The Right Side of History? The Political Use of the Narrative of Progress in Contemporary Feminisms

Abstract

This essay examines how the narrative of historical progress is used in contemporary feminisms. It argues that this narrative is used with a specific political aim: to characterise disagreements between feminists as confrontations between the modern and the retrograde. It observes that this positioning often employs patriarchal rhetoric which prefers personal criticism to a discussion of ideas. To illustrate this hypothesis, the article analyses the use of the progress narrative in the present debate about the sex trade within a wide historical context. Undertaking the history of women’s ideas in this way reveals how some arguments in this debate have been disfigured and misunderstood in order to serve the needs of the progress narrative.