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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

What counts as radical in the context of politics, not just feminism?

85 replies

DeviTheGaelet · 11/01/2017 14:39

This morning I heard Jeremy Corbyn's plan to introduce legislation to ensure bosses pay was capped at x20 the lowest paid in the company described as "radical".
A few days ago on a thread about what do radical feminists want to achieve I said i thought that use it or lose it paternity leave legislation would be a radical change to improve equality of the semester. But got told this isn't radical because it's using legislation to enforce a change.
Now I'm confused about what radical change actually is? Did the reporter use radical as a word for "a big change" rather than as a change targeting the root of pay inequality?
Can radical change be enacted through existing legal frameworks? Or by definition does this mean it isn't radical?
I'm confused Confused
I would really appreciate it if we didn't derail into "rad fems are mean" please!

OP posts:
qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 15:50

I could ask you the same question.

I don't know...I like debating with people, and questioning things. I have spent my whole life reading and studying and trying to understand the world, and everything seems very questionable to me. I was one of those really annoying kids who kept answering 'Why?' all the time. Furthermore, I grew up in Northern Ireland, which left with a deep suspicion of all political ideologies.

I'm really interested in what other people think - but a lot of what they think seems to me contain all sorts of logical contradictions - whether they're socialists, conservatives, anarchists, feminists, anti-feminists...whatever. That might sound like arrogance, but it's more of a compulsion. I can't stop questioning, challenging and disputing.

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 15:50

*asking 'Why?' all the time

HelenDenver · 13/01/2017 15:55

"That might sound like arrogance, but it's more of a compulsion. I can't stop questioning, challenging and disputing"

Having read a number of threads on here before you started posting, do you think the tone of this board is "debate club", as you describe?

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 16:00

Well, I've seen people having debates on here. Lots.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 16:15

Debates that affect their lives and which they feel strongly about as they have lived experience of being women and facing the problems most of us face. You do not therefore you are wading into something you don't understand. It's very arrogant.

Plus Beachcomber did not say "all women are awesome". At all.

HelenDenver · 13/01/2017 16:37

I said "debate club"

Take the tone of the place. Are there other forums you frequent? Are they like this place, in tone, or more devil's advocate, less personal experience?

I may be wasting my pixels, but if you genuinely want to engage on here, you might think about what I've said.

DeviTheGaelet · 13/01/2017 17:12

You aren't debating. You've waded onto a thread to get all offended because a poster said women are awesome. It'seems the ultimate in "what about the men?"
Thanks for derailing the thread.

OP posts:
Beachcomber · 13/01/2017 18:47

I was referring to myself when I said "awesome".

I specified in my post that I was.

It's a feminist thing Smile

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 18:48

Debates that affect their lives and which they feel strongly about as they have lived experience of being women and facing the problems most of us face. You do not therefore you are wading into something you don't understand. It's very arrogant.

Well, they do concern me, because I am a gendered person in a patriarchal culture too. I haven't waded into any debates directly concerning women's experience of oppression, incidentally. I wouldn't do that - and if I have done so obliviously, then please let me know. That would be wrong.

The only ones I've really have had anything to do with are those concerning how gender is assigned and constructed in our society - not just the female gender but the male too, and how that creates quandaries. That really interests me.

I've got no intention of getting up anyone's nose, or traducing feminism per se. There are lots of feminist causes I support - particularly those surrounding the sex industry, which I think is wholly iniquitous, and doing huge damage to women and our sexual culture more widely. If women are discussing their negative experiences of such things, then that's totally none of my business as a man.

However, I do have issues with some of the theory underpinning third wave feminism. I find it to be (sometimes - mega emphasis) incoherent, closed minded, and complicit in reinforcing the very divisions it critiques. It seems that some (mega emphasis) feminists are caught between two contradictory positions. On the one hand they can't let go of an idea of femininity, or famine difference, connoting women to be nobler and more caring than men. People have even suggested on here that a matriarchy would be a more morally advanced society than a patriarchy. Yet at the same time they trounce these tropes as essentialist and patriarchal. And all of these contradictory positions are often couched within an oppressor/oppressed dialectic that fails to accommodate the fact that power is dynamic - not statically binary. In particular, some (mega emphasis) third wave feminists have a habit of failing to integrate social class (or indeed structural economics as a whole) into their analysis, instead focusing disproportionately on issues of language and identity.

