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.

If somebody answered yes to that question surely they'd need to back it up with examples though?

Its not exactly the same question. But i think most people would find it natural to answer with a personal example.

I don’t view those as the same question.

My husband is autistic so he wouldn’t either, as he is very literal. I think it’s fair to say most would view them as the same question. Otherwise answers would be simple yes or no.

Jessica - you may be onto something there... I am autistic, and I know that at least two of the women that OP saw as bullying her are too...

Aha!
Quote of question:

"Is it even possible to have a positive, healthy relationship with a man?
I'm not sure.
As a het woman, where does that leave me?"

I think the question invites anecdotal evidence if one is to answer yes though because the population evidence would suggest no.

I mean, unless there are statistical surveys about happy relationships? The Sunday Times did a survey about marriage which might count, but not if you view marriage as part of the patriarchal structure. Most academic evidence is really about domestic or sexual abuse, imbalances of domestic load and emotional load and the impact of child-bearing/reading on women in the workplace, rather than how happy people are in their marriages (maybe the British Attitudes Survey).

But it seems perfectly normal to answer with personal experiences or anecdotal evidence the way the question is framed.

The first part of the question, that is.

The second suggests that the poster does not believe it is possible and asks where such a view leaves her. That is a different question. I do not think I could answer that on behalf of someone else as we all need to make our own peace with what we do or do not do.

It's entirely possible to be a radical, in the real sense of the word, and not think marriage is inherently oppressive.

That's just not a self-evident truth.

I understand class analysis as a random concept, I studied Marxism and Soviet politics at uni, I was a Marxist feminist before I became a radical feminist.

Yes, but I've seen your versions of class analysis and they aren't.

It should have been a discussion about what material conditions would women need in order to consider relationships with men as free and equal. And if women had those conditions would they still live with men.

But surely the way it was phrased was also a perfectly valid question, even for radical feminists? And if it was, the form of answer was also valid.

I get really pissed off when people use terms like NAMALT to not bother thinking through an idea. It's sloppy and lazy. Sometimes it's an invalid argument, yes, just like sometimes a personal example of a person who doesn't do x is invalid.

But it actually depends on the structure of the original argument being made. Sometimes it is a very valid objection to what is being proposed, or can show that the original argument can't work the way it's intended to. Fallacies depend on the details a lot more than people seem to realise.

“is a good het relationship possible”, not “please come and tell us about your het relationship”. I don’t view those as the same question.

They are quite different questions. The first question invites speculation about what conditions would make it possible, but you'd also have to consider not just material imbalances between men and women but also things like to what extent are women stockholmed to men.
That's why "not my nigel" doesn't work because the good Nigels depend on the bad Nigels. Dee Graham in Loving to Survive talked about how the women in the Stockholm incident had relationships with the terrorists afterwards, visiting them in jail, but she also went on to theorize that after a traumatic event like that while men can escape to relative freedom , women can't. That we are stockholmed to men, that even one traumatic incident can trigger this. That's where white knights come in

That probably explains why the bad Nigels aren't really punished. They're helping out the bros, after all

*And on another thread you were arguing that there were far more important issues than trans.

Right?! Ha ha*

Gosh you have caught me out , my bad.

Just because I think trans is important doesn't mean I think it's the most important issue.

Can you see how that could work?

I mean socialist feminism took me so far, but left wing socialist women weren't fighting trans ideology , which lead me to radical feminism. I still don't regard trans as the most important issue in feminism. And what I have noticed is when it comes to mothers the radical feminists are sorely lacking in analysis, whereas the socialist feminists are more "woman friendly" in that respect.
I mean sure the radical feminists argue ( maybe even correctly) that we shouldn't breed , but it's a bit too late for the women who already have isn't it?

Oh, this thread has moved on a LOT since I last checked in. I'm staying with family atm and haven't had a chance to catch up and read all the important points, but I will tomorrow. What I will say is that 2 posters on here read the thread, and have vastly differing views about what actually happened.

