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.

Goosefoot I'd tend to agree. There is the 'mothers defence' where a mother will not accept that their child could possibly be a murderer for example and will defend when everyone else has seen the evidence to the contrary which is damning.

The survival instinct possibly does manifest in a different way because of psychological reasons which stem directly from the biological connection between a mother and child.

In nature it's the lioness defending her pride who is more of a risk than the lone lion.

I'm not sure I can think of a valid reason why that doesn't transfer to humans.

It makes them all members of the oppressor class.

Whether each individual man is an oppressor is a bit of a straw man really. All men expect certain things, that they might not get outside of a patriarchy.

Well it’s YOUR strawman! I showed you how to engage in class analysis and you responded directly saying, literally, they’re all oppressors. Words matter. They all benefit from patriarchy, we’ve already agreed that. That does not make them all oppressors, and that distinction, again, is important.

Nobody is saying you can't think your son is amazing. What you can't do is make it part of your radfem politics. And what you also shouldn't do is take his word over his girlfriend or wife. You also have to admit that while he might be amazing to you, he might not be to other women.

I am basically talking about adult male children

I'm ignoring this Nigel shit. It's one of those elitest exclusivity words like PIV.

Quit the word salad and talk normally.

Same meaning but try actually involving others rather than trying this superior intellectual bollocks on.

It's regressive.

Women who are feminist really need to stop this

Who is this directed at?

The ‘not my nigel’ point is not relevant. We are talking about actual abusers being defended by their mothers. If a person insists that all men literally all, do abuse, I’ll absolutely challenge that. That’s not what we are talking about.

Quit the word salad and talk normally.

Thank you Red. It is tiresome.

It's useful RedToothBrush. I don't argue it's not annoying. It most likely is. But it saves you having to explain points over and over again.

What you can't do is make it part of your radfem politics.

I don’t know why I need to keep saying this, but remember not all women here are radical feminists. You have even said you’re not.

I read a very interesting extract on a blog yesterday by a radfem who went to a talk by a male activist who was oppressed in his own country. She said she was tricked into going as she doesn't normally listen to men give talks and thought it would be a woman.

Anyway, what she took from it was the glorious presumption he had that people would take him seriously. That they would agree with him that yes, his people were oppressed. That they wouldn't say the beatings and killings were taking place because his people liked it or consented. He didn't have to explain that a duck was a duck and why it was a duck. People just took on board what he said. She said the difference between male activism and female activism is striking, that's why I think the words are useful: otherwise you end up re-explaining concepts, like "what is an oppressor"

Nobody in this room apart form myself realised or questioned the insane privilege he had as a male activist. The absolute luxury of being taken seriously, immediately. The admiring respect. The luxury of it being self-evident to everyone in this room that we are morally obligated to endorse this cause, to side with the oppressed and denounce the oppressors. He is certain of everyone’s approval. Everything is so easy for him.
He is free from the self-defeating, maddening burden of having to justify his use of the term duck for describing a duck and thus having to show what makes a duck, a duck, and how it applies to his case: since the bird he’s talking about has a particular form of beak, wings and feet, colour, and its capacity to both swim and fly. In other words, having to demonstrate how his condition of colonised qualifies as colonisation and how oppressors are necessarily oppressive. Of having to prove that military occupation is by definition forced on the occupied people and not chosen by them, that beatings are inherently violent and repressive and not expressions of love. He has no dread of being rejected or misunderstood by using straightforward terms to describe the situation. No one would dare come up to him to say “but what if your people enjoy being beaten, arrested and bombed?” I was envious of his privilege to name the agent and their violence in such a plain and matter-of-fact language, and it wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind to dispute the reality of his claims. It is obvious to everyone that the occupation is true and serious, that their need to resist is legitimate. There is no separation between language and reality for him.

witchwind.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/taking-notes-on-male-activism/

No it's NOT useful.

It just makes people switch off and alienates them.

The skill of making a good argument is to connect with others and for it to be accessible to as many as possible.

All you are doing is using language in a way that restricts participation.

You can make an argue without resorting to word salad to make the same point. Word salad is generally just a way of pretending to have intellectual status and asset a fake superior knowledge. It's bullshit.

But it saves you having to explain points over and over again.

But this has value. And if you have to explain it over and over again perhaps it suggests it's a crap point in the first place.

People support dog, cat, military charities who have no personal experience of any of them but do have empathy, I would not berate them for this.

All members of the ruling class expect certain things that they might not get outside of their position as the privileged class. The ruling class does not exist because of men. Men just happen to occupy it.

Which gets back around to the flaw with full separatism of any under privileged class. They may escape the specific occupiers of the ruling class, but in turn, they are creating a new ruling class with all the same issues of power and control.

The power structure exists independent of who occupies the privileged class. While it is instructive and meaningful to discuss characteristics of those who occupy the ruling class, it is always important to frame that within the structure itself, keeping in mind that those characteristics are not inherent to the power structure itself.

When it comes to violence as a tool to maintain power the power structure, it is always one of the first tools deployed because it is the easiest one to use, and is quite effective. No special knowledge needed, hell, no special skills really needed. All you need is to be bigger and stronger, or convince a few people who are bigger and stronger to be on your side.

