How do Radfems propose to tear down the patriarchy?

[Hullygully]

Just that. Interested to know how.

Hully, yes there are basic beliefs that all radfems but, as I said before, unlike a political party with a structure, no one idea of how to put it into practice.

Liberal feminists, I assume, would have more of an answer because we already know how to work within the patriarchy to bring change: write to MPs, march, change laws etc.

Of course radical feminists can do all of that too but surely absolute rad fem ideas (that liberals wouldn't necessarily wish to do to) are going to be less concrete because it is always less concrete when you are trying to act from without a governing structure.

Someone mentioned apartheid up thread. I think this is a good comparison as attempting to remove the white government without working with it must have been incredibly difficult.

that 'sex worker rights' position on prostitution is more typical of marxist feminism I wouldn't support the sex industry even if they paid billion dollar bonuses!

Has anyone here read Shulamith Firestone?

She advocated the use of cybernetics to carry out human reproduction as well as contraception, abortion, and state support/control of child-rearing; enabling them to escape their biologically determined positions in society. Firestone described pregnancy as "barbaric", ( sitting here thinking I concur, so shoot me ) she also advocated a communual broadly socialist society where people escaped class and sex distinction.

Her theory was we would revolutionise how we reproduce and in doing so, do away with all forms of distinction, even to the extreme that biological sex difference would not longer play a part in social relations on any level.

I'm not certain she is typical of a radical feminist social theorist and if that is the future then the future looks distinctly like Huxleys "Brave new world".

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Withdrawal does have a huge impact on society though. Women setting up family units without men - single mothers, lesbians, mothers living with their own mothers and so on, has radically altered our society and our concept of the family in the last 50 years. It has changed society and there is a huge backlash against that by the current government.

Someone mentioned apartheid up thread. I think this is a good comparison as attempting to remove the white government without working with it must have been incredibly difficult.

Apartheid was economically bust by the end as Blacks gained and used more and more of the wealth, they simply could not afford to keep it going.

There is a lesson there....

I haven't read Firestone for donkeys, mini. Have probably got some on the shelves somewhere. I appreciate her identification of the enormity of the problem, but stop short of the solution. I'm not up enough to comment reliably, but that sort of genre has dissipated a bit since the 70s? It was a very fashionable radical solution to all sorts all human society evils? Has there been anything like that produced in the last ten (or even twenty) years?

Caramel, don't you think that's working within the system to change it though? The successful withdrawals from the conventional nuclear family are those that can afford it, so presumably have a female parent out working and earning, and paying money into taxation. I agree totally that the govt don't like it - but find their aggressive stance on single mothers odd in context. It's very much a dichotomy between wanting women to be wage earnings and not reliant on the welfare state, but equally wanting them to be at home with the bairns where they 'belong'. I don't see that sort of withdrawing to be in any way radical? (it is entirely possible that I am wrong, natch)

So much of it is tied up in economic freedoms that it's v hard to eliminate the capitalist aspects.

Has anyone here read Shulamith Firestone? She advocated the use of cybernetics to carry out human reproduction as well as contraception, abortion, and state support/control of child-rearing; enabling them to escape their biologically determined positions in society.

That would make rather a good Dystopian Future novel I think....

Heh. I've got tons of them in boxes in the garage.

I'd love to hear of recent ones, though... Anyone? Might have to feed my amazon habit!

I would be interested to know more about the radical feminist approach to capitalism/economics etc more generally. On the website for RadFem2012 the organisers speak of 'Building an explicitly anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-oppressive movement for the liberation of all women from patriarchal oppression'.

So, does one have to be anti-capitalist to be a rad fem? And what does that mean, in practice?

Thing is, I think Huxley beat us to it, or did he?

I have been giving some though to feminist separatism and the fact that the adult male is cast out from the community. Garlic mentioned Bonobo chimps on another thread and having now done some reading, it seems bonobo share something like 98% of our genes and could be our nearest living relatives.

Bonobos seem to share much in common with ancient tribal society and they are matriarchal with the mother still wielding influence over her adult male offspring. Whilst the males are moderately territorial towards other groups they show no dominance towards females and children. It seems to me that separatism sets up antagonism because in advanced civilised societies we are now living in isolated nuclear families where we almost always lose influence over our adult males. This makes me think that isolation and the nuclear family is part of the problem and simply perpetuates the problem and separatism seems to offer just as little in the way of solution. It makes me think too of medieval rights of passage and of course medieval Europe was no great haven of equality.

So separation then, I have a different issue that I think needs some thought. If one day women only communities, perhaps even some reduction by what ever method of reduction is deemed appropriate the numbers of men, and lastly lets assume that the patriarchy ceases to control the lives of individual women.

What do you think the response of men would be, if a space is left for men to develop their own responses why wil they not seek to impose by means of violence and murder their will.

