Liberal, Radical, and Intersectional Feminism: What’s the Difference?
Examining the differences between three key schools of feminist thought.
A lot of people are genuinely confused about what feminism is or means. This is because there are so many different subtypes of feminism out there. If you ask the average person what feminism means, they will say “equal rights for women” or “women having choice”. Yet actual feminist academics who have written extensively on the subject would argue it’s far more complicated than that.
Every ideology must have at least one thing that ties it all together. There are thousands of Christian denominations. Anyone can say “I’m a Christian” because the word means different things to different people.
I would argue that, despite there being so many different branches of Christianity, all Christians believe (or should believe) that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Saviour. I’m not sure one can call themselves a Christian without believing that Jesus (not David Icke) is the Son of God who died for their sins.
Regarding feminism, I would argue that even though there are likely hundreds of different variations of feminism, all feminists believe in patriarchy. Patriarchy theory did not become commonplace until the 1960s, even though the term generally originates with Friedrich Engels (The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State).
I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist if you don’t believe in patriarchy. The theory of there having been a male-dominated structure controlling women for thousands of years forms the bedrock of contemporary feminist analysis.
What feminists choose to do with that ultimately shapes what form of feminism they follow. I would argue that most branches of feminism fall under the three main categories of feminism: liberal feminism, radical feminism, and intersectional feminism.
Liberal Feminism
Liberal feminism argues for legal equality between men and women. Liberal feminists aim to solve what they consider to be disparities between the sexes, such as the wage gap, reproductive rights, and more women joining the workforce. Liberal feminism is rooted in classical liberal ideas that bore out of the Age of Enlightenment, as opposed to Marxist ideas of revolution. It is generally what first-wave feminism claimed to be founded upon: gaining social and legal rights for women.
Liberal feminism largely focuses on women gaining equal footing to men, as opposed to overcoming systemic structures. It’s a bit like welfare capitalism vs socialism: a welfare capitalist wants to reform capitalism, whereas a socialist wants to overthrow capitalism.
I used to be a liberal feminist because I supported abortion rights (which I still do), and individual female success. I don’t attribute individual female success to feminism. Phyllis Schlafly and F. Carolyn Graglia were two women who achieved a lot of individual career success, yet both spoke out against feminism. Personal responsibility and individual success need not be attributed to the wider feminist movement.
A popular form of liberal feminism is sex-positive feminism (or lipstick feminism), which was largely pioneered by Helen Gurley-Brown. Choice feminism, equity feminism, difference feminism, cultural feminism, and individualist feminism are largely offshoots of liberal feminism. All emphasise individual freedom over collective revolution.
Radical Feminism
Radical feminism differs from liberal feminism in that it seeks to dismantle the systemic patriarchal structures that (allegedly) oppress women, and restructure society to eliminate male supremacy. It is rooted in Marxist-based analysis rather than classical liberalism, and divides women and men into the “oppressor” and the “oppressed”.
A radical feminist would say, ‘Disney movies promote outdated patriarchal views and say women need to be rescued by a man’, while a liberal feminist may say, ‘Disney movies empower women by featuring positive female heroines.’
Radical feminism is, in my view, at the core of what contemporary feminism truly is. While first-wave feminism had many problems and was definitely misandrist, feminism didn’t become mainstream until its second-wave kicked off in 1963.
Feminism was largely radical between the 1960s-1980s, before softening in the 1990s and early 2000s with the offshoots of liberal feminism mentioned above. The 1990s feminism saw girl power and the rise of corporate feminism, which influenced me as a teenager later on.
When I identified as a liberal feminist, I read How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran and thought it was wonderful. I talked to a girl from my sixth form who identified as a radical feminist, and was a bit shocked and uncomfortable by what she said. She insisted “misandry isn’t real” and said she couldn’t stand Caitlin Moran’s branch of feminism.
Many of the well-known academic feminists of the second-wave feminist movement, such as Andrea Dworkin, Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem, Catherine McKinnon, Sheila Jeffreys, Robin Morgan, Sally Miller Gearhart, Judith Butler, and Germaine Greer, were all radical feminists.
We have this branch of feminism to thank for catchphrases like “the personal is political” and “the future is female”.
Offshoots of radical feminism include Marxist feminism, socialist feminism, lesbian feminism (or political lesbianism), and anarcha-feminism.
Intersectional Feminism
Intersectional feminism is arguably a form of radical feminism, as it also seeks to dismantle the patriarchy. However, it seeks to rectify all types of oppression and discrimination: sexism, racism, classism, ableism, ageism, heightism, overweightism — you get the picture.
Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. She noted how the feminists of the first and second waves were largely white, heterosexual, upper-middle-class women. Crenshaw wanted to discuss issues facing women of colour, specifically black women. She claimed that to really have an equitable world, we needed to examine how black women have been oppressed, and then go deeper into black trans women, black trans lesbian women, black trans lesbian pansexual women, black trans lesbian pansexual overweight women, etc.
Online woke activism is largely pop-intersectionality. All of this was pushed by feminist academics and gender theorists who wanted to restructure society.
Which is correct?
It’s incredibly exhausting to truly unpack feminism, considering the word means so many different things to different people. Many self-described feminists don’t even understand feminism.
The extent to which liberal feminism is considered “real” feminism among the radicals is debatable. Sex-positive feminists have pushed for sex work to be decriminalised since the 1970s. Margo St. James was an American sex worker who wanted sex work to become legal. Many modern sex-positive feminists now promote OnlyFans as a feminist act.
Radical feminists do not support sex work and generally don’t agree with OnlyFans as a “feminist” profession.
From my experience, most feminists who start off as liberal feminists gradually shift towards becoming more radical with time. This happened to the YouTube channel The Take: initially they seemed geared towards liberal feminism, but since 2020 have become increasingly radical and anti-male in their work. I loved their channel for years but grew fed-up with their one-sided misandrist rhetoric.
A key modern difference between radical and intersectional feminists is transgender ideology. Radical feminists (known as “TERFs”) are largely against transgender ideology, and do not believe that men who undergo a sex change to become female can be classed as female. Intersectional feminists push that “trans women are women” and we need to accept anyone identifying as whatever they want. Intersectionality goes one step further than radical feminism in that it wants to dismantle the entire white male-dominated capitalist heteronormative patriarchy and free all ethnic, sexual and gender minorities from their alleged shackles of oppression. (Bit odd how these theorists are all highly educated and live in affluent societies.)
Personally, I think all forms of feminism are unnecessary.
Check out the video below discussing second-wave feminism:
Theres a lot of strains of feminism, but i reject all of it due to their fundamental belief of patriarchy and men as oppressors. That's something I can never stand.
I want to talk a bit about intersectional feminism because the discourse around this is heavily distorted when it could've been beneficial. The idea of intersection accounts for different experiences based on cultural upbringing and distinct issues faced by each culture, as well as different cultures clashing with each other. I think of someone that grew up in a 3rd world country, comes to the West for a better life, yet find struggles there like language barriers, cultural gaps, facing economic disadvantages that affects quality of education. Even someone born in the west but to an immigrant family faces some level of conflicted upbringing growing up due to facing different cultural influences and needing to survive (if theyre not as economically well off). I think intersectionality in this sense captures real struggled perfectly.
The problem with intersectional feminism and how its applied is that its turned into oppression Olympics based on your identity. It judges different types of oppression one might face just because of your identity. They dont actually ask about your experience, only assume it. If you're a brown gay man, then you must face more oppression than a white hetero woman because of theyre more privileged on the basis of their skin color, not account that said brown gay man might actually not be that oppressed at all.