You know you’re a feminist, but did you know there are different schools of feminist thought? From liberal feminism to ecofeminism, each explores women’s liberation through a different lens. Here’s a quick guide to some of the major schools of feminism and the ideas behind them.
1. Liberal Feminism (Emerged in the 17th- 18th centuries)
Liberal feminism advocates equal rights, opportunities and freedom for women. It challenges laws, policies and social barriers that limit women’s access to education, employment, politics and reproductive choices to ensure women have the same opportunities and autonomy as men.
Central Figures: Mary Wollstonecraft and Betty Friedan
2. Socialist Feminism (Emerged in the 1960-70s)
Socialist feminism argues that women’s oppression is shaped by both capitalism and patriarchy. Rather than treating class inequality and gender inequality as separate issues, they dive deep into how economic exploitation, unpaid labour and patriarchal power interact and reinforce one another.
Central Figures: Juliet Mitchell and Heidi Hartmann
3. Radical Feminism (Emerged in 1967-69)
Radical feminism views patriarchy, the system of male power and dominance, as a fundamental source of women’s oppression. It examines how gender roles, sexuality, relationships, violence and expectations around women’s bodies can maintain this power, arguing that actual liberation requires more than simply tweaking discriminatory laws.
Central Figures: Andrea Dworkin, Audre Lorde, and Shulamith Firestone
4. Marxist Feminism (Emerged in the 1960s and 1970s)
Marxist feminism views women’s oppression through the lens of capitalism and class. It examines how women’s paid and unpaid labour, particularly domestic and reproductive labour, supports the capitalist economy while often going uncompensated or undervalued. It argues that women’s liberation is connected to transforming the economic structures that produce exploitation and inequality.
Central Figures: Silvia Federici and Lise Vogel
5. Black Feminism (Emerged in the late 1960s)
Black feminism centres the experiences of Black women and challenges the tendency of mainstream feminism to treat race as separate from gender. It emerged from Black women’s experiences of racism within feminist movements and sexism within racial justice movements, examining how race, gender, class and other forms of inequality can shape their lives simultaneously.
Central Figures: bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Patricia Hill Collins
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6. Ecofeminism (Emerged in 1974)
Ecofeminism links the oppression of women with the exploitation of nature. They argue that systems of domination, including patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism, can shape both gender inequality and environmental destruction. Ecofeminists, therefore, associate women’s liberation with environmental justice and challenging systems that exploit both people and the planet.
Central Figures: Françoise d’Eaubonne and Vandana Shiva
7. Postcolonial Feminism (Emerged in 1970s–1980s)
Post-colonial feminism examines how the legacy of Western imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism continues to shape the lives of women across the Global South. It critiques Western-centric feminist theories that universalise the experiences of Western women, highlighting how race, nation, class, and colonial history intersect to produce distinct forms of marginalisation and resistance.
Central Figures: Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
8. African Feminism (Emerged in 1970s–1980s)
African feminism centres the lived experiences of African women and challenges the assumption that Western feminist frameworks can fully explain them. It examines how gender intersects with African histories, colonialism, culture, and family structures, emphasising African women’s agency and self-determination in defining their own paths to liberation.
Central Figures: Molara Ogundipe-Leslie and Obioma Nnaemeka
9. Womanism (Coined in 1983)
Womanism centres Black women’s experiences, identities and perspectives, while recognising their relationships with other women, their communities and humanity. Coined by Alice Walker, it emerged from the need for a framework that reflected the realities of Black women and has since developed into different traditions, including Africana womanism and womanist theology.
Central Figure: Alice Walker
10. Intersectional Feminism (Coined in 1989)
Intersectional feminism examines how different structures of power and inequality overlap to shape women’s experiences. Developed from Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality, this school of feminism shows how factors such as race, gender, class and disability can interact, meaning that women do not all experience sexism in the same way.
Central Figures: Kimberlé Crenshaw and bell hooks
11. Decolonial Feminism (Coined in 2010)
Decolonial feminism examines how colonialism and Western systems of power have shaped ideas about gender, race, sexuality and womanhood. It challenges the assumption that Western feminist perspectives can represent all women and centres the knowledge, histories and experiences of women from communities affected by colonialism.
Central Figures: María Lugones, and Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí
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