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)

Good to have you back dittany although I knew who you were because your posts are always so clear which I love

why (and when) did what are seemingly pretty middle of the road feminist ideas become seen as radical ones?

I dunno. It often seems to me that anybody with a feminist viewpoint that goes further than claiming the right to equal pay while wearing stripper heels is now 'radical'. Over the past month I've read blog posts by self-styled "radical feminists" including a woman who gives, ahem, Tantric massages to men while rubbing her naked boobs on their chests and a woman who appears genuinely to believe women will never be equal until all males are subjected to hormonal alteration. I was looking for credible/understandable aims to radical feminism, which differ from the aims of average feminism. Unless you count mandatory chemical castration, which I don't, I didn't find any.

Not saying I now know everything about what "radical feminism means today". But I'm wondering whether, in a climate of (false) security and (true) awareness about women's equality issues, any strong feminist is now called radical. Maybe we think we've moved far enough forwards now, the Overton window has shifted into the area labelled Radical Feminism. I think that would be a mistake, obviously ... Is this what you were thinking, too?

It gets on my nerves, tbh. With the adoption of a possibly useless qualifier, we've divided feminism in ways it doesn't need to be divided. Every argument about what 'radical' means is a wasted opportunity to share equally valid ideas about how to set about achieving feminists' mutual objectives. There's still a warehouse full of those to meet before we have the luxury of splitting hairs.

Am are of waffling. Will go back to lurking.

'"Sorry, I don't buy the idea that after the revolution, whether it's a feminist one, a marxist one or any flavour, that all oppression will magically melt away."

I agree with KRITTIQ, I don't think that the only ways to oppress an individual are through male violence and I can't see oppression ending.
Changing in method and focus yes, but not ending.
Not until humans have a completely different attitude to each other and no need to dominate or categorise as us and other in any way. Which given the level of infighting at all stages in any movement of any description is unlikely.

'Every single oppressive system was created by and is upheld by male violence.'

I'm not denying that at all. I am saying that if and when male dominance and violence ends, other new forms of oppression will take their place. Possibly engendered and sustained by women, or by women and men together.
The focus of the oppression will probably change, and the methods with which an individual or a community are suppressed will also alter.
But there will be individuals at the bottom of the heap, being crushed.

Is that how my post reads?
It's not meant to. I truly believe that ending male violence and oppression would be a remarkable and wonderful thing to achieve. I think that the struggle would then be to ensure that what replaced it was infinitely better, and that a different fight against other, newer forms of oppression would have to occur.
I'm not envisioning some sort of Brave New World based on the Two Ronnies sketches of the 70s.

I agree, Fallen. It's part of human (all creatures'?) nature to seek domination over others of its kind. The means of domination are varied and often ugly. Patriarchy has systematised the domination of half the species over the other half by gender, which I consider unreasonable. I do not imagine that ending this paradigm will eliminate all domination and oppression from human life at all, much as I would like to.

This is interesting ... is THIS the foundation of 'radicalism' in feminism? A belief that eliminating oppression-by-gender will eliminate all oppression from our societies?

Disagreement is a healthy and necessary thing, it is how those in power deal with disagreement that can be a tool for oppression.

Physically violent?
Or controlling dissent in other ways?
Or encouraging debate and disagreement in order to prove the rightness of their arguments through non-violent means?

You don't think oppression can be done in other ways than through male violence?
Exclusion, shunning, conform or be cut off?
I can't give examples of what oppression in a world that has had male violence eradicated would look like. I'm just reasonably sure that some form of it would take place.
I find it hard to see utopia, or paradise or whatever term one chooses to use for a perfect state of existence, happening when humans are all fully involved.

OK. Thanks, Dittany. Still not feeling any closer to an answer for the thread question, then.

I agree with Fallen, as must be clear. Women bully and strive for dominance as much as men do. I don't even like the idea that women wouldn't, since that would assume a gender difference in which I am disinvested.

It seems jejune to ask for examples of women's oppressiveness in a world free from gendered male oppression, since we've never lived in one! As a feminist, I believe in the right of women to strive for domination, should they wish, on a completely equal footing with men doing the same thing. I might dislike all of those people but I want them each to get a level shot.

(leaving out other inequalities for the sake of brevity)

I suppose you could castrate them or abort all baby boys and may be there are enough pill hormones in the water men's testosterone levels will fall through pollution anyway. Also the male chromosome may be dying out although I think that is in one million years and now even that is not so sure.

I am a capitalist feminist and libertarian. I think we are made to fight tooth and claw to win out over others whether women or men and that it's huge fun and what has helped our species survive. However I do agree on lots of things which are fundamental to feminism.

Probably most of us agree women should have equal rights under the law and fairness at home across the planet.

I think women would and will use cruelty and violence, even when free from oppression by gender. What I want is for the world to get the chance to find out.

You asked me for alternative forms of oppression that weren't male violence.
I told you that I'd find it hard to think of what could take the place of the current physical violence. Perhaps we'll all find out in the future, or our children and grandchildren will.