Can we talk about liberal feminism?

[BertrandRussell]

Can I say what liberal feminism means to me, then can others tell me whether I am understanding it properly?
My understanding is that liberal feminists believe

1. There are no-or very few structural or societal barriers in the way of women's progress. There were, but since the passing of equality legistation they have been almost-if not completely removed
2. That any choice a woman makes is by definition a feminist choice.
3. That women hold the keys of their own empowerment in their own hands- they have nothing to fear but fear itself, to coin a phrase- and realising this is the touchstone to progress.

Is that broadly it? Or am I madly wide of the mark......

At the moment what passes for liberal feminism has turned its back on radical feminism and it has lost its focus. Which is a shame.

I think what passes for liberal feminism has turned its back on any actual feminism full stop tbh.

Thats not a dig at any liberal feminists on here (unless you ARE one of the 'feminist' who centre male people in everything of course, but thats not the definition of libfem), who I would assume would know what I am talking about here.

To my mind both sides need the other

Quite strongly disagree with this. Radical feminists will tell you. It’s just another bloody battle. Instead of just getting shit from men, we also get harassed and verbally bashed by libfems on the regular for voicing our opinions.

It’s just a queue of bullshit.

Do libfems verbally bash radfems on the regular? How does this differ from them disagreeing with them? How does it differ from radfems disagreeing with libfems?

I think it's not just turning its back on so much as actively rejecting and then assigning blame to the wrong place, and we've seen traces of that in this conversation. Hmm, how to put this in a way that doesn't just up the blame ante?

OK, so, the idea that radfems are anti sex rather than anti sex industry and are all about forcing women to stop shaving their legs/wearing makeup/whatever? What that often does is position radfems as an obstacle to women's freedom, and often in an ageist way, as sort of the dour auntie who doesn't want you to have any fun. The whole 2nd wave/3rd wave debate plays into this too. Thing is, what are the biggest obstacles that women face, really? Is it actually some feminists potentially judging their grooming habits/beauty routine? How does that stack up in terms of hurdles that you need to climb over compared to the glass ceiling, or the pay gap, or the idea that women don't belong in certain fields, or the damned if you do damned if you don't aspects of whether or not you have children, or abortion being illegal?

Kind of small potatoes in comparison, right? But there's this narrative of a clash between the young fun loving feminists and the older po faced radfems who disapprove of their choices. Who does that narrative serve? I don't think it's either group of feminists, even if we were to assume that the lines between groups break down as cleanly as that narrative assumes, which they don't.

My theory is that creating that sort of generational divide is something that's baked into the patriarchy, because it limits the generational transfer of knowledge between women and forces each new generation to have to refight many of the same battles, and also makes it much easier for men to sexually groom young women if they've been primed to reject most of what older women have to say about sex and relationships.

Do libfems verbally bash radfems on the regular? How does this differ from them disagreeing with them? How does it differ from radfems disagreeing with libfems?

Yes, elsewhere. Actually, libfems bash libfems elsewhere, with the same TERF and SWERF nonsense. I did 'identify' as a libfem, and not really that long ago either. It was the continual 'terf' and 'swerf' stuff that did actually make me go away and read up a bit on radical feminism. And realise that my views, whilst very varied, do actually align more with radical feminism generally.

A lot of my friends are libfems and especially on facebook and twitter their comments they are bombarded with 'terf' stuff for being gender critical. Its constant.

Used to be said a lot on here too actually. Until feminists (radical or otherwise) started reclaiming the term and using it for themselves.

I have younger libfem friends who've been called SWERFS. One of them used to be a prostitute, for extra irony points.

Reading this, I think I lean towards radical feminism. I don't understamd how libfems can take the view that legal changes now mean the work is nearly done - are they not looking at the position of women throughout the world, not just here in the west.
And actually, even here our society prioritises religious beliefs as if they are more important than any other kind of opinion, even when those religious beliefs oppress women at their very core!

I am deeply concerned with the notion that a man can say they are a woman and that's good enough to access changing rooms and prisons and refuges. It scares the shit out of me that the utter ridiculousness of it is not being seen - it's like me declaring that I self identify as Kate Moss and Vogue being obliged to turn up at my house with a modelling contract and a fuck ton of money! But hardly anyone can see it.

I grew up not feeling discriminated against or oppressed. I have made lots of decisions which I think, in retrospect, were not feminist - I felt I didn't need to worry about all that stuff because I felt equal. But now I think we are going backwards.

But again, context matters:

As a kind of lighthearted (and to lighten the mood here a bit perhaps) description of what I mean, you could do worse than watch 'Robin Williams Live at the Met' (1986). At around 27 (ish) minutes he riffs on this relationship between a man and his penis. Its sooo funny (it was one of his best stand up's), but it illustrates how essentially we have all 'othered' the penis as something independent of a man

There does seem this overwhelming sense sometimes that radfems have wholly bought into the idea that men are utterly incapable of making any choices once his body reacts in certain ways. However, as I have earlier pointed out, both the use of 'libfem' and 'radfem' on this discussion are both hazy undefined terms given that - as I mentioned on my previous comment - these are umbrella terms for a wide variety, in both camps, of different feminist disciplines. And I think the one thing that we can all agree on is that any transformative justice for victims of rape/dv etc has to be rooted in men collectively taking responsibility, given that there is this whole culture of myths that are all about blaming the victim

I was evidencing (with the Robin Williams bit before hand as well) that there is a subconscious idea of the penis being somehow independent of a man's conscious will, and its something we do not discuss enough: not that radfems think men aren't 'responsible' (that's an interpretation, but not what I said) - but the subconscious ways we think of the penis as being 'other'.

