Radical "feminism" And Equality

[TC]

In a thread on abortion (found here) one rightwing, clearly sexist, abortion opponent (MKS) wrote that he was not "anti-Feminist" but simply opposed the wing of feminism which argued against gender-equality.

LSD responded:

That's what all anti-feminists claim these days. No one openly admits that they oppose female liberation, rather they're all just fighting "militant" "reverse sexism".

Like you, of course, they don't have any actual examples to back up their accusasions; they just "feel" that, as men, they're "under attack" by "militant feminism". In reality, of course, it's not their gender but their gender privilege that is being attacked by feminism, but many men are unable to recognize the difference.

While MKS's comment was pretty dumb considering that he is clearly anti-feminist, (and for that matter, anti-social&#33 i think LSD's comment was quite incorrect.


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So, i'd like to clear up a misconception: radical "feminists" truely are against gender equality. In my opinion this is what makes considering them "feminists" at all quite difficult since the origional feminist movement was always for gender equality, and the radical feminists are clearly not.

In the words of leading radical "feminists":

A built-in tension exists between this concept of equality, which presupposes sameness, and this concept of sex which presupposes difference. Sex equality becomes a contradiction in terms, something of an oxymoron.

-Catherine MacKinnon

A commitment to sexual equality with males is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered.

-Andrea Dworkin

Unpopular feminists 'fight' for liberation; popular feminists work for equality...The notion of equality takes the male status quoe as the condition to which women aspire...As soon as a woman enters a male preserve, be it the police, the military, the building site, the law, the clergy, she finds herself in an alien and repellent world which changes her fundementally...the solution, say the proponents of equality, is to bring the numbers of women to parity, in which case the institutions in questions will be unrecognizable. The cult of equality means this cannot be done, because women will not be recruited in large numbers unless some policy of reverse discrimination is adopted...equality must be seen as a poor substitute for liberation.

-Germaine Greer.



There is a real tension between mainstream 'equality' feminists (marxists, socialists and liberals), whose political agenda is gender equality and what traditionally constituted feminism, and 'gender' feminists, the radical "feminists" who outright oppose equality and see "women's liberation", in their terms, as a seperate agenda, and these are the people who sadly have come to be what is thought of as "feminism" in parts of pop culture.

Even when radical feminists aren't arguing specifically against an equality based agenda, their entire ideology, based on what amounts to a belief that men are inherently oppressive, that male-female interactions are inherently harmful to women, and a general, open hostility to both male and female sexuality and sexual expression, is itself sexist and discriminatory and goes against the principles of equality.

Its important to politically oppose anti-equality, discriminatory politics in whatever terms they're putting themselves in, whether they're "pro-life" or so called "feminist."

[Ol' Dirty]

I agree, but I wish you wouldn't use the term rad-fem whenever you talk (although you seem to be out of that phase).

I understand that you hate radical feminism, and rightfully so, but by making it a "buzzword", if you will you belitlle the whole meaning of the phrase. You of all people would understand.

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by Tragic+--> (Tragic)So, i'd like to clear up a misconception: radical "feminists" truely are against gender equality. In my opinion this is what makes considering them "feminists" at all quite difficult since the origional feminist movement was always for gender equality, and the radical feminists are clearly not.
[/b]

How does that make what LSD said incorrect? I understand you get off on beating on radical feminists, but this thread seems like a poor excuse for a beating, even by your horse-beating standards.

Oh and nice work with the cherry-picked quotes BTW.

LSD

That's what all anti-feminists claim these days. No one openly admits that they oppose female liberation, rather they're all just fighting "militant" "reverse sexism".

Like you, of course, they don't have any actual examples to back up their accusasions; they just "feel" that, as men, they're "under attack" by "militant feminism". In reality, of course, it's not their gender but their gender privilege that is being attacked by feminism, but many men are unable to recognize the difference.

LSD doesn't mention radical feminists or his opinion of them at all in his post - but yet you think he has an 'incorrect' position on them? - His post was an analysis of MKS comment's (and of a fairly common position on the right and even with some 'leftists), and it seems pretty dead-on to me.

[TC]

This wasn't a direct response to LSD it was a tangential response to some of the issues that come up when talking about whether there is an anti-equality strain of 'feminism'

[Black Dagger]

Then, why did you say:

Originally posted by Tragic
i think LSD's comment was quite incorrect.

?

On what is he 'quite incorrect'?