There will always be a ruling class. There will always be those who oppose it, and there will always be the majority that is just trying to get by day to day, with very little real notice beyond conforming to what ever the current social norms are of who currently holds the top spot.

In this specific example of female separatism, sure women would not be, or have to rule over men, but women will be ruling over an underprivileged class, how ever they decide to define it.

I don’t know why I need to keep saying this, but remember not all women here are radical feminists. You have even said you’re not.*

Oh I know that, but I've had enough brushes with radical feminism to know what it isn't and defending your son isn't radical feminism

It's this stupid 'logic' that being a feminist means you cannot be married that has led to generations of young intelligent women not wanting to be assoc with the feminist movement because they don't want to get labelled lesbian. Let's be honest here.

We live in the real world, with systems like marriage and surely the job must be to change them rather then sit on the sidelines and mock everyone else.. for you know... living. Can we make marriage an institution that fully benefits women, children and men?? Surely the answer is yes but only if women can find a way to pull together instead of tearing each other down.

This attitude has robbed the movement of modern thinking and leadership which couldn't be more needed then now.

But this has value. And if you have to explain it over and over again perhaps it suggests it's a crap point in the first place

Or maybe you're being gaslighted. My husband used to do that. Pretend he didn't know why I was upset so I had to explain over and over in different ways.
Like people don't "understand" the trans issue so women find themselves explaining over and over why it's problematic for women.
It's an abusive tactic that feminists are used to

It's this stupid 'logic' that being a feminist means you cannot be married that has led to generations of young intelligent women not wanting to be assoc with the feminist movement because they don't want to get labelled lesbian. Let's be honest here.

Don't disagree with this. Men have done a lot to discredit the feminist movement and dirtying the word lesbian has been one of those things.
I also agree that lesbian and feminist can be seen as synonyms, I learned that when my brother snarled at me that I was a lesbian when I raised some feminist point. At the time I was married to a man.
Obviously quite a lot of lesbians are unhappy that lesbian is seen as synonymous with feminism for exactly the same reasons. Lesbian is not a political stance and why should lesbians absorb the hate men have towards feminists. Although I think loving women is actually the most heretical act in a patriarchy, but I digress

@samyeagar

I think we can work on the ins and outs after the revolution. For now we just need to free women from men

It's this stupid 'logic' that being a feminist means you cannot be married that has led to generations of young intelligent women not wanting to be assoc with the feminist movement

Specifically some radical feminists think this, not all and certainly not a majority of feminists.

It's not useful. It mans you don't actually have to make an explicit argument and it never becomes clear that you are in fact making an invalid argument. It just covers bad logic.

Even formal logical fallacies only work if you use them the right way, if the argument is actually saying what you think it is. It's no different than claiming someone is making an ad hominem argument and so it should automatically be dismissed as ad hominem arguments are invalid. But attacking the source of an argument is actually perfectly reasonable if what you are saying is that the information an individual is providing might not be trustworthy, as that person is a con artist.

You always have to show the connections.

I'm being gaslighted?

Is that your response to me asking for clear communication which doesn't hide meaning or pack it into words where you have to 'be in the know' to join in?

This excludes a hell of a lot of people who are intelligent but perhaps lacking in education or perhaps don't have English as a first language.

Feminism has to reach out to include all women otherwise it becomes entrenched in its own bullshit and becomes an echo chamber. It becomes elitist and that in itself means it develops blind spots - the real failing of what mainstream liberal feminism has become.

Linguistics are incredibly important to spread ideas and concepts. Investing the time to explain a point which you think hugely important and central to your argument, over and over and over and over and over again is a good investment for this reason. 'Shorthanding' it is lazy and a deliberate strategy to stop conversation rather than encourage open debate.

And you have the audacity to say I'm gaslighting? No, you are gaslighting those who have stated that word salad is an elitest thing to create an exclusivity and superior status of 'true' rad fems. This is extremist in nature.

JessicaWakefieldSV

Such a common tactic though, which over the last decade has become too easy with the last barriers to mass communication being removed...

Define your chosen opponent to the masses by their most extreme members...which leads to NAXALT, which leads to shifting definitions which leads to...threads like this one.

And round and round we go.

This is part of our battle, getting mothers to stop defending their sons abusive behaviours.

Yes of course. Mothers are to blame. MOTHERS are to blame for their son's abusive behaviour. In some way. If only they would stop defending them, maybe.

But what if mothers "stopped defending" their sons, and the sons were still abusive? Maybe then mothers would stlll be to blame for enabling their sons somehow, by raising them, or maybe for being cold mothers and not supportive enough of their sons? I mean, of course the mothers are to blame somehow. We can all agree on that at least.

Yes of course. Mothers are to blame. MOTHERS are to blame for their son's abusive behaviour. In some way. If only they would stop defending them, maybe.

God yes you're so right @Maniak . To be honest maybe that's where a lot of the extreme fringe group radical feminism is coming from and the "not my Nigelito" meme just leads back to mother blaming. Hadn't thought of that.
Obviously mothers should be aware their sons aren't perfect, but there is very much an over emphasis on the terrible mothers in radfem circles