When (and why) did what used to be known as Feminism become labelled Radical Feminism?

[RulersMakeBadLovers]

A very incisive feminist pointed this out to me the other day.

S'all very interesting (MN should have a chin-stroking emoticon)

Radical feminism is only one stream of many. The idea that only radical feminism is real feminism, is maybe one which radfems like to indulge in, but that doesn't make it true.

Yes, there are many different types of feminism: liberal feminism, marxist feminism, hip hop feminism www.theroot.com/views/hip-hop-feminism , religious identified feminism, womanism (which is a response and sort of alternative)...

I think such diversity is a good thing, IMHO.

The marriage thing is rather strange because at the time a lot of radical feminists were writing about marriage, there was no such thing as rape in marriage. So getting married did mean you were giving up rights to determine what happened to your own body. Rape in marriage was made illegal after I became an adult and started having sex, about 20 years ago, as a consequence of these kinds of feminist critiques of marriage.

And what I wonder is, with all the backlash, if feminists hadn't got that law changed just before the backlash started, would people be in favour of it now? Or would lots of people be on here arguing that the idea was too radical, and that rape in marriage wasn't really rape, that if you didn't want to have sex with somebody you shouldn't have married them, that you could never prove it happened, and that it made a mockery of 'real' rape?

Kim, if you look up Sheila Jeffreys on youtube, there is a video of a talk she gave on Kate Millett. It doesn't mention transgender issues (and perhaps you'd rather not here her talk about that) but it gives a good idea of her feminist politics in her own words. She does cover some stuff about the politics of sexuality.

I think my point may be being missed - how did feminism become seen as radical feminism? I feel out of step somehow with "current" feminist goals. In fact, I don't understand them, if there are any. Are we supposed to be operating from a position that we are all equal now and moving on from there?

Vashti - that is a really interesting point about rape in marriage. "that if you didn't want to have sex with somebody you shouldn't have married them, that you could never prove it happened, and that it made a mockery of 'real' rape?"

That is the sense that I get in the undertones from some posts on MN. What is that about? Is it a hangover from 80s "I am am equal to any man" feminism? Some kind of equalism gawn mad.

Has libertarianism taken such a stronghold that feminism (other than in a non-active, choicy choicy form) died a death?

I know it's not so. I know that there are women out there are discussing important stuff to do with women.

So why have the goal posts moved so much? Why has default feminism taken hold which means next to fuck all as far as making a difference is concerned? Why is the mainstream "equality" when we are nowhere near it, especially on a global scale?

I think you are saying that what is now being classed as radical was just basic feminism before? It certainly feels like everyone is into nice fluffy choice feminism. Feminism is fine as long as it us in a bikini dancing on a pole type thing.

I find this whole hating of women who don't subscribe to the same ideology as you rather ironic.

hating ?

where is the hating ?

it's a discussion, WW, there is no hate here

Not sure who has mentioned hating anyone, I was just saying that it seems a expression of feminism that is beyond choice feminism is now classed as being radical when before it probably would not have been seen in that way.

No hating here that I can see...

I don't think I'm a radfem, because I don't know enough about the reasoning behind certain areas of belief to be entirely accepting of them. I'm slowly educating myself and I suspect there are some things I won't agree with, but others I will.

However I find myself working in an office with mainly 20-something graduate women (I'm in my 40's) and being seen as 'the loony hardline feminist' - because I don't let sexist bullshit stand (from men or women), don't shave my legs (they don't get to see my hairy pits because I wear sleeves to hide my bingo wings ), hate lapdancing clubs/porn/prostitution, do my own car maintenance and once expressed the opinion that Rhianna did not deserve to get beaten up by Chris Brown no matter how 'annoying and pushy' she might have been...

All that to me is fairly obvious as a rational human being, not radical, weirdo thinking, but apparently to the younger generation [gimmer] it is?

Interestingly enough when I read Backlash a few years ago Susan Faludi went through the history of Feminism and said something along the lines of (forgive my paraphrasing) that it seemed to go on a cyclical basis - women would make inroads into male privilege and then within a generation it would be all but forgotten about and we would have to start all over again.

Naively, I thought 'well, that won't happen again' - but it looks like it has :(

As to why... ?

Lovecat, I work with young women too and I get a bit sad about some ways in which they seem to sell themselves short. Then I agnonise about being patronising. (Then, occasionally, I actually get on with some work.)

I was in the workplace at a time when blatant sexism, though illegal, was effectively unchallengeable, for instance: I was told not to bother applying for an internal post because they needed a man to do it; I was told I wasn't getting a pay rise, despite an excellent appraisal with no criticisms, because "the MD doesn't like bright young girls". (I was not born in 1930 either!) I opposed about the latter, and was effectively constructively dismissed.
Now when I manage "bright young women" (as I prefer to think of them) I LOVE that they have a great boss (me, preen) who will encourage them, give them credit for their ideas and not treat them as uppity because they have them. And then it can be a bit annoying that some men treat them as eye candy anyway, but hell, that's like the weather, what can you do; but then it makes me really sad that they accept it and are not offended by, for instance, one young man turning to another at an industry do, gesturing at my very pretty young colleague and saying, "have you tapped that?"

