Key Feminist Theorists

Why This Matters

Feminist political thought isn't just a list of names and books to memorize—it's a living conversation that spans centuries and continues to shape contemporary politics, law, and culture. When you study these theorists, you're tracing the evolution of ideas about gender as a social construct, intersecting systems of oppression, and the relationship between personal experience and political change. The exam will test your ability to connect individual thinkers to broader movements: liberal feminism, radical feminism, socialist feminism, postcolonial feminism, and queer theory.

Understanding these theorists means grasping how feminist thought has expanded and challenged itself over time. Early thinkers focused on legal equality and education; second-wave feminists interrogated sexuality, labor, and patriarchy as a system; and contemporary theorists have pushed feminism to account for race, colonialism, and the instability of gender itself. Don't just memorize who wrote what—know what conceptual breakthrough each theorist represents and how their ideas respond to or critique earlier frameworks.

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Foundations: Enlightenment and Liberal Feminism

These early theorists applied Enlightenment principles of reason and rights to argue that women deserved the same opportunities as men. Their core claim: women's subordination results from lack of education and legal rights, not natural inferiority.

Mary Wollstonecraft

• "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792)—the foundational text of Western feminist philosophy, arguing that women's apparent weakness stems from miseducation, not nature
• Rationalist feminism applied Enlightenment ideals to gender, insisting women possess the same capacity for reason as men
• Education as liberation—Wollstonecraft argued that equal education would produce virtuous citizens and better mothers, linking women's rights to broader social improvement

Virginia Woolf

• "A Room of One's Own" (1929)—argued that women need financial independence and private space to create, famously stating women need "500 pounds a year and a room of one's own"
• Material conditions shape creativity—Woolf connected women's historical exclusion from literature to economic dependence and lack of physical space
• Stream of consciousness technique in her novels (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse) explored the interior lives of women constrained by patriarchal expectations

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Second-Wave Feminism: The Personal Is Political

Second-wave feminists (1960s–1980s) moved beyond legal equality to analyze patriarchy as a system embedded in culture, sexuality, family, and the psyche. Their breakthrough: the private sphere is political territory.

Simone de Beauvoir

• "The Second Sex" (1949)—introduced the concept of woman as "the Other," arguing women are defined in opposition to men rather than as autonomous subjects
• "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman"—this existentialist claim that gender is constructed, not innate, laid groundwork for all subsequent feminist theory
• Existentialist feminism argued women must reject immanence (passive acceptance of assigned roles) and embrace transcendence (self-determination and freedom)

Betty Friedan

• "The Feminine Mystique" (1963)—identified "the problem that has no name," the widespread dissatisfaction of educated suburban housewives trapped in domestic roles
• Co-founded NOW (National Organization for Women)—channeled feminist theory into political organizing for legal equality, workplace rights, and reproductive freedom
• Liberal feminist approach focused on reforming existing institutions rather than revolutionary transformation—later critiqued for centering white, middle-class women's experiences

Kate Millett

• "Sexual Politics" (1970)—analyzed how patriarchy operates through literature, arguing that canonical male authors (D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller) reinforced male dominance through sexual representation
• Patriarchy as a political system—Millett defined patriarchy not just as male rule but as an ideology that permeates all social institutions
• Radical feminist methodology—used literary criticism as political analysis, demonstrating that culture is a site of power struggle

Germaine Greer

• "The Female Eunuch" (1970)—argued that women have been psychologically "castrated" by patriarchy, taught to suppress their sexuality, aggression, and ambition
• Sexual liberation as central to women's freedom—Greer challenged women to reclaim desire and reject passive femininity
• Provocative style made feminist ideas accessible to mainstream audiences, though her later views on transgender issues have generated significant controversy

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Intersectionality: Race, Class, and the Limits of Sisterhood

These theorists challenged mainstream feminism's assumption that "woman" is a unified category, arguing that race, class, sexuality, and other identities fundamentally shape women's experiences of oppression. Their intervention: there is no universal female experience.

bell hooks

• "Ain't I a Woman?" (1981)—critiqued both the racism of white feminism and the sexism of Black liberation movements, arguing Black women are marginalized by both
• Intersectional analysis of how race, class, and gender operate together—hooks insisted feminism must address all systems of domination simultaneously
• "Feminism is for everybody"—advocated for an inclusive, accessible feminism rooted in love, community, and ending all forms of domination, not just advancing privileged women

