radical / liberal feminist approaches?

[maybenow]

I have never studied feminist history or theory and have always struggled with real life examples of the difference between a radical and liberal feminist approach... i do not believe that radical femists are man-haters or that liberal feminists are porn-apologists...

So, i've just posted on another thread and wondered if i've finally identified an example. I'd love to hear others' thoughts?

On the thread about women being photographed doing sport in a more 'flattering' way and men in a more 'powerful' way I posted that as I work with 10-14yr old girls and feel strongly about encouraging them to do more sport I personally would go for the hand-holding approach of assuring them they can do sport and look 'good'.

I am now reflecting that this might be a liberal feminist approach while a radical feminist approach might be to choose to say 'fuck you' to the patriarchy and deliberately show women at their most raw and agressive (wouldn't that be an amazing photography exhibition?).

Would anybody agree with that reflection or liberal vs radical approaches? (this thread isn't for discussing the sport photography thread, that thread is here

I would have thought radical feminism would be more likely to say you can't "fix" sexism by working within media and sporting institutions. They are inherently sexist and there is no way round it. In the stamps issue your choices are to perpetuate the message that looks are important for women or to perpetuate the idea that women should be just like men. As a radical feminist you'd be more likely to say women should look for physical prowess through other means, not by participating in sports, prettily or otherwise. Radical feminists see the whole structure of our society as built on a sexist paradigm. There is no "fixing" it. It needs tearing down and rebuilding from scratch.

A liberal feminist is more likely to look for how to move us forward inch by inch. They could either go with the prettier pictures of women doing sport to encourage girls into sport, or celebrating raw female aggression as a way to move away from the idea that women should always be decorative. Either of those could be liberal feminist approach.

There might be a more middle ground approach, which would be to point out that the traditional artistic view of the nude would be that women look best in a static pose (you can call it "lying around simpering" if you want to be duly disdainful) and men are shown, when they're shown at all, in action. So here we'd say that the stamps follow the established pattern, with women at rest and men moving. But in those pictures that actually show the women athletes really doing what athletes do--aren't they wonderful?

Now I think I failed to follow the directive of this thread. But really I don't think radical feminists would say every institution in society needs to be torn down, just that sexism permeates everything we do, and that we have to be constantly aware of whether we're following the established pattern or trying to change it.

So I believe a radical would have no patience with "the hand-holding approach of assuring them they can do sport and look 'good'". She'd want to say that doing sport is the goal, and "looking good" has no value. But having said that, she might say "If you're out there performing at your best, you will look good. And if anyone says it isn't true, plan on running them down in your spiked shoes."

Maybe I'm still not being radical enough. It's difficult.

I think radical feminists are those who see misogyny/the patriarchy as the root cause of the problem, and underlying all other intersecting inequalities, while liberal feminists have a more flexible, case-by-case approach?

But it is hard to apply theory to practice - I think it's often a case of deciding, personally, which is the lesser of two evils. Of course it's good to let girls feel confident to do sport. Of course it's good to let girls feel they don't have to fit any particular notion of what 'looking good' means.

Surely we do what we think is best at the time?

Tei I was bit extreme in my examples. May be you are closer to the mark with "we have to be constantly aware of whether we're following the established pattern or trying to change it." Though I think that's something a lot of liberal feminists also identify with.

I've always thought there was a strong anti-sport contingent within radical feminism, due to sports generally being based on warrior training and the competitive, winner takes all approach of most sport being very patriarchal. I'm not sure that celebrating women as boxers who look like they are fighting necessarily fits a radical feminist agenda.

Of course it's not as though there are just two schools of thought and feminists in each think along straight narrow lines with no deviation or cross over.

I've not come across an anti-sport thing with radical feminists - can you point me in the right direction?

I take your point about boxers, but the vast majority of sport is not violent (and violence is where I think I have a sticking point).

Yes, I keep seeing that--every time I try to think of what radical feminists would believe or say, I end up with "Well, anyone with any feminist consciousness would say that too." Maybe the issue is that if we think of concrete examples, we're always looking at some small-scale area of life, and radical feminism's main difference is to be constantly aware of how pervasive sexism is.

