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.

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.

I am not unwilling to consider someones personal observations. It's one set of observations, so it's not the same kind of evidence, but it's good as far as it goes.

I don't think what sakura said reads to me like she has actually observed this herself in the kind of setting where she had any kind of chance to see things unfiltered. It sounded more like an impression from things like news sources. And, to be somewhat frank, I don't consider her to be a reliable observer, I think she is far more inclined to notice things that fit her bias than most people and also to draw unwarranted generalisations.

So no, I'm not being dismissive for no reason, if it was phrased more clearly and a different person I might give it a lot more weight.

I was aware that soldiers are often particularly cruel to pregnant women. "Mothers" is a little more general though. A lot of women are mothers, most adult women in many areas of the world.

"I was aware that soldiers are often particularly cruel to pregnant women. "Mothers" is a little more general though. A lot of women are mothers, most adult women in many areas of the world."

How would soldiers recognize mothers though unless they were pregnant? They do target women and children in groups.

I definitely remember seeing pregnant women targeted recently in Indonesia (I think?); but I think it was something about people targeted in their homes in the middle of the night - pregnant women and women with young children would assumably find it harder to escape in such a situation. So without their murderers being caught, whether there is intentional bias in their murders can only be speculated upon.

How would soldiers recognize mothers though unless they were pregnant? They do target women and children in groups.

Well, yes, that's maybe the problem with the statement. How would they know? If they knew, do they care about them being mothers? Do they go after women with children because they are slower, or because most women have children, or what?

I don't think it would be impossible to know that they target mothers, it might be clear if they said so for example, but it isn't straightforward to observe it, especially if most women are mothers. If that is true it might be that they are more likely to target younger women who are more likely to have children with them, for example.

I don't think we can extrapolate hatred of mothers specifically without more information.

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

Oh, ffs, of course there is! That is quite a lot of us!

So there are two theories. One is that mothers are targeted by soldiers more than non mothers. The other is that soldiers rape and kill women without any bias towards maternal status.

The evidence for the first theory is the observations of beyonddangeroustshirts and the British medical journal that soldiers do target pregnant mothers. There's also Hrdy's work with primates where she argues (convincingly I think) that infanticide by males is widespread and contributes to their evolutionary fitness. It's not exactly the same thing, but I think it shows that male violence against mother/child communities could be reasonably connected to soldiers'/rapists'/murderers'/male primates' perception of maternal status.

For the second theory we have atrocities where the killing, torture and rape does seem without boundaries and indiscriminate. Everyone, from infants to the elderly is slaughtered. On the other hand, for me my mind goes blank when faced with those accounts. I'm not really susceptible to noticing slight biases in the manner, say, in which different groups of people are targeted. On the other hand, there's no question that these episodes are gendered. It is mostly the men doing the killing and raping, and it is mostly women getting raped. Although I wonder if male to male rape occurs more often than is reported because of society's shame about it. Also, there's no pregnancy so it's easier to hide.

So anyway. Two theories. You, @goosefoot, seem attached to the second one, even without any particular evidence for it. For me, it's an interesting idea and more info is needed.

I think primate research can give some very interesting insights but it's not evidence of human behaviour, that would not be a proper use of that kind of research.

I'm not attached to any theory without more evidence to base it on, which is my point, I'm not sure how you concluded I was for anything. Saying there is not enough evidence for one possibility and pointing out other possibilities that the evidence could also support is hardly pushing one POV.

As for rape of other males in war, that has been very common in some societies and historical periods, and its possible it's more common than is reported today, it wouldn't particularly surprise me. However I think if it was very common we would hear more reports than we do. The conception of homosexuality seems to be different in societies where that is a common thing in war and that might well account for why its not seen as much in modern contexts.

When I say primates, I mean primates including humans. Hrdy is an anthropologist first I think.

I'm not attached to any theory without more evidence to base it on, which is my point, I'm not sure how you concluded I was for anything.

@Goosefoot you are right. I did have that impression, but looking back, you never said that. Maybe I mixed you up in my mind with other posters. Sorry.

That wouldn't be surprising quite a few anthropologists look at humans and other primates for commonalities of behaviour.

I don't think there is any question that human males can be a risk to infants, and it happens in some other primates and mammals as well, humans aren't necessarily the most prone to this sort of thing.

But it's not evidence in the relevant sense here, its not a matter of showing that in recent conflicts soldiers have been targeting mothers specifically, more than other women. In the same way that if I heard that in Boston there was a rash of murders of mothers, it wouldn't be evidence. Evidence would be some kind of reports from a reliable source about how there were more mothers suddenly being murdered than was usual.

