On the "what radical feminism isn't" post at women

[soopermouse]

http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2006/0 ... nd-isnt-2/

Erm… NO

Radical feminism is not about opposition to pornography, prostitution, sadomasochism or patriarchal religion only. It is about opposition to subordination and dominance in all of its endless forms: subordination of women to men, of children to adults, of creatures and the earth to human beings. It is about opposing imperialism, colonialism, racism, homophobia, dominance heirarchies of every kind, and every mechanism and device by way of which human beings are dominated and subordinated.
Erm, no honey, you got it wrong. What you are describing is “radical”, Radical does not equal “radical feminism”. Whilst radical feminism is a part of “radical” equivalating the two is a logical faux pas- you equate a part to the whole and then attack the part for not being the whole. This logic is limping of both legs.

It is also a very convenient way to kindly place away some inconvenient things about radical feminism.

In the end, radical feminism is about the possibility for real happiness and real pleasure for all human beings.
Radical feminism is about women. If you have not quite gotten that bit, methinks though has a problem , a big and fat one. Cognitive dissonance, anyone??

Radical feminism isn't about reading books or mastering ideas or believing patriarchy is wrong or bad, although radical feminists do and believe all of these things.

Of course, the logic would have requested the author to insert an “only” there as in “radical feminism isn’t ONLY”. However since the author confesses that this post in which she decided to attack all of the radical feminists was inspired by her conversation with only one radical feminist, seems kinda obvious that logic shall not apply. She created a strawradfem and will battle it to death.

It isn't about raging on the internet about the latest male supremacist violation of a woman, although there is often value in doing that, if only to the woman doing the raging.
Of course, the ONLY continues to be AWOL in this paragraph as well. After all, adding the ONLY would have given some credit to all of the radical feminist voices that she is fighting against, and the author won’t have that.

Anti-porn work is good, but there is more to being "radical" than being anti-porn. It's possible to be anti-porn and yet a white picket fence feminist, greasing the wheels of the patriarchal machinery which grind out all of the mechanisms of women's subjugation, pornography being just one of many.

Of course, the strawradfem has to be stereotyped even more…

It is possible to be conservative as the day is long and absolutely devoted to dominance hierarchies while also opposing pornography.
We call them “fundies”

Being anti-porn and anti-prostitution are not the litmus tests of radical feminism. Opposing all subordination and all domination, wherever they occur, and living out one's opposition in every possible way, are the litmus tests of radical feminism.

I need to teach this person her native language. What she describes is “ being radical” not being “radical feminist”. For fuck’s sakes!!

Now onto the defining and minimizing of the strawradfem

Recently a number of blogs have been created by women who identify as "radical feminists." In general, these are young white women with fair amounts of various kinds of privilege who oppose porn, the prostituting of women, sadomasochistic sex (well, kind of. More, they seem to oppose bondage and the more overt, easily-identified forms of sadomasochistic sex) and patriarchal religion.
Ok, to this I only have one thing to say



FUCK YOU

This immigrant, no white enough “young white woman with fair amounts of various kinds of privilege” would really like to send you back where you came from, in a hope that you might return from there with some kind of sense.

I was born in Communist Romania. I have lived through Communism (poverty and oppression, 6 hours of electricity per day, political police), post communism (poverty, more poverty, insecurity. 5 tears of working full time and studying full time to get a diploma that would allow me to no longer be poor). Emigrating, being poor, starving, walking dogs for a living, coming very close to becoming a prostitute.

One bad marriage later finding myself alone, poor and with a year’s worth of back bills to pay in a country where the only people I knew were my abusive ex husband and his family.

I worked in a sandwich factory and I worked as a cleaner. My masters degree is not recognized in England.

Am I middle class now? Probably. I live above the poverty level, I have a fairly expensive almost new car, expensive gadgets, I travel a lot, I have my own business.

And I have earned my privilege if this is what you want to call it. I paid it with 15 years of living on 5 hours of sleep per night. I paid it with my health, my well being and my teeth.

I have seen our Revolution when I was 14, and I have scars from it. I also have scars from having been sexually abused as a child, and the most recent scars come from a quite recent rape.

I am very very sorry that you do not feel that the cause of radical feminism does not seem important enough for you. I am very very sorry that you actually believe that conveniently glossing over the inhumane way in which women are treated as objects is good for the bigger cause.

I am also very very sorry that I got to read this bullshit. There’s 10 minutes of my life that I shall never get back.