The south African example up thread is problematical as not just economically did apartheid become unsustainable but the realisation of the amount of resources it would take to "police" apartheid as well as the sheer weight of numbers forced the whites in to capitulation

Now I say this very advisedly and not in any way to trivialise or two raise the stakes in name calling, but some of the language and solutions put forward by the more hard core radicles come close to both the extremes of right wing nazi as well as left wing communist philosophies. The point of saying this is just to highlight that both types of ideology have been fought against and will remain beyond the pale.

A real world scenario then is the one of prostitution. The end goal is for it to not happen at all, in no respect is a womanise body to be bought or sold for sex even if she wants to do it or that the transaction was fair and risk free. Thats all straight forward, but how do you outlaw sex, this is the elephant in the room. Women and men have shown that being faithful or only having sex in a committed long term relationship is something that over the course of history we are not very good at. Married people have affairs, people cheat on their partners, others choose to have open relationships, some have many partners. Is this objecvtaficaton of sex of women s bodies, not the same intent as paying a prostitute? Which in turns reflects the power that men have over women?

Just some rambelings

Bonobos also have massive balls because everyone shags everyone else all the time - maybe that solves a lot of societal problems, or explains why its us not them that have cars and TVs and stuff :)

'with the mother still wielding influence over her adult male offspring'

That's me and nearly every other man I know.

Bonobos are VERY rampant; if humans were like bonobos we'd spend meetings grooming each other and shagging rather than discussing the 2012 sales forecast. Not sure if I like this idea or not!

I like the idea of not discussing the 2012 sales forecast. I don't think I can be arsed with all the grooming and shagging, tbh...

Leithlurker - what it is about the actual manner of heterosexual sex that gives rise to the idea that it gives men power over women ? Why is a massage therapist able to do their work without being reviled ? Do you really think that if we could get to a place where prostitition wasn't a last resort or tied into human trafficking etc, that it couldn't be a genuine transaction between two people.

I really struggle with the idea that PIV has to equal dominance whether intended or not. If this is the case, then surely radical feminism must look to abolish PIV altogether to prevent oppression of women ?

Not sure that I worded that very well......

Not only was official apartheid ended via existing systems: economics, international intervention, etc, but was also effected at ground level by a great deal of extreme violence. I'm aware some radfems would disagree with me but I don't want to burn men alive or even chase them and their families off their homes.

if humans were like bonobos we'd spend meetings grooming each other and shagging rather than discussing the 2012 sales forecast - sounds like my old days in advertising
I still want to be a bonobo.

EBAL- " In terms of what afterwards. This would be a society where gender didn't exist i.e. male and female roles."

...does this mean none at all? I mean no greater likelihood for boys to want to play with boys, and girls with girls? No concept of clothes more likely to be worn by a man or by a woman? Generally equal levels of interest and participation in every kind of hobby etc...someone's sex being as forgettable as their eye colour?

I don't see that happening. I don't mean that people should be forced into constrained gender roles, but I think if we imagine a future in which gender is not a part of people's identity beyond their genitalia, we are getting into science fiction territory.

surely radical feminism must look to abolish PIV altogether

I've seen this discussed as a serious ambition in more than one radfem group. It was sometimes accompanied by an assumption that it would be natural and reasonable to chemically castrate all men and boys (I'm unconvinced that physical castration or gendercide isn't also discussed in private). This strikes me as repulsively oppressive of both men and women, not to mention inhumane.

Women are already entitled to reject PIV. We don't need women controlling what we do with our reproductive organs, any more than we need men doing it.

No woman who seeks even greater control than the patriarchy speaks for me.

Nothing wrong with science fiction territory!

But I guess as long as the majority of people are attracted primarily to people of the opposite sex then there will be a bit of gendering. I don't see why this should include clothing, though? Impossible to tell about interests - my suspicion is that there are minor biological differences at a society-wide level between males and females in a few limited areas including spatial ability, so the engineers (say) might be 60:40 men: women, but nothing more.

Himalaya: if we imagine a future in which gender is not a part of people's identity beyond their genitalia

This is actually what we imagined in the '70s. There was no ambition to eradicate gender, but a focused effort was made to eliminate 'genderisation'. It looked to be working pretty well, to the extent that I'm still shocked by how far backwards that particular aspect of equality has fallen. Look at advertisements for children's toys from that era, for example. Check out the androgynous fashion and read the un-gendered slogans of peace & employment marchers. We've made fantastic gains on the legal front - and legal gains do influence culture - but seem have lost ground on a basic cultural level.

... but, sorry, that was a flight of "It were all fields round 'ere"

Of course I can imagine a future in which gender doesn't define people's identity. I've lived in a past like that!

Why not reclaim it and call it VGRP - vagina gracefully receiving penis?

So much of it is about words

ie PIV sounds aggressive and makes the v passive

VGRP shows the v is the one choosing to receive the services of the p

G could also be greedily/gratefully/grudgingly according to circs

Mao's China was an attempt at that. Unisex pjs, non-genedered occupations.