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.

It was certainly NOT just to enable the growth of Western medicine

I agree with this statement. However I think the witchcraze was absolutely necessary for men to be able to move into medicine and be taken seriously there, especially and most obviously in the fact they killed so many midwives

Again, we'll have to disagree hugely here. Midwifery continues after the witch craze quite comfortably. Not that those women would have called themselves midwives. It was just the local women who attended births. The move to medicalised practice mainly affected the middle classes negatively (pre discovery that washing hands was important!!!).
You are, yet again, cherry picking to support your argument. Women, men and children fell victim to the witch burnings. It is a stain on the history of Western Europe. But it was not a premeditated attack on women to enable men to practice medicine. They already were. Elizabeth I was attended by doctors for example.

And imagine if, instead of murdering our healers, society had invested them. Imagine how far their knowledge would have progressed.

Even if they were only dabbling in remedies, which I sincerely doubt-- I think that's just a belittling of women's knowledge and capacities. And we'll never know anyway because they and their knowledge is dead. Even if we managed to retrieve some of it, we have no idea how much was actually lost. We can only speculate.

Even simple aspects of healing have been lost. Like making places of healing warm and welcoming so that you immediately feel better upon arrival. Hospitals are houses of horror. There is even a horror movie called "The Hospital" evoking the existential dread you feel upon arriving at one.

But it was not a premeditated attack on women to enable men to practice medicine

We'll just have to disagree. Obviously I would never take any account of the witchcraze written by a man seriously.

Bad things are done in science, therefore it must be done by men.
Women are in science too? Oh, they are forced by the patriarchy.
We know because there is porn that has science stuff in it.

o-kaaaaay.

No wonder some people think you can type NAMALT and that's the end of it, without considering what is actually being said.

Not all their knowledge has disappeared though because it was written down. By men as it happens in many cases but there we go.
Hospitals are not places of evil. They have saved my life personally on at least 3 occasions. There's also been horror films about nuns. Doesn't mean women are evil.
I genuinely don't understand how it is possible to live life this scared off roughly 50% of the population.
Separatism is NOT the answer to women's problems because we are not an amorphous mass who all think the same way.
And one of my favourite advocates for women in the nineteenth century was JS Mill. Spoke up in parliament for women to have the right to vote long before any active campaign. Some men ARE allies whether you like it or not.

the asthma question, you do realize the whole point of killing all the healers during the Witchcraze was because physicians couldn't compete. So all the knowledge died with the women's bodies.

What? Where are you getting this stuff?

@sakura184 I haven't mentioned an account of the witch craze written by a man. I've read accounts written by both actually. I won't ask whether you have because I know the answer. People (of both sexes and all ages) were imprisoned in our town before execution. The records exist. You could look at them yourself.

It is actually true that women couldn't have gone anywhere in medicine without men. Because we'd not exist.

The witch craze wasn't what you'd call organised, anyway.

There are some great contributions here, but they really got lost in all the nonsense I was reading.

Which is why regulars get frustrated. Not because we don’t like ‘other opinions’, but the repetitive, often irrelevant, widely diverging topics that may not relate to the OP, means people stop reading and seeing actually relevant intelligent things.

Really I don't have the patience or energy for this but...Sakura184 I'm a radical feminist you're a separatist. I hope you don't drink tap water, travel by road and take a broomstick instead of an aeroplane. And what are you doing on the internet.
I now know how we smash the patriarchy - stop cooking dinners. I dont think you're much of an example of the superiority of women.

Accounts I've read by male historians on the witchcraze just look like murderers covering up their crimes

It is actually true that women couldn't have gone anywhere in medicine without men. Because we'd not exist

Can't argue with that Goosefoot.
Are women happy to be here? I suppose that's another question out of my remit

Yes I suppose I am a separatist, that is the logical conclusion to be taken. Not all radical feminists are separatists, and it's not possible to be separatist in a patriarchy anyway. I just think that's where my politics naturally lead me, yes

It's not logical in the slightest

'it's not possible to be separatist in a patriarchy anyway' well you could join up with your separatist sisters and form a commune like religious sects or survivalists do. I'd love to see how manage, go for it, what have you got to lose.

The flaw with separatism in any context is that the power structure just reforms around a different factor.