[VermontLeft]

Originally posted by TragicClown+--> (TragicClown)So, i'd like to clear up a misconception: radical "feminists" truely are against gender equality.[/b]

some are and "radical feminist" is a pretty broad term anyway. it's probably be better if you were more specific in your terminology.

obviously "lesbian feminists" or "seperatist feminist" are sexist full stop, but i think its more complicated when it comes to more flaky types of postmodern "feminism".

sure alot of these people are idealist whackos and some of their ideas on the nature of "sex" and "gendeR" are pretty fucked up, but i dont think its really fair to call them sexists.

again, some are, sure, but others just take a really idealist approach to the question and think that theres some sort of "male" identity which is patriarchal and opressive. their not saying that thats biological, thoguh, their saying that is a social creation and can be changed.

its a fucked up position, but its not a bigoted one nescessarily.

Originally posted by some woman+--> (some woman)A built-in tension exists between this concept of equality, which presupposes sameness, and this concept of sex which presupposes difference. Sex equality becomes a contradiction in terms, something of an oxymoron.[/b]

im not sure what that even means. since when does "sex presuppose difference"?

seems to me that that's just a stupid statement by a probably stupid person. i dont really think that it can be taken as anything more than that.

i mean im not saying that there arent any stupid bigoted women whove flipped feminism into something reactionary. obviously. sometimes people can react to oppression by missing the point.

patriarchy sucks and sometimes it pisses people off so much that they start hating men instead of the system. its just like how a lot of people in the world now hate all Americans instead of just the American bourgeoisie.

most men are not actively maintaining sexism, but most are nonetheless passive beneficiaries of sexism, that can piss some people off so much that they turn to discriminatory politics.

thats wrong of course, but its also the distrinct minority of feminist politics.

Originally posted by some other woman
A commitment to sexual equality with males is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered.

well that one's kind of true.

i dont know if its what she meant, but id take it to say that a sexual liberation paradigm isnt enough. fighting for women to have all the "opportunities" as men is really fighting for more women to rise into the bourgeoisie.

something that doesnt really help working class women or working class men!

we need to fight for sexual equality, but we also need to fight for class interests or its ultimately pointless.

Originally posted by TragicClown
There is a real tension between mainstream 'equality' feminists (marxists, socialists and liberals), whose political agenda is gender equality and what traditionally constituted feminism, and 'gender' feminists, the radical "feminists" who outright oppose equality and see "women's liberation", in their terms, as a seperate agenda

but wasnt MKS's chief problem the Socialist party and its position on feminism? sounds to me like he just doesnt like any feminists.

TragicClown

@
and these are the people who sadly have come to be what is thought of as "feminism" in parts of pop culture.

Which parts are those? Most people i know think of the "radical feminists" ( the "all men suck", "lets all go be lesbians and life on an islan" types) to be whackos. they definitely dont think of them as mainstream "feminism".

TragicClown

Its important to politically oppose anti-equality, discriminatory politics in whatever terms they're putting themselves in

Obviously, but i dont think thats what MKS was doing.

like you said, hes an obvious sexist. so while there are some legitimate critisisms of "radical" feminists, MKS's dismissal of feminism because its all "taken over" by "man-haters" smells of bullshit.

[TC]

That there wasn't an anti-gender equality tendency to oppose, that was one of the implications of his comment if you took it in context responding to MKS's stupid comment.

[LSD]

While MKS's comment was pretty dumb considering that he is clearly anti-feminist, (and for that matter, anti-social&#33 i think LSD's comment was quite incorrect.

How so?

My comments were specifically in reference to MKS' position on feminism and how it relates to the standard convervative line on issues of female liberation.

People like Bill O'Reilly and Caitlin Flanagan, after all, claim that they are for "equality" and that their opposition is to "radical" (or some other scary-sounding adjective) feminism. In reality of course, their "comitment" to equality is meaningless rhetoric and their opposition to the "radical" is a smoke-screen for patriarchal or down-right misogynist politcs.

So, i'd like to clear up a misconception: radical "feminists" truely are against gender equality.

Although your definition of "radfem" would probably differ from many self-described "radical feminists", I'd say that there can be no doubt that many schools of "third wave" feminism have indeed unfortunately adopted a rather chauvinist perspective.

That said, "radical" sexist "feminism" is to feminism in general what black supremacism is to civil rights.

It is not and will never be the dominant or leading voice in mainstream feminism.

Accordingly, I was perfectly correct in implying that as a whole feminism is not "anti-man". Again, that doesn't mean that anti-man "feminists" don't exist, it just means that they are a relatively unimportant branch of feminism and one which is deliberately inflated by conservative sexists.

It's the same way in which "White Nationalists" point to black supremacism as "proof" that the civil rights movement and anti-racist policies in general are "anti-white" and "racial war". Casting one's political opponents as especially "radical" or disconnected from mainstream thinking is a classic way to discredit them.

This has nothing to do with whether or not there are some sexist "feminists" out there; it has everything to do with how anti-feminists manipulate that fact to serve their reactionary aims.

