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Liberal Feminism vs. Radical Feminism

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Liberal Feminism and Radical Feminism

The goal of feminism as both a social movement and political movement is to make women and men equal not only culturally, but socially and legally. Even though there are various types of feminism that focus on different goals and issues, the ultimate end to feminism is abolishing gender inequality that has negative effects on women in our society. The issues and goals that a feminist may have are dependent on the social organization or the type of economic structure that is present. However, an ultimate end (a goal, achievement and/or accomplishment) would have to be social equality between men and women. This would mean the elimination of bias and discrimination towards women and the elimination of all forms of established hierarchy, whether it’s mandatory or enforced. The two types of feminist theories I have chose to compare are liberal feminism and radical feminism. Even though they seem to aim for the same objectives, in the following paragraphs, I will compare and prove that they are very different in the sense that liberal feminism is form of reform feminism and radical feminism is a form of resistance feminism. They are both strategically different, and they have different ideas and beliefs that are almost the opposite of each other, which revolve around the reasons of why gender inequality exists, why women are oppressed, and why gender inequality won’t be easily abolished. The differences between radical and liberal feminism are greater than what unites them. Liberal feminism is a form of reform feminism, which means that they’re issues are not focusing specifically on the dominance of men, but more on the devaluation of a woman’s work in their home and in the workplace in our societies. Liberal feminism argues that gender inequality was derived and is present because of the social structures in our society.

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