How do Radfems propose to tear down the patriarchy?

[Hullygully]

Just that. Interested to know how.

Sorry, but I just think that's glib, TBH.

I don't believe knowledge necessarily equals power - especially not when it is knowledge of an oppressive system from the inside of that system. I think actually women are often punished for having knowledge, or for expressing it.

You've got to remember that truism isn't intended to describe women's experience at all.

I do agree you can be polite and mindful without watering down, that is true.

If you are a feminist, and you have spent time thinking about and analysing power structures and understanding how they work, and you understand, for example, the idea of surfaces, and how women are judged for their bodies and appearance, and then another woman rolls up and says hey, I like to look pretty, my choice, what's the big deal? Then you do have the power, because you understand why it is oppressive and they don't.

(Perhaps "power" gives the wrong impression)

And if you give a short sharp factual response, you will, as said above, create confrontation and a refusal to listen. If you engage politley, they might think about what you are saying and start to see the truth in it.

That's what I mean.

I get what you are saying, hully, and I understand why you want to argue for polite engagement, because it does matter a lot. I agree if you're in a position of knowledge and talking to someone who wants to learn from you, you're powerful.

I just don't believe it's an exactly polarized power balance the way you're saying. And maybe it is a problem with the word 'power'.

It's just ... you could equally say that, if someone says 'I like to look pretty, my choice, what's the big deal', that person actually has quite a lot of power. They have the implicit backing of the patriarchy. They have the power that is assumed from the fact they claim freedom of choice. And IMO it is quite powerful to argue that a concern other people worry about, doesn't affect you.

And then, whose power is reduced by this sort of statement? Well, it's other women who may not feel that looking pretty works like this for them, other women who maybe do feel it's a big deal.

So, I'm not so sure the power dynamic is as simple as you make out.

In a feminist gathering about 10 years ago, a very wise woman suggested there were parallels between feminism as a movement and some religious movements. Radical Feminists were akin to the "visionaries", the mystics, those who could see the ideal of heaven (i.e. post-patriarchal world,) but were perhaps less focussed on "temporal" matters or how to achieve the ideal. Other feminists were more like the "missionaries," who used that vision of the ideal to convert others to feminist beliefs while taking practical, if small steps towards that ideal.

So with her example, Christian missionaries spread the gospel at the same time as they built schools, houses and clinics for the poor. Feminists of the "missionary" were involved in both consciousness raising and activities like lobbying for changes in the law, getting public funds for domestic violence refuges, fighting for equal pay, etc.

Okay, it's a fairly simplistic analogy, but does illustrate in a way why both strands of feminism are important (and just as there were different denominations of Christian missionaries, there are different strands of feminism like liberal, socialist, anarcha, intersectional, etc.) for the achievement of social justice.

Btw, also ... you are positing a situation where the woman who''s rolling her eyes and dismissing the whole issue is being rude, and you're advocating meeting that with politeness.

Obviously in some ways that is lovely, but it does come uncomfortably close to insisting that it's only ok to say feminist things if you are much nicer than the people you're talking to - a kind of special rule for feminists. Which is a problem!

lrd - I suppose I never think of the looking-pretty-choice woman as having power because their status and identity is entirely founded on second-classness. But i see your point.

Bertiebotts, I don't think your illustration of the music industry really captures the difference.

For me, it is more like (keeping this at first within the music industry framework):
So many ?love? songs are creepy and stalkery (?Every breath you take? ?run little girl? etc). One day, some liberal feminists in the music industry notice this and propose that such songs should be released labelled with a standard form wording saying ?it is in no way acceptable to follow around the object of your desires, breathing heavily, and making threats should (s)he not want to sleep with you, or with someone else.? This form of words should be up on iTunes, or whatever. But there is no need to stop releasing, writing, or recording these songs ? they?re just songs.
The warning-label idea gets discussed, laughed at, thrown out. Nothing happens. But they tried. But, you know, they are only songs.

