In the US, feminists have been very hypocritical with the label of feminist. You don’t deserve it unless the sisterhood grants it. A woman like Sarah Palin can have all of the characteristics that the feminist movement has promoted for the past 40 years, but if she doesn’t agree with the Democratic Party, she’s not a feminist.

There’s a lot wrong with Marxism. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t work, it tramples on the rights of individuals and promotes collectivism over everything. In order achieve goals, the government must do away with private property, religious rights and run all businesses.

Feminism is a social theory built on the economic principles of Marxism. Unless you completely reorder society and eliminate capitalism, it will never work. What you are left with is a superficial label.

And what’s wrong with Marxism?

To be fair, you didn’t say that. It was a snarky comment that I couldn’t resist given the overwhelming response from my review of feminist writing and blogs.

Is embracing the f-word an issue unique to conservative women? That’s a wider problem that even the most ardent feminists have acknowledged. Most women don’t want to carry the label. Why would conservative women, who have been attacked for decades, want to pick it up?

While the goal of feminist philosophy has not been successful, the movement has achieved important victories. Many policies have helped women and needed to happen (having bank accounts, ending workplace discrimination, etc.). While it is ultimately feminism that brought about those changes, they’ve become ingrained into society. At this point, not many people are going to recognize that those changes should be separately attributed to the women’s movement. That’s just how society is. Is that feminism? Palin’s success is a result of societal changes, but modern feminism doesn’t reflect her views. Should she be labeled a feminist when that philosophy doesn’t really represent her?

It’s not a matter of coincidence. If you look at mainstream feminist theory, all of them want a complete restructuring of our society that eliminates money, private property, family units and capitalism. I’m not sure what else to call that but Marxism.

Marxisim is a wider philosophy than feminism, but feminism wouldn’t be what it is without socialism. The movement widely borrowed from its teaching.

As for the polls, Obama is still popular with young people across the board. After that, he’s slightly more popular with women, but there’s not a big difference. I never said that Palin appeals to all women in the country. However, she has an incredible draw with conservative women. That’s the interesting phenomenon. In US history, there has never been a galvanization of right-of-center women as a political force. That’s completely knew and what baffles the media.

Overall, Obama’s numbers are bolstered by young people and Palin’s numbers are bolstered by conservative women. When you average them out for the entire population, you get roughly equal approval ratings.

It’s a little ridiculous to say “Hey, look at these early feminists! A lot/most of them were on the far left politically, in their day! Ergo, feminism is just gender-based Marxism!”

The reality is that Marxist ideas and the politics of the far left had a major influence on a whole slew of ideologies and academic disciplines. You might as well try to make the case that history from such and such a period is basically just event-based Marxism or that philosophy from such and such a period is basically just abstract idea-based Marxism. The fact of the matter is that early feminism tangled with Marxist ideas because Marxist ideas were a major, intellectual force during that period.

It would have been ridiculous for de Beauvoir to exclude (for instance) the chapter of The Second Sex that critiques Engels’ account of the development of gender roles because of the “Oh no, communism” effect. Likewise, it’s ridiculous for someone to look and say, “Oh, those feminists did a lot of left-wing stuff; feminism is just like communism.” Two ideas can co-exist in the same head without becoming one; if you want to show that feminism=Marxism, why not try talking about the concepts embraced by each?

(On a totally unrelated note, a lot of your posts seem to offer paeans to how popular Palin is, especially among women. But I note another mentioned some poll showing approval of Obama and of Palin being roughly the same.

Since it’s well-known that men are statistically much harder on Dems than women in the U.S., we can safely assume that Obama’s numbers among women are at least as good as, if not better than, Palin’s. So, would you say that Obama offers a similiar sort of rallying point and source of political pride for a substantial group of women, like you imagine Palin does?)