I feel old at the gulf between my response to that, and hers. And I think, of course (who doesn't) that I am right, it is harmful and offensive, and she is missing something in thinking it's just funny; but there was a glimmer of hurt in her eyes, for a second, that she won't "indulge", there is a level on which she feels she is demeaned and humiliated but thinks the right thing to do is be a trouper.
I'm sad.
I'm really sad today.

:( Vezzie - yes, it's the old not wanting to be seen as a 'humourless man-hating feminist' thing, isn't it? I've witnessed this sort of behaviour in my office as well and it infuriates and saddens me in equal parts.

(and yes, I've been told before now that they 'needed a man' to fill a particular role I was already doing 95% of in addition to my own job!)

It makes me sad also Vezzie, this idea that you shouldn't challenge sexist behavior because you don't want to be seen as bolshy.

One of the problems for me when I was working in a male-dominated environment was that I felt pleased to "be one of the boys" and didn't want to rock the boat, so had to turn a blind eye to things like office porn, trips to strip clubs, which didn't happen that often, but often enough to make me feel uncomfortable.

Complaining about it just gives you a bad rep but it always surprised me that other women would just meekly smile and say "oh it doesn't bother me". Did they actually mean it? Had they been so socialized by the lad culture and the idea of empowerment or were they fooling themselves?

Whenever I did complain the men would play the trump card "well

I think that now there is post-feminism (choice-based don't-tell-me-what-to-do-you-man-hating-lesbian-in-dungarees) and there is radical feminism (every other kind of feminism - called 'radical' because then the post feminists can use it as a stick to beat feminists with).

When I first joined the bank I work for there was an established culture of going to strip pubs once a month on payday and every new male worker was 'initiated' by his colleages by being taken out with them.

I was extremely vociferous as to how scuzzy and revolting I found this and it did have a result, as the younger guys in the office never went again (shame they couldn't have stood up the first time) and admitted (privately) that actually they hated it and had only gone along with it because they didn't want to rock the boat.

And what Orm said, pretty much. I do not consider myself radical at all, but from the reactions I get to some of my opinions it's plain that I am perceived as one, compared with 'choicey' feminists (or worse, those who consider feminism a dirty word).

I would say that a lot of women who don't consider themselves to be feminists at all are often closer to radical feminism than to liberal feminism. A lot of the everyday concerns of many women, about poverty, the value of their unpaid work, the treatment of their children, support of other women who are in difficult circumstances are issues of radical feminism. Liberal feminism sits more comfortably with women who have found ways of individually getting on within the system. That is why its ideals get a lot of focus in women undergraduates and women starting out in the professions, because they are at the time in their lives and of a class position where many of the concerns of women are less likely to have happened to them. Of course there are some feminist issues that have a huge impact on them, and those are often the ones all feminists tend to unite over as a common goal.

Contributing to that is the removal of radical feminist thought from university courses, from reading lists and discussion topics and promotion of consumerism and individualism in contemporary society.

In terms of porn culture, I think that is generational. The current generation in their twenties have not grown up with their whole childhoods being surrounded by porn culture and so don't react to it as strongly as either many women raising teenagers, or females who are not themselves adults yet. The impression I get from teenage girls is that they have strong negative emotions about porn culture, but don't frame it as a feminist issue. A lot of them aren't seeing it is an issue of gender, but one of feeling angry and let down by adults as a group for creating, perpetuating and controlling the sexualised culture they've grown up in. I think feminism is going to change a lot as those teens and pre-teens get older and have more of a voice. Some of those people are already starting to speak up, which is why feminism is growing, but I think it is a shame that it takes things getting worse to make people act collectively. It reminds me of those left wing men who say it is a good thing when things get bad because that creates a revolt. It is all very well if you are not the person who is on the receiving end of the bad things!

Kim, I may be misunderstanding you, but although there is a radical feminist conference, many of the radical feminists attending will also attend general feminist conferences as well and be involved in more general forms of activism, both in feminism and in other political areas.

Radical feminism has existed since the second wave of feminism and has always been clear what it's about: the overthrowing of male supremacy and the root and branch destruction of patriarchal institutions and misogyny.

What's changed is that feminism became redefined in the nineties as an invidualistic choosey choice "everthing I do is a feminist choice because I choose it" movement - called the Third Wave. Thus pole-dancing, prostitution, lipstick, wearing the burkha have all become feminist because they are women's choices. Anything that contradicts those ideas now looks radical even if they aren't really. It's a bit depressing.

The Third Wave has been deeply ineffective and in many cases regressive and anti-feminist, which is why we're seeing such a upswing of real feminism now. What I'd like to see is a resurgence of classical liberal feminism, which did represent women's interests, even if it did it in a context of working within patriarchal structures. That's the part of feminism that has been most co-opted by anti-woman feminism and is the part that needs to change and find its voice to speak on behalf of women's interests again.