Radfem 2013 and the MRAs

I'm not certain. It is tempting to think that we have reached the apex of civilisation, I'm sure at every point in history we have thought this. It might be fear of the unknown. I mean, what comes after the revolution (what the hell is a revolution anyway.......can't happen in a single day) we look back and think that peasants walked off the land on Monday and got a factory job on Thursday and yet it was years in the making. same with the French revolution, it didn't happen in a day, the conditions existed that propelled the change forward. I think we'll have lots of historical sources in the future but we might lack the insight to understand the events fully. Plus history is always written for the ruling class ( men always rich) it is never a complete set of factual truths. How could it be because to study every account however subjective might build a full picture but how do you knit it all together into a complete objective understanding.

I do think, btw, that it is always a spectrum, understanding stuff like how babies are made.

In Tudor times, there wasn't a consensus about when women were fertile.

Even later, people still thought female reproductive organs were basically a penis turned inwards, because women were a repressed, wrong-way-round echo of men.

And it's only within the last couple of generations that we've learned that sperm don't just swim towards a passive waiting egg, they're actively pulled in the right direction by the woman's body.

Obviously all of those things aren't equally significant bits of knowledge, but I think it is quite telling that we are constantly realizing that our assumptions are shaped by what we expect about sex relations. So I find it hard to accept we can trace 'progress' in any meaningful way through history.

Engles, really difficult to read. I have read some but I found it very hard work. MooncupGoddess I take my hat off to you if you have read a lot.

I did read a while back that more recent anthropologists are looking at archaeological and newly found artefacts of all kinds and increasingly concluding that Engles was more correct than not. I'll see if I can remember where I read this and link.

It's possible we might not even know they were monotheist, I think.

We don't really know how the cultures that made women-goddess figurines thought about religion. In fact we don't know for certain those figurines are goddesses at all.

It's just an interpretation - one that suits us nicely because we like to make pictures of an idyllic past and patronize it slightly at the same time. But we don't know.

I think far into the future, people will probably be equally ill-informed about us.

Do you think we might think Mono-theist religions aren't sexist at some point in the future. I hope not, if that is so we might still be oppressed.

I recently read Gerda Lerna (again after many years) and she wrote about some of the finds that had been made by archaeologists. They had found the small stone carvings of women with huge bellies, some squatting as though in labour. Apparently many women within domestic settings kept these stone deities for luck long past the creation of "god" as male creator of all life. Seems to me that men in early pre-history may have been both amazed & suspicious of women giving birth but by the time of state formation and writing, building temples and cities I think they would have understood perfectly well how babies were made. I think it was Aristotle who thought women were immoral and had to be guided, his ideas stemmed from the idea that both slaves and women must be ruled over to protect the property rights of the man. Of course by this time there was a fully formed class system.

Well, my syntax can be shocking.

I think to be honest, I am just not up to this. I'm sorry - I'm trying, and I can see you're trying to simplify, but it's over my head.

My brain can't do English lit or retain anything like.......syntax I was grappling around wondering what had changed in the English language that made some books seem Greek to me.

Yes, I know there is evidence for fertility goddesses ... but I think in thousands of years people might very well look at statues of the Virgin Mary in a similar light, and we all know that Catholicism is not deeply, deeply committed to women's lib.

I disagree that everything is always moving forwards. That seems to me - historically - to be a meaningless statement. What is 'forward', who gets to define progress? What backwards movements do we have to ignore to define this progress? It is an artificial way of looking at history, to say that we constantly move fowards, IMO.

I would like to believe we always move forwards but I know it is not so.

I am not suggesting that we work backwards. Because I find historical materialism intuitive (and for me simple) I am always working forwards.

An analogy, why are some countries still pre-capitalist? ie third world and still largely undeveloped along industrial lines? why did capitalism happen here first and why did the industrial revolution happen in Britain? because the pre-exsisting relations btw classes and the existing mode of production, the fact that the peasants became the proletariat when they had no land to farm created the conditions for new forms of production and new social relations. So everything is always moving forwards.

In India and some areas in the east where pre-capitalist production was not feudal in nature capitalism exploits the historically specific and backward forms of production and exchange to its advantage. BUT things move on as can be seen now the peasants are being expelled from the land (that no one actually owns) to make way for capitalist forms of production. The shanty towns are being raised and in their place flats and offices are built. The proletariat are created, they are now propertyless and require employment for wage labour.

But India has a class system (caste ?) and women have appalling rights but strangely there are more women in politics than here.

If you cycle back to the civil rights movement, women were involved in politics. It isn't necessary to want to have power over others and sit in Westminster. To do so may only extend a few rights to a few women and always within the existing socio/economic class system that creates inequality.

