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)

Nyac
'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.'

Very well said. I agree completely.

I don't think liberal feminism is dead at all, in fact it's the general outlook of most people who use this board, and if there are pole-dancers here, they're keeping quiet about it. Nobody's ever going to claim that being a radical of any kind is a comfortable business, because it puts a person at odds with the society they live in. It's much easier mostly accepting the world as it is but thinking that we could do with a few changes being made!

However, maybe if liberals named all the things we wish would happen, we might end up close to what the radicals say should happen. It's just that we'd be listing the parts and preferring not to see it as a total rearrangement, and they'd be starting from the top and saying "everything needs to change".

On MN I suspect I rank as RadFem but IRL, and certainly when reading Nyacs excellent posts about radical feminismI recognize that I'm a liberal feminist - not a lemon drizzle one though.

I think that radical feminism is very political and life choices are really made with radfem ideals in mind. I'm happy to be corrected by those more knowledgable though.

I think feminism has lost its way partly because of the choicy choicy crap but most importantly because we are taught never to offend but to always accept that people have the right to feeeel anyway they want. My experience is that feminists (especially on mn) are unapologetic in refusing to accept bullshit or something that is anti feminist. Their vocal refusal, even if it could upset someone's world or personal view seems so radical because no one else does it. And they get angry. Anger seems radical.

Frankly feminism also seems very logical to me and logic in the face of all the bloody emoting were expected to do now also seems pretty radical too.

Sorry if this makes no sense on phone.

I mean IRL I'm probably liberal because of the working within the patriarchy thing. I'm not pro porn, prostitution etc.

ComradeJing - you're right, "radical" has come in these conservative times to mean "loony", so calling all feminists radical is just a way to discredit the whole project.

Radical doesn't mean loony. It means at the root. It means taking a deep down holistic approach, rather than a bits and pieces ad hoc approach. Of course you need healthy roots but it is also very nice to have people picking aphids off the leaves (tortured metaphor alert)

I read this brilliant thing once that fantastically kicks apart the orthodoxy of the middle way always being right, can't remember where, it was fucking brilliant

I think it referred to slavery - and that at the time of abolition, you had abolitionists opposing those in favour of the status quo - and of course many regarded abolitionists as loonies - and that according to the orthodoxy of "balance" you would be forced to take the view that slavery was a bit wrong, but alright under certain circs, or if you let them have food and water, or something. Of course it's rubbish, isn't it, slavery is absolutely 24 carat evil, and the "loonies" who said so were right, and you don't arrive at the correct view by adding up the viewpoints and dividing by x

Not all feminists are called radical, because they're not. One poster wrote she thought radical feminism was on the wain, which couldn't be further from the truth.
I've been lookin into the Violence Against Women (VAW) groups and they seem to be where it's happening.
Any group wanting to gain funding for a 'violence against women' project have to have their application approved by, yes somebody who subscribes to their views. And millions come from the tax paying public every year.
Together they use their influence to attack pornography, prostitution, lap dancing, stripping.( Haven't there been a spate of posters placed in certain areas of London calling for the banning of these too. Wasn't in radical fundamental Islamists ?)

Anyone know when voluntary prostitution, lapdancing and pornography became seen as forms of violence against women ? Looking back to the UN Women 4th World Conference, I could only find forced prostitution as deemed to be violence against women.

I think that perhaps the reason that radical feminism has come to seem the main alternative to liberal feminism / 'choice feminism' (whatever that is) is closely linked to the decline of the left and of awareness of class in wider society.

I'm sure there are still plenty of socialist feminists and anarcha-feminists around still, but it often feels like we're pretty thin on the ground (well, here on MN at least).

I absolutely wouldn't class myself as a radical feminist - but I'm certainly not a liberal feminist either. I don't believe that it is possible to dismantle the patriarchy without building a non-authoritarian society based on co-operation and mutual aid. Otherwise we're simply squabbling over places in the hierarchy.

"Radical doesn't mean loony. It means at the root. It means taking a deep down holistic approach, rather than a bits and pieces ad hoc approach. "

Vezzie, I think its important to acknowledge that radical feminism is a particular strand of feminism, and that other strands aren't 'ad hoc' or 'bits and pieces' but simply draw on a different analysis of society.