I don't know - I think there are HUGE tensions between men and women at the moment, and it only seems to be getting worse. And the way some of the debates around gender are framed is not often very constructive - or conducive to a more wide-ranging, nuanced and inclusive discussion.

I get the whole female spaces thing, but if we are to move beyond a gendered culture that is creating enormous misery for both men and women, then that debate will have to involve men at some level. After all, ion men are part of the problem then they cannot be unconditionally excluded from the debate that aims at a solution. Of course that doesn't mean anyone should have any place weighing into debates around serious issues which only concern women, or that any form of misogynist abuse should be tolerated. Obviously.

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 18:49

I'm sure you are awesome Beachcomber :)

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 18:52

No, I didn't mean 'what about the men?' Devi. I have no desire to be told that men are awesome too, because that would be just as silly as saying women are awesome. Anyone who goes around saying 'men are great' is talking rubbish.

Neither gender is awesome.

Beachcomber · 13/01/2017 18:53

And other women refers to all the women I know who are awesome. There are loads of them. Smile

I don't know all the women in the world though.

I like mentioning the awesomeness of the women I know. It's a lovely feminist thing Smile

SpeakNoWords · 13/01/2017 19:01

I've been lurking, but wanted to say thanks for the explanations and discussion about the Monique Wittig references as this is something I hadn't come across before. It made a lot of sense to me, and was interesting food for thought.

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 19:01

I like mentioning the awesomeness of the women I know. It's a lovely feminist thing

Of course. There are millions of awesome women whose awesomeness should be celebrated, and millions of thoroughly despicable women who should not be celebrated. Who was it who defined feminism as 'women are human too'? Not that's it for me to dictate what feminism is, but that just makes perfect sense, that statement.

Really I as a man would love a world where women are regarded as equally human to me - in which they are restored to full humanity. That doesn't mean that they're better or worse people, necessarily, just that they're human. Equal in all the good ways and the bad ways.

0phelia · 13/01/2017 19:07

And how does a patriarchy permit those equalities?

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 19:08

Sorry were you addressing me Ophelia?

Beachcomber · 13/01/2017 19:10

I think I'll say it again cos I'm enjoying it so much!

I am awesome. Other women are awesome Smile

Patriarchy tells us that we are shit and worth fuck all.

But I know we are awesome. It's a feminist act that I enjoy; declaring how awesome women can be. We don't say it enough. It's good to say it. Smile

Patriarchs and misogynists don't like it but that's all the more reason to say it!

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:11

We are awesome, I agree.

DeviTheGaelet · 13/01/2017 19:16

Women are awesome. One of the joys of getting older for me has been finding amazing, supportive female friends. Really. And I was one of those 20 year olds that "got on better with men". Stupid girl Grin

OP posts:
HelenDenver · 13/01/2017 19:18
DeviTheGaelet · 13/01/2017 19:20
Grin Anyhow. What about radicalism in general? Has there been any political change in the last 50 years that is genuinely radical? What about the early days of Stonewall and Peter Tatchell "outing" prominent people to show how common being gay was?
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Beachcomber · 13/01/2017 19:21

Linking back in to the theme of the thread, it is actually IMO a radical feminist act to talk about how awesome the women we know are and how awesome women as a class are.

I generally think of radical politics as being politics that challenge the founding concept of whatever you are up against.

As already mentioned, in feminism that means homing in on the root cause of women's political condition.

I do also use "radical" in general to mean fundamental. So a radical policy or change is a sweeping change that challenges the status quo and advocates profound change.

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 19:35

I am awesome. Other women are awesome.

Not all of them are. To make my point more obvious, Myra Hindley, Rose West, Margaret Thatcher, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Leni Riefenstahl, Vanessa George and Elizabeth Bathory are most definitely not awesome.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:48

FFS we get it. But women as a class are awesome. We're not actually talking about men at this point.

qwerty232 · 13/01/2017 19:50

But women as a class are awesome.

Compared to what?