Raised material expectations amid inequality create explosive political potential

Evidence

Nancy Fraser describes how feminism took an intersectionist approach, allying with other emancipatory movements around class, race, and sexuality to challenge structural subordination of women. However, in the Reaganite–Thatcherite 1980s, feminism was confronted with a very different political animus that prioritized privatization, deregulation, and the elimination of capital controls and that emphasized competition rather than welfare. In this context, Fraser sees feminist ideals being resignified, surrendering their broader claims for social justice in favor of the rhetoric of recognition. Feminism became absorbed into identity politics, and issues of culture were elevated above those of political economy. Out of this shift emerged “a new romance of female advancement and gender justice” under neoliberalism that overlooked the grotesque inequalities, job insecurity, low wages, and negligible welfare provision resulting from reforms designed to promote individualism and discourage broader solidarities. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 186 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Growing inequality undermines the public sphere until the political system crumbles from within. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 104; Social reforms can backfire by raising expectations beyond what capitalism can deliver — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 320; Demographic decline and inequality drive American political rupture — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian…, 29 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Political violence arises from frustration over unmet value expectations #corroborates (0.92)
• Recognition politics can substitute for and thereby mask material redistribution #complicates (0.72) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 186