Is there a place in radical feminism for women who are married to men?

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Just that really. I consider radfem views as most closely aligning with my own, but I am married with 2 children. After being subjected to the most hideous pile on in a radfem Facebook group about relationships with men, I'm left feeling a bit disillusioned.

I'm not libfem in any way, shape or form. So where do I go?

I'll admit I'm feeling a little sensitive atm, I chose to share traumatic experiences I haven't talked about for a long time and it's left me exhausted. I was accused of manipulating behaviour because I said dredging up those feelings had made me cry. I honestly cannot see how explaining that speaking about my own experiences has upset me is manipulating, but then a lot of what I said was taken out of context and twisted.

I will never feel comfortable in a 'Feminist' space where it's OK to tear down a woman when she is talking about past trauma. So where is MY place in feminism? Please, be kind.

I honestly don't know how anyone can read the words "ideological purity" and not get a shiver of fear.

The problem feminism has is that over the decades it has been redefined over and over again by men and anti feminist women to the point where it doesn't mean anything. If feminism is anything and anyone can be a feminist then prostitution is a feminist option, supporting trans is feminist, getting married is feminist, fathers rights activism is feminist (fucking over mothers in the name of equality), and on it goes

So I think now more than ever it is really important for feminism to be ideologically pure and to very clear lines in the sand about what it is and what it isn't.

It's almost like it's only men who are allowed activism, extremism, militancy and ideological purity. Women have to be nice to everyone

I think the legal definition of rape is different because the question is not was consent given but rather did he reasonably believe consent was given. That's all about the perpetrator and what he did or did not think, as well as what society deems to be reasonable thought. That's a completely different question to that posed by radical feminism which centres women and what we think.

I think what I am saying (I am thinking aloud here somewhat) is that the type of legal question is about as far as you can really go with the idea of consent. It's almost something that you have to presuppose if you are going to talk about people making any kind of agreement, be it to have sex, or get a tooth extracted, or take a job.

I don't think there is any room in that concept for exploring what is "real" consent, or why sometimes it might be less complete than other times, or even whether it is possible to do it at all. I would say that I often find the feminist discussions around it really inadequate and even misguided, and I think at least part of the problem might be that it's not a concept that lends itself to that kind of exploration.

Oh, I think ideologically pure men have some pretty significant criticisms levelled against them as well.

It is interesting and telling though that an ideology that basically involves lowering or preventing male access to women is seen as being akin to male ideologies that have Carried out genocide.

I mean patriarchal ideology (anti feminism) promotes femicide but nobody cares about that when it's only women dying

Feminism arises is a response to the ongoing femicide and is seen as being extremist for suggesting women stop consensual PIV

It just tells me how much women are despised and hated for moving their chains even a tiny bit

It's only after I became a feminist that i learned that it was controversial for a woman to kill her rapist.
I saw that women were serving jail sentences of thirty years or more for this; there is currently a young woman in jail for a long time in the US for killing a punter when she was 15.
Then I saw men were getting very lenient sentences for raping babies, that sort of thing, you know

It made me feel that feminism really needed to go a lot further than it has , even to the point of suggesting that men might have to lose out on teh precious PIV. Oh noes!

But @sakura184 how does that work? 'Het' women have sexual desires. Should they ignore them? Are you going to farm men for sperm? It's quite frankly ridiculous. And isn't about equality at all.
I want to see equality of opportunity. For everyone. I went to an all girls' school which was founded to give girls the same opportunities. My head teacher used to say 'boys are for recreation not education'.
But then what you're calling radical feminism I would call extremism. As such no better or worse than any other form of extremism.
Regardless of all that though, there was no excuse to treat the OP so shabbily.

@sakura184 you can disagree with those sentences without being a radfem.

Back to the PIV argument, here is a comment on Witchwind's post that I liked:

My ex, who is a sociopath, told me years ago that if women understood what men are REALLY doing to women when they put their penises into us, all women would be virgins and never let a man do it. He said that men assume we must be stupid for falling for this trick, and that the sexual revolution was the mockery of the century, because now women were giving to men for free what they used to have to marry us for.

Het' women have sexual desires. Should they ignore them

I think if a man respects you he can work around no PIV.
When I was het I always remembered that the PIV part of sex meant the best bits were over. I know some women like to be penetrated, but lots of het women aren't that bothered. Like, that phrase goes "maybe the tango is better than the sex". And when we factor in how problematic PIV is for women you'd think he'd be able to use his imagination a bit better

I also want to add that I could tell straight away if a man watched porn or not as he was totally shit in bed. I'm lucky I'm from an era where not all men watched porn. Can you imagine how crap the sex is for today's young women!

You know many women really like having sex with a penis, right?

i am just trying to picture all the women telling all the men that they will just have sex without that, and somehow that will make things all more equal.

I get the sense that you haven't really thought about this in much detail.