The radical feminists who notice this might say ?i just don?t want to hear this shit about how threatening to rape or kill people is love, any more, and i am sick to death of it being glorified. It must be stopped, it is not unrelated to real life violence - men treating women violently with justifications of romance - and if we really didn?t like it we wouldn?t be lionising men who write songs about it.?
Such people may write, record and release whatever songs they like, but they don?t get bought or listened to much, because they are unlikely to be in positions of power and influence at EMI or Virgin or Universal because they have been professionally penalised for non-standard views, so they ? so they ? what? Well maybe they hold a march, maybe they ceremonially burn copies of ?Every breath you take?, maybe they stop buying music from mainstream labels (like everyone else then), but... does this stop creepy stalkery behaviour being glorified as romance? Maybe not, but at least they and their children are not listening to it.

Maybe the outcomes are kind of the same from a societal as opposed to an individual perspective.

But I would say that the crucial point of difference between these two positions is that the first one accepts ?it?s only songs?, and the second has drawn a very important line in the sand, even if only a personal one, even if one the rest of the world is going to laugh at or ignore.

No, I'm not saying they are being rude, just ignorant or uniformed, no eye-rolling etc!

But even then, I still think it's the end that matters, and that there are rude people and polite people feminist or no.

And two wrongs don't make a right.

But they don't accept it and let it be thrown out. They keep fighting.

Must work!

Will come back later.

hully - absolutely.

But if someone truly believes that, me saying 'hmm, well, you are kinda powerless in my opinion' is patronizing, isn't it? I may well believe that performing femininity is shoring up the patriarchy's power to oppress women, but if I'm going to have a proper discussion with someone who doesn't believe that, I need to respect their position by arguing against it, not to infantalize them by assuming the argument is already won.

It's the same issue that comes up again and again - you can't have an honest debate if you treat people who disagree as if they're too unthinking to have a proper opinion. IMO.

It's how you engage with them that counts. Lead a horse to water with politeness and she might drink.

Really going...

Oops, sorry, I misread you when you said 'rolls up' for 'rolls her eyes'.

I do think it's pretty rude to come into any debate saying 'what's the big deal', though.

But I'll see you back later!

vezzie, I like that explanation, makes sense to me.

Just a few further thoughts . . .

What we now call "second wave" feminism was a movement that emerged alongside other social justice movements in the 60's and 70's - civil rights/racial equality, gay rights, anti-Vietnam war, labour movements, indigenous peoples' rights, many colonial independence movements, etc. Thinking about it, in each of these movements, there were the visionaries and the missionaries, so to speak. Because their ideas of tackling the very much entrenched status quo seemed SO radical at the time, looking back, we tend to remember the visionary leaders and their ideas the most.

I think in general, people were "buoyed up" by so many previously "unthinkable" ideas coming out into the open and the sense that if that could happen, well almost anything could be possible.

There was perhaps a sense that because people were so long kept ignorant, just opening their eyes to the injustice all around them in itself would be transformational. People would see how the political, economic and social traditions and structures were unjust and harmful and would simply stop co-operating with them. And, without that co-operation, those structures would collapse and the result would be a new world order, predicated on fairness and equality.

But, what they didn't predict is that:

a.) Just making people aware of injustice in itself isn't always enough to change minds, let alone behaviour. Social conditioning can be very strong and not everyone is willing or able to take a "leap of faith" and reject "the devil they know," with ease.

b.) The people who benefit directly or indirectly from oppression of others won't necessarily be persuaded by the fairness argument and will actually want to retain their privilege. They are backed by institutions that are quite powerful and well-resourced, so ready, willing and able to defend these privileges.

c.) The oppression people experience is rarely just of one type or from one source, so even refusing to engage with one set of oppressive structures (e.g. feminist separatist, Black separatist, etc.) doesn't mean an end to other forms of oppression (e.g. economic, disability, etc.)

However, that 2nd wave of feminism DID shed light on some of the worst examples of sexual discrimination, leading to significant legal and policy changes like the Equal Pay Act and Sexual Discrimination Act. And, there were other legal changes that countered other overt forms of discrimination, like the Race Relations Act and decriminalisation of homosexuality.

But, these steps still didn't provide the "tools" for addressing more "indirect" and institutional forms of discrimination, and that's where I think the "third wave" of feminism came in - looking at opportunities for working within as well as outwith the "system" to tackle sexual oppression. This included collaboration with other political and social movements against oppression (e.g. racism, disability, immigration, age, class, etc.)

