Can Feminism Survive a Third Term

What will happen to feminism under a third term of a Conservative government; will it sink from view as after the war? Or will we simply see our values, ideas and passions cast out into the wilderness, marginalized in a climate of right-wing restraint? 'There is a good chance we shall be eradicated,' warned Andrea Dworkin, commenting on the future of feminism in the west in a recent Sunday Telegraph interview. Echoing her fears, British journalist Jill Tweedie suggested that: 'There could be a great leap forward or the whole thing could be lost forever.' However dramatic these claims appear, they connect with some concern we all share about the future of feminist politics. In this article I want to look briefly at the changing face of feminism under the Conservatives and how the particular contradictions of Thatcherism have contributed to these changes. It seems that while the political developments of the last eight years have produced fertile ground for a range of feminisms of the right and centre, they have led to a crisis of confidence in socialist feminist politics which is partly generational but mostly to do with the pressures of a complex, modernizing capitalism. As a response to these pressures, there is a discreet but growing tendency in favour of negotiation with these competing feminist discourses. The assumption is that the protagonists have been influenced by a high point of a radical movement, but this is understood by simplifying feminism's logical but contradictory emphasis on gender. An alliance politics which attaches too much significance to sex is especially problematic under Thatcher, where gender is not only part of her project and behaviour but it is also the basis of conflicting definitions about women's politics. Margaret Thatcher, women and feminism all look alike, differ completely, yet still flourish in the same garden. Their relationship to each other has made the permutations of feminist politics all the more difficult to interpret. One aspect of this difficulty is that we are uncertain about where the Women's Liberation Movement actually is now. Over the last few

Alliance · Epistemology · Feminism · Human sexuality · Negotiation · Passions · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Term (time) · Thatcherism · Anthropology · Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US

• Passionate Beginnings

  Open Access•Sue O''Sullivan, Sue O'Sullivan et al.•Feminist Review•1982

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