Second shift feminism8/6/2023 Certainly, the rise of neoliberalism dramatically changed the terrain on which second-wave feminism operated. Was it mere coincidence that second-wave feminism and neoliberalism prospered in tandem? Or was there some perverse, subterranean elective affinity between them? That second possibility is heretical, to be sure, but we fail to investigate it at our peril. The effect was not only vastly to expand the ranks of activists but also to reshape commonsense views of family, work and dignity. Attracting adherents of every class, ethnicity, nationality and political ideology, feminist ideas found their way into every nook and cranny of social life and transformed the self-understandings of all whom they touched. What had begun as a radical countercultural movement was now en route to becoming a broad-based mass social phenomenon. Interestingly, second-wave feminism thrived in these new conditions. In the Third, by contrast, neoliberalization was imposed at the gunpoint of debt, as an enforced programme of ‘structural adjustment’ which overturned all the central tenets of developmentalism and compelled post-colonial states to divest their assets, open their markets and slash social spending. Although publicly championed by Thatcher and Reagan, it was applied only gradually and unevenly in the First World. Road-tested in Latin America, this approach served to guide much of the transition to capitalism in East/Central Europe. In place of dirigisme, they promoted privatization and deregulation in place of public provision and social citizenship, ‘trickle-down’ and ‘personal responsibility’ in place of the welfare and developmental states, the lean, mean ‘competition state’. Dismantling key elements of the Bretton Woods framework, they eliminated the capital controls that had enabled Keynesian steering of national economies. Reversing the previous formula, which sought to ‘use politics to tame markets’, proponents of this new form of capitalism proposed to use markets to tame politics. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that the rise of second-wave feminism coincided with a historical shift in the character of capitalism, from the state-organized variant just discussed to neoliberalism. Feminism and the 'New Spirit of Capitalism'Īs it turned out, that project remained largely stillborn, a casualty of deeper historical forces, which were not well understood at the time. You can read part one here. Tracing the feminist movement’s evolution since the 1970s, Fraser anticipates a new-radical and egalitarian-phase of feminist thought and action: a reinvigorated feminist radicalism able to address the global economic crisis. In this part, she examines the path of second-wave feminism during the rise of neoliberalism and the decline of the post-war settlement. In the lead-up to International Women's Day on 8th March, we share the second part of a 3-part extract from Nancy Fraser's Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis.
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