Namechangeforagamechange
"Here's what I've taken from it. Radical feminism, in its 'purest' form is absolutely not for me. And I'll take the wise advice of posters who have, quite rightly, said that feminism doesn't need a label. I'll continue doing my bit, reading threads that interest me and ones which I can learn something from. But there are extremists in every walk of life, and IMO extreme radical feminism is as dangerous as extreme misogyny."

First thing first - It is extremely painful that a women would use the phrase “extreme misogyny", that is like saying "extreme gas chamber”.

Then to the question of “IMO extreme radical feminism is as dangerous as extreme misogyny.”

Really? – How much physical abuse, violence, rapes and killings are caused by extreme radical feminism?

The worst case you can make against extreme radical feminists is that, they shout at you for having relationship with a man.

The Police do not tolerate hate speech against trans women, but hate speech against a woman they do not even record, there is just too much of it by men against women, every second, every minute, every hour 24/7.

Even if every radical feminist in the whole world came to you door to continuously shout at you for being with a man, there would not be enough of them to keep going for long.

Yet there are more then enough men in the world, that every woman in the world can recount their misogynist experience just this year.

“I'll continue doing my bit, reading threads that interest me and ones which I can learn something from.”

Question is what is your purpose and aim. Is to just survive for yourself in the best way you can without being abused, raped or killed for being a woman or something more?

If it is something more then the question is –

It is a fact, men are violent to women, men do use porn, men you know exploit women, either emotionally or physically, does it help the bigger question in the liberation of all women that, women carry on with the normal conventions of the Patriarchal Society as it is at the moment?

In addition to the ending of Patriarchy, I also want to see the end of the current Capitalist Economy, but I still go and shop in Sainsbury or similar but keep that to minimal amount humanly possible, however what I do not do, is to go round defending this participation in my nefarious activity loudly and proudly.

Feminism is about not just an individual women surviving for herself but towards the liberation of all women.

Men are united, men are not going to wake up one day and overthrow patriarchy and stop exploiting and abusing women.
Every woman has to sacrifice something for the sake of all women.
All Women will have to unite to liberate themselves.

Some feminists shout at you because of your "nefarious" activities but in the context of the situation surely you can not equate that with physical abuse, rape and killing of women i.e. Misogyny

samyeagar
Perhaps, but without men holding the power there will be much less violence and almost no sexual assault or harassment. I can see the appeal of that.

Or do you truly think women will begin raping one another once the men aren’t doing it anymore?

Anyway I’m not a separatist in fact I’m married to a male person. I also don’t believe separatism is warranted as a general strategy unless it could be conclusively demonstrated that men are biologically hardwired to be violent abusers of women - which as a biologist I know is not possible to show without some serious ethical violations.

Extreme feminism is deeply dangerous because it is a council of despair. It is apocalyptic to its core. Women unite! Yes and we got the vote, education, human rights. What precisely are you doing to stop VAWG? Because I'm aware of actions being taken by women (and men ) Stop the vacuous rallying cry and explain what you do apart from luxuriate in hyperbole.

fwrlurker

That's a difficult one to answer conclusively because a significant part part of the male on female violence is because of the physical strength disparity. Just simply having a smaller physical strength disparity among the population is likely to decrease the physical violence. So I think that it is likely that a female separatist society would be less violent, I am not sure one could stretch that assumption to it being a physically safe society. Given the fact that women are not a hive mind, the biggest question though would be how would that power structure manifest itself?

In a Democarcy - women can vote for the Politicians that will make sure that feminist analysis is taken into account so police do not ignore women's abuse and that the rapist does not go free because the woman froze in the moment and did not cry out.

Women can unite for that to begin with!

"Extreme Feminism" idea?

"explain what you do apart from luxuriate in hyperbole"

Keep the most minimal involvement with men and the capitalist economy - as stated in a few previous posts.

Would welcome any other actions that you think I should do!

A lot of the conditioning of males and females within current society is directly related to the power structure, which has men being the "have's" and women being the "have not's" Is that conditioning because of biology, or is it more a reaction to ones place within the power structure? If one removes sex as the determining factor of who's on top of the power structure, one is still left with a ruling class, just with a different determining characteristic of who is a "have" and who is a "have not" Which still leads to conditioning in relation to where one falls within the power structure with the "have not's" deferring to the "haves"

I went to an all girls school with an all female slt. It was not a feminist utopia.