"Feminist" - It's a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. It's also a topic I've been thinking about writing on for a month or so now because I do feel it's ultra-important to consider in the current political moment (this is not to say that it wasn't important before). Problem is, as a cis-male, my own knee-jerk reaction is that I'm probably not the best qualified or most authoritative voice on this particular topic. I'll be up-front about that. And, I'll try to stick to what I am qualified to say given I have limited experiential evidence to back me up.

That said, perhaps this post is best directed toward men who have women in their lives whom they care about deeply. So, fellas, listen up.

"Feminism" is one of those big words that people like to make reference to, often with little understanding of what it is they're actually committing to. Not everyone who claims to be a feminist makes the same value commitments, so it's important that we bring a little nuance into the conversation for the purposes of making meaningful sense of these conversations. To bring feminist theories out of the fog, let's consider the following. Feminism, broadly speaking, can be subdivided into five (fairly different) perspectives: liberal feminism, cultural feminism, standpoint feminism, radical-poststructuralist feminism, and postmodern feminism.

Liberal Feminism

The liberal feminist theory is what most people refer to when they use the term "feminism". This is the most widely held feminist theory. It is the perspective that claims women deserve equal opportunities as men based on their shared humanity. Although women are, in some ways, inherently different than men, women and men are all humans who lay equal claim to universal human rights (such as the opportunity to self-actualize) - so justice means implementing standardized policies that ensure equal treatment. As such, from this feminist theory, collective actions are imperative any time a marginalized group (e.g. women) is denied basic human rights.

Interestingly, liberal feminist politics are in some ways conservative. While liberal feminists are obviously not keen on the present status quo, they don't advocate rejection of the existing political systems, but rather reformation.

Cultural Feminism

Cultural feminists theory contrasts liberal feminist theory. Rather than advocate for equality, cultural feminists seek equity. The idea of equality implies that sameness between men and women is something we should strive for. "Equity", on the other hand, requires that we draw our attention to the differences between men and women. Rather than worrying about standardization of policies to make equal the differences between men and women, which cultural feminists argue leads to discrimination, equitable policies will acknowledge that women are different than men.

For example, say there are a man and a woman who are both managers at the same local restaurant. The owner of the restaurant frequently criticizes the woman manager for not being "assertive" enough and claims that she is not as capable a leader as the man. A cultural feminist wouldn't say the problem is that the woman is being treated differently, but rather that she is different than the man. The owner's notion that leadership mandates "assertiveness" is masculine. Expecting the woman's leadership style to reflect the man is misguided.

Celebrate inequality and strive for equity, say cultural feminists.

Standpoint Feminism

Standpoint feminist theory coincides with cultural feminist theory insofar as both claim that women are different from men. But, standpoint feminism takes differentiation a step further. Women are just as different from each other as women are generally from men. So, standpoint feminists share the same critique as cultural feminists of liberal feminists - that standardization and sameness inevitably lead to discrimination. But, they further extend this idea to relations even between women. The main idea here is that gender can't be understood in isolation from other individual distinctions. Gender exists among other qualifiers (i.e. race and class), so gender should not be dealt with in isolation. Feminist standpoint theory advocates for an entirely different political agenda; rather than focus on binaries, like man-woman, feminist standpoint theory emphasizes individual standpoints (rather than group-level standpoints) as the starting point for political action.

Intersectionality of social identifiers (i.e. race, class, and gender) is more important than gender alone to the standpoint feminist. So, political reformation must begin not with the marginalized gender, but with marginalized people.

Radical-poststructuralist Feminism

Similar to feminist standpoint theory, Radical-poststructuralist feminism starts with differentiation between peoples as the starting point for change in the status quo. However, radical-poststructuralist feminist does away with intersectional ideas and return to more general conceptions of gender dichotomy. Radical-poststructuralist feminist theory nearly contradicts the liberal feminist theory. For the radical-poststructuralist feminist, gender is the primary source of difference in our patriarchal society. A just society, then, requires not reformation, but the rejection of the status quo. A truly feminist organization of politics, so say the radical-poststructuralists, should be devoid of bureaucracy.

In other words, burn it down (metaphorically speaking, of course...).

Postmodern Feminism

Finally, postmodern feminist theory tracks quite a ways away from the previous four theories. The postmodern feminist theory claims that gender itself is an unstable construct. What has been considered masculine or feminine has changed over time and will continue to change because the reality is actually a fractured together multiplicity of individual perspectives. Postmodern feminists acknowledge this trend and go on to claim that, because notions of gender have changed in the past, there is no reason to believe that gender need be a defining construct in society at all. There is no real connection between physical sex characteristics and an individual's gender display, so why politicize gender at all? Gender, in other words, is no more a defining characteristic of individuals that is, say, the length of their toenails; gender is just not politically relevant because of we, humans, made it up.

Chances are that having read through this, you (regardless of your gender identity or lack thereof) probably have some idea of where your own beliefs fall within these feminist theories. If so, great! That was my intention.

However, It's important to remember that this post is an imperfect representation (written by a cis-male, no less) of feminist theory. I'm not writing a book here, so this discussion isn't intended to be particularly comprehensive. Nonetheless, I do think it's important that we make some meaningful sense of conversations about feminism (I'm talking to you, fellas), rather than just assume we know what our interlocutors are saying.