Not surprisingly, at the same time there was a backlash against the perceived gains of pretty well all social justice movements (starting sort of 80's onwards, perhaps not surprisingly in parallel to the Thatcher/Reagan/Bush era,) including feminism. Then in the past 10 to 15 years, there has been the rise of sexualisation and pornification in culture. And, there has been the corresponding advance in communication technology that has enabled those messages to be all pervasive, to become normalised.

I sense that the resurgence in Radical Feminism/Second Wave Feminism is in response to this. And, because it happened on Third Wave Feminists' "watch," they are dubious about whether any of those Third Wave strands of feminism are genuinely up to the task of smashing patriarchal oppression. Some here have used the terms "diluted" and "watered down" to describe non radical feminist strands (often mistakenly bundled together as "Liberal Feminists,") and argue more or less that Feminism needs to return to the fundamentals of the Second Wave.

But if that didn't really "work" first time around, what is different now that means it will work now?

That makes sense, Kritiq. But, sometimes it seems like Third Wave feminism is constantly making concessions to the patriarchy or porn culture... as with the whole 'getting my kit off/having sex for money is v. empowering' strand. We should challenge that, no?

As any regular posters know I am very new to RadFeminism. But tbh I think very little RadFem stuff is out there. Most of it just seems like basic feminism to me - not everyone's views I know.

Ah, but I think this is where language lets us down a bit and I'm not fond of labels at all, because rarely can they be accurate and they are easily misunderstood. Here, for example, many folks seem to be including a wide range of feminist ideologies under the label of "Liberal Feminist" that don't really fit there in my view.

I think the "waves" of feminism are a short hand for where the feminist movement was "at" during different points in history. But, that doesn't mean that the beliefs of feminism were cohesive or universal at any of those points. If we rely too much on labels and shorthand, we risk over-simplifying the arguments I think.

So chronologically, I'm probably on the cusp of 2nd but mostly in the 3rd wave, but my beliefs don't involve making concessions to the patriarchy or porn culture. I don't think the beliefs of many feminists either in the third wave "period" or who don't sit firmly in the Radical Feminist belief system DO follow that line, either. It's far too easy to dismiss what is a very diverse "family" of feminisms as being ineffectual because some of its members follow a more libertarian set of beliefs.

Something else occurred to me that relates to the discussions about different "strands" of feminist belief - the tensions between what I call the 3 "A's" of Feminism - Activism, Advocacy and Academia (although they do of course converge in individual Feminists and within individual strands of feminist belief.)

Activists are the people who get out there, organise demonstrations, raise awareness, lobby for change.

Advocates are the people who work with those at the sharp end of misogyny through things like rape crisis, women's aid, tackling discrimination in employment, etc.

Academics are the people who collect information about discrimination and provide the evidence of injustice.

Sometimes, folks within each of these can be a bit precious about whether their "way" is the most important, or rather whether those in the other "A's" are really doing the stuff that's important.

The fact is, we need all of these to achieve the changes we want and need. We need the evidence of oppression both to support those who are experiencing it and to argue for change. We need people to raise awareness and rattle the cages so things will change. We need people to support those at the sharp end so their lives can be transformed and they don't just become casualties of social injustice.

We all need each other.

I agree, the labels are divisive and ultimately pointless. As they say in recovery meetings, "Look for the similarities, not the differences".

Labels cause confusion. The quiz Aye posted alerted me to the existence of libertarian feminism, which contains the individualistic sexy bits often ascribed to liberal feminism. I've also seen many providers of sex services describing themselves as radical feminists. I suspect this may be because, as the more vocally aggressive feminists, self-styled radicals are the first to put a robust feminist argument before them. If the radicals then tell those women they're not radicals, they're "choice" or some wave or other, with possibly a degree of patronisation, they're likely to confuse and lose those freshly-converted feminists.

[this may turn out to be a ramble ...]

I agree with Hully that there can be too much conflation of individual feelings with political passion on these boards. This is one of the many ways in which FWR (and feminism) reminds me of the abuse recovery threads.

