Yes! I feel that the feminism of civilization (please ignore if this doesn't fit you! I realize many flavors of feminism flourish out there) that seeks "equality" sociopathically manipulates women to want the same thing men have, the money and power and career status that our culture identifies as wealth
There are many different theories or strains or schools of thought within feminism, but they can be classified several ways.
First, they can be divided between what is sometimes called Liberal or Equity Feminism, which seeks âequalityâ for women within the existing system, and various kinds of feminism that seek to change the system in some way.
Equity Feminism, of course, has by far been the most successful brand of feminism. It not only does not threaten the system, but actually strengthens capitalism in various ways. First, the economy grows the more life functions are brought into the money economy. Growing food in the garden, cooking for your family, or trading babysitting with your neighbor do not increase the GNP, but buying microwave dinners and paying for childcare do. Secondly, movements for âequalityâ that promote individualism and the atomization of society help to break down social networks and lock people into dependence on money to survive. Libertarian Feminism also belongs to this school of thought.
The schools that hold that feminism should change society in some way include Marxist or Socialist Feminism, Radical Feminism, Anarcha-Feminism, Eco-Feminism, Goddess and Pagan Feminism. In turn, these can be distinguished by two orientations: Marxist and Radical Feminism focus on the oppression of women as the foundation of class oppression and exploitation (and the patriarchal nuclear family as the model for society as a whole) while Eco-Feminism and Goddess Feminism focus more on the civilized suppression of feminine values such as cooperation and sharing, and Anarcha-Feminism tending to combine both of these.
Another way that different schools of feminist thought might be classified is a ânature/nurtureâ division, with most forms of Radical and Marxist Feminism holding that gender differences are entirely cultural and should be abolished, while Gender Feminists hold that women have some intrinsic differences from men that should be respected. (The theory that all gender differences are culturally programmed is fading away.)
There are other differences and schools of thought in feminism, but all of them take for granted certain civilized assumptions that a Tribal Feminism would not.
One key characteristic of civilizations is that kinship becomes linear, a line of inheritance from parents to children, and each line is separate. This makes the nuclear family (father, mother, offspring) the kinship group, and separates each family from each other (even if you keep in touch with your cousins, you and they do not take care of each other as in a tribe). Each family is private property (through most of civilized history, women and children have more or less literally been the property of the patriarchal male).
I talked about the burden this places on women in my other post, but here is another aspect of it. With the nuclear family (dad, mom, kids) the basic kinship unit of society, the foundational kinship bond upon which the whole family depends is the bond between husband and wife. And if the bond between husband and wife is broken, the family goes into a crisis. The children often pay a great price, and they often become a burden to the single parent left raising them⌠or left paying for their childcare while he or she works at a job.
Before the womenâs liberation movement, the stability of marriage and family was ensured by not giving women any other choice than staying in the June Cleaver prison-box. In US society, fifty years ago, divorce was a disgrace, out-of-wedlock children an even bigger disgrace, and a single or divorced woman would have a difficult time making a living. Now divorce is easy, bearing children out of wedlock is accepted, and women have plenty of alternatives to staying in a relationship that is a prison.
So the one kinship bond that this society is built on, the marriage/spousal bond, breaks easily now, and so socially this society is falling apart.
This is one of the internal contradictions that is bringing this civilization down. For the capitalist economic system, the more that social systems disintegrate, and the more that each individual is left floundering for himself or herself, the more the economy benefits. An atomized society both has higher consumption rates (every house has its own television or three) and locks people more securely into wage-slavery. But on the other hand, social breakdown leads more crime, drug-addiction, and other social problems, as well as to people questioning their situation and rebelling against it. (The rise of fundamentalism came out of fear of the social breakdown.) Police, prisons, and all the instruments of coercion and repression unknown to tribal society become necessary to keep control.