Whether you can choose to acknowledge this or not, sexual expoitation and objectification of women is a great problem. If you choose to take the pink glasses off you might notice that a workd in which women and men are equal is implicitely one in which the problems you mentioned above are not tolerated.

Radical feminism IS about sexual exploitation because sexual exploitation is the core of the patriarchy. Talking about it is important exactly because most people do not realize how deep the classing of women into the sex class is affecting everyone.

You are advocating cleaning the road when the house is a tip. Does not work like that.

[rich]

The person who wrote that is a poster here and probably doesn't appreciate being called "honey."

I do think that you *completely* missprepresented (or misunderstood) what she was saying and ignored the context of why she was saying it, but I'll leave it at that.

[Heart]

Hi, Soopermouse--

Quoting me, Heart: Radical feminism is not about opposition to pornography, prostitution, sadomasochism or patriarchal religion only. It is about opposition to subordination and dominance in all of its endless forms: subordination of women to men, of children to adults, of creatures and the earth to human beings. It is about opposing imperialism, colonialism, racism, homophobia, dominance heirarchies of every kind, and every mechanism and device by way of which human beings are dominated and subordinated.

Soopermouse Erm, no honey, you got it wrong. What you are describing is “radical”, Radical does not equal “radical feminism”. Whilst radical feminism is a part of “radical” equivalating the two is a logical faux pas- you equate a part to the whole and then attack the part for not being the whole. This logic is limping of both legs.

I was making reference here to radical feminism in its historic definition, specifically in the United States. I acknowledge that in Europe, Africa, China and throughout the world other women were engaged in feminism which they also defined as radical feminism. Radical feminism in its historic American definition begins, or concerns itself first, with the subordination of women to men (radical meaning getting at the root subordination), but it doesn't end there, because subordination doesn't end there.

Radical feminism is really about the the way men make some to be be "women" under male heterosupremacy. We are made to be women by men in their act of subordinating us. Men subordinated us, they then looked for a justification for this subordination, they found it in certain aspects of our biology, and they then declared themselves superior and us deserving of subordination. This subordination on the basis of sex is what radical feminists are most concerned with. But we can't stop there. Throughout history, men have repeated this same pattern of subordination, have, for example, continued to make various people groups, and the earth itself, "women." Different racial and ethnic groups are made to be "women" compared with white people. Gay men and lesbian women are made to be "women" compared with heterosexual people. The earth, itself, its air, water, creatures, are made to be "women," subordinated to human beings. Third World/Global South nations are made to be "women" compared with the United States and other Western imperialist nations. Then, each of these oppressions is gendered. Where racial groups are subordinated, women in these groups experience racialized sexism. Where nations in the Global South are subordinated, women in the poorer nations experience sexualized imperialism. We cannot apply ourselves only to man-woman subordination, although that was where we began, because subordination is much more complicated than that. It is easy for those of us who are white to fail to see that-- it is the blindness of privilege. For us it is fairly simple: we're women, they're women, men oppress us all. And that is true, but only so far as it goes. Oppressions are actually nested, there are gendered oppressions within gendered oppressions within gendered oppressions, and we can't adequately respond to male subordination without recognizing how and why this is so.

Quoting me, Heart In the end, radical feminism is about the possibility for real happiness and real pleasure for all human beings.

Soopermouse: Radical feminism is about women. If you have not quite gotten that bit, methinks though has a problem , a big and fat one. Cognitive dissonance, anyone??

I totally agree with you that radical feminism is about women. That's why I'm a separatist, among other things, and that's why my boards have long been woman-only. That's why pretty much everywhere I've gone on the internet or in real life, I've worked to create woman-only space. At the same time, in order to achieve the goals of radical feminism, gender has to be abolished, and with it notions of masculinity and femininity, "woman" as traditionally conceived and "man" as traditionally conceived. "Woman" and "man" are subordinating social constructs imposed on people on the basis of their physical bodies. That subordination has to end. When it does, *all* people will enjoy the potential for happier more pleasurable lives.

Quoting me, Heart Radical feminism isn't about reading books or mastering ideas or believing patriarchy is wrong or bad, although radical feminists do and believe all of these things.

Soopermouse Of course, the logic would have requested the author to insert an “only” there as in “radical feminism isn’t ONLY”. However since the author confesses that this post in which she decided to attack all of the radical feminists was inspired by her conversation with only one radical feminist, seems kinda obvious that logic shall not apply. She created a strawradfem and will battle it to death.

