%0 Journal Article
%T Learning from the Budapest School women
%A Pauline Johnson
%J Thesis Eleven
%@ 1461-7455
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0725513619839245
%X What can Western feminism hope to learn from women whose feminisms were originally shaped by experiences behind the ¡®Iron Curtain¡¯? In the first instance, an acute sensitivity to the importance of a politics that is responsive to needs. In its social democratic heyday, Western feminism had embraced a politics of contested need interpretation. Now, though, a neoliberal version has converted feminism into an attitudinal resource for the individual woman who is bent upon success. The takeover was made easy by the poor self-understanding of social democratic feminism. My paper will compare Agnes Heller¡¯s theory of ¡®radical needs¡¯ and Maria M¨¢rkus¡¯s account of the ¡®politicization of needs¡¯ and apply both to the normative clarification of endangered feminist agendas. We look to the Budapest School women for more than just a way of conceptualizing the political radicalism of modern feminism as a social movement. Women need heroes too and a reflection upon the dignified and admirable lives of Agnes Heller and Maria M¨¢rkus has much to contribute to an ongoing search for a feminist ethic of the self
%K feminism
%K Heller
%K M¨¢rkus
%K politicization of needs
%K radical needs
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0725513619839245