Criticisms of Egalitarian Liberal Feminism

Liberal Criticism


Some, including some egalitarian liberal feminists, argue that egalitarian liberal feminisms run the risk of being insufficiently liberal. Measures intended to promote gender fairness and the autonomy of women could end up unreasonably hindering citizen autonomy (Cudd 2006, 223). Some argue that Susan Okin's claim that the state should be guided by an egalitarian ideal of family life is an example of such a measure (see section 2.2.1). Other measures recommended by some egalitarian liberal feminists that some hold may be illiberal include quotas on party slates or in elected bodies (Peters 2006) (see section 2.2.2), and bans on violent pornography (see section 2.2.4).


Classical liberals or libertarians are critical of egalitarian liberal feminisms because, on their view, liberalism cannot support the claim that the right of some against coercive interference may be violated in order to promote the autonomy capacities of others, such as we find in affirmative action programs, or in the substantial taxation that would be necessary to fund the social programs egalitarian liberals endorse (Epstein 2002).


Conservative Criticism


Conservatives hold that reformers can do more harm than good when they undermine the institutions and norms which, while surely offending in many ways, also serve as the foundation for many people's well-being (Muller 1997; see also Fox-Genovese 1996). Such conservatives worry about the radical implications of liberal feminism, its willingness to put women's autonomy ahead of institutions and norms on which many people rely for their well-being. Ann Cudd suggests that the expansion of opportunity and equality promised by egalitarian liberal feminism “makes us all better off” (Cudd 2006, 237). Conservatives encourage us to consider also the loss that is in liberation.


 Feminist Criticism


Some argue that egalitarian liberal feminism is insufficiently feminist. Some argue that the value of autonomy cannot support robust feminist criticism, and that robust feminist criticism requires a substantive feminist ideal of the good life (Yuracko 2003). Some argue that liberalism's central concern with fully functioning adult citizens renders it incapable of accounting sufficiently for the political value of caregiving work and the moral attitudes characteristic of the caring relation (Held 1987; Kittay 1999; Baier 1987; Ruddick 1989). Some argue that liberalism's focus on the distribution of benefits and burdens in society must be replaced with a focus on power relations (Young 1990, 37). Indeed, some argue that egalitarian liberal feminism's focus on women's disadvantage in the distribution of benefits and burdens, and on deficits in women's personal autonomy, overlooks the deeper problems of power inequality and the eroticization of domination and subordination that are the true lynchpins of the gender system (MacKinnon 1987; 1989).


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