Liberal feminism's limits exposed

Meave Noonan writes that Liberal feminism's limits exposed.

A key weakness of the book is its relative silence around class, and failure to properly situate women’s oppression within the context of capitalism. A more sustained, overarching emphasis on the intersection of class with sexism, racism and other axes of oppression would help to illustrate the complex ways in which the system of capitalist accumulation benefits from the continued subjugation of women and other oppressed groups.

The changing nature of employment under neoliberalism is an issue which bears heavily on women, and it is therefore somewhat surprising that the book does not offer a more focused discussion of this issue.

Women are among those worst affected by the predominance of insecure work. The at-times outright contempt shown by both sides of Australian parliamentary politics for the disadvantage faced by single, working-class mothers casts the limits of liberal feminism into sharp relief.

The radical potential of feminist thought and action, if it is to achieve meaningful social change for all women, must be connected to the wider aim of creating a more just, egalitarian society.

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This requires the non-capitalists to see past the great national security swindle and be prepared to see why alliances for socialism must be built.