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)

Unconsciously, you've revealed what I'm getting at.

They have to find you.
They have to explain their lives and oppressions to you.
They have to join you.

Straight away, you've put all the onus on them. Hardly an equal power dynamic.

Instead, I would suggested trying to read about and educate yourself on these struggles, then try to reach out from there.

Crikey... We're supposed to be experts on every walk of life... Really? Really?

FWIW, I fight oppression WHERE I see it. Not just against women. Just because I'm a radical feminist, doesn't mean I don't fight racism, or homophobia, or ableism.

But as I'm not oppressed by racism, and I'm not oppressed by homophobia, or ableism, how am I supposed to see every strand of oppression? Sometimes we need these things pointed out to us.

SAB, not being allowed a citizenship in your own country because you've been the victim of trafficking has to be high up on a list of priorities worthy causes to fight ?

www.amicaltmedia.net/headlines.php?pid=173

It is, yes. Thank you for the link, MsAnnTeak. Will take a look in the morning.

As a radical feminist I am personally affected by homophobia, ableism and classism. Not all radical feminists are straight, white, middle class and able bodied. I actually see on the net some radfems consistently getting peed off at those attacking them assuming they are white for example - when they are not.

I agree that it is important to have a discussion. Many women, including myself, are learning here as we go along and sometimes changing my mind. So no I don't think everyone should agree. But I do think we should discuss without personal attacks

I don't know any radical feminists in real life. But on the net I have always had the impression that there seem to be a higher proportion of radical feminists who are lesbians, poor disabled or black, than the general population. I find the same in real life with those feminists who actually campaign and do stuff locally.

Of course this is different for radical feminists who are academics. But by dint of being academics, those individuals are likely to be more privileged whatever their views.

Ethel - not always, but sometimes I think it is used as a tactic to try and silence

stars

"Perhaps stopping targeted attacks on users who are fighting on the side of women would be a good place to start. And that means no more mass reporting of Nyac's posts. And no more silencing tactics or underhand comments. Because it's a little infuriating."

When I report postings it's not because of the username of who posted it, but because of the content. If nyacs posts get reported a lot, it may be worth looking at why these postings are report-worthy.

As for silencing tactics - i feel that all sides are pretty good at it - the word "silencing" gets bandied round a lot here, mostly in order to silence those, who disagree.

I should just say here, that I don't have any problem with radical feminism, I think radical feminist thought has lots of useful insights. However, I personally feel that - from the reading I have done - it focuses pretty much exclusively on the relations between women & men, and it doesn't give me a clear picture of what a future non-patriarchal society could look like.

I find that anarcha-feminist (and wider anarchist) thought is, for me, much more inspiring in that it gives me a positive view of the future, and suggests actions to move towards that future. I've also found that where I spend time in spaces organised explicitly in a consensus based, non-hierarchical manner that these are spaces that feel safe and comfortable to be and give a vision of a less exploitative future society.

I do sometimes disagree (sometimes strongly) with some radical feminists; I also sometimes disagree (equally strongly) with women who would define themselves as anarcha-feminists. I'm sure that there's also massive overlap between what I would see as important and what many radical feminists would also see as important.

What I dislike is the conflation of radical feminism (a clearly defined strain of feminist thought) with any feminism that is not 'wishy-washy, choosy choosy' etc.

Just as an aside, it is pretty irrelevant to me exactly when and where the oppression of women started when considering a future vision of society. (Obviously its not irrelevant in the wider sense.) I don't want to 'go back' to some imagined tribal society, I want to move forward to a better alternative that what we have now!

Its also easy to imagine that 'there is no alternative' to capitalism other than some primitive reversion; if you were to ask someone living under feudalism, they would probably have found it pretty hard to imagine a system like we have today.

I agree with KRITIQ, whilst we need to discuss differences, the focus should always be on finding common ground with the intention of uniting together. As a marxist feminist I think the main difference of opinion is where the power dynamic springs from. I hesitate to use the word patriarchy although sometimes I do for convenience. The oppression is the same, the effects on our lived experience as women is the same what ever the original cause.

I don't want to go back to some tribal society either, what I do think is that we need to understand how we got to this point, history tells us where we have been which is useful in predicting where we are going.

I don't know whether anarcha-feminism shares much in common with anarchism in general? or anarcho-socialism? What I would say is that under anarcho-socialism there would be no hierarchy and people would be free to associate with others in a purely equal way, very similar to some of the ancient tribes with the focus on shared property and shared power. So the work of anthropologists in understanding these societies points the way to how we might organise a modern global society.

So it is relevant to our understanding of human nature, the greatest threat to any equality is human nature but ONLY in the sense that nature is shaped by environment and nature shapes that environment, what marx calls dialectical materialism and someone like Soros calls reflexivity.

Whatever, Widow.

Nyac has some pretty harmless posts deleted. None of the posts Nyac had deleted yesterday were inflammatory; just stating the rad fem stance. But people don't want to hear it.

I actually think people see Nyac's name and add an element of "Oooh, it's Nyac, it must be hatred..." It's not. but people can't be arsed to read past the username. They may read the post, but they see it as filled with whatever they expect from Nyac. Not how it stands.

Funnily enough, same shit happened to Sakura. And I'm grateful Nyac sticks around despite this bull. She knows she has my utmost respect for this.

