is it safe to ask what an 'extreme' feminist is yet?

[Alameda]

have been wondering for ages but wasn't good time to ask while all the shouting and stuff was going on

[Alameda]

(please don't go all shouty again though )

[EclecticShock]

I guess most people might think an extreme feminist is someone who views the world purely in terms of how it affects women. Just my take on it though. Feminism seems to be a spectrum, with people taking feminist theory and applying it to real life in different ways and to differing degrees. IMO, an extreme feminist would exclude other non feminist theories and dynamics as a contributor to life.

[Alameda]

oh I thought it would be some daring vision of female supremacy achieved through violent means or something

[FallenCaryatid]

Put 'extreme' in front of a range of other nouns and it becomes someone who pushes that activity or philosophy as far as possible, so that it becomes a consuming passion and an indispensable part of their lives.
That can also sometimes lead to an inflexibility of mind, and an impatience with others who do not see how important it is and should be.
Which can result in polemic monologues on the subject they live by to convince others of the rightness of their choices.
Feminism can be one of those areas.

[TeiTetua]

We might have several different ideas of what an "extreme" feminist would be like. If the adjective were "radical" then I'd think it meant someone's political views, but to me "extreme" seems more like a description of behaviour. I could imagine someone willing to be violent (Hothead Paisan?) or perhaps a woman like EclecticShock's example, who's thinking about feminist issues in every aspect of life. Or another form of "extremism" might be if a woman tried to live so as to avoid men as much as possible. It could have different forms, but something that would put a person outside the norm, from feminist motivation.

[HesterBurnitall]

I think that the worst thing about the recent kerfuffle is that it had very little to do with feminism yet left a lot of us questioning ourselves over our feminism and posting style.

[LaurieFairyCake]

I also think the word extreme is related to behaviour - I think that female separatists who establish communities outside the patriarchy may fall into that.

[AliceHurled]

Extreme is just a word used to try and discredit people. It's a very zeitgeist word since 9/11 like terrorist, war on ..., fear etc. Language is a powerful thing used to shape how people operate, states operate, control what is and isn't 'normal' etc. the post 9/11 world is very different to the pre 9/11 world in no small part due to this use of language. And this language use permeates throughout society so will then be used as a way if discrediting politics. People only ever use 'extremist' in a pejorative sense.

There's a lot of writing on this stuff in the politics world at the moment, it's quite a zeitgeist thing at conferences in the field too.

And to preempt what is likely to follow, I'm not saying all people who use the term are deliberately using it in that way, although I do think some are. Nor are all aware of how it taps into these controlling discourses, although some will be. The connection is far more complex than that, hence my reference to how these things seep into wider society.

By the definitions given below, the suffragettes sound pretty 'extremist' to me. All the disrupting horse races, death, being imprisoned and hunger strikes. Imagine how they would have been seen at the time.

[OatyBeatie]

I think one way in which the "extremism" of radical feminism could be characterised is that it regards the existence of two social classes men and women, respectively the dominant class and the subordinated class as the single fundamental explanatory fact about society, the fact in terms of which all social institutions are to be analysed. Other feminisms would allow the fundamental explanatory power of other forces. For example, socialist feminism holds that at least some of the time (but not necessarily all of the time) gender relations supervene on economic relations (of ownership and non-ownership), and don't themselves determine economic relations

A problem with identifying the rad fem view as "extreme" seems to be that it creates an impression that radical feminism is just feminism taken to its fullest extent, as if there were a pre-ordained feminist journey, with a single direction and with individual feminists just choosing to stop off and make camp at their preferred point along a single road. That's how you get the unhelpful idea that the radical feminists are extremists and/or that the rest are "feminist-lite" -- uncomplimentary to both sides.

That picture relies on a false idea that there are just two feminist orientations, "liberal feminism" and "radical feminism," and hence a single spectrum, when in fact of course there is a whole family of feminist orientations, to which the idea of "more extreme" or "less extreme" doesn't always apply.

