Is Western Feminism for White Middle Class Women? EXPLAINING TERMS

The term “white middle-class women” needs to be defined and separated in order to fully analyse the different aspects of this term. White women are Caucasian women in mostly the United States and Europe. Middle-class women in this paper are viewed as a sub-category of white women.

In this paper, the bourgeois women are the middle-class women and the proletariat are the working-class women. These different social classes can be analysed and defined through their concerns. Generally speaking, the primary concern of middle-class women is the traditional gender roles and the patriarchy, whereas the primary concern of the working-class women is getting rid of the shackles of capitalism. It is important to understand identities through the Matrix of Domination, which illuminates the different ways in which identity can be explored, this matrix shows how gender is just one element of one’s identity and its importance is relative (Brewer &Collins, 1992).

The branches and concerns of western feminism need to be understood in order to comprehensively address the different lenses and analyse their concerns. Western feminism is an overarching term but includes different types of feminism most notably liberal feminism and radical feminism. Liberal feminism focuses on equality between the genders through structural changes in politics and law (Gender.cawater-info.net, 2016). This type of feminism is concerned with the individualistic qualities of people and advocates for reproductive and abortion rights as well as equal pay and universal suffrage.

One of the primary concerns is women’s involvement in production and labour. Western feminism aims to dismantle “traditional” family models. Liberal feminism is often also affiliated to terms such as a global sisterhood and the white-saviour complex, their concern is “saving” Other women (Al-Sibai, 2015). Radical feminism on the other hand is more radical because it does not aim for reform but for the complete overthrow of the patriarchal and capitalist system as well as a change in culture in accordance to western liberal thought.