"I was aware that soldiers are often particularly cruel to pregnant women.

It's interesting to me that you were aware of this Goosefoot.

Of course I fully expect "things I have noticed" not to be taken as proof, although as Maniak states, why shouldn't my witnessing of corroborated accounts not be regarded as evidence?

It follows the rule of: once you notice something for the first time you start to see it everywhere.

Giving or linking to examples of mothers in war zones being targeted for being mothers is not really something I'm inclined to do, but as always you're free to carry out your own research if you disbelieve anything I say.

Also, what is the point in saying "the man saw it for himself because he was there" if a woman then goes on to read his account of events but her attempt to relate the evidence is disbelieved because she wasn't there? Doesn't that render his account also useless? So there is literally no point in war journalists doing their jobs unless they turn war into pornography by filming atrocities.
Oh but wait that has already happened too.

I was essentially talking about pregnant women.
I also read recently about a tribe being targeted in the Middle East, where mothers have had their children killed by Islamic extremists and are now subject to rape and captivity by the soldiers. So the soldiers have specifically targeted women with children and have said they're punishing the women for bearing non Islamic children and that killing the children is "God's will" because it's better for infidel children to be dead.

It was what I read about the Yazidi mothers that made me think that there was more to it than just women who happen to be mothers. To kill a mother's children in punishment for having them with the wrong type of man and then to keep her to rape her seems to me to be a very specific thing, and it reminded me, that's all, of the Incel saying he despised mothers because the baby wasn't produced by his own sperm

Regarding the killing of the babies before going ahead and impregnating the mother yourself, this happens in the animal kingdom. Lions, or maybe chimpanzees. I'm going off to check

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When a new coalition of males takes over a pride, they almost always kill the prides’ cubs, since they are not biologically related and do not want to spend energy ensuring that other lions’ genes will be passed on. In addition, female lions will not be receptive to mating while they are nursing, so killing the cubs enables the male lions to procreate.

africageographic.com/blog/understanding-lion-infanticide/

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.*

I hope you're over at Relationships too, shaming women for "over sharing". And not just reserving such humiliating statements for women who's politics you disagree with

Ugh. I totally internalized that oversharing comment. I was like, oh no, I say a lot about my life too, is that wrong? Now I feel embarrassed for reacting that way. Is there no end to this cycle of shame??

Oh grow up the pair of you. "Cycle of shame" - "Shaming you for sharing" - such melodrama.

Sakura was talking as if she had observed being in a war- zone.

Also, what is the point in saying "the man saw it for himself because he was there" if a woman then goes on to read his account of events but her attempt to relate the evidence is disbelieved because she wasn't there?

You provided no evidence whatsoever beyond vague references to "stuff you had observed". That isn't evidence just because a woman said it.

You said nothing whatsoever about having read the first hand account a later poster referred to. You are now re-writing what you posted. Your objection was that he was believed and you weren't. His was a first hand account- yours had no evidence or resources to back up your post.

It follows the rule of: once you notice something for the first time you start to see it everywhere.

Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

Sakura was talking as if she had observed being in a war- zone

I definitely wasn't doing that. Although noticing life through a radfem lens is arguably traumatizing. That's what I meant when I said I've come across things I can't avoid. Sorry if that sounded like I'd actually been in a war zone myself.

I think basically I just know that men write so many lies in the media that now I expect anything written by a man to be a lie. And after reading Cordelia Fine's Delusions is Gender I came to learn that almost all of men's experiments and statistics are based on lies and bad science.

That's why I only ever trust research that has been carried out by women , at universities or whatever. And I only trust first hand accounts that have been from women.

So with this being the base point, It's just weird to me that someone would doubt my hypothesis because a man hasn't already thought of it and proved it one way or another: it's a hypothesis that's all.. that I've invented. Maybe another woman has invented it somewhere too, I don't know. She probably has. And my hypothesis is based on things I know to be true (mother hate) as well as things I have observed ( what Incels say, what happens to pregnant women in war zones)

And honestly, this is why I love radical feminism, because when women are left alone to talk they create theories and hypotheses all the time. And then when you look into it you find that yes, another woman has at some point thought along the same lines as you, and she was a bit better educated, had a few more resources, and has actually gone ahead and researched the thing you were wondering about. You have to dig for them though. The only voices we hear in the mainstream is patriarchal propaganda

Also: just because evidence hasn't been compiled, doesn't mean the hypothesis isn't true, if truth is what we seek