Cultural feminism developed from radical feminism. It is an ideology of a "female nature" or "female essence" that attempts to revalidate what cultural feminists consider undervalued female attributes. It is also a theory that commends the difference of women from men.
Its critics assert that because it is based on an essentialist view of the differences between women and men and advocates independence and institution building, it has led feminists to retreat from practicing public politics to a focus upon individual "life-style". Alice Echols (a feminist historian and cultural theorist), credits Redstockings member Brooke Williams with introducing the term cultural feminism in 1975 to describe the depoliticisation of radical feminism.
Read more about Cultural Feminism: Cultural Feminist Ideas, Critics
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or feminism:
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
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“Until women learn to want economic independence ... and until they work out a way to get this independence without denying themselves the joys of love and motherhood, it seems to me feminism has no roots.”
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