Why Feminism can Be Harmful- an Exploration of Western Feminist Theory

By Imogen Lee - Singapore

The core intention of feminism, advocating for women’s rights based on the equality of the sexes, is undoubtedly not intrinsically harmful. On the contrary, it has facilitated our advancement and progress towards a more equal society. In Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book, ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, she emphasises the importance of challenging systemically embedded beliefs and gender stereotypes perpetuating inequality between men and women (Adichie, 2015). However, this importance is lost through Western feminism’s attempts to universalise feminism. These attempts cause harm by inadvertently undermining the validity of different female experiences across the globe.

When the battle for women’s rights intersects with the complex narratives of cultural, political, and economic discourse around the globe, a myriad of problems arise. This article focuses on a few issues concerning the theoretical aspects of the modern feminist movement that began in 1848. By exploring the three main Western feminist theories, Liberal Feminism, Marxist Feminism and Radical Feminism, I will discuss their flaws, including the general danger of universalisation and the lack of an intersectional approach (Rampton, 2015).

Feminism progressed from its ‘first wave,’ concerned with women’s suffrage and rights, to its theoretical development during the second wave in the 1960s-70s. Despite the movement’s evolution, any attempt to create an all-encompassing feminist ideology was doomed. This led to the movement branching off into three major streams of thought (Burkett and Brunell, 2019)

Liberal feminism focuses on gender equality through political reform within the framework of democracy (“Liberal Feminism”, 2024). Though liberal feminism values equal access between the sexes to education and the workplace, this ideology is ultimately embedded in capitalism. Much of the movement is concerned about women obtaining corporate levels that were once previously only accessible by men, failing to acknowledge that gender is not the sole factor that prohibits women from achieving these positions. Other factors, such as class and race, prevent a vast majority of women resonating with the movement’s interests. By narrowly working within the confines of a capitalist patriarchy, only a sparse minority can benefit, typically white, middle-class, educated women who can access resources to be capable of reaching the top level of the corporate hierarchy. Liberal feminism reproduces social stratification and ignores the inequalities enforced by the capitalist economic system. The majority of women who don’t belong to a particular social class remain oppressed and obliged to work low-paid jobs. Ultimately, liberal feminism is harmful in the sense that it preaches equal rights between men and women. Yet in reality, it only works to release a select few from the confines of patriarchy through its compliance with an oppressive and male-dominated economic ideology.

Marxist feminism amends this primary flaw of liberal feminism, blaming the capitalist mode of production for female oppression and subjugation (Griffin, 2017). This is because inequality between men and women is linked to the gendered economic structure of capitalism: in assigning women the role of reproductive labour, they are systemically confined to the private sphere of the household, whilst men have privileged access to the public domain of productive labour. A Marxist feminist approach is somewhat intersectional, seeking to simultaneously free women and the working class from oppression and exploitation. However, it paints capitalism as the primary issue for the disparity between men’s and women’s rights, which is not the case, especially when there are prevalent examples of women in communist countries that face different forms of oppression (Guy-Evans, 2023). For instance, the one-child policy enforced in China restricted female reproductive autonomy by subjecting millions of women to forced sterilisation, abortion, and fines. Although it limited female agency, some perceived it as empowering, as the proportion of women in higher education increased from 41% in 1980-82 to 50% in 1990-92 (Liu, 2015). This contradicts the premise of Marxist feminism, as it argues that women’s oppression stems from their role of being restricted to the private sphere of the household. Yet the one-child policy shows that the public sphere of the wage-earning workplace becoming more accessible to women through higher education doesn’t equate to the female liberation and equality of the sexes, as women still remain restricted in their reproductive rights. This illustrates the harm of Marxist feminism in painting the misleading notion that all of women’s problems derive from capitalism, which creates the division between public and private spheres of work. Women in communist countries still suffer from oppression today, and gender divisions in Europe existed prior to the transition of capitalism.

Radical feminism calls for the reconstruction of our patriarchal society in which male supremacy is eradicated from all social and economic contexts (“Radical Feminism”, 2024). Unlike liberal feminism, there is a focus on achieving equal rights through significant scale reform rather than being complicit with systemic oppression. Although it seeks to challenge the status quo, this theory falls short in its binary perception of men as the oppressors and women as the oppressed (Saracino). This simplifies the issue of gender inequality and can lead to generalisations, which contribute to the misguided association of radical feminists as being ‘man-haters’. Furthermore, this theory has been constructed based on the assumption of one universal experience for all women when this is not the case. By presuming that all women suffer oppression for the same reason, they discard and discount the different sets of experiences that women across the globe have (West, 2017). This ignores the nuances brought by race, class, and cultural differences. Thus, liberal feminism pushes a harmful agenda of universalising women’s experiences of oppression.

There is no one global model of patriarchal domination. Therefore, rather than one Western feminist normative model being imposed on the whole world, women can find ways to combat different forms of oppression in the context of their experience. For example, Muslim women have faced forms of religious and sex discrimination due to their wearing of a hijab (Haq, 2017). This is prevalent in the Western world through the 2004 ban on Muslim face coverings in French public schools, based on the intention of separating the Church from the state. According to the French government, Muslim face coverings hinder women’s universal rights and threaten the safety of the public (“French ban on face covering”, 2024). This ignorant and prejudiced view not only stereotypes based on religious and cultural differences but also restricts Muslim women’s autonomy by policing their choice of dress. The Western dismissal of other cultural and religious traditions as inferior has paradoxically been adopted by Western feminism. This is exemplified by the harmful view that the hijab is inherently oppressive, which is not valid in all contexts (Ali, 2021). Thankfully, Muslim women have resisted this harmful and divisive idea by choosing to wear the hijab, thus reclaiming it as a symbol of female empowerment. During the Algerian war, women wore the chador to resist the French colonial doctrine of dominating women by removing the veil. This shows that women can successfully resist forms of patriarchal oppression by challenging the assumptions that Western feminism makes.

In conclusion, Western feminist theories offer valid points, such as the liberal feminist focus on women accessing corporate levels, and the radical approach of reconstructing the patriarchy. However, there is no denying their blind spots, which can be attributed to the lack of an intersectional approach. This is the principle harm of Western feminist theory, which ultimately discards the truth that women across the globe experience different cultural, economic, and political circumstances. To truly advocate for equal rights of the sexes, we must adopt a flexible and malleable approach. Women should feel empowered to resist oppression in the way that suits them best rather than face ostracism because their experience of inequality doesn’t conform to a narrow branch of thought.

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