If I'm a feminist but not radical or liberal, what am I?

I’m a feminist and a mother (several times over). I use radfem spaces because they seem to be the only spaces that recognize biology, but I live in the sort of place that such beliefs are culturally... tricky. So radfem spaces provide somewhere to discuss and centre women. That said, Dittany was convinced I was some sort of sex positive liberal (nah). I haven’t ever drawn fire for being a heterosexual married woman - there are a few in the spaces I use - but I’m comfortable with discussing the issues caused by being female and child-bearing, and the pressure young women are under to be fuckable, so in some senses it really is much easier to be a lesbian radfem... less necessity for personal reflection.
I’m just a feminist. But if you are looking for matricentric stuff, the old Association for Research on Mothering, now, erm, MIRCI, has a ton of interesting stuff. Some of it quite liberal, but interesting for a very wide perspective on feminism and mothering. Andrea O’Reilly sometimes pitches up in the UK as a keynote speaker.

a healthy woman dying of a homebirth... probably not the patriarchy's fault

If home birth techniques had been prioritized in research and training, who knows how much more we might know? People might have developed cheap, portable equipment that midwives could take along and help them avoid the rush to hospital in emergencies.

Jeez louise.

And the homebirth death only applies if the woman wasn't raped. If she was raped and that's why she's pregnant and dead from the homebirth.. then it's the fault of the patriarchy

God you've just reminded me of Fukushima. They're saying it's on par with Chernobyl.

Building a nuclear power plant on an earthquake zone is probably the epitome of what patriarchy stands for

So she is right, not everything. I stand corrected Goosefoot

Instead, can I list things that aren't the fault of the patriarchy?

So umm... a healthy woman dying of a homebirth... probably not the patriarchy's fault

Certain health issues. Many health issues are in fact the fault of the patriarchy, but not all.

Earthquakes.. although it has been said that the death toll in the 2011 tsunami in Japan could've been avoided if people had heeded the warnings written by ancestors not to build on that land, but the land was cheap so.... so partly the fault of the patriarchy, that one

Given that she said "not everything hard is the fault of the patriarchy", if you want to disagree, you have to list everything.

Everything hard.

And it all has to be the fault of the patriarchy.

Err, that's just one thing.....*

Yes. Should I list more?

You'd be surprised. Protecting pedos by giving them lenient jail sentences, when outside of a patriarchy they'd be strung up by the women to serve as a warning to others

Err, that's just one thing.....

As far as the question whether there are divergencies of opinion within different types of feminism - yes, absolutely. I am not really aware of any type of political or ideological movement where this doesn't happen. Not all Marxists agree, not all deconstructionists agree, not all Muslims agree, not all Hegelians agree. Often the disagreements are substantive, and even bitter.
It's really only the groups of one where there is ideological purity. You can almost always come to several sets (at least) of ideas from the same set of first principles.

Not everything that is difficult in life is down to 'the patriarchy'.....

You'd be surprised.
Protecting pedos by giving them lenient jail sentences, when outside of a patriarchy they'd be strung up by the women to serve as a warning to others

So being a mother isn't really a free and informed choice imo. Maybe for some people idk, but none of that rhetoric makes sense to me

Hardly anyone would have children if they thought about it rationally.

as I believe outside of a patriarchy women would be able to run things more ecologically anyway

What do you mean by this, and how? Do you really believe that women are essentially better human beings than men?

And because I had no idea how powerless mothers actually were, I thought I had a better chance of protecting my children from the ravages or patriarchy. Naive

Not everything that is difficult in life is down to 'the patriarchy'.....

she made it realily clear that one of her aims was not to become a loser "just a mother

Haha! God yes. And I really wonder how many feminists didn't become mothers because they essentially thought/think mothers were just losers.

I mean under patriarchy the weak, the vulnerable , are losers. So they're not wrong in that sense.

But it's a bit different to becoming child free for feminist reasons, isn't it. Or for the sake of the children. Or to save the planet.

women are childfree by choice for positive reasons of course; but if you go about acting like mothers are losers as part of your politics, then I might hazard a guess that a choice you made when you were young runs no deeper than you simply thought mothers were shit, the way people often think women are shit.

And yeah. How to escape it? There's no pathway out. Feminism is like, oh whoops, you chose wrong, okay bye.

I know

And yeah. How to escape it? There's no pathway out. Feminism is like, oh whoops, you chose wrong, okay bye.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I think motherhood is not intrinsically patriarchal, but I do think that I should have thought it through more carefully before becoming one

It's impossible to "think it through" imo. First, because motherhood is impossible to imagine beforehand for some reason. I was the same. I had no idea what I was getting into. NOT because nobody was telling me. Mothers have been saying it loudly forever, but for some reason I just didn't hear it. And I'm not alone. You just can't tell pre-mothers anything.

I had an unpleasant experience a few days ago with a friend who has just given birth. She's younger than me and as she was talking about her gorgeous new baby she made it realily clear that one of her aims was not to become a loser "just a mother" like me. It just isn't her. She isn't that type at all. She is too intelligent for one thing. I mean, we've been there, right? We think we can escape somehow. But I've not seen a single mother escape. You can't choose your way out of it because nobody picks the lowly status in the first place. I'm not sure why it's so hard to see. Denial maybe?

The other thing is, we are all educated to become mothers. Not being a mother is seen as a big failure. My best friend doesn't want kids and, because she's a sensitive person, she's is all messed up about going against social expectations.

And anyway, the choice to be a mother is just a moment in time anyway and afterwards you're stuck with it. So it doesn't really help the majority of women to be told they can avoid oppression by going back in time and choosing differently. Thereby erasing your own children, I suppose.

So being a mother isn't really a free and informed choice imo. Maybe for some people idk, but none of that rhetoric makes sense to me.

In the early 80s some feminists in the radical side of the second wave were very much arguing that women’s experience as mothers was a source of power (one very threatening to the patriarchy) and a set of nurturing values on which to found society.

Sara Ruddick most wholly expresses this view

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Ruddick

eco feminism which I thought was one of you're new discoveries.

I wouldn't subscribe to such a feminism as I believe outside of a patriarchy women would be able to run things more ecologically anyway- it would just be taken as a given

I consider myself a radical feminist. Yet I am heterosexual and happily married to a man. I don’t have children by choice, because I felt it would be a bad choice for me. I do encourage all women to seriously think about their relationships and marriage - be it with women or men - as well as about their choice to have children or not. But I don’t see throwing out all heterosexual relations or motherhood as the fundamental “tenets” of radical feminism. In radical feminism groups I am in there are sometimes debates about these things, but many of those in the group I am most active in are straight or bisexual women and many are mothers or want to be mothers as well.

The one thing I don’t do is pull a NAMALT as despite all the wonderful things I know to be true about my Nigel, that is not the space for defending the individual man when we are talking about the class, and it is certainly not a place to centre men.

I haven't watched the video, but I should imagine it's some kind of pernicious antifeminist attempt at belittling women's naming of feminist philosophy.
Ah Sakura184 I fear you're wrong. They do check eco feminism which I thought was one of you're new discoveries.

Just want to add that by "not thinking it through", I don't mean I regret having my children. More like, I had no idea how vulnerable it makes you in a patriarchy and I wish I'd been told. Had no idea that, still it traps you in relationships, prevents you from affording housing, and that childcare is often unaffordable. And because I had no idea how powerless mothers actually were, I thought I had a better chance of protecting my children from the ravages or patriarchy. Naive.

I’m a bad feminist.

You're arguing for men's right to sex as a human right on another thread, so yeah, not the best feminist