Why is Mumsnet so GC?

Yes radical feminism is based on the fact that women are discriminated against and worse because of their sex, ie women as a sex class are oppressed by the male sex class.

But that does not mean its simplistic, it means that irrespective of your race, religion, class and so on, women still share a common experience of oppression by men. But what radical feminism also recognises, as it is about grass roots activism, ie life as lived not theoretical concepts, it is about autonomous action and thought.

So this means radical feminism with its common understanding of sex as the basis of women's oppression allows / encourages women with other commonalities such as race or class to work together to provide a framework for how to organise based on the overall common oppression of sex and another common shared oppression such as race.

In theory this allows women to work together as suits them rather than some top down notion of this is what you should do or think, ie at any time or most of the time women can work autonomously as a single issue group, but can also them join the larger group on a shared concern eg abortion.

The practice of interesectionality is presented as these positions being competitive and lead to as much time being spent on competing as to who should acknowledge this or that group as though it were some a constant jostle for power positions.

Intersectionality as banded about is very much about academic theory and gives some women the opportunity to endlessly write and pontificate, and talk down to other women for not sharing their concepts.

Whereas radical feminism (in theory!) means that at any one time disperate groups of women can come together on a shared issue, as well as continue to have the right to organise around the issues that are their priority.

Obviously that doesn't guarantee that in shared spaces or campaigns racism or classism isn't an issue, but in aiming for non hierarchical activism, it shouldn't become so easily entrenched.

However I think neither concept of feminism has really survived the surge in queer trans politics.

Intersectional feminism embraces it and then become submerged, whilst radical feminism doesn't, not because of transphobia but because what it proposes is totally the opposite to the basis of radical feminism. Women as a sex class.

Yes, a comparison might be the labour movement who were historically pretty poor on women's rights, saying workers rights first (ie majority male) AND THEN we can get round to your little equal pay struggle...

So black women see a majority white feminist movement concentrating on women's rights first (majority white) and ask when will you centre our specific needs that are juyas important?

They don't have to be in conflict, but they are when done poorly, and not everyone's voice is heard (and it's not just intersection with race, also class, disability etc)

What is the difference between intersectional feminism and radical please?

My understanding is that radical feminism focuses on women, as a sex class, being oppressed by men as a sex class.

Intersectional feminism considers a lot of different variables and that e.g. a black woman's experience will differ from a white woman's experience.

Radical feminism has a focus and clarity intersectional feminism lacks, but is criticised for being overly simplistic and / or biased towards the majority experience.

Intersectional feminism is good for a more detailed understanding of individual women's oppression, but is much less effective at spotting bigger patterns. Moreover it has a tendency to create hierarchies of oppression, and in recent years has included biological males who identify as women.

Anyone more knowledgeable can correct me as I've probably missed something important!

Which definition of intersectional feminism are you using?

The original that recognises that women may be oppressed in more than one way, so the needs of black women (who are oppressed for their race as well as sex) differ from white women.

Or

The bastardised version that says men can be women. Shut up bitches you're oppressing us!

Radical feminism doesn't contradict the first and is inclusive of female trans people in any case, recognising their oppression along the axes of both sex and transgender identity.

The ladies on here have opened lots of other eyes to what transwomen in actual women's spaces really means.

The unfairness in sports - tw are on average bigger and stronger than women. Rachel McKinnon peeked me and was pointed out to me by women on here.

Single sex spaces are to keep women's dignity and have an element of safeguarding.
Transwomen in there just poses risk.
Isla Bryson is the perfect example

Because they shut everywhere else down.

There was a thriving gc community on Reddit but it was banned, and virtually all wrongthink on any other subreddit also gets banned.

Twitter was also highly policed until fairly recently.

There was a massive amount of effort made to make MN cave as well. They were pretty damn brave not to.

Two reasons:

This section was always full of radical feminists, which is really all GC Feminism is.

A lot of sites (e.g. reddit) banned women for discussion of women's rights, so the resistance grew here, where it was (mostly) allowed to speak freely.

Maybe because it's largely populated by women who have given birth and are therefore in no doubt about there being two sexes?