Audre Lorde

• "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house"—argued that feminism cannot achieve liberation using patriarchy's own methods of exclusion and hierarchy
• Difference as strength—Lorde insisted that acknowledging differences among women (race, class, sexuality, age) strengthens rather than divides the movement
• Self-definition as resistance—as a Black lesbian poet, Lorde modeled claiming identities the dominant culture deemed deviant or invisible

Angela Davis

• "Women, Race, & Class" (1981)—traced how racism and capitalism have shaped American feminism, showing how the suffrage movement often sacrificed Black women's interests
• Prison abolition and the prison-industrial complex—Davis connected feminist analysis to critiques of state violence and mass incarceration
• Socialist feminist framework—argued that gender oppression cannot be separated from economic exploitation and racial capitalism

Kimberlé Crenshaw

• Coined "intersectionality" (1989)—a legal and theoretical framework describing how multiple forms of discrimination (race, gender, class) overlap and compound
• Legal scholarship demonstrated how antidiscrimination law fails Black women by treating race and gender as separate categories
• DeGraffenreid v. General Motors—Crenshaw's analysis of this case showed that Black women's unique experiences of discrimination were legally invisible

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Poststructuralism and Queer Theory: Destabilizing Gender

These theorists question whether "woman" is a stable category at all, arguing that gender itself is a social construction maintained through repetition and performance. Their challenge: if gender is constructed, it can be deconstructed.

Judith Butler

• "Gender Trouble" (1990)—introduced gender performativity, arguing gender is not something we are but something we do through repeated actions, speech, and behaviors
• Challenged the sex/gender distinction—Butler argued even biological sex is interpreted through cultural frameworks, destabilizing the idea of a "natural" foundation for gender
• Foundational to queer theory—Butler's work opened space for understanding transgender and non-binary identities by showing gender's constructed nature

Adrienne Rich

• "Compulsory heterosexuality"—Rich argued that heterosexuality is not natural but a political institution enforced through social pressure, economic dependence, and violence
• Lesbian continuum—proposed that women's relationships exist on a spectrum, and that woman-identified experience (friendship, solidarity, love) challenges patriarchy
• Poetry as theory—Rich's work demonstrates how creative writing can be a mode of feminist analysis, not separate from it

Donna Haraway

• "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1985)—used the figure of the cyborg (human-machine hybrid) to challenge binary thinking about nature/culture, male/female, human/animal
• Situated knowledges—Haraway argued against claims to objective, "god's-eye" knowledge, insisting all knowledge is partial and shaped by the knower's position
• Technofeminism—embraced science and technology as sites for feminist intervention rather than domains of masculine domination

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Postcolonial Feminism: Decentering the West

These theorists critique Western feminism's tendency to speak for all women while ignoring how colonialism, imperialism, and cultural difference shape gender. Their demand: feminism must interrogate its own power.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

• "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988)—argued that the most marginalized women (the "subaltern") cannot be heard within dominant discourse; their voices are always mediated or silenced
• Critique of Western feminism—Spivak challenged the assumption that Western feminists can "rescue" non-Western women, showing how this reproduces colonial power dynamics
• Strategic essentialism—while critiquing identity categories, Spivak acknowledged that marginalized groups sometimes need to mobilize around shared identity for political purposes

Gloria Steinem

• Co-founded Ms. magazine (1972)—created a mainstream platform for feminist ideas, bringing movement debates to a national audience
• Activist-journalist model—Steinem demonstrated how media and public speaking could advance feminist causes, including undercover reporting on Playboy Clubs
• Coalition politics—worked across issues (reproductive rights, ERA, domestic violence) and increasingly emphasized intersectionality in later work, though early activism was critiqued for centering white women

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Both de Beauvoir and Butler argue that gender is constructed rather than natural. How do their theoretical frameworks differ, and what are the political implications of each approach?

2. Which theorists would you cite to explain why mainstream feminism has historically failed to address the needs of women of color? What specific concepts would you use?

3. Compare Friedan's liberal feminism with Millett's radical feminism. How do they differ in their analysis of patriarchy and their proposed solutions?

4. If an FRQ asked you to evaluate the claim that "the personal is political," which theorists would best support your argument, and why?

5. Spivak critiques Western feminism for speaking for non-Western women. How might this critique apply to earlier theorists on this list, and how have contemporary feminists responded to this challenge?