Somebody living in an abusive situation is likely to rail against the abuser without knowing why: at this point, they'll say things like "I give as good as I get" and "I like the challenge". They're still applying the abuser's values to themselves but have begun to disengage intellectually. If they pursue recovery, they get a clearer idea of what's been done to them and this begins to engage their self-protective emotions: they feel very sad for themselves and, probably after feeling quite numb towards their abuser(s) for a while, very angry about it. From here they need to indulge their sadness and to express their anger, but they find that expressing anger towards the abuser just perpetuates the cycle. If they're lucky, they find safer outlets for their fury and learn how to turn it into detachment from the abuser. They begin to seek ways of repairing the damage the abuse has done to them: this is where they, in fact, empower themselves. The majority of victims also need to understand something about how abusers do it, and why. This, too, empowers them in that it grants them the tools to develop protective strategies: there's little a recovering abuse target wants more than to neutralise further threats of abuse.

The ultimate aims of all recovering abuse targets are: To repair themselves; to eliminate abuse from their lives; to ensure it never happens again; to assist others' recovery; to minimise the potentials for all abusers to abuse. These aims develop around the time that she fully realises what's happened to her. Not everybody goes through with the full set - and I'm not claiming to have done so myself - but that's okay. As long as she's safe and aware, one abuse target has stopped the damage.

The various factions in feminism strike me as analogous with people in various stages of abuse recovery. The process isn't as linear as I've painted it. You get terrible spats in Stately Homes and EA Recovery, where a posters at different points in recovery upset one another. It feels personal. It isn't; it's just a matter of differing perspectives. In resolving the row, they help each other and those around them.

So all I'm saying is ... what Hully says. When feminists let go of their "I'm right and you're dumb" attitude, recognising the similarities instead, they make one another and feminism stronger.

(I just needed to get this abuse/feminism thing out!)

Have crossed many with immensely long post. Catching up.

I have been turning stuff over in my head and am basically plagiarising what vezzie said upthread about radical feminism and drawing a line in the sand 'even if it's a personal one', but to me one of the things I like about radical feminism as I understand it, is that in practice it makes me feel able to say 'no, this is not healthy for me, I will try to do something else'. I don't have to be perfect at it, but I don't have to apologize either for feeling disgusted or upset.

I'm sure lots of people manage to do that without radical feminism, I just think for me it's radical feminism that made me see the way to doing that. Because it seems so often other strands of feminist thought are so keen to frame things in terms of choice, or grey areas, or each-to-her-own, that you start feeling you're not allowed to have a strong negative reaction to any bit of our culture. Eg., I know people who dislike porn but feel as if they have to frame that dislike in the context of 'well, other women love it, and maybe some of these women are happy, and I mustn't impose my view on anyone'. It sounds very tolerant but in practice it leaves you little space to say 'no, I feel really strongly, I hate this and I believe it's wrong'. Whereas radical feminism gives me a space to say that. I think it's very healthy because 'small' personal choices do matter and making them reminds us not to put ourselves last all the time.

We're so trained to think politeness and selflessness are the main (female) goals, we end up failing to speak up about things that hurt us - sometimes listening to women my age talking about feminism is like hearing people draw up plans for how to help everyone except themselves.

If you need a label to empower you, LRD, it's great that you've found what gives you strength. It's also great that you want to offer it to others as potentially helpful for them too. Like any other personal tool, though, it's personal and others may need different tools. It would be damaging to insist they must use yours! For me, "feminist" is a strong statement in itself. I feel attacked when somebody suggests my feminism is weak because it's not radical/marxist/label/label/label.

Discussions on FWR - NOT radical feminism per se - helped to firm up my views on sex-industry-related topics. There are differences between my envisioning of the problem and potential solutions. But we agree that it is a problem, and why it is. That should be enough, surely?

If you need a label to empower you - That was so not meant to sound as rude as it did! sorry

We're so trained to think politeness and selflessness are the main (female) goals

I know what you mean, and agree about selflessness, but not politeness. All humans are (or should be) trained to be poilte.

Polite does not equate to subservient/second class/meek/unassuming/saying less than men etc