State feminism is
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
created or approved by the government of a state or nation. It usually specifies a particular program. The term was coined by
Helga Hernes with particular reference to the situation in
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
, which had a tradition of government-supported
liberal feminism
Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy. It is often considered culturally ...
dating back to the 1880s, and is often used when discussing the government-supported gender equality policies of the
Nordic countries, that are linked to the
Nordic model.
[Elisabeth Lønnå: ''Stolthet og kvinnekamp: Norsk kvinnesaksforenings historie fra 1913'', Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1996, p. 273, passim, ] The term has also been used in the context of
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
where the government may prescribe its form of feminism and at the same time prohibit
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...
s from advocating for any other feminist program.
In this sense it is possible to distinguish between a liberal state feminism found in
Western democracies such as the Nordic countries, and a somewhat more authoritarian state feminism that is often also linked to
secularism
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a sim ...
, found e.g. in certain Middle Eastern countries.
About
![Buenos Aires - Argentina (6553714277)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Buenos_Aires_-_Argentina_%286553714277%29.jpg)
State feminism is when the government or the state adopts policies that are beneficial to
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
and the improvement of women's lives. Scholars of state feminism look at the effectiveness of various government programs, and how they improve women's rights and their status in their localities. Some researchers, such as Elisabeth Friedman, have suggested that it is essential that there is a strong
women's movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such is ...
that works independent of the state in order for state feminism to be successful. In
Australia and the
Netherlands
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those involved with the promotion of state feminism can be called "femocrats." It can also be useful to apply the concept of state feminism to examine the policies towards women in countries that have a strong central state, such as
Japan.
Origin
The term "state feminism" was coined by Norwegian political scientist
Helga Hernes in 1987. Feminist theorists in the 1980s had begun to reconsider the role that governments could have on positive outcomes for women's lives. A state, as a system, could support the interests of different classes,
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
s and "racial hierarchies." It could also support a diverse number of programs that have different levels of support within government or society. The theory of state feminism originates from Scandinavian countries and their gender egalitarian policies. During the 1970s and 1980s, Scandinavian feminist organizations successfully appealed to their governments for gender equality.
At the same time, many actors pushed for women to enter the work force, leading to a movement of women into the public sphere.
Hernes labeled these steps as an approach towards a "women-friendly" state and a "state feminist".
Hernes noted that liberal welfare policies combined with high levels of women representation within legislative bodies were defining characteristics of each of these states.
In 1995, with the help of others, McBride and Mazur founded the
Research Network on Gender Politics and the State(RNGS).
[McBride, Dorothy E.; Mazur, Amy G. (2010). ''The Politics of State Feminism: Innovation in Comparative Research''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ]ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition an ...
978-1-4399-0209-7. The RNGS looked to clarify the idea of state feminism, initially defined as "when women’s policy agencies acting as allies of women’s movement actors achieve policy goals and procedural access to policy-making arenas".
With the RNGS having gender policy experts study policy debates on "hot issues" between the years of 1960 and 2000s, a structured state feminist theoretical framework came into view.
Theory
State feminism revolves around the government enforcing gender egalitarian values and the policy agendas which the state uses.
This allows a decrease in the distrust which some feminist feel towards the government within a patriarchal society.
McBride and Mazur identify two types of state feminism derived from agency-movement alliances: "Movement State Feminism" and "Transformative State Feminism." The former describes when the government reacts to the women's movement in a place by creating policies that promote "demands based on gender consciousness, women's solidarity, and the cause of women."State feminism's framework requires that these movements have two key component, "the discourse developed by women as they contemplate their own gender consciousness in relation to society; and the actors who present that discourse in public life".
The transformative process is where the demands already started within the state become "explicitly feminist" and work towards full
gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
and the possibility of transforming relationships between genders. State feminism can also drive a government to become more broadly
democratic in nature. State feminism should be conceptualized as a gradient. Each policy agency participates separately in the process of pushing policy, creating unique "substantive and procedural responses".
Hedlund and Lindberg further organize state feminism into the "macro level, meso level and micro level."
They label Hernes original theory of state feminism as being at the macro level.
Much research has connected state feminism to policy agencies, leaving a narrow scope.
To define the meso level they use Threlfall's description of state feminism, "result of the interplay between agitation from below and integration policy from above".
The meso level is best defined the interactions between women not present in the state and the bureaucrats.
This entails the access which women have to the policy agenda and the target of policy.
Lastly, the micro level consists of 4 types. Type A is when an elected government adopts the desires of "board feminists", Type B includes "revolutionary or unelected leaders" action for women, Type C involves elected officials creating policy in support of women, and Type D is the "creation of a women's policy machinery."
