Not even worthy of the name? Patriarchal feminism, from MIddlemarch to Dolly Parton (?) Author. Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan) Abstract. PhilPapers lists a number of varieties of feminism, each of which has papers under its heading. Some of these varieties are associated with familiar political philosophies: there is liberal feminism, for example, and also socialist and Marxist feminism. But what about conservative feminism? Is the very idea contradictory? I present a conservative project, which probably attracted some women in the nineteenth century and probably attracts some women hence. According to this conservative project, any institution or discipline must solve problems of strategy and men should do this. Women should focus on being or becoming workers within the project, e.g. "At the moment you are employing males in that role but we can be good workers too." I call this patriarchal feminism. Draft version: version 2 (26th August 2026; version 1 14th November 2025) A baby's poem: Myself and a lady by the shore. Then myself and a lady by a river And I asked her: are you a forgiver? For I really am not And you are overshaking my cot 1. Introduction. Philosophy in the English speaking world is dominated by the analytic tradition, which started when G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell rebelled against the fashionable Hegelian philosophy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Although Russell was famously liberal and campaigned for women's rights, the tradition has become strongly associated with problems of underrepresentation in the eyes of many: it is male dominated. There are an increasing number of females though. In this paper, I want to present a kind of feminism, if it even merits the name. It seems old to me but also seems to be under the radar. In the next part of this paper, I shall present a question: socialist feminism, liberal feminism, postmodern feminism, black feminism, but what about conservative feminism?! In the third part, I shall present a conservative feminism, which I refer to as patriarchal feminism. I know no philosopher or other intellectual who recommends it. Nevertheless, in the fourth part, I shall present some suspects: one fictional and one actual. 2. The conservative feminism question. The website PhilPapers was set up by analytic philosophers and it has categories under which one can find papers. Within a category, there are sometimes subcategories. And within a subcategory, there are subcategories. Within the category of Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality, there is the subcategory of Feminist Philosophy. Within the subcategory of Feminist Philosophy, there is Varieties of Feminism. And within varieties of feminism, there are these categories: African feminism Analytic feminism Asian feminism Black feminism Chinese feminism Continental feminism Cultural feminism Critical Race feminism Ecofeminism Feminist Phenomenology Feminist Pragmatism Indian feminism Indigenous feminism Islamic feminism Latin American feminism Lesbian feminism Marxist and socialist feminism Materialist feminism Postcolonial feminism Poststructural feminism Psychoanalytic feminism Queer feminism Radical feminism Separatist feminism US Latina feminism Varieties of feminism, Misc The list gives rise to questions, such as to what extent are advocates of different feminisms able to unite for a common cause? to what extent are the various feminisms which refer to an ethnic group largely about promoting that ethnic group, with feminism as an add-on? where is the influential white women's feminism? and what about the feminism of males who prefer working for women: is that simply covered by psychoanalytic feminism? I want to look into a different question to any of these here. Some of the varieties of feminism take their names from combining the word "feminism" with names for familiar political philosophies. There is socialist and Marxist feminism, for example, and liberal feminism. But where is conservative feminism? Much as there is a liberal party and a socialist political party, there is a conservative party but where is it: conservative feminism? Is it a contradiction in terms even? Is what one would call conservative feminism even worthy of the name? 3. A conservative feminism. This is what I would call a conservative feminism, more specifically patriarchal feminism. It has three components. A. Valuing strategy. Any institution or discipline must deal with problems of strategy. There are strategic problems to solve. If we focus on philosophy, which is a discipline we all know well I suppose, how does a philosophy department in a university not lose all its students? For many other disciplines can offer some philosophy, such as law, psychology, physics, social anthropology, and computer science. Furthermore, philosophy has a reputation for being impractical. Who amongst us has not heard the question or felt the question: what are you going to do with a degree in philosophy? Like you, I was a reliable academic craftsperson in various specialisms and then this question occurred to me: how does it not lose all its students, given that other departments can offer some philosophy too and in quite a few cases lack the reputation for impracticality? ("No, we are educated in strategy from early on"?) There must be a set of people who figure out the best strategy for ensuring that philosophy departments keep going and flourish, or a single individual even. B. Valuing nale strategists. Strategy is best worked out by males. Females should not work on strategy. C. Valuing female workers/soldiers. Once a strategy is devised, females can function as reliable workers within it. For example, taking philosophy as our example, females can function as reliable workers, producing philosophy papers regularly say. Such a feminism might campaign that a certain field has mainly male workers when females can do this job better. 4. Examples. I do not know if I have met any conservative feminists. People are so masked that it is hard to say. I would guess this is Celia Brooke's position, a fictional character from the heavyweight nineteenth century English novel Middlemarch by George Eliot. She says to her sister, "Of course, men know best about everything, except what women know better," and goes on to refer to babies as an exception, a domain where women know better. The country music singer Dolly Parton - a talented wordsmith - is perhaps an actual example. I first put a draft of this paper online in November of 2025. I am editing this (mostly) the day after news of her death. I suppose her most enduring song will be 9-5, about people working hard in a job from 9 am to 5pm but not getting much credit, or any credit, and having trouble with achieving promotions. The video for the song focuses on women as the workers in a business, while the boss is a man. One interpretation of its message is "We women are good workers for you, wealthy businessman, but give us a reasonable deal: a good promotion system, adequate credit, etc." There seems no intention to replace him! In light of the weaker position of women in our societies, to set up a business as one's main source of income without much prior support would probably be a venture well beyond 9 to 5 hours. For most men too? (Observing the work that went into various modernist journals, such as by Dora Marsden and Richard Aldington for The Egoist, I confess to wondering whether, if they asked a Parton type to help them in her youth, her view would be: you would have to solve a number of problems and become more established before someone such as myself works for you. But what can I know of Parton really?) References Bourget, David and Chalmers, David (eds.), The PhilPapers Database. University of Western Ontario Centre for Digital Philosophy: https://philpapers.org/browse/varieties-of-feminism Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2026. Richard Aldington: reviews for the Egoist and more. Draft available at: https://website2.net/aldington_summaries.txt Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2026. Dolly Parton and surgical advice. "Video essay" available on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcfuI2uhwAA/ (I didn't refer to it, but this essay also draws attention to the strategist's role.) Eliot, George. 1871-2. Middlemarch. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/145 Marsden, Dora (ed.), 1914. The Egoist volume 1. Available at: https://modjourn.org/journal/egoist/ Parton, Dolly. 2014? (12 years ago.) Dolly Parton - 9 to 5. Available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxUSsFXYo4&list=RDUbxUSsFXYo4&start_radio=1 (Originally released in 1980. Songwriter Dolly Parton. Label: RCA Nashville.) Note I learnt from PhilPapers that there is an article by Shelley Wright, which also uses the term "Patriarchal feminism", in its title. I don't have access to the content and so cannot say that the use is the same. Wright, Shelley. 1993. Patriarchal feminism and the law of the father. Feminist Legal Studies 1 (2):115-140.