The "only" is implied. The point I was making there was that it isn't enough to read books and believe patriarchy is bad. Radical feminism isn't about "belief." It begins there, but it never ends there, as I said in my post.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say this post was inspired by my conversation with only "one radical feminist." Maybe you were referencing my allusion to Joyce Trebilcot? But her work wasn't the impetus for my post. I think I was pretty clear what the impetus for my post was.

As to attacking "all radical feminists", I am not sure what you mean. I think I spent a lot of time praising radical feminists, individually, by name, and corporately. I am a radical feminist and a separatist, as five of my daughters and a daughter-in-law are as well. The most important people in my life are radical feminist women. My sheroes are all radical feminist women. I was analyzing a phenomenon I am seeing on the internet-- a proliferation of blogs in which the blogger identifies as a radical feminist, but does not seem to embrace the distinctives of radical feminism as we understand the term in the United States. And you know, I think it's okay if they do that, but I also think it's important to say what I said because otherwise (1) herstoric radical feminism gets erased; (2) people new to feminism never hear what herstoric radical feminism really was or is.

Quoting me, Heart It isn't about raging on the internet about the latest male supremacist violation of a woman, although there is often value in doing that, if only to the woman doing the raging.

Soopermouse: Of course, the ONLY continues to be AWOL in this paragraph as well. After all, adding the ONLY would have given some credit to all of the radical feminist voices that she is fighting against, and the author won’t have that.

I think the context of my comment is clear. The "only" is implied.

Quoting me, Heart: Anti-porn work is good, but there is more to being "radical" than being anti-porn. It's possible to be anti-porn and yet a white picket fence feminist, greasing the wheels of the patriarchal machinery which grind out all of the mechanisms of women's subjugation, pornography being just one of many.

Soopermouse Of course, the strawradfem has to be stereotyped even more…

I linked to a very clear description of "white picket fence feminism" in the course of offering my thoughts. If the description doesn't apply, then it doesn't apply. I was not suggesting that all radical feminists are white picket fence feminists; if that was what I was saying, I'd be creating a "strawradfem."

I think we make straw radfems when we suggest that all radfems do (whatever it is). That's not what I was doing or would ever do. I was saying that I am seeing a proliferation of blogs in which the bloggers identify as radical feminists, some of whom do seem to be white picket fence feminists.

Quoting me, Heart Being anti-porn and anti-prostitution are not the litmus tests of radical feminism. Opposing all subordination and all domination, wherever they occur, and living out one's opposition in every possible way, are the litmus tests of radical feminism.

Soopermouse I need to teach this person her native language. What she describes is “ being radical” not being “radical feminist”. For fuck’s sakes!!

I've responded to this already but will say it again. Radical feminism -- not "radical" alone, as in "political radical," I know what you mean, but that's not what I'm talking about -- radical feminism in the U.S. in its historic definition is not about anti-porn, anti-prostitution work only. It is a movement to end all subordination of women to men. This means it opposes marriage, both heterosexual and lesbian, the nuclear family, pornography, prostitution, sexual harrassment, compulsory heterosexuality, and all other means by which women are subordinated to men. Our interest in subordination begins with male-female relationships and sexuality, but does not end there. It cannot.

Soopermouse: Radical feminism IS about sexual exploitation because sexual exploitation is the core of the patriarchy. Talking about it is important exactly because most people do not realize how deep the classing of women into the sex class is affecting everyone.

I agree with this completely.

I hate hearing of all of the many abuses you have suffered, soopermouse. I am so sorry you had to go through all of that! It is horrifying and enraging to me. Your story is also so inspiring-- it took so much courage and strength for you to do what you've done and I'm glad to have read of it. It encourages me.

I, too, am a survivor of many instances of rape, of sexual abuse, of being victimized by pornography, of sexual harrassment, of severe battering (my first husband went to prison for the rest of his life for beating me with a metal pipe in an attempt on my life; my skull and eye sockets were fractured), of every other kind of sexist, sexual abuse you can name. These experiences finally drove me to radical feminism. I really, really don't disagree with you that it is important to focus on sexual abuse and exploitation and that we need many more women to do this work. We do. I agree with you.