Ethel, I agree completely; I didn't fancy getting into "I'm oppressed in x, y or z ways" last night. But there's an expectation for Rad Fems to be white, able bodied, straight and free from any disability. We're not, but we shouldn't have to state "oh, I have this issue or that issue" at every fricking turn. Dialect would get bloody nowhere

"history tells us where we have been which is useful in predicting where we are going. "

Absolutely, I completely agree. Its just easy to get tangled up in discussion of what the position of women was like pre-capitalism; its useful to understand the historical situation, but its also important to be clear that we're trying to move forwards, not back to some imaginary golden age.

I'd really like to discuss more with everyone, will be back but too much RL to deal with right now.

Takver and Mini, I would like to hear more about both anarcha-feminism and marxist-feminist. How would you feel about having another thread about it?

Takver, I think anarchism is a really important form of organisation. It is also useful in the here and now as it allows us to make small changes in an ethical way. It gets away from the 'end justifying the means' problem. I think that is helpful in thinking about setting up and collaborating in women only organising and in broader groups.

Mini, I disagree that commodities are the start of patriarchy. I would speculate that agriculture (even when it doesn't involve an exchange of commodities) was the biggest single factor for giving men a mechanism by which they could control women because it massively increases the amount of work somebody has to do to stay alive, making anybody who can get pregnant far more dependent on the good will of others, which allows them to be controlled by those others. That basic problem of the imbalance between work and survival still exists, although for many in the western world in a vastly different form.

I'm not proposing that we go back to a pre-agricultural society though. I would like to hear your (obviously informed) opinion on the connections between creation of commodities and work (which often doesn't create anything - it just allows people to stay alive - caring for the sick and elderly, looking after children, carrying water etc).

So, another thread on marxist and anarchist feminism maybe?

I think that's an excellent idea Vashti, I think very little discussion occurs about anarcho and socialist feminism and I feel that that our perspective is often sidelined or misunderstood.

I agree about agriculture, that is indeed when the problem of inequality first occurs. When we settled the land and started to farm, as we improved upon the processes involved, we created a surplus. The surplus first created by people is food (food is a commodity too) we were able to do two things, begin to trade the surplus which created a need for the money economy as a means of exchange but also as a means of capitalist accumulation/ thus power over others and begin to reproduce at a faster rate. We needed to produce workers, families were peasant families farming in family/tribal units, it meant that women were pushed away from participation in work and into the home to raise children. We became disenfranchised from work and as work is the primary factor in survival and wealth creation women lost their power and became isolated from decision making. So yes you are 100% right on that.

Vashti, I'd love to have a thread discussing anarcha, socialist & marxist feminism. I'm not an expert at all on anarcha-feminism, its just that from what I've read so far in my life it is the approach that makes most sense to me. And I know very little about marxist feminism & would be interested to know more. My ILs are coming to stay this w/e though so I should help sort out the house a bit & then be sociable, so not around much for a while.

In the meantime, I like this article - from a left rather than specifically anarchist perspective, but I thought it helpful.

I'm really going now, but agree agriculture was basically the start of a surplus that could be appropriated.

Thank you, Rulers/dittany, for demonstrating my point so eloquently. Actually, yes, I do actually think that my very bright, rugby-playing daughter (brought up in a family of bright women, some of whom play rugby) will find it a lot easier to fit into society than my sensitive, liking to play with Barbies, wanting to wear brightly coloured satin, son. I am also aware that that's probably brcause my children as a whole are ASTONISHINGLY privileged on a global scale so my daughters won't have to deal with many of the issues thst affect 90% of women on the planet.

That doesn't mean that I think men or boys in general are the most harmed these days. They blatantly aren't. It doesn't mean that I think that women dominate in group discussions. They blatantly don't. It means, precisely, that I am concerned for my son -- MINE. The one you know fuck-all about other than that he has a penis. But I can post an entire post about feminism and mention right at the end about how I am concerned for him and don't think that the patriarchy is doing him any favours and it apparently means that you can ignore everything else I wrote, zero in on that and ask whether I am 'doing the "women dominate in group discussions" thing' (I mean, really, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? And I don't normally swear. I'm concerned about a renewed hyper-polarisation of gender roles and you jump to THAT?)

My concern about radical feminISM was laid out in the part of my post that you decided to ignore. My concern about some (but, you know, sometimes on here it seems like the majority) of radical feminISTS, which I touched on briefly right at the end of my post, is that all anyone has to do is express any measure of concern for any single individual in possession of a Y chromosome to be accused of being a "what about the menz" apologist, be accused of lots of atuff they never said and have anything else they say ignored. Two, maybe three posts later (I'm not scrolling up again now just to count) you kindly removed any possibility of anyone's suggesting that I was paranoid amd imagining that last bit.

You know, it would be possible if someone mentions their son and you are suspicious that they are a closet MRA apologist to say something like "Really? Are you worried about him in particular, or is this a more general concern about men and boys?". But, hey, why bother when you can jump straight to saying "BS" and then (oh, the irony) go back to wondering why more women aren't interested in feminism?

Ah, dittany did you mean that you were Nyac? I thought you meant you were Rulers. Um. Well, clearly I don't recognise your posting style...

Welcome back, Dittany! :)

and sorry, yeah, was half drifting in and out of sleep when I posted that - re-read it... But that's what I was trying to get at. Sorry, not done very eloquently.

Rulers - I think it is because more people call themselves a feminist in a mainstream way - want equal rights, no discrimination etc...but do not subscribe to any particular subset philosophy.

Do you really think there are beliefs and proposals that were supported by more people but are now seen as radical, or is it that there are more people who are general feminists, so this dilutes any one version?

Are there specific beliefs you think used to be more widely supported by grneral feminists but are now only held by radicals?