Women's Policy Agencies
Women's policy agencies (WPA) such as the UK's
Equal Opportunities Commission or the French's
Ministry of Women's Rights are agencies implemented to establish women's participation within the state.
WPAs have adjusted feminist movements point of change from outside the government to now within the government.
Consequently, WPAs have been used to promote certain agendas, ones which align with current policy agendas and benefit elites.
The RNGS found that women's movements are more successful when working with a WPA.
Accordingly, when these alliances attain "movement procedural and substantive goals", state feminism has been achieved.
The idea of state feminism is often conflated with the creation of women's policy agencies in governments. However, the creation of such policies does not mean that feminist outcomes are taking place according to RNGS. Thus, state feminism should not be confused with the actions taken in regards to agencies in the government that support policies for women.
State feminism within countries
Authoritarian states
Turkey
In the 20th century, Turkey's government "preempted feminism". The
Turkish national government's program in the 1920s included mandatory de-
hijabicization (unveiling of women), access for women to more education and work, and political rights for women, all as part of a national effort to emulate some Western cultural characteristics in a Muslim nation.
In the 1980s,
second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains.
...
appeared, among daughters of leading women of Turkey's
Kemalist
Kemalism ( tr, Kemalizm, also archaically ''Kamâlizm''), also known as Atatürkism ( tr, Atatürkçülük, Atatürkçü düşünce), or The Six Arrows ( tr, Altı Ok), is the founding official ideology of the Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurche ...
movement, the women being feminist within the government's definition and leadership.
The state feminism they followed, according to scholar Margot Badran, covered parts of patriarchy with an appearance of Western progressivity.
In the 21st century, Turkey's government under
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep may refer to:
People Surname
* Aziz Recep (born 1992), German-Greek footballer
* Sibel Recep (born 1987), Swedish pop singer
Given name
* Recep Adanır (born 1929), Turkish footballer
* Recep Akdağ (born 1960), Turkish physician and polit ...
has rolled back many women's rights as Turkey becomes more conservative and Islamist. In 2021, Turkey even
withdrew from a treaty on women's rights.
Yemen
In
South Yemen, also known as the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (with the subsequent unification of two Yemen's into
one, the former PDRY is now generally south Yemen), state feminism had little effect on patriarchy and did not have much influence beyond
Aden, a port city in the PDRY. "Women in the south ... seemed to believe their gains would never be rescinded. They behaved as feminists, if by that is meant shaping the lives of their choice by accessing the new options offered them. But they did not embrace a feminist ideology or identity, as this was preempted by the state. When the socialist regime collapsed, the fragile gains of state feminism went with it."
"Northern women had acquired an acute gender consciousness and developed practical feminist skills ... but they had no legitimate political space. Southern women had been able to exploit the educational and professional benefits conferred under state feminism, but they did not have the independent ideological space in which to develop a feminism of their own."
Post-unification Yemen has been analyzed by one author.
Liberal democracies
Norway
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
has a tradition of government-supported
liberal feminism
Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy. It is often considered culturally ...
since 1884, when the
Norwegian Association for Women's Rights
The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights ( no, italic=no, Norsk Kvinnesaksforening; NKF) is Norway's oldest and preeminent women's and girls' rights organization and works "to promote gender equality and all women's and girls' human rights thr ...
(NKF) was founded with the support of the progressive establishment within the then-dominant governing
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
(which received 63.4% of the votes in the election the following year); the association's founders included five Norwegian prime ministers and several of its early leaders were married to prime ministers. Rooted in first-wave liberal feminism, it works "to promote
gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
and women's and girls'
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
within the framework of
liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...
and through
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
and
legal reform
Law reform or legal reform is the process of examining existing laws, and advocating and implementing change in a legal system, usually with the aim of enhancing justice or efficiency.
Intimately related are law reform bodies or law commissions, w ...
." NKF members had key roles in developing the government apparatus and legislation related to gender equality in Norway since 1884; with the professionalization of gender equality advocacy from 1970s, the "Norwegian government adopted NKF's
quality
Quality may refer to:
Concepts
*Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something
*Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property
*Quality (physics), in response theory
* Energy quality, used in various science discipl ...
ideology as its own"
and adopted laws and established government institutions such as the
Gender Equality Ombud based on NKF's proposals; the new government institutions to promote gender equality were also largely built and led by prominent NKF members such as
Eva Kolstad
Eva Severine Lundegaard Kolstad (born Eva Severine Lundegaard Hartvig; 6 May 1918 – 26 March 1999) was a Norwegian politician and government minister for the Liberal Party. A major figure in the history of liberal feminism and the development of ...
, NKF's former president and the first Gender Equality Ombud. NKF's feminist tradition has often been described as Norway's state feminism. The term state feminism itself was coined by NKF member
Helga Hernes.