I am saying, though, that the work is broader than this, is greater than this. It doesn't make any sense to talk about marital rape without talking about marriage as an oppressive institution in the first place? It doesn't make any sense to talk about pornography without talking about how women are made, via the imposition of all of the different rituals and requirements of traditional femininity, to be "women," to be subordinated to men. It doesn't make any sense to talk about objectification, exploitation, prostitution, any of it, without talking about compulsory heterosexuality. As we move outward into these issues from where we began-- with our own rapes, batterings, victimization-- we begin to see again and again, that it is all connected, it is all connected, we cannot extract out pornography and porn and stay there, (although it is SO legitimate and right for some to focus primarily on these things), we have to examine it all.

In any event, to focus narrowly on porn and sexual exploitation while living a white picket fence kind of life is, among other things, to fail to recognize the sacrifices and gifts of all of the women I named in my post and so many more, women who saw the connections between their individual sufferings at the hands of rapists, batterers, pimps, husbands, and the sufferings of communities, people groups, nations and sometimes gave their lives for what they saw. That, among other things, was what I was wanting to talk about in my post.

I won't be back to argue, (though if it seems as though I need to clarify, I will), and I thank you (and Sam, OAG and le chat!) for this opportunity to respond to your criticisms. I have taken them seriously and will continue to think about them in the future.

Heart

[Heart]

I wanted to say something that I forgot to say.

It's not only important to see, and talk about, all the ways subordination, men making some to be "women," play out in the world in terms of race, colonialism, ableism, lesbophobia, classism, etc. for its own sake. It's also vitally important for us as radical feminists to think deeply about and challenge these things because if we don't, we will alienate too many feminists of color, feminists with disabilities, feminists in the Third World/Global South, lesbian feminists, and so on. This is what happened the first time around, speaking now of Second Wave feminism in the United States. It wasn't intentional, and I thoroughly and completely believe white Second Wave radical feminists did the very best they could with the information they had to keep it from happening, but the movement was so new and everybody was madly inventing everything as she went and so, what happened happened.

Does anybody see the way blogs and blogrolls seem to break down along color lines? Lesbian/het lines? Western/Third World-Global South lines? It's a problem.

We just can't afford this in this new resurgence of radical feminism (for which I am honestly so grateful). We can't afford to make that mistake this time around. The world is much smaller today than it was in 1970, for one thing. And as Germaine Greer said in a quote I have on my boards, in so many words, we ain't seen nuttin yet. White Western feminists have had the privilege of serving the longest revolution, not of leading it. When female power really breaks forth, it will break forth in Thailand, in China, in the Middle East, where women have nothing to lose because they've lost it all already. If we want to be part of this -- I do, and hope I live long enough to see it, though Greer says I won't -- we have to walk alongside all of our sisters, I think, working to understand all the ways they experience subordination on the basis of sex which don't look quite like the ways we, as (mostly) white feminists, experience it.

Heart

[soopermouse]

I apologize - English is not my native language and sometimes its nuances can escape me. Thank you for clearing things up.

With regards to marriage: marriage is an anti woman instiutution. The whole habit of having married women wearing wedding bands is rooted in the old Sumerian tradition that had the slaves wear iron rings with the owners' name on it. That and the fact that the married women are a lot more unhappy than the unmarried women and that the married men are a lot happier than the married men, I think this is enough evidence to suggest that marriage is bad for women.

My mother was a biology teacher. he was also a fairly known genetics engineer in Romania.
She had this theory- that human females have been bred ( in the white western civilisation) to be smaller and less strong that the males.

She noted that starting with the cro-magnons, the size of the human male and female were roughly the same, and that the sexual dysmorphism was little ( maybe a difference of one inch or so). The human skeletons are roughly the same size- male and female, until about 15,000 years ago, when the dysmorphism starts happening until today, when the average height difference is in the neighbourhgood of 5-7 inches.
That and the wide spread cultural obsession with female smalleness...

Add to that the fact that history makes a passable mention that te original form of organizing of the human species was matriarchy. WE are not told anything else but that, no details or anything. I am not sure it was even taught in the West.

The little evidence we have from the era when this supposedly happened show the females being as large as the males. Remember all those femmale statues from roughly the same time, the big round strong women with strong legs and wide hips and shoulders??

But a woman like that would have been a challenge.

Basically she thought that there existed a long period of time, continuing until today, in which males have ( consciously or not) bred out the larger females ( by refusing to mate with them).

What if matriarchy was so functional that there still an ancestral memory of it telling males that women are dangerous for them and that unless they keep us at bay we can take over at any time??

[soopermouse]

However, I do think that you are making a generalization regarding
some of whom do seem to be white picket fence feminists.

