The Woman Question: Problems in Feminist Analysis

Abstract

The terms ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’, until today, have evoked emotional and sometimes uncomfortable, if not hostile, reactions in all parts of the globe. For those in the developing countries, feminism is generally viewed as a western phenomenon which was later exported abroad. Indeed, the concept of feminism has caused a great deal of confusion; its ‘obvious’ meaning has become an obstacle to understanding feminism, ‘in its diversity and its differences, and in its specificity as well’ (Delmar, 1986). In recent years there has been an increasing recognition that feminism is not a unitary discourse or a unitary practice. Many variants exist today, be they liberal, radical, marxist, socialist, cultural, postmodernist or eco-feminist. At the same time depending on who or where you are, one could be a Black, Asian or Third World feminist.