not certain what will happen to the world they know most intimately if
patriarchy changes.”
17
The ideas hooks asserts about how the patriarchy is oppressive to
both men and women came to be better known and understood during
the Third Wave of feminism, and the ideas continue to be an important
part of feminism today. However, not all agree with hooks’s approach
to feminism, and there are branches of feminism that began during the
Third Wave that continue into the Fourth Wave today. These branches
of feminism present different theories about feminism, and the women
involved have different goals.
BRANCHES OF MODERN FEMINISM
Some of the many branches of modern feminism include Marxist
Feminism, Black Feminism, Ecofeminism, Radical Feminism, and
Intersectional Feminism. Marxist Feminism aligns with the works of
philosophers Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and focuses on the ways
in which women are oppressed through capitalistic systems of money
and private property. They argue that capitalism is a root cause of
women’s oppression.
Black Feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses on women of
color, who face discrimination based on both race and gender. While
some modern feminists think that this branch of feminism is a recent
development, its history goes back to the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Black Feminists say that because women of color face
discrimination based on both race and gender, they experience what
some call the
double bind
. This double bind means that women of color
are being oppressed in a variety of ways, and Black Feminists often
argue that the traditional approaches to feminism have focused too much
on the experiences of white women. According to the
Encyclopedia
of African-American Culture and History
, Black Feminism has three
key tenets:
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