Funny, most of the radfems I know on the 'nets do not live a white picket fence life.

Just because one does not live in a separatist commune does not imply that the rest of us live "white picket fence" lives.

A woman who works does not live a "white picket fence life" does she? the white picket fence being the part of the 50's mythology with the man as the breadwinner and the woman as the SAHM?

That was the point I do not get. Maybe it is my grasp of the English language, but isn't there a bit too much of a generalization involved?

And if I remember correctly a lot of the second wavers started as white picket fence feminists- see Betty Friedan??

As stated before, not everyone can choose separatism. Whilst I do understand the need for it, there is far too much work left to be done for me to be able to afford to choose separatism. IMHO, feminism had lost a lot of its appeal to young women when the separatism idea came into place, because most young women coming into the world at age 20 something are not ready to choose separatism... or not yet.

Too many women live still in the world of men and fall prey to it. If we choose to treat all heterosexual women as white picket fence feminists, then this movement has lost its whole reason for existing, and I want the hell out.

I have seen a lot of this tendence on the lesbian blogs, and I am glad you mention it. I would love to be able to go live in a separatist feminist utopia, but I would probably wake up screaming with guilt every morning if I did.
Because I would feel like a traitor.Our work is not done yet. Patriarchy needs to be brought down from within, burrowing tunnels into its foundation until it crumbles down.

Each and every independent woman who lives IN the patriarchy does the hardest work of it- the work of being an example. How many women are out there that were raised to believe they will never be good enough, strong enough, apt enough to stand on their own two feet? A lot and the number grows by the day.
But if you see the women who work and live as independent human beings within the patriarchy, that is what you NEED to get yourself out. The impulse. being shown that it IS possible to do it.

[Heart]

Hey, soopermouse, thanks for all of those really interesting thoughts-- I really enjoyed reading everything you had to say.

You know, I think women can be good feminists, even if they are white picket fence feminists. Betty Friedan at least started out that way, just as you say, as did many white Second Wave feminists in the U.S. There's an interesting blog, "Feminist Mormon Housewives" and some of the women on that blog seem to be cool feminists, even though they pretty much *are* white picket fence feminists. I don't really want to disparage any feminist-- we need all the feminists we can have, and you are right to push me a bit on that.

I was mostly concerned about this tendency I am seeing to identify as a radical feminist without apparently understanding the implications, particularly if there is also this suggestion that feminism is more about what you believe or think about things in your head than about the way you actually order your life. Betty Friedan never identified as a radical feminist and eventually rejected some of the most committed of radical feminists, actually viewing them as a threat to the women's movement. I think in order to do justice to feminist herstory and the lives of the women she rejected, it's important to remind one another of these things and to make these sorts of distinctions. It's awesome to be any kind of feminist at all, and all feminists will suffer in some ways for *being* feminists, just as all women suffer because we are women. At the same time, a feminist who does not have to work, who is supported by a husband and enjoys fair amounts of looks, race and class privilege is in a different category from someone whose feminist principles have resulted in her, for example, leaving her husband and family, striking out on her own, maybe when she's getting on in years and is in poor health. She is also in a different category from (again, one of many examples I could use) a lesbian radical feminist in the feminist underground in one of the African countries or in the Middle East or from a lesbian separatist/radical feminist who must make it on her own in a world which is completely hostile to her very existence and which regularly reminds her that it is. Again, this isn't to say the first woman can't do good feminist work-- it's just to make distinctions which hopefully honor the lives of all feminist women, which don't minimize what radical feminism often costs.

As to separatism, I will just say that I don't think you have to be a separatist to be a great feminist or a great radical feminist, and I don't think separatism requires that anyone live communally-- I didn't mean to say that. I was just wanting to agree with you that feminism is all about women and to give you examples of how deeply I believe that.

As to whether women who work outside their homes but have the husband, the SUV, the dog, etc., are white picket fence feminists-- well, I know some who definitely are (in real life)! They have nannies and cleaning ladies and all the toys and habits we associate with Western affluence. My point was that the fact that these women might be anti-porn or anti-prostitution, in and of itself, doesn't make them radical feminists-- I think there's more to radical feminism than that, and I wanted to say that.

Thanks again for your good thoughts which I am going to mull over-- very interesting.

Heart

[soopermouse]

I am sorry for jumping at you like that. But I am getting very weary of the fault lines that appear yet again within feminism.

I was not around in the 70's. I was born in 75, in a communist country and had to deal with that.

