The strand of feminist political thought that argues for equal rights for women within the framework of liberal democratic institutions. Founded by Mary Wollstonecraft in the 1790s, liberal feminism argues that the principles of natural rights and rational equality which liberal thinkers applied to men must apply equally to women. The tradition has shaped first-wave suffragism, mid-20th century equality feminism, and contemporary debates about gender equality in public and economic life.
Tradition
Liberal Feminism
The strand of feminist thought that argues for legal and political equality of the sexes within liberal democratic institutions.
Thinkers
Thinker
Susan B. Anthony
1820–1906
Susan B. Anthony was the foremost leader of the American women's suffrage movement, an abolitionist-turned-organizer who spent fifty years turning votes for women from radical idea into inevitable reform
ThinkerSimone de Beauvoir
1908–1986
Simone de Beauvoir was the French existentialist philosopher whose The Second Sex (1949) founded modern feminist theory, grounding women's liberation in the freedom to become rather than be
ThinkerMartha Nussbaum
1947–
Martha Nussbaum is an American political philosopher whose capabilities approach, work on emotions and law, and universalist feminism have made her among the most influential living theorists of justice
ThinkerMary Wollstonecraft
1759–1797
Mary Wollstonecraft was the founding philosopher of modern feminism, whose Vindication of the Rights of Woman showed that Enlightenment liberalism, taken seriously, requires feminism
ThinkerEmma Goldman
1869–1940
Emma Goldman was a Russian-American anarchist whose fearless advocacy of labor rights, free speech, and birth control made her the most visible radical in early twentieth-century America
ThinkerHarriet Taylor Mill
1807–1858
Harriet Taylor Mill was a British liberal philosopher of women's rights whose collaboration with John Stuart Mill shaped On Liberty and whose Enfranchisement of Women was one of the century's most radical feminist arguments
ThinkerVoltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist and feminist who championed individual liberty against state, church, and marriage alike, defending a pluralistic 'anarchism without adjectives'
ThinkerJohn Stuart Mill
1806–1873
John Stuart Mill was the liberal philosopher and 19th-century reconciler who humanized utilitarianism and rescued liberalism from its colder instincts, giving the modern world its sharpest defense of free speech
Related through shared thinkers