Social feminism

Social feminism is a term used to describe feminist movements that advocate for social rights and special accommodations for women. It was first used to describe members of the women's suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were concerned with social problems that affected women and children. They saw obtaining the vote mainly as a means to achieve their reform goals rather than a primary goal in itself. After women gained the right to vote, social feminism continued in the form of labor feminists who advocated for protectionist legislation and special benefits for women. The term is widely used, although some historians have questioned its validity.

William L. O'Neill introduced the term "social feminism" in his 1969 history of the feminist movement Everyone Was Brave: The Rise and Fall of Feminism in America. He used the term to cover women involved in municipal civic reform, settlement houses and improving labor conditions for women and children. For them, O'Neill said, "women's rights was not an end in itself, as it was to the most ardent feminists." O'Neill contrasted social feminism with the "hard-core" feminism of women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who saw obtaining women's rights or women's suffrage as the main objective. Social feminists typically accepted stereotypes of women as compassionate, nurturing and child-centered, while O'Neill's hard-core feminists were often alienated from these conventions.

Naomi Black in Social Feminism (1989) distinguishes social feminism from "equity feminism". Equity feminism may be liberal, Marxist or socialist, but it demands equal rights for women within the male-defined framework. Social feminism, either maternal, cultural or radical, is based on female values. It aims to expand the role of women beyond the private sphere, and to fundamentally transform society. Social feminist organizations should therefore exclude men to maintain their distinctive female characteristics. They should not attempt to be like men, since their distinctive nature may be a strength in politics. There is inevitably a risk that social feminists will align with conservative causes. In the short term social feminism is separatist, but in the longer term it is transformative, since men have lost the exclusive power of decision-making.

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