Sorry to be awkward, but using such loose umbrella terms really does not help here: after all, are we talking about radfems who urged all women to be 'political lesbians' [such as the Leeds Revolutionary feminists who authored 'LYE - Love Your Enemy: the Debate Between Hetrosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism]; or radfems who refer to PIV [penis in vagina] as always and exclusively being raped (i.e., that it is impossible to consent to sex with a man under the current patriarchal system). Because even you are talking about that kind of radfem theory, even those feminists are seeking for men to be responsible for the violence they cause, even if they do not recognise that they 'other' a physical appendage in a way that is self-defeating.

Miscommunication happens for all sorts of reasons: if we are not talking about that kind of radfem theory as well, then again, it would help tremendously if we looked at each of the differing theories that broadly fall into the two umbrella terms being used here, in order to better identify what various people do, and do not mean.

I don't understamd how libfems can take the view that legal changes now mean the work is nearly done

I literally do not know a single feminist - liberal or otherwise - who thinks the work is nearly done

Rat

I have received no end of abuse online from libfems, but the worst abuse I have seen from libfems is aimed at older radical feminists.

They call older women ‘past it’, tell them they need to ‘step aside’, ‘old’ , ‘hags’, they callcfor the death of germaine Greer. They go for women’s looks, they dox women.

They don’t realise that they are playing into the hands of patriarchy. This is what men want. Keeping younger women away from the knowledge of older women works for patriarchy perfectly.

Oh and when they talk about how much they love violent sex/bdsm, when radfems try and constructively criticise and analyse those fetishes, they just get called boring bitches, prudes, vanilla, etc.

Additional complication - pop culture "feminism" had/is having a bit of a moment, this means that there are some people calling themselves feminists who've never read a feminist book in their lives, and companies trying to use the idea of feminism as a branding tool, which leads to a watered down half assed pseudo feminism that's responsible for some of the "oh all the big battles have already been won" comments.

That's terrible TheShania, I don't doubt for a second that happens (I'm very limited in my use of social media). I haven't seen it often on here though, although of course we all have our own biases as to the threads we read and the posts/themes which stick in our minds. I will very much be aware to look for it in future, particularly as anything which limits discussion is so manifestly unhelpful.

pop Culture sex positive ‘free the nipple’ sex werkk is werkk feminism is thriving because it supports patriarchy. Men don’t have to face any harsh truths if all women subscribe to that kind of feminist ‘theory’.

If they can really go along with the idea that brutal bdsm torture is feminist, nothing can change. If they can really say that prostitutes are empowered, nothing. Will. Fucking. Change.

rat yes it doesn’t happen on mumsnet.

But even the well known libfems kind of ‘fronting’ the movement happily tweet or write things publicly such as ‘terfs are trash’ or ‘terfs are feminazis’. I don’t see how they don’t realise how anti feminist that is.

I can’t rmembber the exact quote, but there’s something about feminism being about fighting for every single woman, eventhe ones you don’t like. Libfems would do good to remember that sometimes.

Neither do I. I mean Jesus, period poverty (time to be cheeky again: PLEASE DONATE SANITORY PRODUCTS TO YOUR LOCAL FOODBANK. Ithankew ), votes for women (yes, still), hanging on for grim death to abortion rights, getting them where they are still needed (or getting them back), FGM, rape/culture, dv/ipv... yeah, there's a shit load of work still to be done, and that's before you then dismantle the rest of the bloody patriarchy too.

I've seen pretty much all of the most important Second Wave feminists dismissed as irrelevant old hags at one point or another for having said something that someone has interpreted as critical of their personal choices (even if it was said/written before that person was born), and the irrelevant because not appealing to the male gaze stuff keeps bubbling up when people go after those women.

yes Angry

I don’t think some(?) libfems understand class analysis. The narcissism is clear when they take every comment about heterosexuality, rape, DV, BDSM, porn as a personal slight, rather than a critical analysis.

Sex positivism in its current form isn't any variety of feminism, it is the backlash.

I WILL DONATE SANITARY PRODUCTS TO MY LOCAL FOODBANK

...I feel like you got inside my head right there But it worked

Sex positivism in its current form isn't any variety of feminism, it is the backlash.

And it’s painful to watch it continue to unfold

NOW GO OUT AND SPREAD THE WORD TOO.

Seriously, cheers Rat, much appreciated.

assigning blame to the wrong place

Yes. And no cui bono ever asked.

"Oh and when they talk about how much they love violent sex/bdsm, when radfems try and constructively criticise and analyse those fetishes, they just get called boring bitches, prudes, vanilla, etc."

If anyone thinks this doesn't happen, I suggest they go and start a thread expressing concern that very young women are being coerced persuaded into anal sex because of the massive increase in porn use.

I was evidencing (with the Robin Williams bit before hand as well)

That's fair enough. I didn't quite see that there was a segue from a Robin Williams sketch to what radfems think, but I think I see what you were driving at. I still disagree however, and think it's actually an incredibly conservative view to see men as controlled by their penis/a penis with a man attached/animals unable to resist base desires.

I've seen pretty much all of the most important Second Wave feminists dismissed as irrelevant old hags at one point or another

Yep, it's far too common. There's definitely a view that radfem is older women and libfem is younger women, which doesn't hold up to scrutiny and is also based so much in ageism and the sexist division of women into (fuckable) maiden, (baby brained) mother and (bitter) crone.