Although it grew out of 19th century progressive liberalism, Norwegian liberal feminism is not limited to liberalism in a modern party-political sense, and NKF is broadly representative of the democratic political spectrum from the centre-left to the centre-right, including the social democratic
Labour Party. Norwegian supreme court justice and former NKF President
Karin Maria Bruzelius has described NKF's liberal feminism as "a realistic, sober, practical feminism".
Sweden
![Eva Nordmark in 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Eva_Nordmark_in_2019.jpg)
Sweden has been implementing gender equality through government policy since the 1960s.
It was not until the 70s and 80s though, that Sweden would recognize gender equality as its own policy area.
Even then, policy only dealt with labor issues involving gender.
In 1976, Sweden would create the position of Minister for Gender Equality who would be responsible for maintaining gender equality.
Later, in 1982, the Gender Equality Division was founded to help the minister in the "development of principles of gender equality policy, the preparation of gender equality legislation, and the co-ordination of this legislation with the other ministers."
Sweden also has the Gender Equality council which consists of "representatives from the women’s movement... political parties, NGOs and the social partners" and meets with the minister 4 times a year.
Along with previously mentioned government policy, Sweden has also designed it own women policy agencies connecting the government to state feminism.
In addition, women's movements have had historical success with government putting into effect their demands.
This relationship has created an expectation from women's movements that the Welfare state will bring out "public measures for gender equality".
One branch of Swedish women policy agencies is their Women Resource Centres (WRC). WRCs receive public funding to balance out the gender representation of regional development policy.
The Swedish government started funding the WRCs in the 1990s after an aliiance formed between "women's movement, feminist researchers and feminist politicians".
As of 2005 there was around 150 WRCs in the country.
In 1980 The Act on Equality between Women and Men at Work was passed and along with it came 2 councils to enforce it, the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman and the Equal Opportunities Commission.
This policy was initially ineffective because it only covered "discrimination issues on the labour market not covered by collective agreements".
A change was made in 1994 which removed the collective agreements exclusion and forced all workplaces over 10 workers to have a gender equality plan.
Middle East
In the 1980s and 1990s, "feminist activists and scholars in the Middle East assailed the limits of 'state feminism' and exposed its patriarchal dimensions."
Communist and Socialist regimes
"Sharon Wesoky characterized the relationship of an emergent women's movement to the
hinesestate as 'symbiotic,' containing elements of both autonomy and dependence, and operating largely within rather than in opposition to party-state institutions."
Writing on China, Badran argued that State feminisms' have been discredited elsewhere as well
'e.g.'', in Chinafollowing the collapse of communist and socialist regimes."
After
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
split, the East side saw the implementation of ''
Mütter- und Kinderschutzgesetz''. This policy constructed a comprehensive state ran child care program that consequently led to an unprecedented 78 percent employment rate for women The countries centralized government has been attributed to a major reason as to why feminists were able to successfully implement policy
Additionally, higher government funding allowed for more ensured success for social programs before reunification.
Criticism
"Many feminists
..consider the notion of a state feminism to be an oxymoron."
Independent women's movements may be prohibited by the government.
State feminism can also be a way that the government takes over the role of speaking for and on behalf of women, rather than letting women themselves speak and make demands.
Market Feminism
Some argue that the term state feminism is dated. This is because the ever-changing political structure has overgrown the complexity which state feminism can represent.
During the latter part of the 20th century, the state's source of power was redistributed through
supranational unions and
federalism.
Along with this, a shift of power towards non-elected officials and NGOs meant other actors were now working with along the state to form policy.
Through this, policy agencies experienced a depoliticization where governments must not control policy but guide it.
Due to this, women movements had to adjust directions towards "professionalization" and "transnationalization".
Professionalization consists of forming NGOs and funding gender experts to create their own sources of policy agencies.
On the other hand, the transnatinalization of women movements has seen global women's networks working with supranational organizations to implement women's issues into treaties and other international policy.
From this, it can gathered that neoliberalism's restructuring of the state have affected how feminist policy is implemented. Kantola and Squires offer a more modern term, "
market feminism", which performs similarly but requires that the relationship between "agencies and the movement with the state" be distinctly different in such that they have "specific strategies, funding, and discourses that rely on market ideas and practices."
References
Bibliography
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External links
{{Liberal feminism
Feminist movements and ideologies
Feminism in Turkey
Feminism and society
Social programs
Society of Turkey
Politics of Turkey
20th century in Turkey
Society of Yemen
Politics of Yemen
History of Yemen
South Yemen
Women's rights in the Middle East
Politics of the Middle East
History of the Middle East