The difference between liberal and radical feminism

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

This short video explains the basic difference between liberal and radical feminism.

Kind of like the sidelining of older women, iykwim. And I'm not even that old.

Okay - been away most of the evening so didnt realise that.

Are we the Judean People's Liberation Front or the People's Front of Judea??

(Sorry, couldn't resist )

Probably does seem like that to outsiders. But the differences mean we approach issues in very different ways. For example, around issues to do with Trans people the views and actions of liberal and radical feminists are vastly different. So the differences do actually mean something.

We are all individuals.

The issue with liberals and pornography is that liberals regard censorship, in any form and for any cause, as a horror. Radicals might say porn is a worse horrorand anyway, radicals down through the ages have never flinched from censorship, as long as they're the ones in charge. So it really isn't that liberal feminists are "pro porn"they probably don't like it, but they'd say (all right, we'd say) that there's no fair mechanism for getting rid of pornography without doing a lot of harm to people's freedom. And they, uh, we, would also ask who's going to be sitting at the controls of the censorship engine, us or our enemies? Whereas radicals think in terms of a total change in society, so they never need to deal with the idea that preventing porn will be yet another government function that'll be done so badly we'll probably wish we'd never heard of it. Obviously, the right people will be in charge of what gets published!

Oh, I don't think so, eats. Even dworkin believed that someone who was being discriminated against and suffering due to their gender had the right to identify as to whatever gender they needed to in order to gain protection. I doubt I can find the quotes, but it makes me chortle every time we have a trans thread.

Oh, I'm not a liberal then.

Honestly, it's so tricky to keep up with what you're supposed to be, these days.

I know loads of anti-porn fems, none of whom identify as radical feminists. Maybe it's a denial thing. A bit like 'i'm a feminist, but...'

It's not so far off the truth anyway. Tbh 'radical' isn't a very exclusive club. Most of the self identified liberals who took that flaming test came out as largely rad iirc.

It's the hierarchical nature of the thing that gets right on my tits, tbh. And I love an underdog.

Radical feminists believe clearly that you cant change sex. And authors of feminist theory are not gods - its not like the Bible where every utterance of a radical feminist author is accepted as the literal truth.

madwoman - In the real world radical feminists are very much in the minority

What makes that a rad proposition then?

Afaik most liberals just believe if you want to be identified as a woman in law, you do x,y and z, and should be able to in order to gain a very small degree of protection in a vicious patriarchal society. An act of desperation to fit in.

What you believe about someone who has genital surgery or just puts on a dress is neither here nor there.

I know, eats. but they are a mouthy lot on tinternet and always slagging off liberals, which they seem to confuse with sex-positivism and pole dancing.

'But because there are so few liberal feminists now taking an antio porn and prostitution stance, this stance is often seen as purely a radical feminist stance. It is not. There used to be many liberal feminists who took the same stance and I hope there will be again in the future.'

I agree that I've always identified as a liberal feminist and have been anti porn and prostitution since the 70s. It confused me enormously when the proporn and prostitution activists also identified as feminist, as for decades, that was what we had been campaigning against. Was that wave three or four?

'Liberal feminism is making changes to the system to lead to equality.' Yes, as a main strategy and philosophy. Although there is a place for dynamite if certain aspects of the system are unable to change in this way.

Its strange, I've not thought of liberals as pro-porn. I think of sex-possies and funfems as pro-porn, but I can see how liberals get shoved in the mix because liberal feminism isn't woman-centred. It seeks equality with men rather than liberation from male domination, and hopes men will relinquish power when presented with good reason to do so.

Radical feminism sees men as a class as the oppressors of women as a class, whereas liberals tend to think its neither nice or practical to name the oppressor. In fact they don't tend to speak of oppression at all, its all about equality and inequality.

I don't believe liberals and radicals are actually hostile in their objectives, just that they disagree strongly on the role of men in both perpetuating women's oppression and the role of men in liberating women from it (or should I say 'helping women achieve equality?).

It's all linguistics.

To say liberals seek equality but aren't woman-centred is an opinion, rather than any definitive. I don't know any feminists of any description who fail to recognize an oppressor, and indeed the oppressed. And to seek equality is to seek to rid the oppressed of oppression. You can call that liberation from male oppression. I have absolutely no idea where seeking the relonquishment of power 'when presented with good reason to do so' comes from. Is there some doctrine that I am missing out on?

Is there an actual tangible difference between equality and lack of oppression?

I don't mean the old 'trying to be equal to men on men's terms' garbage. I mean, if everyone is treated equally, there is no oppressor, no oppressed.

You are right about the class thing though. I'm not arguing against the existence of male privilege whether individual men want it or not, but to write off half of humanity by virtue of their genitalia is a step difference.

No offence intended, but generally I notice a squeamishness about naming the oppressor and yes, it is linguistics to speak about equality, but it is a language men generally prefer. It means they don't have to engage in soul-searching questions about their role as oppressor. It also means men can make feminism all about them. They can claim to be feminist, even better feminists than women even while engaging in oppressive behaviours.

That's what I mean about not woman-centred. If a man steps up, claims patriarchy hurts him more than any women, starts telling women how to conduct themselves, etc, radical feminists would probaby roast him and escort him out of the building, whereas liberal feminists would allow him space to divert the agenda.

Yes, I agree with that. Isn't the point that most people don't automatically think about structures of power/power imbalances while they're going about their daily lives? So we don't realize unless we keep reminding ourselves, what is going on.