LRD I've just spent a little time googling and can't find much at all.

I was recalling my experience from my youth when I use to go to a lot of feminist meetings and heard (what seemed to me as a sport mad teenager) like quite a lot of it. Also from friends who did sports science at university about discussions on definitions of sport and how the sporting "ideal" was very much a masculine construct. But that was over a quarter of a century ago, so I am very behind the times.

I found a few mentions in scholarly abstracts (no access to journals at the moment) referencing papers from the '80s so I guess it didn't hold as an idea. Bit of shame in some respects, because although I like sport a lot still, I have come round to agree a lot more with the idea that we have accepted a patriarchal ideal of what sport should look like.

As an example of the sorts of things I recalled see Arja's utopia of facilities for women quoted on Page 34 of Feminist Sport Studies: Sharing Experiences Of Joy And Pain on Google Books.

thanks, this has been a very useful discussion. i had completely overlooked the idea that some may choose to reject sport entirely on the basis that it is a masculine construct - how embarassing, seems obvious now that some people would feel that.

it is so hard to look outside your own life experience sometimes (i am a sporty women who tries to get young girls into sport and i believe this is a 'good thing' - it's good to be reminded sometime that not everybody shares that belief).

I read a fascinating article once on how different rockclimbing would be if it were developed as a sport by women (e.g. more fiddly bits, less emphasis on a long reach).. i'll see if i can find it again.

Here it is....

"the WCS is not about waving the ?girls rock? flag, nor is it about comparing women to men. The WCS, actually runs far deeper than this, and looks at the actual experience of climbing for a women. It raises the question of whether rock climbing for women is their own experience, or whether it is an experience shaped and structured by men.

I did one of my hardest sport redpoints recently. A good friend, Jen Olson, belayed me. On the route, there is a long move to a rest after the crux. If you can?t do the long move then you can?t rest after the crux. We were talking about this, and about how much we were struggling on the ridiculously steep cliffs of Rodellar, when Jen said something interesting: ?If climbing was created by women, the grading system would be completely different. More technical climbs would have easier grades, burlier stuff harder grades, and this route would have been climbed and graded without the rest on the right!?

I thought about what she said, and she?s right: grades would be different. I wondered how much else would be different if it were women who pioneered the sport of rock climbing.

Grades, media coverage, climbing equipment and brands are mostly all shaped by men. Depending on how deep you want to go, you could even argue that the characteristics of what makes a ?good climber? are created and promoted by men. This means that, in order for women to be 'good' climbers, they have to essentially copy these masculine characteristics.

This is all very philosophical, and quite far removed from your average day at the crag, but suffice to say that the WCS, on its most basic level, seeks to promote the idea that a person's climbing experience should be their own. For women, this might be more difficult than men."

From: thebmc.co.uk/hazel-findlay-on-the-womens-climbing-symposium

That's interesting, maybe. I know absolutely zero about climbing but it sounds thoughtfully argued.

I get annoyed sometimes when I hear people (of both sexes) fetishise competitive sport... absolutely nothing wrong with it for those who are into it, but I don't see why it's a good in itself any more than competitive stamp-collecting is a good in itself. Yes, exercise is healthy (although professional sportspeople suffer so many injuries that I'm not at all convinced that it's a healthy profession to follow!) but there are masses of ways to exercise that don't involve competition at all.

I think liberal feminism is about equality and making things a level playing field (forgive the pun), so that would be about increasing women's participation in sport, making terms and conditions of competitive sport equal and enabling women to participate.

As others have said, radical feminism would see sport as part of the structures that oppress women, by reinforcing ideas about women's physical inferiority, paying them less etc, as well as being male in origin and conceptualisation, authoritarian, combatitive etc. It is difficult to imagine what the sporting world would look like if women would have been involved from the start, instead of being allowed to/fighting for the right to compete.

This means that, in order for women to be 'good' climbers, they have to essentially copy these masculine characteristics.

names - oh, thanks! I understand (and I'm with maybe wondering why I didn't see that before! ).