And I will say, I am truly terrible at theory. I can cope with political ideology, but pure theory is something I think my brain just doesn't do.

I'd like to think that too (about goddesses etc.). I hope so.

I think 'radical' can mean 'root' without requiring us to do historical guesswork - and necessarily there is a big element of guesswork here. I think it is perfectly possible to say that the root problem in the world is the patriarchy, without being certain of how the patriarchy came to be.

I don't see how this means radical feminism is counter-productive, though? Am I being really thick here? (You can say yes!). I just think that identifying a root problem, and trying to identify the roots of that problem back in the mists of time, are quite different things.

I agree that childbirth has a great deal of relevance both to the formation of the general relations and the formation of class society (whether we accept that to be patriarchal or socio/economic materialist)

There was a time I think when women were revered for their life giving properties, we had fertility godesses and temples devoted to female gods. Men created (patriarchal) mono-theist religion where men became the central force in creation, supplanting women's role. A male god became the creationary force. This seems to have happened as a way of trying to reinforce women as child carers and token of exchange within the class system. A system where women were denied sexual freedoms because men wanted to be assured that their progeny was theirs in relation to protecting private property.

Hegel's dialectic informed Marx's thinking which he then applied in a materialist analysis of history.

I think that if radical is truly to mean "the root" then leaving out the materialist historical enquiry of Firestone which is key to the formation of Rad feminism is actually counter productive to finding a way forward in understanding the formation of class society (be that patriarchal or socio/economic) But then I am a sucker for theory

Cross posted.

Whew! I was wondering what the heck I'd said.

I expect I am not following correctly - I'm sorry about that.

I know who Firestone is (though I'm not sure I agree without her we wouldn't have radical feminism, because I honestly believe radical feminism is immensely simpler and more obvious than some folk like to make out).

Personally, I like to think Mary Wollstonecraft pre-empted quite a bit of Marx anyway.

I would say misogyny.

I don't know why it is the root issue, but I am sure that it is, because the majority of adults living in poverty are women, because the majority of victims of rape and domestic violence are women, because women still do not earn as much as men and are not as well-represented in the professions and in parliament as men, even in a first-world country like the UK. Because when I look at history, there is never a time when misogyny doesn't exist.

I do see what you're saying about the importance of origins. My reservation is, though, that the origins of misogyny are evidently located in the time before recorded history. Whatever they may be, they apply to a time so far back we can't imagine what it'd be like to live in it - and we wouldn't want to.

I think it is quite possible that the fact women have children has a lot to do with it - but I am not interested in trying to work out a situation where we return to a world where childbirth kills huge numbers of women, where contraception isn't known and where there is no alternative to breastfeeding for a baby whose mother can't feed him or her. So I have no interest in trying to reconstruct and retroactively right whatever wrongs may have happened back then. I'm more interested in pointing out that - in the here and now - it's a crock of shite that women are still being treated this way.

I agree that some men think they must lose rights in order for women to gain rights (and, no doubt, vice versa, though women have fewer rights in the first place). And I agree this is not necessarily correct. However, when we are talking about 'solidarity' and you feeling your husband isn't part of the patriarchy, I can't help thinking we're talking cross-purposes.

The patriarchy describes sex oppression. It is not a personal insult; it is simply a description to say that men (as a group) are more privileged than women (as a group). To say 'well I don't like that because I don't believe that's true of my DH and if you wanted to show solidarity you wouldn't say it' - which is what it feels as if you're saying - is muddling the personal in with the political.

If that isn't what you meant, I'm sorry - but, what compromise did you have in mind? What do you mean by 'solidarity' in the context of radical feminism, Radfem 2013, and MRAs?

Hell no LRD. I have never once read you post anything man hating. I appreciate everything you say and give a great deal of thought to it.

Maybe I'll give in, I don't know, I didn't think I was that incomprehensible or vague.

Firestone came out of the civil rights movement and founded the womens movement.

"Shulamith Firestone (January 7, 1945 ? August 28, 2012)[1] (also called Shulie, or Shuloma) was a Canadian-born feminist. She was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism, having been a founding member of the New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists. In 1970, she authored The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, an important and widely influential feminist text."

Wiki

Without her ground breaking analysis which turned Marx on its head (I posted this above) you wouldn't have radfem.

OK, so the root issue is sexism ? is that what you think ?

Why?

Discussing the origin of oppression is important because it will uncover the root of all oppression. In doing so it is possible IMO to see where multi-issue politics can take the place of single issue activism.

Otherwise I win rights at a cost to you, you win rights at the cost to malcombe or who ever, he wins the right to do something or say something and then all hell breaks out. That is called liberalism. This is where no ones rights trump another's rights but no ones oppression can be overcome without trampling on someone's rights. This is why liberalism is so popular with the ruling elites (whether you think they are all male or not (I do) This is the status quo. Nothing can be resolved because where one gains ground another feels he has lost. Some men believe that women demanding rights mean them handing over some of theirs. Of course this isn't really the case but when you have many separate groups you always have a perceived and sometimes real conflict of interests.