The point above about not hurting people's feeling or saying one's view is right is always an interesting one. Some women are so kind of kissy/kissy we love you all your bottom never looks big in that and if you're a woman who has views, who knows they may be right, who wants power, money, success that is not a wrong position to hold (in my view.. which of course is right, ha ha). Being stopped from debate because you are hurting the feelings of people who are too weak to put up with any counter view is a position some women find themselves in which men tend not to. We are ghettoed into its being assume we want hearth and home and part time hours and time to clean toddlers all day long when plenty of us are feminists and don't want that.

I would say I was a capitalist feminist and most of all a human being.

Well said Takver, I often find myself nodding my head and agreeing with the Radfems but only up to a point. I'm a Marxist Feminist. For me, women are a class within a class and a class apart. I think we need equality and to break down the barriers that exist between all classes, which of course includes race/culture.

Capitalism and human are almost a contradiction. I don't believe that the mythological patriarchy is out to bring us down! it's capitalism pure and simple, the markets dictate, who prospers, who eats, who does sex work, who scrubs floors.

Women have been oppressed long before capitalism existed. Capitalism is a subset of the patriarchy.

How do you know this Nyac and do you have access to the facts to back this assertion up?

Shall we talk about the ancient world, where women weren't even regarded as human, and had the same status as slaves.

Or how about in feudal times where women were still chattel of their husbands, and also could be locked up in chastity belts when their husbands went off to crusade.

Then there's patriarchal religions - thousands of years old which tell us that women are less than human and that men should rule over them.

Do I really need to go on? I can't even be bothered to argue this.

There is a lot of historical evidence that women only became less equal with the advent of money as a form of exchange.

Simple money exchange doens't equal capitalism. Capitalism is about people making money from their capital (investments) so they don't do any of the work themselves. Capitalism started in the 17th century or thereabouts.

Also women weren't "less equal", men actively oppressed women and have been doing so for thousands of years.

Simple money exchange does equal capitalism where money is used as the exchange value for a commodity. Of course men have been know to trade camels for women and women for camels but the advent of coinage brought with it early forms of commitment between men and women. So that men could be sure that their progeny was assured because of hereditary wealth.

The only break with capitalism since the inception of coinage has been feudalism. The experience of women's lives under feudalism differed greatly according to the class into which they were born, just as it did throughout all of the middle ages.

Interesting discussions, but slightly veering from the point in my OP.

Which was (and I was a bit wine-hazed when I wrote it) - why (and when) did what are seemingly pretty middle of the road feminist ideas become seen as radical ones?

Capitalism is about ownership of the means of production, where it has been taken out of the hands of the workers. I don't know of a single economist who would argue that capitalism = the money system only.

Money is a male invention, which they could use to control women, but money isn't required to control women. Men exchange women for cattle in certain parts of the world.

Yes they do exchange women for cattle, I have said as much!

Capitalism is about the ownership of the means of production but it is also about the exchange value of goods being linked to money/gold. You simply can not overthrow capitalism without finding different a mode of exchange.

I'm not radical, ratty would probably sum me up better

I think we're operating on different definitions.

But anyway, it isn't coinage that oppresses women, it's men.

There's no reason why a symbolic system of exchange would lead to the oppression of women, it's men wanting to dominate women that did that.

NO it's to do with the accumulation of land and wealth once we became settled upon the land.

Nomadic peoples hundreds of years ago actually didn't rape and expect to have sex at the whim of man because they actually had to ensure they kept the population down and women were more valued for their hunting than their ability to give birth.

Did they not? And women were valued for their hunting? Did they leave a note?

Anyway, why did seemingly mainstream feminist ideas become seen as really far out there and "radical"?

They might have penciled something on the side of the cave

Women were more agile hunters when not pregnant.

I think feminism during the 2nd wave was mostly radical, lots of thinking, politicking and discussion, activism and writing. I think we are still waiting for the third wave because liberal feminism is too individualistic and not political enough to really move things on.

"Women were more agile hunters when not pregnant", How do you know that? I can well believe it but that's quite a bold statement.

The third wave already happened. That's kinda what I'm talking about. How did it now become male-protective before the revolution ever happened?

I don't believe that we have had a third wave,I think there has been a lull, with younger women enjoying the hard won freedoms without paying too much attention to the contradictions in their behaviour.