Beyond not at any point did I use the word bullying. I feel that my experience was pulled apart far more than anyone else who shared a similar viewpoint, and I took issue with that. What I was most upset about was that I was accused of being manipulating when I said I had cried because I had dredged up issues from my past that I have worked really hard to come to terms with. I did not, in any way, shape or form blame anyone else for upsetting me. So to accuse me of being manipulating was, quite frankly, fucking out of order.

I also got particularly upset about the 'sons are inevitable rapists or exploiter of women' quote, because my son, my beautiful, kind and loving 10 year old son, only exists because I was raped. His father was a rapist, and understandably I want him to grow up as far as possible from that. I do not want to view him as an inevitable rapist. I want to see all the good there is in him and the potential for him to grow into a loving, kind, supportive and genuinely good man. Everything his father was not.

sakura184 most of your statements are just about your personal experience of one facebook group and have very little to do with what radical feminism was and is. It comes over very cultish and you feeling the need to publicly show what a good follower you are!

And the relity is the most effective group campaigning on trans issues is WPUK who are socialist feminist and (IMO) fairly liberal - but are extremely effective.

No amount of keyboard feminists, finely tuning use of words and self affirming statement mean a thing if they dont translate into action. That is what radical feminism is. Making connections at a grassroots level and a shared point of action and actually carrying it out by being able to work with other women.

From what you have said, it seems you are part of a revoluntionary feminist group, who spend as much time telling other women they are wrong as actually doing anything positive and proactive with other women. Or are aggravated that a group of liberal socialist feminists have been more effective in reaching out to other women.

And as others have pointed out facebook groups do not function well and unfortunately radfem facebook groups have a reputation for pile ons. Plus, and it is of course not right to generalise, but there are posters who admit they are somewhere on the spectrum and react in ways that can seem very either you are one of us or you are not. I have a few facebook "friends" who I rarely comment on their posts because nine times out of ten, you get shot down, only to be later told, maybe I misunderstood / over reacted.

And, to repeat in terms of radical feminism most of the women who are known as radical feminism and actually practice it, ie they do something rather than snipe from the sidelines are in heterosexual relationships and / or have sons. eg Andrea Dworken, Shulamith Firestone, Gale Dines.

It is great that you find the group you are in is positive for you, but that's all it is. To say otherwise or demand others agree with you / them is as pointless as the SWP and the WRP endlessly scoring points of each other as to who is more socialist than the other.

And I say this as someone who was once known as a radical feminist lesbian separatist, but am mainly too old and too tired to shout about it, or think that I can demand of other women that they be that too.

PS the quote about sons is that all sons are potential rapists ie it is men who rape, but the hope of feminists is that men will not use that "potential" or that feminist mothers will find they have a son who has grown up to be that.

No the quote definitely says 'inevitable rapist or exploiter'
Which is very different to potential.

I do not want to view him as an inevitable rapist.

This is a good thing, you shouldn't see him that way. I am pretty much 100% sure that seeing someone as an inevitable rapist would not have any kind of positive outcome.

Real funny brian 666

most of your statements are just about your personal experience of one facebook group

Not at all, this is just something you've assumed. I haven't gone into any detail about how involved I've been in feminism, radical feminism, Facebook groups, blogs, anything

I've said the radical feminists are lacking in analysis when it comes to mothers and that the socialist feminists seem to me to be more women friendly. I've written that just below.

Now you're saying I'm a member of a group who are jealous that the socialist feminists are doing more, or just as much.

Your summary of my points doesn't make sense

inevitable rapist or exploiter'

I don't know if it's splitting hairs to analyze this, but I don't think it means he'll inevitably rape.
he'll definitely exploit, as all men benefit from patriarchal exploitation of women, and he "might" rape.
Some radfems argue that all PIV is rape, so unless a man is celibate for feminist reasons you could argue that he is a rapist just for having PIV.