[bcbm]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Jul 14 2006, 11:12 AM

Unpopular feminists 'fight' for liberation; popular feminists work for equality...The notion of equality takes the male status quoe as the condition to which women aspire...As soon as a woman enters a male preserve, be it the police, the military, the building site, the law, the clergy, she finds herself in an alien and repellent world which changes her fundementally...the solution, say the proponents of equality, is to bring the numbers of women to parity, in which case the institutions in questions will be unrecognizable. The cult of equality means this cannot be done, because women will not be recruited in large numbers unless some policy of reverse discrimination is adopted...equality must be seen as a poor substitute for liberation.

-Germaine Greer.

How is saying that bourgeois equality will not bring about the realizaiton of women's freedom a sexist position?

[TC]

My comments were specifically in reference to MKS' position on feminism and how it relates to the standard convervative line on issues of female liberation.

LSD, your quote was a response to this quote by MKS:

I’m not anti-feminist, but I do stand against the very militant factions of the Feminist movement which seem to me to seek Female dominance rather than gender equality.

Clearly in this quote, he's refering to a segment of the feminist movement that is against gender equality not feminism as a whole, although he referes to feminism as a whole elsewhere, his other comments are not the subject of this topic.

People like Bill O'Reilly and Caitlin Flanagan, after all, claim that they are for "equality" and that their opposition is to "radical" (or some other scary-sounding adjective) feminism. In reality of course, their "comitment" to equality is meaningless rhetoric and their opposition to the "radical" is a smoke-screen for patriarchal or down-right misogynist politcs.

I'm not going to comment on that because i frankly don't know what you're refering to specifically but you cannot deny that there is a militant anti-equality tendency to criticize.

Although your definition of "radfem" would probably differ from many self-described "radical feminists",

I don't think so surely you can't say that the people i quoted aren't considered both by themselves and by other radical feminists to be radical feminists.

Radical feminism is synonomous with "gender feminism,", with the tendency that opposed liberal and marxist feminism in the second wave, with the tendency that reacted against mainstream equality feminism as insufficent, thats just what the phrase means.

It is not and will never be the dominant or leading voice in mainstream feminism.

Of course its not...haven't i been consistently arguing that and frequently contrasting it with mainstream feminism?

Accordingly, I was perfectly correct in implying that as a whole feminism is not "anti-man". Again, that doesn't mean that anti-man "feminists" don't exist, it just means that they are a relatively unimportant branch of feminism and one which is deliberately inflated by conservative sexists.

Well "anti-man" radical feminism has never been important in the women's rights movement (for rather obvious reasons) but it is important in certain gender studies departments, sociology departments, and so on in english speaking universities, and it has had considerable influence in the media in terms of co-opting the term 'feminism' away from the mainstream.

Radical "feminism" has done a lot to undermine feminism as a whole, and in that sense its relevant.

Casting one's political opponents as especially "radical" or disconnected from mainstream thinking is a classic way to discredit them.

Thats what they call themselves, its not a derogatory term.

This has nothing to do with whether or not there are some sexist "feminists" out there; it has everything to do with how anti-feminists manipulate that fact to serve their reactionary aims.

I do not have a problem with one group of social conservatives pointing out how another group of social conservatives is also reactionary, i think we ought to treat them both as reactionaries.

[LSD]

Clearly in this quote, he's refering to a segment of the feminist movement that is against gender equality not feminism as a whole, although he referes to feminism as a whole elsewhere, his other comments are not the subject of this topic.

That's what he claims to be doing, but again, that is a common tactic of anti-feminist conservatives.

And his other comments are very much relevent in terms of undsertanding both the context of his comment and of my response to it.

If MKS, like yourself, had a history of supporting progressive feminist causes but opposing idealist "gender feminist" nonsense, I would accept that his critique of "militant" feminism was genuine.

But because, on the contrary, MKS' history on this board is one of opposing fundamental feminist issues, I am quite confident in taking his "critique" to be nothing more than standard conservative excuse-making for patriarchy.

Again, was I stating or implying that chauvinist "feminists" do not exist? No. I was merely saying that MKS, and others, routinely exploit that fact to serve their own anti-feminist interests and that that scam needs to be exposed for what it is.

Radical "feminism" has done a lot to undermine feminism as a whole, and in that sense its relevant.

Undoubtably, but part of the reason that "radical feminism" has been so effective in undermining feminism is because ideological misogynists have throroughly exploited it to help their anti-feminist cause.

It's, again, quite similar to how racists use "black supremacy" and other misguidsed minority "racialist" movements to oppose the civil rights struggle in general.

I do not have a problem with one group of social conservatives pointing out how another group of social conservatives is also reactionary

Neither do I, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Ostensibly, sure, MKS is only critisizing that "branch" of feminism which is "anti-man" and "anti-equality". But MKS' idea of "militant feminism" is supporting abortion!

