Conclusion: feminist theory in the 1990s

Abstract

As this book has shown, the history of feminist political theory and practice has not been one of steady advance, and the fortunes of feminism have waxed and waned many times during the past 300 years. In some ways the situation of women in Western societies has obviously improved, and many of the issues for which feminists have fought in the past are now part of the ‘common sense’ assumptions of our society. Thus few today would challenge the right of women to education, employment or the vote, or advocate a return to the gross inequalities of the nineteenth century. In many nations of the world, however, such rights are still denied, and the benefits of such changes have been far from evenly distributed in Europe and America. Moreover, some modern feminists argue that apparent gains represent a shift in the nature of inequality or oppression rather than its ending, so that legal inequalities and private subordination within the family have been partly replaced by a more diffuse and less tangible form of public oppression in which economic dependency on the male-run state and manipulation of sexuality by a pornographic culture are key aspects, and Women are no longer restricted to the domestic hearth, but have the whole society in which to roam and be exploited (Walby, 1990, p. 201).