@sakura184 and you're generalising again! One of the things feminism rails against is the generalising and pigeonholing of women as an entire group. This is exactly what patriarchy does. Reduces women to a homogeneous group who all think alike.
Guess what? Men don't. Women don't. Not all men are sociopaths looking at women with disgust. It's just not true.

You can disagree with those sentences without being a radfem

Yes I absolutely get that.

My ex, who is a sociopath, told me years ago that if women understood what men are REALLY doing to women when they put their penises into us, all women would be virgins and never let a man do it. He said that men assume we must be stupid for falling for this trick, and that the sexual revolution was the mockery of the century, because now women were giving to men for free what they used to have to marry us for.

What do you like about it? Do you think it's true what this sociopath says? Does he think he's speaking for all men, and do you?
I don't think a word of it is true by the way.
And again, it's ignoring the wishes of women to say this and reducing women to objects. Imagine that, feminists reducing women to mere fuckholes? Sex isn't men putting penises in women.

I really hate this concept that if you're a feminist you have to reject PIV which some of us genuinely enjoy. Not just because we 'have' to but because we like it. And that's ok. It's ok not to like it to.
Lesbians are not superior feminists because they are lesbians they are feminists who happen to be lesbian. Radfem as espoused by you sounds like a very narrow, separatist, lonely place.

I think if a man respects you he can work around no PIV.

But what if I want PIV? Fuck my wants, eh? I'm just a woman.

@deydododatdodontdeydo - exactly! WTF women's needs being ignored sounds a lot like the patriarchy to me.

Yes, a sociopath is not going to be the best person to describe how normal people feel. It is hard to think of someone less likely to know.

If you are using this guy as your example of what men are like, that's a problem.

i am just trying to picture all the women telling all the men that they will just have sex without that, and somehow that will make things all more equal.

Why wouldn't a man who respects you and understands how problematic PIV is for your body, find other ways?

You're arguing that men don't care, and aren't capable of knowing the effects of PIV (diseases, unwanted pregnancy /abortion). And I'm supposed to be the manhater around here. I think men are perfectly capable of abstaining from PIV.
Theres always the danger that might go looking elsewhere for it of course, there's always that.

Anyway it hardly matters, you can still give up PIV for political reasons. Lots of women have done it, become celibate for the cause.

But what if I want PIV? Fuck my wants, eh? I'm just a woman

No that's fine, fight for your right to PIV. It's what women of the sexual revolution did.

You don't have to agree with the anti PIV ideology. It's just there that's all, and it's gaining traction in feminism. And it makes a strange kind of sense to me

It's almost like it's only men who are allowed activism, extremism, militancy and ideological purity. Women have to be nice to everyone

Its almost like you don't know my posting history.

I have a problem with activism, extremism, miltancy and ideological purity across the board. I have been pretty vocal about it for a number of years, particularly in my criticism of how the media have handled it in recent years and how it tends to be driven against women's interests.

You might be able to level that criticism at other posters, but you can not level it at me and I think I'm correct in saying I'm the one who raised it on this thread to begin with.

I raised ideological purity as a problem on this thread precisely BECAUSE I have that view and this is merely another example of extremism which I don't think either health nor production.

Other posters are well aware of this being a particular bugbear of mine with reference to the media, politics and childbirth, cos I have banged on about it so bleeding much! If you were to trace a common theme in my posting it possibly is the most consistent theme I pick up on.

For you to lay that one down as a accusation is rip roaringly hilarous.

Good work.

Regarding PIV, I'm reading the comments on her blog and she makes an interesting point regarding consent

the second thing is that violence is NEVER measured or qualified according to what the victim did or thought, but according to what the perpetrator DID. Violence is objective. What defines violence is the presence / reality of violence, not how the victim reacted to it, or how she behaved before the perpetrator did it.

I have a problem with activism, extremism, miltancy and ideological purity across the board

but I argue that equating discussions of PIV and maybe antinatalism with jihadi retribution or the Khmer Rouge or Hitler is misogynistic.

When women think or speak up against patriarchy men perceive this as "literal violence". That is because only men are allowed to be literally violent. And women must not even be allowed to speak.

You don't have to agree with the anti PIV ideology. It's just there that's all, and it's gaining traction in feminism. And it makes a strange kind of sense to me

Thing is, rape aside, any woman can be celibate without any repercusions.
If you're married or have a partner and tell your husband (or wife actually) "I no longer want to have sex" then that would possibly lead to separation.
If you're not, well you simply don't have sex. I know a ton of single women, they live their lives without ever having to have sex.
(The fact that most of them want a man and a sex life is a different story...).

When women think or speak up against patriarchy men perceive this as "literal violence".

I'm pretty sure men never say that. Apart from TRAs, men perceive "literal violence" as, y'know, literal violence.
A man would laugh in your face if you said name calling was literal violence (TRAs aside).