Indeed, MKS made it quite clear that, in his mind, feminists who do not oppse abortion are "unethical" and "taking feminism too far". That kind of thinking belies the superficiality of the "distinction" that he claims to be making.

MKS dislikes feminism. He may not even be fully aware of that fact, but his posts make it quite clear to anyone who understands how modern convervatism works.

And that he utilizes a standard conservative tactic to justify his misogynistic politics cannot be ignored merely because that tactic has an element of truth to it.

Again, yes, there are "radical feminists" out there who's politics have nothing to do with our struggle and who's sexist idealist nonsense must be opposed. But that does not mean that we can buy into the patriarchal campaign of people like Caitlin Flannigan who routinely cite that unfortunate fact as part of their general campaign to undermine feminism in general.

My attack on MKS was not a denial of the existance of conservative tendencies within certain strains of feminism; it was rather a warning that although those tendencies are dangerous, their exploitation by anti-feminists is more so.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by black banner black gun+Jul 14 2006, 06:42 PM--> (black banner black gun @ Jul 14 2006, 06:42 PM)

TragicClown

@Jul 14 2006, 11:12 AM

Unpopular feminists 'fight' for liberation; popular feminists work for equality...The notion of equality takes the male status quoe as the condition to which women aspire...As soon as a woman enters a male preserve, be it the police, the military, the building site, the law, the clergy, she finds herself in an alien and repellent world which changes her fundementally...the solution, say the proponents of equality, is to bring the numbers of women to parity, in which case the institutions in questions will be unrecognizable. The cult of equality means this cannot be done, because women will not be recruited in large numbers unless some policy of reverse discrimination is adopted...equality must be seen as a poor substitute for liberation.

-Germaine Greer.

How is saying that bourgeois equality will not bring about the realizaiton of women's freedom a sexist position? [/b]

That's exactly what I was going to pick up on. What Greer is saying seems to me to echo a lot of sentiment in Black Power movements, ie that equality needs to be challenged by empowering the oppressed and not working within a system created by the oppressors. Wow, how evil.

And I believe you are totally misusing the term 'radical feminist' TC. You use the term as synonymous with feminist separatism or superiority, which it clearly isn't, as LSD has already pointed out. In addition, those currents within feminist (and even radical feminist) thought are negligible. I find i really disturning that you side more with liberal feminists than radical feminists...

[Ferg]

What I'm opposed to, is pseudo-feminists. The feminists who don't want to make any sacrifise. In the 50's there were couples who had the traditional family where the wife is the homemaker and the father is the provider. Excluding spousal abuse, their life while inequal, wasen't torturing horrible. In fact, if a man wasen't abusing his wife, he treated fairly well. But that being said, females do deserve to have equal oppertunities as males. But with that, now comes the hateful sexism, female abuse is on the rampant, prostitution is on the rise, single mothers are commonplace in society. A nessesscary sacrifise. But there are feminists who don't want any pain for the ultimate gain and those are the kinds that anger me.

I'm very left, but I still believe in curtosy like holding the door for a woman and things like that. I like the idea of the feminist movement, but I think it's moving to fast for society. the 50's are still fresh in peoples minds. I think it's something that needs to be taken slower.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by Ferg
What I'm opposed to, is pseudo-feminists. The feminists who don't want to make any sacrifise.

What do you mean? Do you mean women should put up with things? I don't get it?

In the 50's there were couples who had the traditional family where the wife is the homemaker and the father is the provider. Excluding spousal abuse, their life while inequal, wasen't torturing horrible.

And you'd be the best judge of that how?

In fact, if a man wasen't abusing his wife, he treated fairly well.

Again, how do you know that?
You sound like some old patriarch who'd say "Well, she had a roof over her head, and clothes to wear. She should be grateful!"
A woman is not a fucking object there to be "treated" according to a man's whims!

But that being said, females do deserve to have equal oppertunities as males. But with that, now comes the hateful sexism, female abuse is on the rampant, prostitution is on the rise, single mothers are commonplace in society.

So you think gender-based violence is a consequence of feminism? :angry:

A nessesscary sacrifise.

What does that mean?

But there are feminists who don't want any pain for the ultimate gain and those are the kinds that anger me.

??

I'm very left, but I still believe in curtosy like holding the door for a woman and things like that.

How about holding the door open for human beings? Women should be shown courtesy because they're humans, not because they deserve specal treatment, or some stupid paternalistic reason.

I like the idea of the feminist movement, but I think it's moving to fast for society. the 50's are still fresh in peoples minds. I think it's something that needs to be taken slower.

Yeah, and I think the revolution should happen slowly. Or that Black people should stop complaining, because things will change slowly. :wacko: Seriously, this is absurd! Feminism may have/be moving too fast for reactionaries, but fuck them!

[Ferg]

Well I open the door for everyone, females and males included, what I was getting at, is I don't believe there is any middle ground in feminism. You have back then which was one way, and today, which is another. I find there are some feminists who are seeking middle ground, but that's not equality.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by Ferg@Jul 15 2006, 06:07 AM
Well I open the door for everyone, females and males included, what I was getting at, is I don't believe there is any middle ground in feminism. You have back then which was one way, and today, which is another. I find there are some feminists who are seeking middle ground, but that's not equality.

So what are you saying- that feminists don't believe in courtesy? Or that we're dying to slam the door in mens' faces?

Besides, I don't think that this is an issue dominating feminist's agendas... How about addressing my other points?

[Ferg]

Originally posted by Mujer Libre+Jul 15 2006, 06:11 AM--> (Mujer Libre @ Jul 15 2006, 06:11 AM)

Ferg

@Jul 15 2006, 06:07 AM
Well I open the door for everyone, females and males included, what I was getting at, is I don't believe there is any middle ground in feminism. You have back then which was one way, and today, which is another. I find there are some feminists who are seeking middle ground, but that's not equality.

So what are you saying- that feminists don't believe in courtesy? Or that we're dying to slam the door in mens' faces?

Besides, I don't think that this is an issue dominating feminist's agendas... How about addressing my other points? [/b]

Do not get me started on that, I had a bad experiance. I'm serious, a feminist yelled at me for holding the door for her because she wanted to be treated as an equal. Like any level headed person I told her to fuck off. Experiance shapes perception, I generally don't like to get involved in this argument but I did tonight out of boredom sake and to better my debating skills.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by Ferg+Jul 15 2006, 07:27 AM--> (Ferg @ Jul 15 2006, 07:27 AM)

Originally posted by Mujer [email protected] 15 2006, 06:11 AM

Ferg

@Jul 15 2006, 06:07 AM
Well I open the door for everyone, females and males included, what I was getting at, is I don't believe there is any middle ground in feminism. You have back then which was one way, and today, which is another. I find there are some feminists who are seeking middle ground, but that's not equality.

So what are you saying- that feminists don't believe in courtesy? Or that we're dying to slam the door in mens' faces?

Besides, I don't think that this is an issue dominating feminist's agendas... How about addressing my other points?

Do not get me started on that, I had a bad experiance. I'm serious, a feminist yelled at me for holding the door for her because she wanted to be treated as an equal. Like any level headed person I told her to fuck off. Experiance shapes perception, I generally don't like to get involved in this argument but I did tonight out of boredom sake and to better my debating skills. [/b]

But not answering any of my points doesn't refine your debating skills at all.

[TC]

VermontLeft writes

some are and "radical feminist" is a pretty broad term anyway. it's probably be better if you were more specific in your terminology.

Not really, its actually quite specific, it refers to the gender feminist academic movement, who refer to themselves as 'radical feminists', as distinct from the liberal/equality and marxist feminists who proceeded them.

Radical feminism is a specific term.

obviously "lesbian feminists" or "seperatist feminist" are sexist full stop, but i think its more complicated when it comes to more flaky types of postmodern "feminism".

Lesbian feminists and seperatist feminists are radical feminists, but not all radical feminists are lesbian femnists or seperatist feminists, and i'm speaking about radical feminists more generally not just the lesbian feminist and seperatist feminist branchs.

The "mainstream" of the radicals (who the people i quoted undoubtedly fit into) is itself very fucked up in of itself, let alone the radical's fringe.

sure alot of these people are idealist whackos and some of their ideas on the nature of "sex" and "gendeR" are pretty fucked up, but i dont think its really fair to call them sexists.

I disagree i think Greer, Dworkin and MacKinnon are, if you read what they actually write as a whole, undeniably sexist, undeniably hositle to men, and undeniably hostile to female sexuality.

again, some are, sure, but others just take a really idealist approach to the question and think that theres some sort of "male" identity which is patriarchal and opressive. their not saying that thats biological, thoguh, their saying that is a social creation and can be changed.

Actually many of them do argue heavily that its biological (Greer for instance) and believe that biological phenomenon like heterosexual intercourse, menstruation, testosterone, etc, are inherently political and in some cases inherently oppressive...and again this is the bulk of the radical feminists not just the lesbian/seperatist type.

However even if this wasn't the case, even if their crtiique presumed that it was purely social, which it doesn't, it is still sexist.

im not sure what that even means. since when does "sex presuppose difference"?

seems to me that that's just a stupid statement by a probably stupid person. i dont really think that it can be taken as anything more than that.

i mean im not saying that there arent any stupid bigoted women whove flipped feminism into something reactionary. obviously. sometimes people can react to oppression by missing the point.

VermontLeft, Catherine MacKinnon is one of the most famous, prominant, active radical feminist academics and activists in america. Just because you don't know who she is doesn't mean she's just "some woman", you could have looked her up. She is one of the leading voices of anti-marxist, anti-liberal, radical feminism (not seperatist feminism, or lesbian feminism).

thats wrong of course, but its also the distrinct minority of feminist politics.

A minority in feminist politics yes...but i'm not talking about feminist politics i'm talking about radical feminist politics, and MacKinnon is *no minority* among them, she is one of their most recognizable figures.

Which parts are those? Most people i know think of the "radical feminists" ( the "all men suck", "lets all go be lesbians and life on an islan" types) to be whackos. they definitely dont think of them as mainstream "feminism".

Well i think its commonly believed that theres a large gap, especially among people under a certain age, between the number of people who agree with all mainstream feminist claims and the number of people who would identify as feminists, largely because they misidentify feminist politics with radical "feminist" politics...

Black Banner Black Gun writes

How is saying that bourgeois equality will not bring about the realizaiton of women's freedom a sexist position?

Because it presumes that women's interests and men's interests are different, that women have different needs from men, that there are no human interests but simply gendered interests. That is a sexist position.






LSD writes

But because, on the contrary, MKS' history on this board is one of opposing fundamental feminist issues, I am quite confident in taking his "critique" to be nothing more than standard conservative excuse-making for patriarchy.

Again, was I stating or implying that chauvinist "feminists" do not exist? No. I was merely saying that MKS, and others, routinely exploit that fact to serve their own anti-feminist interests and that that scam needs to be exposed for what it is.

Fair enough.

Undoubtably, but part of the reason that "radical feminism" has been so effective in undermining feminism is because ideological misogynists have throroughly exploited it to help their anti-feminist cause.

I agree, it should especially be noted that certain "radical feminist" political leaders like Catherine Ma



Mujer 'Libre' writes

That's exactly what I was going to pick up on. What Greer is saying seems to me to echo a lot of sentiment in Black Power movements, ie that equality needs to be challenged by empowering the oppressed and not working within a system created by the oppressors. Wow, how evil.

No the marxist influenced black power movement viewed black oppression as a form of class oppression, Greer is arguing however that women's oppression transcends class, it would exist even in class parity between men and women because men and women are fundementally different and their relationship has been one of the oppressor to the oppressed without regard to class. This is the basic gender feminist/radical feminist position and it is clearly sexist.

And I believe you are totally misusing the term 'radical feminist' TC. You use the term as synonymous with feminist separatism or superiority, which it clearly isn't, as LSD has already pointed out. In addition, those currents within feminist (and even radical feminist) thought are negligible.

No i'm not Mujer Libre. Although lesbian and seperatist feminist positions are especially sexist, especially anti-female (as opposed to aiming most of their hostility towards men) tendencies within radical feminism, these are not seperatist positions.

Neither Mackinnon nor Greer are separatists (although, like all radical feminists they have some tendencies in that direction), they are mainline radical feminists, as was Dworkin until close to the end of her life.

I deliberately only referenced people who fit into the mainline of radical feminism, not the lesbian or separatist radicals. There are far more fucked up radical feminists on the separatist fringes like Sheila Jeffreys, Mary Daly, etc, who i didn't mention as they represent a boarderline tendency within radical feminism rather than mainline radical feminism which Greer and MacKinnon represent. '

I find i really disturning that you side more with liberal feminists than radical feminists...

I find it really disturbing that you side more with radical feminists than liberal feminists! But you basically are a radical feminist aren't you?


Of course i side with liberal feminists, while their position is insufficently developed, they are significant progressives and generally approach politics from a materialist perspective.

Radical feminists however are reactionaries who approach politics from an idealist, nonmaterial perspective, a perspective that elevates gender beyond any material reality.

Liberal feminists are frequently (but not always) leftists who have a lot in common with Marxism and they have considerable common ground with the Marxist feminist agenda, Radical feminists are anti-leftists, explicit anti-marxists, and explicitly work against the marxist and liberal feminist agendas. They support sexual repression rather than sexual liberation, segregated society with a high emphasis on gender rather than the opposite.


Ferg writes

What I'm opposed to, is pseudo-feminists. The feminists who don't want to make any sacrifise. In the 50's there were couples who had the traditional family where the wife is the homemaker and the father is the provider. Excluding spousal abuse, their life while inequal, wasen't torturing horrible.

Yes, it was, it excluded women from the public, politically relevant sphere, divided and segregated labor between sexes, giving men paid labor and women unpaid domestic labor, keeping women as politically and socially marginal second class citizens.

It effectively created an informal system of indentured servitude of wives to husbands.

If you don't think thats horrible than i don't think you have any buisness calling yourself a leftist.

In fact, if a man wasen't abusing his wife, he treated fairly well.

...i suppose the same could be said of how 1950's husbands treated their other pets.

But with that, now comes the hateful sexism, female abuse is on the rampant, prostitution is on the rise, single mothers are commonplace in society. A nessesscary sacrifise.

Thats absurd. First of all, female abuse isn't "on the rampant", men are far more likely to be abused than women, and women who are financially dependent on their spouses in a 1950's housewife scenario are far more likely to be abused than indepedent women. Prostitution is related to overall economic trends that, if anything, is caused by percisely the type of lack of economic potential that pre-1960s women had, and single mothers were vastly more common before wide availability of birth control and abortion, they simply recieved less media attention. Increased media focus on prostitution and 'single mothers' doesn't indicate an increased frequency only that its a politically and socially provocative thing to report on.

[Ferg]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Jul 15 2006, 02:07 PM
VermontLeft writes

some are and "radical feminist" is a pretty broad term anyway. it's probably be better if you were more specific in your terminology.

Not really, its actually quite specific, it refers to the gender feminist academic movement, who refer to themselves as 'radical feminists', as distinct from the liberal/equality and marxist feminists who proceeded them.

Radical feminism is a specific term.

obviously "lesbian feminists" or "seperatist feminist" are sexist full stop, but i think its more complicated when it comes to more flaky types of postmodern "feminism".

Lesbian feminists and seperatist feminists are radical feminists, but not all radical feminists are lesbian femnists or seperatist feminists, and i'm speaking about radical feminists more generally not just the lesbian feminist and seperatist feminist branchs.

The "mainstream" of the radicals (who the people i quoted undoubtedly fit into) is itself very fucked up in of itself, let alone the radical's fringe.

sure alot of these people are idealist whackos and some of their ideas on the nature of "sex" and "gendeR" are pretty fucked up, but i dont think its really fair to call them sexists.

I disagree i think Greer, Dworkin and MacKinnon are, if you read what they actually write as a whole, undeniably sexist, undeniably hositle to men, and undeniably hostile to female sexuality.

again, some are, sure, but others just take a really idealist approach to the question and think that theres some sort of "male" identity which is patriarchal and opressive. their not saying that thats biological, thoguh, their saying that is a social creation and can be changed.

Actually many of them do argue heavily that its biological (Greer for instance) and believe that biological phenomenon like heterosexual intercourse, menstruation, testosterone, etc, are inherently political and in some cases inherently oppressive...and again this is the bulk of the radical feminists not just the lesbian/seperatist type.

However even if this wasn't the case, even if their crtiique presumed that it was purely social, which it doesn't, it is still sexist.

im not sure what that even means. since when does "sex presuppose difference"?

seems to me that that's just a stupid statement by a probably stupid person. i dont really think that it can be taken as anything more than that.

i mean im not saying that there arent any stupid bigoted women whove flipped feminism into something reactionary. obviously. sometimes people can react to oppression by missing the point.

VermontLeft, Catherine MacKinnon is one of the most famous, prominant, active radical feminist academics and activists in america. Just because you don't know who she is doesn't mean she's just "some woman", you could have looked her up. She is one of the leading voices of anti-marxist, anti-liberal, radical feminism (not seperatist feminism, or lesbian feminism).

thats wrong of course, but its also the distrinct minority of feminist politics.

A minority in feminist politics yes...but i'm not talking about feminist politics i'm talking about radical feminist politics, and MacKinnon is *no minority* among them, she is one of their most recognizable figures.

Which parts are those? Most people i know think of the "radical feminists" ( the "all men suck", "lets all go be lesbians and life on an islan" types) to be whackos. they definitely dont think of them as mainstream "feminism".

Well i think its commonly believed that theres a large gap, especially among people under a certain age, between the number of people who agree with all mainstream feminist claims and the number of people who would identify as feminists, largely because they misidentify feminist politics with radical "feminist" politics...

Black Banner Black Gun writes

How is saying that bourgeois equality will not bring about the realizaiton of women's freedom a sexist position?

Because it presumes that women's interests and men's interests are different, that women have different needs from men, that there are no human interests but simply gendered interests. That is a sexist position.






LSD writes

But because, on the contrary, MKS' history on this board is one of opposing fundamental feminist issues, I am quite confident in taking his "critique" to be nothing more than standard conservative excuse-making for patriarchy.

Again, was I stating or implying that chauvinist "feminists" do not exist? No. I was merely saying that MKS, and others, routinely exploit that fact to serve their own anti-feminist interests and that that scam needs to be exposed for what it is.

