Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T22:38:29.400Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contra Fraser on Feminism and Neoliberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Nanette Funk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article is a critical examination of Nancy Fraser's contrast of early second‐wave feminism and contemporary global feminism in “Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History,” (Fraser 2009). Fraser contrasts emancipatory early second‐wave feminism, strongly critical of capitalism, with feminism in the age of neoliberalism as being in a “dangerous liaison” with neoliberalism. I argue that Fraser's historical account of 1970s mainstream second‐wave feminism is inaccurate, that it was not generally anti‐capitalist, critical of the welfare system, or challenging the priority of paid labor. I claim Fraser mistakenly takes a minority feminist position as mainstream. I further argue that Fraser's account of feminism today echoes arguments from James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer (2001) to Hester Eisenstein (2009), but such arguments ignore contemporary feminist minority positions. I challenge Fraser's arguments that feminism legitimates neoliberalism to women, that women's NGOs are simply service‐providers enabling the state to withdraw services, and that criticisms of microcredit lending programs can be generalized into criticisms of women's feminism and women's NGOs today. I argue that these claims are vast over‐generalizations and ignore countertrends. I give empirical evidence to support my objections by considering women's activities in post‐communist European countries, which Fraser discusses.

Type
Open Issue Content
Information
Hypatia , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 2013 , pp. 179 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvarez, Sonia. 1999. Advocating feminism: The Latin American feminist NGO “boom”. International Feminist 1 (2): 181–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bajaj, Vikas. 2011. India microcredit has suffered a black eye. New York Times, January 5.Google Scholar
Beneria, Lourdes, and Sen, Gita. 1997. Accumulation, reproduction and women's role in economic development: Boserup revisited. In The women, gender, development reader, ed. Visvanathan, Nalini et al. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Boserup, Esther. 1970. Women's role in economic development. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Brenner, Joanna. 2003. Transnational feminism and the struggle for global justice. New Politics 9 (2): 25–34.Google Scholar
Eisenstein, Hester. 2009. Feminism seduced: How global elites use women's labor and ideas to exploit the world. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
Faludi, Susan. 1991. Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 2009. Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history. New Left Review 56 (March/April 2009): 97–117.Google Scholar
Ghodsee, Kristen. 2004. Feminism–by–design: Emerging capitalisms, cultural feminism, and women's nongovernmental organizations in postsocialist eastern Europe. Signs 29 (3): 727–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. 1809/1971. Elective affinities. Trans. Hollingdale, R. J.New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Goetz, Anne Marie, ed. 1997. Getting institutions right for women in development. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Hanlon, Joseph. 2000. An ambitious and extensive political agenda: The role of NGOs and the aid industry. In Global institutions and local empowerment: Competing theoretical perspectives, ed. Stiles, Kendall. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hemment, Julie. 2004. Global civil society and the local costs of belonging: Defining violence against women in Russia. Signs 29 (3): 815–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemment, Julie. 2007. Empowering women in Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Huston, Perdita. 1979. Third world women speak out. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists beyond borders. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, Press.Google Scholar
MacFarquhar, Neil. 2010. Banks making big profits from tiny loans. New York Times, April 13.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra. 1997. Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. In The women, gender, development reader, ed. Visvanathan, Nalini et al. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Petras, James, and Veltmeyer, Henry. 2001. Globalization unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st century. Halifax, N.S.: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Polgreen, Lydia, and Bajaj, Vikas. 2010. India microcredit faces collapse from defaults. New York Times, November 17.Google Scholar
Roelofs, Joan. 2007. Foundations and collaboration. Critical Sociology 33 (3): 479–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rojas‐Durazo, Ana Clarisa. 2007. We were never meant to survive: Fighting violence against women and the fourth world war. In The revolution will not be funded: Beyond the non‐profit industrial complex. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press.Google Scholar
Schild, Veronica. 1998. New subjects of rights? Women's movements and the construction of citizenship in the “new democracies.” In Cultures of politics: Politics of cultures, ed. Alvarez, Sonia, Dagnino, Evelina, and Escobar, Arturo. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Tinker, Irene, and Bo Bramsen, Michele, eds. 1976. Women and world development. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Visvanathan, Nalini, Duggan, Lynn, Nisonoff, Laurie, and Wiegersma, Nan, eds. 1997. The women, gender, development reader. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Visvanathan, Nalini. 1997. Introduction to Part I. In The women, gender, development reader, ed. Visvanathan, Nalini et al. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Young, Kate. 1997. Gender and development. In The women, gender, development reader, ed. Visvanathan, Nalini et al. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar