Trying to figure out difference between liberal and radical feminism

[Millie2008]

Although I’ve always considered myself a feminist, since becoming a mother I’ve become more actively interested. Perhaps I’m reading the wrong material, but I’m struggling to work out the fundamental difference between liberal and radical feminism. Can anyone give a succinct summary of each and they’re essential differences please? I understand that it’s probably difficult to do this in a few sentences!, so even if you could point me in the direction of some good reading material that would be great. Thank you

I can only tell you my impression, and others, more knowledgeable ones, may well correct me. But my impression is that liberal feminism is more superficial, in that it disregards root causes of women‘s oppression, the reproductive role, economic hardships and socialization. They just see the isolated individual imo. So a liberal feminist will say: and if you want to be a prostitute, you can be a prostitute, fully ignoring, what factors (like no other education, being used to abuse by males, no money...) might make a woman choose a career of systematic rape.

But maybe I am biased.

One way of glossing the distinction I've seen is that liberal feminism seeks to improve women's status within the existing system while radical feminism (from the Greek for root - i.e. going to the root of the problem) seeks to critique how the system came into being in the first place, whether it is possible to "fix" the system or whether this is in fact simply putting sticking plasters over an infected wound, and whether in fact we need a different system.

So, for instance, a liberal feminist might campaign for workplace nurseries, while a radical feminist might campaign for a citizen's wage as a way of recognising the unpaid labour women do. (Might rather than would because this is a scrappy off-the-top-of-my-head, oversimplified example - Lisa Muggeridge has an excellent video on what's wrong with a universal citizen's wage ).

This is what I think it is though others may disagree!
Radical feminists take a view or female oppression with its origins in Marxist thought about class and structural oppression. Their definition of patriarchy is from Engels the origin of the family (though I confess I haven't read that!) But that doesn't mean they are all Marxists in the economic sense.
They recognize women (females) as an oppressed class who have been exploited by the male class esp for reproduction, caring labour and sex. They look for the root of this (hence radical) and find the answer to be female biology in comparison to male esp the reproductive role. A more Marxist version ties this to property inheritance and the need for men to know who are their children.
Gender in this way of thinking is the expectations placed on people by a patriarchal society depending on whether they are male or female. These expectations and restrictions keep women in their place and allow men to dominate. It is how the oppression is conducted.
Sex (male female bodies) is therefore v important to this strain of thought. Sorry v long I will come back in a bit for lib fem.

I think I can help.

The Liberal ones aren't actually feminists.

@VickyEadie

Libfem centres men and their rights over women - thus endorses prostitution, porn, men in women's spaces and forms etc and downplays the patriarchal system that limits and enslaves all women- it's the "try hard enough and anyway and you'll make it plus anything goes as long as men are not limited in any way" - so isn't feminism.

"Radical" feminism isn't really radical but the good old-fashioned feminism that centres women and their rights.

With liberal feminism literally every choice a woman makes is feminist. Pole dancing is feminist. Wearing red lipstick is feminist. Beyoncé posing naked is feminist. There is no analysis of how choices made on an individual level might contribute to the objectification of women as a sex class. It’s all just super feminist because it’s an action being carried out by a woman.

It genuinely is that shallow and devoid of intelligent analysis.

Lib fems are the ones who failed biology GCSEs

What Vicky said. I despair sometimes when women go on about equal pay and nurseries and stripping as a form of creative expression and call themselves feminists. When they openly dismiss second wave feminism and all the achievements of the women in that movement.

Libfems seem to equate "something done by a woman" as "feminism".

This explains all for you.

Most women wonder simply “am I /should I be a feminist?”. I have never read anyone using “liberal” before the word feminist when they are exploring in this way. So “liberal” seems to be mainly a word used by radical feminists to point out flaws in “mainstream” Theresa-May-style feminism.

(Caveat, That said, we do have one regular poster , Ratrolypoly, who calls HErself a liberal feminist. But only one I think)

OP, I think the problem with mainstream feminism is that it works on the basis of minimising/ignoring differences. That can work well when you are middle class especially if you haven’t had your life changed by your female biology much (endometriosis/childbirth).

Good series of videos here explaining the difference between liberal & radical (c. 20 mins total)

The terms have shifted over time. Once, radical feminism was almost segregationist, desiring a complete withdrawal from patriarchal structures.

But now, roughly, the terms can be understood as follows...

Liberal feminism is elite feminism. It reads society, culture and politics from the perspective of a wealthy, highly educated female who generally has freedom from the harshness of the female experience due to wealth and privilege. So sex work is unproblematic because it will never affect these women in any way, either as a primary or secondary victim. Pole dancing is "ironic" because they will never actually be in a position where that is the only way they can afford to pay the rent.

Radical feminism is now street level feminism. It reads society from the perspective of the ordinary woman who does not have wealth and privilege, and thus faces the harshness of the female state within that structure. So sex work is problematic because radical feminism recognises the exploitation of the female in
sex work and recognises that females are harmed by this work and that those females are the same class as the radical feminist and this paradigm affects all ordinary women's lives outside of the elite bubble. For example, look at Leeds: the sex work in the decriminalised zone not only exploits trafficked females , but also disrupts the lives of non sex worker females and girls living in the area, and attitudes to females in general. Radical feminism sees this; liberal feminism does not.

I think, to some extent, radical feminism is an expression of communitarianist drives (ie. females as a class) whereas liberal feminism is pretty much neo-liberal and individualistic (the female as an individual).

In this way, today's radical feminism can be read as Marxist and liberal feminism as neo-capitalist, but I'm not sure how far those comparisons are actually useful, tbh.

Thank you so much for all your replies - much more helpful than anything I’ve read so far! Just watched the video posted by funky - LOVE. IT. Who is the presenter? Am going to attempt to watch vids posted by chilli in a bit (if 9month old plays ball!)
Have a couple of questions about the whole trans issue (partly answered in vid I’ve just watched) but will wait to ask those in case they’re answered by other vids.

Thanks Packing. I think in this respect I align more with radical feminism. I have strong views around social justice and work with marginalised women whose negative experiences are almost always associated with being oppressed and controlled in some way by men - so in this respect are a direct consequence of being a woman in a system that opresses women (if that makes any sense? Have never tried to articulate that thought)

Good series of videos here explaining the difference between liberal & radical (c. 20 mins total)

I didn't watch it. I see Lierre Keith has another video spouting a load of anti-
vegan/ anti- vegetarian nonsense.

I’m a liberal feminist.

I think women have the right to make their own choices and I accept that some of those choices will be anti women. I believe however that we can alter society by changing laws, social attitudes and institutions to ensure that we remove sexism and that once sexism is removed, women should have agency and be free to make their own decisions about their own lives as the structures in place in society will protect others from bad choices affecting them.

I think radical feminism makes a lot of noise that is hugely beneficial but offers no realistic way in which to put the theory into practice in any meaningful way that helps reorganise our laws and institutions.

I don’t think I’m a better feminist or worse feminist than anyone else.

Blistory what theoretical frameworks underpin contemporary liberal feminism? And what are the key texts? I ask because I'm familiar with Engels and texts that relate to radical feminism, also a lot of people who once were described as socialist-feminists are now part of that grouping. Is liberal feminism more aligned with people like Sara Ahmed and Judith Butler or is it more Martha Nussbaum?

Isn't she? She used to get mentioned with approval on a regular basis when I first started posting here about 4 or 5 years ago. Inasmuch as I could make sense of anything she said her notions of performativity and performing femininty seemed to go down well.

She seemed to go out of favour on here after an interview with a trans activist where she said everyone had misunderstood her.

My starting point is John Stuart Mills, and whilst problematic in some ways , his “Subjugation of Women” was the first thing I read and identified with.

Liberal feminist theory has some deficiencies which radical feminism attempted to address. And I would absolutely agree that liberal feminism was founded by and for white, middle and upper class women but that’s how most political movements begin given the dominance of those classes. I would hope that any feminist interested in feminist theory would read a variety of texts, not just those that match their own views.

Just because it isn’t radical doesn’t mean it’s fun feminism or a lesser form of feminism. I have always argued that both theories have continuing value and impact and should be respected and not vilified.

FFS - the Subjection of Women