Fair enough.

Undoubtably, but part of the reason that "radical feminism" has been so effective in undermining feminism is because ideological misogynists have throroughly exploited it to help their anti-feminist cause.

I agree, it should especially be noted that certain "radical feminist" political leaders like Catherine Ma



Mujer 'Libre' writes

That's exactly what I was going to pick up on. What Greer is saying seems to me to echo a lot of sentiment in Black Power movements, ie that equality needs to be challenged by empowering the oppressed and not working within a system created by the oppressors. Wow, how evil.

No the marxist influenced black power movement viewed black oppression as a form of class oppression, Greer is arguing however that women's oppression transcends class, it would exist even in class parity between men and women because men and women are fundementally different and their relationship has been one of the oppressor to the oppressed without regard to class. This is the basic gender feminist/radical feminist position and it is clearly sexist.

And I believe you are totally misusing the term 'radical feminist' TC. You use the term as synonymous with feminist separatism or superiority, which it clearly isn't, as LSD has already pointed out. In addition, those currents within feminist (and even radical feminist) thought are negligible.

No i'm not Mujer Libre. Although lesbian and seperatist feminist positions are especially sexist, especially anti-female (as opposed to aiming most of their hostility towards men) tendencies within radical feminism, these are not seperatist positions.

Neither Mackinnon nor Greer are separatists (although, like all radical feminists they have some tendencies in that direction), they are mainline radical feminists, as was Dworkin until close to the end of her life.

I deliberately only referenced people who fit into the mainline of radical feminism, not the lesbian or separatist radicals. There are far more fucked up radical feminists on the separatist fringes like Sheila Jeffreys, Mary Daly, etc, who i didn't mention as they represent a boarderline tendency within radical feminism rather than mainline radical feminism which Greer and MacKinnon represent. '

I find i really disturning that you side more with liberal feminists than radical feminists...

I find it really disturbing that you side more with radical feminists than liberal feminists! But you basically are a radical feminist aren't you?


Of course i side with liberal feminists, while their position is insufficently developed, they are significant progressives and generally approach politics from a materialist perspective.

Radical feminists however are reactionaries who approach politics from an idealist, nonmaterial perspective, a perspective that elevates gender beyond any material reality.

Liberal feminists are frequently (but not always) leftists who have a lot in common with Marxism and they have considerable common ground with the Marxist feminist agenda, Radical feminists are anti-leftists, explicit anti-marxists, and explicitly work against the marxist and liberal feminist agendas. They support sexual repression rather than sexual liberation, segregated society with a high emphasis on gender rather than the opposite.


Ferg writes

What I'm opposed to, is pseudo-feminists. The feminists who don't want to make any sacrifise. In the 50's there were couples who had the traditional family where the wife is the homemaker and the father is the provider. Excluding spousal abuse, their life while inequal, wasen't torturing horrible.

Yes, it was, it excluded women from the public, politically relevant sphere, divided and segregated labor between sexes, giving men paid labor and women unpaid domestic labor, keeping women as politically and socially marginal second class citizens.

It effectively created an informal system of indentured servitude of wives to husbands.

If you don't think thats horrible than i don't think you have any buisness calling yourself a leftist.

In fact, if a man wasen't abusing his wife, he treated fairly well.

...i suppose the same could be said of how 1950's husbands treated their other pets.

But with that, now comes the hateful sexism, female abuse is on the rampant, prostitution is on the rise, single mothers are commonplace in society. A nessesscary sacrifise.

Thats absurd. First of all, female abuse isn't "on the rampant", men are far more likely to be abused than women, and women who are financially dependent on their spouses in a 1950's housewife scenario are far more likely to be abused than indepedent women. Prostitution is related to overall economic trends that, if anything, is caused by percisely the type of lack of economic potential that pre-1960s women had, and single mothers were vastly more common before wide availability of birth control and abortion, they simply recieved less media attention. Increased media focus on prostitution and 'single mothers' doesn't indicate an increased frequency only that its a politically and socially provocative thing to report on.

That's what torture is.

Somehow, I don't think treating someone as a second class citizen, is so painful, that you hope for a quick death. Frankly, if I had to choose between being a second class citizen who is "homemaker", or haveing my genitals ripped off and shoved up my anus, can you guess which one I would pick?

I'm not saying it was right, or good what people did back then, but it wasen't the worst thing in the world. Compared to the lynch mobbings of Blacks, the Holocaust of Jews Gypsies, Pole, Communists, Russians and others, women had it good comparitivly speaking. Sure it's better today, now that women are starting to be treated as equals in the workplace, but 50 years ago, it wasen't a death sentence to be born a women as it was a jew in Germany circa 1938.