Liberal feminism

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2.1 Liberal feminism
Most hegemonic societies are structured on the assumption that public can be classified as innately superior or inferior to each other. Differences were thus based upon biological functions, the colour of one’s skin, one’s geographical origins and even one’s professions and ways of livelihood. Such notions were challenged in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries when feudal traditions in the West began to be replaced with more liberal philosophy of rationalism. The spirit of liberal feminism may be traced back to the great social and political upheaval of the French Revolution. It may be identified in Mary Astell’s (1700) angry defense of women’s equality. “If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a state how comes it to be in a family? … If all men are born free, how is it that all women born slaves?” Many liberal feminists explain women's exclusion or inequality with reference to contemporary notions of female inferiority. They argue that women are interiorised and rendered incapable of reason because of the upbringing and education of both men and ...

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