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Essay on Contemporary Orthodox Feminism
The status of women’s rights today varies dramatically in different countries and, in some cases, among groups within the same country, such as ethnic groups or economic classes. Women have been granted the right to vote in most nations, but women’s share in governmental decision-making remains limited. Despite the fact that in 1994 women headed the governments of 10 countries, more than 100 countries had no female members in their legislative bodies. Women constitute approximately 9 percent of parliamentary representatives in industrialized countries and 12 percent in developing countries.
Feminist philosophers also challenge basic principles of traditional Western philosophy, investigating how philosophical inquiry would change if women conducted it and if it incorporated women’s experiences as well as their viewpoints. In interpreting the history of Western philosophy, feminists study texts by male philosophers for their depiction of women, masculine values, and biases toward men. Feminist philosophers also write about women’s experiences of subjectivity, their relationship to their bodies, and feminist concepts of language, knowledge, and nature. They explore connections between feminism in philosophy and other emerging feminist disciplines, such as feminist legal theory, feminist theology, and ecological feminism. Central to feminist philosophy is the concept of the oppression of women who live in patriarchal (male-controlled) societies; much of the work of feminist philosophers has gone into understanding patriarchy and developing alternatives to it. Prominent feminist philosophers include French postmodern philosophers Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous and American philosopher of law Catharine MacKinnon.
Feminism has several aspects. The feminist goals of the abolishment of economic and sexual exploitation of women are laudable by all standards. The ideological base for this belief is the same as that which is central to much of our society. To modern man, there is one supreme value by which all others have to be measured......
