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

[Namechangeforagamechange]

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 have a theory that it is because women are mothers that men might hate us. The vulnerability thing.

So to hear that rad feminists might hate mothers too is very worrying.

Not sure I believe rad fems hate mothers any more than I believe patriarchy benefits all men!

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' seems like a strange kind of ideology for sexually active heterosexual women, to me.

I just wish I'd known how much mothers were hated in radical feminism before I embarked on my radical feminist journey. It would've saved me a lot of energy, honestly, and I would've put my energies more towards perhaps socialist feminism

I honestly think you are far too hung up on labels and ideologies.......As an older, post -menopausal woman, mother and grandmother I now just aim to be the best human being I can be. I recognise the difference between the sexes, along with the issues that arise as a result of women's biology(& how that is interpreted in society); the difficulties in male/female relationships and marriage; the feelings of powerlessness that can often be felt....we're all human beings, but in sexed bodies too...

As a result, partly, of so much anti man feeling on here, I've taken to listening to some of my favourite male musicians and singers over the last few weeks ( I've been listening, primarily, to female voices recently) and appreciating the good men I've known and admired.

Perhaps because I'm now older, and post-menopausal I'm not so caught up in the white heat of gendered issues so much. Male and female just is.......and always will be. Whether or not you choose, or end up, having children is a contemporary issue...but for all of the difficulties not one I personally regret at all.

The answers to the question are either :-

(a)Yes, what an odd question, why would there not be ?; or
(b) No, there isn't.

If the answer is (b) then radical feminism is an exclusionary, fringe ideology which is going to have little attraction to and traction with the majority of women and very limited possibility, if any, of achieving its aims.

Justhadathought I kind of agree. As a post menopausal woman who has been with dh for two decades I don't feel the same anguish for me. However, it is the patterns of abuse suffered by other womem and girls that gets to me.

I have a theory that it is because women are mothers that men might hate us. The vulnerability thing

I think woman hate is inextricably bound up with mother hate, yes. Penis envy... what a patriarchal reversal. But also the vulnerability side, women being weak yes. Men also hate the idea they were at one point completely dependent on their mothers, that's why they basically despise abortion.

Justhadathought I kind of agree. As a post menopausal woman who has been with dh for two decades I don't feel the same anguish for me. However, it is the patterns of abuse suffered by other womem and girls that gets to me

Well yes, of course.....

We are all shaped by our own life experiences, and then tend to form world views based on that. Also, different people interpret their experiences differently, according to their temperament & personal character.

I think woman hate is inextricably bound up with mother hate, yes

There is also great pressure on men to 'become men'; to prove themselves as men...along with natural need for separation from mother, and by extension ' the world of women'.

But we all yearn for and need a 'mother' figure - whether that be found in the arms of the Mother Church; in an all loving or accepting ideology or group; or via actual women in our lives......but for men the world of women is also something they have to reject too.

I honestly think you are far too hung up on labels and ideologies

Possibly so.
But On the other hand I also think that women need to have clearly defined theories. Why should women's philosophy or women's politics be full of blurred lines? Is female politics not allowed to be taken seriously enough that it is able to state clear definitions, aims and goals?
There are bound to be splinter groups, women can't agree on everything, but we need to know what we are agreeing or disagreeing with in the first place.

We know we're already in danger of men redefining feminism to suit their needs. It keeps happening decade after decade; feminism keeps getting hijacked because women expand what it means to please the masses or to please men, rendering it meaningless.

If you don't even know where you're going you're just wasting and expending energy on hit and miss single issue politics

I read somewhere on mumsnet that men agree that some men will rule over all men, so that all men can rule over women.

That seems rather improbable, historically, psychologically, and politically.

I think you are right, you replace the word “patriarchy” with the words “the man”, and men don’t tend to object. Which is interesting as I use the word patriarchy I’ll get “not all men” etc etc.

I think this reflects some of my own problems with its use. There's a sense in which if you say "the man is out to get you" we all kind of know what is meant. But on the other hand, for any kind of real social or political analysis, it's not adequate.

You can see the same thing with terms like "elite" or indeed, patriarchy. Some sort of shadowy structure of power, but not a lot of clarity necessarily about who wields it or how its maintained. So you get statements like men agree together that some men can rule over others so all can rule over women. Well, really? Where does this happen? Do the men at the bottom really see that as a good deal? They all say, well, what we all want more than anything is to make sure we are in charge of women, because we resent them.

That's just not a robust theory, and its not clearly grounded in material reality. There is no mechanism or root besides unsubstantiated suppositions about men's psychology. You could support any theory that way, and theories like that tend to be dangerous because they just end up reflecting individuals own psychological issues.

Is female politics not allowed to be taken seriously enough that it is able to state clear definitions, aims and goals?

Isn't all politics about certain groups attempting to tell their stories?
Of course women's voices need to be heard, and their experiences given credence and value. That is what feminism is about for me.

"I think woman hate is inextricably bound up with mother hate, yes." Yes, I agree.

"Penis envy... what a patriarchal reversal. But also the vulnerability side, women being weak yes." Sorry I did not mean womem being weak or vulnerable. I meant men being vulnerable.

