has undergone a "renaissance" and has greatly expanded its theoretical base (especially in the contemporary Theory of Social Reproduction, but also in some Marxist iterations of intersectionality, Black feminism, decolonial feminism, queer-Marxist feminism, etc.), so it is difficult to apply Jaggar's criticisms to these new Marxist currents. She should have been more critical of radical feminism, in my opinion, but then she wouldn't have adopted the viewpoint of socialist feminism, which has the particular flaw of being too similar to radical feminism. It is extremely problematic that the language still encourages the essentialization of male-female categories and labels systemic issues as being caused by "male-dominance" structures. In fact, I wonder what she might think now.

[Candice]

This book is important if you have an interest in feminist ideologies and philosophies. Jaggar does an excellent job of reviewing the histories and main points of various brands of feminism while intelligently philosophizing their purposes as well as their positive and negative traits.

Not recommended for those who prefer more of a fun read of history.

[Beth]

Such a helpful overview of the history of feminism. Jaggar helpfully targets strengths and weaknesses of different types of feminist theory.

[Sally]

An excellent analysis of for currents in feminist thought - the Bourgeois / Liberal, the traditional ,Marxist,' the 'Radical' / separatist, and the Socialist-Feminist

[Farrell]

I read it for my philosophy class. I liked the concept but it was a little hard.

[Whoof]

feminism actually makes sense now