Am I posting man-hating horse shit, mini? Because you seem to think I think this about the patriarchy.

I'm not entirely sure which rad fems, where, are posting man-hating horse shit, TBH. If there are some, I will continue to ignore them and focus on the vast majority of rad fems who, like me or tunip or the women I know attending this conference, are not in the least 'man-hating'.

I still don't follow the relevance of Firestone - this isn't me criticizing it, I just honestly don't have anything helpful to say, but explained I didn't see the relevance because I didn't want you to think I was ignoring that bit.

The points about Firestone are relevant when discussing the formation of radfem theory but also in any discussion about social solidarities.

I believe patriarchy is real, but I don't believe it's found between the ears of men - why do you think anyone does think that? that is because of the incomplete or total lack of theory on the part of the radfems who are posting man hating horse shit.

No, I don't think so.

Why do you think it's about feelings when it is political? I understand your feeling of wanting to dissociate your husband from analysis, but I don't share it, not at all.

I don't follow why you think the points about Firestone etc. are relevant - what are you trying to say?

You may be right origins are important. I'm not sure myself. But no, the 'radical' bit means that rad fems think that sex discrimination is the root issue. It doesn't mean we go back to imagine what it was like for cavemen and women, and try to think what 'went wrong'. That's pretty pointless IMO (not that it's not interesting, but it's not going to solve much now!).

Would it be fair to say that your analysis is based on the judgement derived from feeling?

What is difficult to follow? happy to elucidate on anything

I think the origins are important because understanding the origins is understanding the theory.

I thought radical alluded to the "root of" it isn't enough to say that some radfems understand how other forms of oppression interesect because that doesn't explain how sex class oppression caused other forms of oppression. If it isn't linked in a causal manner then it simply isn't the root of the problem is it?

For me personally? It tends to depend when I meet them. Or read their work, if you're thinking about people more in the public eye. DH, obviously! But loads of male friends, people I've worked with, that sort of thing.

I'm sorry, but I can't follow what you're saying about the rest?

I believe patriarchy is real, but I don't believe it's found between the ears of men - why do you think anyone does think that?

I don't too much care about the origins of women's oppression. Fair enough if you do - I can see it's interesting to speculate, and sometimes I'm in the mood for a bit of that.

But now it's here and real, for me, the big issue is simply, what do I think is the best way to end it? And for me, that's radical feminism. I do believe that other forms of oppression intersect with oppression of women, of course (never met a rad fem who didn't). But I don't believe that men are oppressed because of their sex, so I can't accept that MRAs have a point. And I do believe that men are privileged relative to women when we consider sex privilege.

LRD who are the "some" men?

Marx proposed that "historical materialism is the view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all historical events in the economic development of society, in the changes of the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and the struggles of these two classes against one another"

As I remember, Firestone broke ranks with the civil rights activists because not enough emphasis was placed on women's issues. Despite the fact that civil rights encompassed all rights of the oppressed groups.

She proposed that " Historical materialism is that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause, and the great moving power of all historical events in the dialectic of sex: the division of society into two distinct biological classes for the procreative reproduction, and the struggle of these two classes with one another; in the changes in the modes of marriage, reproduction and childcare...."

Firstly we can not have known and we do not know with any certainty that the first evolutionary steps taken from pre-historical tribal society would have lead in this direction.

However before we even think about procreation we must first produce the means to subsist just one more day. We must find food, shelter and protection. We reproduce the means of subsistence first, that is our overriding urge after which comes procreation.

Patriarchy is real, it isn't to be found in btw the ears of men. It is to be found within the superstructure above the socio/economic base. All explanations for life arise out of the need humans have to make sense of the material conditions of their lives, their lived experience. Because patriarchy is a social system built on the material base and as a "catch all phrase" can be used to explain the state, judiciary, institutions etc which also sit within the superstructure It is not the cause or the catalyst but a term used by sociologists and people to explain how those institutions have shaped relations btw men and women.

What actually creates the division of the sexes is what happens in the base structure, the modes of production and of course the biological differences btw men and women. What happens in the superstructure only reinforces this.

Which is why accepting that a social system has been the cause of women's oppression has led in my opinion to a situation where there is disagreement about biological determinism.

It stands to reason that if you believe women's oppression is not a casualty of the material or of the biological then you are left thinking that men created a complex social web simply to oppress women. So where does all the other forms of oppression fit into this?

I didn't think you were speaking for mini. I will continue to assume she'll speak for herself, unless she says otherwise.