As well as rad feminism and liberal feminism the family of feminisms also includes at least the following (I'm sure other posters could suggest more):

--socialist feminism (no less radical than rad fem, but with different explanatory categories that are incompatible with rad fem)
--difference feminism (with incredibly interesting ethical theories)
--critical race feminism/third wave feminism
--postmodern feminism

Only some of those are mutually incompatible, and it is possible to identify with more than one of them. I really really hope that discussions on this board can now be fluid enough to match the fluidity of feminism itself.

[AliceHurled]

So are Marxists 'extremists' in the economic or class sense? I'd say they were radical in the sense that they see economic structures as the root of oppression. I wouldn't say they were 'extreme'.

Same as any structuralist. They are radical in their politics, not necessarily 'extreme'.

[OatyBeatie]

I suppose there is a perfectly neutral sense in which marxists, radical feminists, etc, could be called extreme, in that their views are relatively far from the cluster of less radical views (whether on a single spectrum or on some richer sort of picture of the set of all possible views).

But it is an open question whether it is helpful to characterise views in terms of their extremity or non-extremity. As you say, the term doesn't tend to get used neutrally. It is used to marginalise and divide. It puts a negative gloss on radicalism, and sometimes also it provides the conceptual baggage for radicals to put a negative gloss on what they regard as non-extreme positions, which are disparaged as "feminism-lite"

It's not that the category of "extremist" is an empty one, its just that making extremism or non-extremism salient in our categorisations of political viewpoints is unhelpful, decisive and perhaps reactionary.

[AliceHurled]

Agree OatyBeatie. 'Extremist' is such a politicised term that it's not possible to retain any useful meaning. Radical is interesting in that sense, as in many places is also contains this negativity (perhaps due to the way it's conflated with 'extreme') although for me it retains a whole different and fairly mundane meaning, due to the other places I see it used in a pretty normal context. I'm talking mainstream political analysis rather than anything particularly 'out there'.

[EclecticShock]

Oatey, I found your posts helpful, thanks.

[EclecticShock]

Oaty, even.

[Alameda]

thanks all

[KRITIQ]

I've never heard the term "extreme feminism" used anywhere but on this thread actually. I don't think it's a recognised term, so the definition will probably just be subjective (so not all that helpful, imho.)

[Alameda]

it was used a lot during recent discussions about this bit of MN, thought it said a lot about various people's perceptions although there was always the chance there really was such a thing as Extreme Feminism, where you read Mary Daly while doing base jump without canopy from Meru peak or something

[AliceHurled]

Love that picture Alameda Maybe you could set up one of those experience companies with a focus on extreme feminism. Bungee whilst reciting Dworkin, tandem parachute jump with someone explaining the patriarchy to you.

[Alameda]

ok

will kick off with white water rafting with a cordless iron while smoothing out creases in shouty men's scrotums

[OatyBeatie]

Thanks eclectic.

Kritiq, I don't imagine anyone thought of is as a "recgonised term", in the sense of being an acknowledged label for a well-defined school/strand. It's just a simple application of an adjective to a noun, which has often been made recently in the recent mn discussions I think, and which is widespread as a way of expressing distaste/alienation unfortunately.

[KRITIQ]

Oaty, I suppose when I think of the context you mention, perhaps the term "extreme" was more in reference to the communication style and approach of contributors, rather than their political views?

So say, someone can be broadly in agreement with a person's views, but find the way they convey them to be (as you mention) distasteful or alienating, and therefore choose the term "extreme" to describe this.

[OatyBeatie]

yy I agree Kritiq, that was probably the nub of it. Or at least part of the nub. Or one of the nubs.

There are lots of different dimensions to any feminist position, and to any feminist person. And extremism on one dimension could co-exist with non-extremism on another.

Some different dimensions within the same stance might be, e.g., the nature of the analysis of society, the kinds of reforms pursued, the tactics employed in pursuit of those reforms, etc.

And I guess an aggressive, uncompromising debating style might fall in the realm of tactics, and could in principle coexist with non-extremism in the realms of analysis, reforms sought, etc.