Regarding the important issues in feminism, it is necessary to refer to the term socialist feminism, to examine the issues of the dualistic typification, beauty ideals, and the beauty industry in the context of feminism. It is also important to suggest some solutions and criteria stabilize newly appeared tense situations around these issues in modern society.
It is a derivation of feminism that mainly focuses upon certain spheres of life of a woman: the public and private. Socialist feminism also argues that liberation itself can be achieved only by “working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women’s oppression” (Olsen, 1997).
It might be said that socialist feminism is a dualistic typification theory that extends Marxist feminism’s reasons for the role of capitalism in women’s harassment and oppression and radical theory of feminism in the issues of gender and the patriarchy’s role. Here might be also regarded as such issues that led to the concept of “women or feminine” against “men or masculine”.
Some of the contributors to this movement have criticized common traditional Marxism for not being able to find an inseparable connection between the issues of “patriarchy” and “classism”. It is important to point out that Marx and Engels were silent on gender harassment and oppression except that they subsumed it beneath wider class harassment and oppression.
Marx knew that when oppression connected with the class issue was outdone, gender harassment and oppression would disappear as well. According to socialist feminists, “this view of gender oppression as a sub-class of class oppression is naive and much of the work of socialist feminists has gone toward separating gender phenomena from class phenomena” (Meehan, 2002).
Other socialist feminists, for example, such famous American organizations as: “Radical Women” and also “the Freedom Socialist Party, refer to the common classical works of Marx and of Engels, such as “Private Property and the State” and “Origin of the Family”. Also they refer to “Woman and Socialism” by writer August Bebel. These socialist feminists consider those works a strong explanation of the connection between gender harassment and oppression and the issue of class exploitation.
But from the other point of view, the Socialist Party of the United States is a bright example of party of a socialist feminist which is not a Marxist one, although certain members identify themselves as Marxists. This party has its statement of principles which says: “Socialist feminism confronts the common root of sexism, racism, and classism: the determination of a life of oppression or privilege based on accidents of birth or circumstances. Socialist feminism is an inclusive way of creating social change. We value synthesis and cooperation rather than conflict and competition” (Ramazanoglu, 2000).
In this context, it is necessary to mention the beauty ideals and the beauty industry. Despite achievements made since the time of the rise of the movement held by women, the pressure on females today related to beauty ideals and standards may appear even wider than it was thirty years ago.
It must be outlined that the standards and requirements are not just more hard and difficult to meet, but it should be said that the targets for this kind of pressure are much younger nowadays. It might be regarded as a means that the beauty industry has explored the profit and benefits to be made from the young girls called “tweens”, who are just about entering their teenage age.
Following these facts, it should be said that the wider availability and circulation of mass media services means that the effect and influence of beauty ideals have belled in a geographical as well as in across – classes’ way. Thus appears a question about the issues that should be done by the feminists to improve and stabilize the situation. Nowadays they hold campaigns (Such as the “Dove” commercial campaign) aimed to challenge unrealistic and not true images of women in the advertising industry. Such campaigns encourage our society to look for a wider definition of what is called “beauty”. It is also aimed to inspire women to enjoy and to be proud of themselves.
Works Cited
Johnston, Carolyn. Sexual Power: Feminism and the Family in America. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1992.
Meehan, Eileen R., and Ellen Riordan, eds. Sex & Money: Feminism and Political Economy in the Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Olsen, Frances Elisabeth. “Feminism in Central and Eastern Europe: Risks and Possibilities of American Engagement.” Yale Law Journal 106.7 (1997): 2215-2257.
Ramazanoglu, Caroline. Feminism and the Contradictions of Oppression. London: Routledge, 2000.