Worker and bourgeois women pursued fundamentally different routes to liberation
Evidence
The Socialist Congress of 1879 proclaimed the equality of the sexes, and as of that time the feminist-socialist alliance would no longer be denounced, but since women hope for their liberty through the emancipation of workers in general, their attachment to their own cause is secondary. The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, claim new rights within existing society, and they refuse to be revolutionary; they want to introduce virtuous reforms into rules of behavior: elimination of alcohol, pornographic literature, and prostitution. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 278
Categorization
- XREF: The socialist-feminist split over class revolution vs. reform echoes the contemporaneous Marxist debates Beauvoir carries into her existentialist-feminist frame. — connects to: Pre-revolutionary working-class women had more economic autonomy than bourgeois women.; The women’s movement equated liberation with capitalist economic success — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 428; Nonviolent mass action handed liberation to the petit bourgeoisie (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- The women’s movement equated liberation with capitalist economic success
#expands(0.82) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 428 - Some feminists appropriated the movement to serve individual careers rather than collective change
#exemplifies(0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 551 - Nonviolent mass action handed liberation to the petit bourgeoisie
#exemplifies(0.75)