But I think you know what I mean because you said "Men also hate the idea they were at one point completely dependent on their mothers." I agree.

Re "... that's why they basically despise abortion." I'm not sure I'd go as far as to link it to abortion (some men seem to be all for it).

But rather that needing mother's love shows males they ate vulnerable.

However, womem are also vulnerable to needing mother's love so that doesn't completely explain it!

Still scratching my head!

However, womem are also vulnerable to needing mother's love so that doesn't completely explain it!

Maybe men's utter obsession with being proven to be superior to women just leads back to a simple boyhood awe of the mother figure.
Which would be quaint and interesting if it weren't for the fact the results are so horrible. Mothers in particular are targeted in wars, I've noticed, by soldiers. Moreso than non-mothers, which I've always found strange because you'd assume soldiers would go for the youngest women. But they don't, it's mothers that get the brunt of it, from my personal observations. It's chilling and I don't want to even analyze it.

What I certainly don't want to see is mommy hate coming from certain areas of feminism.

..but for men the world of women is also something they have to reject too.

Yes, by design they would probably leave to join the men as young teens. And leave the women's world. That is actually radical feminist utopia.
What actually happens though is that they don't in fact leave, even if they do rebel against their mothers. Radical feminists would argue that men in fact have created conditions that mean they have access to women for the rest of their lives. And for those men who don't manage to actually get a wife, women's economic oppression ensures he can still get a fuck off a prostitute, and have all of his needs taken care of in a nursing home, or whatever else he might require at every step along the way.

We can only dream that they will one day leave women alone and go off with the men.

MGTOW , you should google it, it's funny. Men Going Their Own Way.
AS IF!!!

Sakura184
Mothers in particular are targeted in wars, I've noticed, by soldiers. Moreso than non-mothers, which I've always found strange because you'd assume soldiers would go for the youngest women. But they don't, it's mothers that get the brunt of it, from my personal observations. It's chilling and I don't want to even analyze it.
Where are you getting your evidence from, what personal observations?
All of this is sub Freud.

Where are you getting your evidence from, what personal observations

Here and there, stuff I've been unable to avoid.

But anyway I've just remembered something an INcel said. He said he despised mothers because it meant that the woman had been impregnated by another man's sperm.
So maybe it's not got anything to do with their own mothers, and everything to do with the fact that men are by natural law in competition with other men.

People who are mentally ill are not really a good indicator of the thought processes of normal people.

I suppose it's possible that in war soldiers might be more aggressive to mothers, but I have never heard that or observed it. It's the kind of statement that requires some real basis for the claim.

You need to have some discernment about the things you hear and believe and repeat.

@goosefoot

www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2037

"There is also increasing evidence of violence directed specifically at pregnant women."

I haven't read the whole article because I can't handle it, but that's in the abstract.

But also Sakura said she has observed it. That means she has. That is evidence. I hate the way women's observations and experience is dismissed as not evidence all the time. But in the BMJ article, it's a professional male who has observed it, so that's okay.

Where are you getting your evidence from, what personal observations

Here and there, stuff I've been unable to avoid

Sorry, that's not evidence as far as I'm concerned.

Is not about rejecting women's evidence it's about asking for substantiated evidence. Anti-vaxxers say they have observed children developing autism after the MMR jab. Doesn't make it true. Or valid evidence.
A lifetime ago I did my MA thesis in feminist interpretations of humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. Now that was quite brutal. Particularly the bit where the USA refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the ICC over it's citizens. Rape as a weapon of war is about shocking people because it's an even stronger social taboo than rape.
The evidence I've seen from that conflict (admittedly a while ago) does that suggest it was widespread and planned philosophical in the way Sakura implies.
However, it is clear Sakura sees the world in a very different way to me. She might argue it's because I suffer from Stockholm syndrome or I'm some kind of Stepford Wife. It's not.
Our differences arise as she sees the world in terms of groupings. I see it as a little more complicated than that and look at how individuals behave.

But On the other hand I also think that women need to have clearly defined theories. Why should women's philosophy or women's politics be full of blurred lines? Is female politics not allowed to be taken seriously enough that it is able to state clear definitions, aims and goals?

There it is.

An admission of rigid thinking being how you think. In black and white terms.

Except that's not how the world is. It's shades of grey.

And all black and white politics does is fall flat on its arse when you try and implement it because it fails to consider negative unintended consequences, because its so wrapped up in its desire to be pure, it forgets to consider the real world. It becomes blind to its own weakness.

An inability to be pragmatic is always going to be its failure.

Which is what I've always argued.

Maniak
But also Sakura said she has observed it. That means she has. That is evidence. I hate the way women's observations and experience is dismissed as not evidence all the time.
Sorry I'm a natural sceptic I never just take someone's word without good cause. The man was a witness in a war zone. He can name time and place. If Sakura's been in a war zone I'm sure she can share the details.

If Sakura's been in a war zone I'm sure she can share the details

It would be unfair to compile a list of the information Sakura has provided about herself but she is certainly not slow in providing details about her personal life.