Often when people talk about wanting 'equality', that goes hand in hand with the idea that equality right now means dedicating 50% of resources/time/energy to men as well as women - and to the men who're most used to having the lion's share of it anyway. So it's 'equal' if in my class I teach 5 male writers and 5 women. Even if there are 6 really amazing women writers to talk about - that wouldn't be 'equality'. Even if those students have studied almost nothing but male writers up to the point when they get to my class. That's a really silly example but people really do get up in arms about the 'inequality' of that, and unless I label the class 'women's writing' , teaching a majority of women is 'unfair' whereas the rest of the education system where it happens as normal, just gets the equalists' response: 'oh, what a pity ... but then, most writers are men'

I think it's probably the same with other things.

That's a great example LRD.

In a lot of cases I think there's a certain degree of pragmatism to liberal thinking. There's an acceptance that 'look men have all the power and we'd better not piss them off if we want to change things, we need them to want to cooperate with us'. And this leads to what I think are quite humiliating concessions:

Yes life is just as unfair for men, no, we aren't angry we just think men should be more sporting, yes women also need to be restrained from getting too large a slice of the pie, etc.

Foodunit, are you a name changer? I don't recognise your name but...

Great stuff on this thread.

For me there are profound problems with liberalism (not just within a feminist context). The problems were gradually revealed to me from university days onward by a fiendishly clever Asian friend of mine who was very sharp to certain things to do with racism which I (white) I'm afraid would not have noticed.

There is a long thing that I would like to write about the limits of liberalism. And how little it can ever accomplish. It annoys me that some of my best friends, and the people I can be most intellectually attracted to, then turn out to have this liberalism running through their thinking, weakening it, a sort of failure to face up to the reality of things in the end. A sort of blithe wishful thinking takes over from their other sharpness at the last minute.

I think FoodUnit's been around ages?

But thanks food, and yes, absolutely! There is this idea that women have to set an example, and some men feel that it's their job to snipe at feminists not being perfectly 'equal' (by which they mean not giving men 50% time/energy/credit in every single context). It is very tedious.

I've been around a while and don't use other names on FWR - but I do dip in and out.... Funny because other people ask me this too. I must have a psychological doppelgänger!

Hi FoodUnit, must just be because I dip in and out too so may have missed you. Just noting some great posts, thank you!

(I have this irl. I am the most forgettable person in the world, have been in my industry since 1995 and know who everyone is but they have all forgotten me and I regularly get re-introduced)

I am totally anti prostitution (but would prosecute the buyers of women not the women themselves) and almost totally anti porn (anti the porn industry and 99.9999% of their products but understand the appeal of erotica and would understand the appeal of visual erotica if not linked to the current porn industry).

BUT... i think i'm probably a liberal feminist in that my personal fights are to remove barriers to women studying science and engineering and succeeding in research as a longterm career during and after maternity - whereas I think that a rad fem would want to dismantle the institutions of science and engineering entirely as being fundamentally patriarchal. I also fight for women in sport (whereas some rad fems seem to be quite anti-sport as a construct) and i fight against anything that stops girls from being active, creative and assertive if they want to be and describes 'girl' behaviour and 'boy' behaviour in children.

However i don't like the term 'liberal feminist' because the every-day non political use of the world 'liberal' implies a 'live and let live' attitude and also because some people think it means i am all for pole-dancing and page3 .

Thanks Vessie

maybenow

"I think that a rad fem would want to dismantle the institutions of science and engineering entirely as being fundamentally patriarchal. I also fight for women in sport (whereas some rad fems seem to be quite anti-sport as a construct)"

I have to disagree with this about radfems! I think no radfem would shy away from subjecting the institutions to radical analysis and trying to remove all patriarchal bias, but that doesn't mean that they have all the subtlety of a suicide bomber that wants to flatten everything to the ground. Women have actually taken part in science throughout history, its just that men have overwhelmingly taken the credit for and invisiblised their acheivements. The partriarchal instutions like the Royal Society have been pretty entrenched in their misogyny, racism and classism. Tipping scientific authority away from such institutions is good for all sorts, not just women, but there is no reason to believe that radical feminist science isn't possible

I've also heard this thing about sport somewhere else - perhaps a small group of women got together and decided sport was inherently patriarchal are now attributed with founding an anti-sport doctrine all radfems must now obediantly follow?

Any woman can engage in radical feminist analysis to arrive at the truth, and there is no doctrine to follow, just some areas that have been more rigorously analysed and agreed upon than others. So I think radical feminism just requires unflinching mental rigour, and a readiness to see how sinister many blithely 'everyday' things actually are in their origins, and the readiness to be at odds with prevalent opinions - in other words - be ready to view the 'emporers new clothes' of the unfair status quo and define herself in opposition to it.

'claims patriarchy hurts him more than any women'

Um, and only radicals would escort him out of the building? okaaaaaaay.

I agree that liberals would be more likely to engage and educate though, rather than evict immediately.

My apparently long term failing as a feminist is wanting to gather as many people to the cause as possible, whether they be women, men or trans. Tis my belief that no dismantling of the patriarchy is possible when the desire to do so is guarded by a niche and elitist group.

Note - I am making absolutely no reference to single-topic gatherings of a sex-specific nature. But when it comes to actually gathering forces to change society, I'd like as many people on side as possible.

However, tis my wee girl's birthday, and I have nooooooo intention of getting entrenched in yet another lib/rad/ trans debate. However fascinating it would be to deconstruct science (or at least medicine) for starters.