Some Thoughts on the Patriarchal State and the Defeat of the Era

What does it signify politically--that is what does it tell us about the relations of power of the \u27state\u27 in 1982--that the Equal Rights Amendment has not been ratified? It tells us that the patriarchal foundations of the state, even when narrowly defined in terms of the law, remain necessary to those in power. Or (at least) that those in power, particularly in this case state legislators as well as President Reagan, think that the political system of capitalist patriarchy cannot abide women\u27s (legal) equality

Gender and class in Britain and France

This article examines the treatment of women's oppression in feminist theory, focusing on the engagement of second wave feminists with the concept of class and its relation to gender. This examination is carried out with reference to British and French feminisms, identifying the main trends and shifts that have developed over the last 35 years and noting that while these are undoubtedly influenced by a particular national context they are also shaped by increasing European integration and social, political and cultural exchanges at a global level. The authors find evidence of a number of similarities in the questions that feminist theorists have asked in Britain and France but also demonstrate that there are significant differences. They conclude that areas of convergent theoretical interests will extend along with cross-border flows of peoples and information

Women’s publics and the search for new democracies

The article examines the intersections between gender, racism, global capitalism and corporate multiculturalism. The notion of nation and nationalism for the twenty-first century is explored. Women’s voices from Beijing provide a possible imaginary for transnation discourse. © 1997 Feminist Review Collective

Liberalism, Feminism and the Reagan State

Today, liberalism is in crisis. Neoconservatives believe that the crisis stems from excessive demands for egalitarianism which have created a no-win situation for a liberal democratic society, a society which is supposed to be organised around freedom rather than equality. According to most left liberals and leftists, liberalism is in crisis because capitalism is itself in crisis. Markets are not expanding as they once were; Third World countries are challenging the hegemony of American world power; structural changes in the economy have expanded the service sector at the expense of production. Few of these critics, however, define the crisis as reflecting a challenge to traditional patriarchal institutions that underpin the relations of capital. New Right groups come the closest to this analysis in their concern with reconstructing the patriarchal white nuclear heterosexual family and the traditional male role as head of household. But even the New Right, which brought family issues and questions of sexuality to the mainstream of American politics in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections, has not articulated in a systematic fashion why women's emplacement in the labour force challenges the system of liberal democracy and the discourse of liberalism so fundamentally, why the notion of equality is as subversive as it is when applied to women, or how feminism's rejection of the publiclprivate split and its recognition that the 'personal is political' is central to the crisis of liberalism