But in my communist country, I had an advantage: no one told me that i could not do this job or that. We had women managers, women ministers, women on the cranes, women building houses. No one told them they couldn't.

Then I came out in the West and found the gender lines being traced as brick walls.

But that is another story.

My point is this: how can we expect acceptance fron outside if we cannot accept and respect the varieties within feminism itself?

Why the need for the cause to be appropriate by one group or another??

racially speaking, I am white. yet in England I am treated as "not white enough" and I have received more racist comments that I can count. Yet, I probably have received a lot less racist abuse than a woman of colour. So where should I stand between all of the racially oriented feminist groups?

I am sick and tired of all the differences, because by persisiting in them we are dividing ourselves and sabotaging ourselvees.

[soopermouse]

White Western feminists have had the privilege of serving the longest revolution, not of leading it. When female power really breaks forth, it will break forth in Thailand, in China, in the Middle East, where women have nothing to lose because they've lost it all already.

I disagree. What I think will happen is that, after a full fledged revolution will occur, the whole society will try to mould itself onto a model, and they will look at the "first world" countries for help.

This appened in ROmania. Under Communism, women had a lot of rights and a lot of advantages they did not have in teh west, and on the other side abortion was illegal unless there was danger to the mother's health. On the other side, we had no sexual harassment and the uniform punishment for rape was 7 years in prison, no parole or anything.

The revolution came and all of teh society was supposed to benefit, but the women lost a lot of teh advantages they had. The glass ceiling that did not exist under Communism was lost. the free access to superior education was partially lost. the affordable childcare, the daycare untis along all big employers were lost, the affordable housing for everybody was lost. Nowadays, Romania has the same shitty standard the West has, everyone WILL stare at teh thought of a woman in a real powerful psition, the glass ceiling is enforced all across and that is that.

As i said it before, we need to clean our own house first. yes, we do have some privileges in teh West that other women don't have. And I think it is wrong for us to try and put the burden of the revolution on them, but then again I am not an ideologue.

The way i see the feminist movement, we need to learn from each other. We need to focus on ending all forms of discrimination in our own yard first, because , whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, everyone keeps its eyes on the first wold countries.
If what Sweden has done would have been done by Britain or by the USA, who have a much stronger pull of influence in the world than Sweden, the changes would have propagated globally.

Do you think that the fundies worldwide would have had the courage to try and roll back choice and womens rights if they did not see it start in the USA??

As one coming from the third world, I tell you this:
the eyes onf the world are on the USA. the USA is still seen as an example, and whatever happens there will set the tone for whatever happens everywhere else.

So, I disagree with Germaine Greer.

[soopermouse]

also Heart, I want to point you at this
http://vociferate.wordpress.com/

read the comments.

[Heart]

Hey, soopermouse-- really interesting about what has happened in Romania. I have read articles along the lines of what you posted there not so long ago-- a Swedish woman living in Germany posted a really interesting essay to my boards which broke things down just as you have there. European feminists do see things differently from American feminists and some of our apparent disagreements have to do with these differences, I think. In my blog post, as I said, I was concerning myself primarily with American radical feminism.

The oppression you experience in the UK because you are a Romanian immigrant is oppression on the basis of your ethnicity; you want and need your feminist sisters standing alongside you in solidarity wrt that oppression, no? How might it work, for example, to have what I have seen and been appalled by in this country: committed, white, radical feminists who nevertheless think "illegal immigrants" (a category I do not believe exists-- no human being is "illegal") should be sent back to their own countries or should be barred from entry into the U.S, including, for example, battered women, DV victims. This means they are agreeing, in some instances, that immigrant women and girls should be sent back to abusive families, abusive husbands or ex-husbands, pimps, slave-owners, back to where they were raped or brutalized and their rapists and brutalizers still live, back to where they were abused because they were women, or should not be granted amnesty as women who are fleeing abuse. This is an example of the connections I'm talking about which I think we need to make. Of course, white American feminists don't have to be concerned about this because we aren't immigrants-- but does that mean we turn our back on women and girls who are immigrants, as though their issues are not ours? If we shut radical feminism up to being anti-porn and anti-prostitution and we don't connect all the dots we need to connect, then we will not recognize the ways immigration policies are an issue radical feminists must concern themselves with. This is the very issue we are dealing with in the U.S. right now. It floors me to hear white radical feminists urging that the borders be closed and that "illegals" be sent back to where they came from, as though they are not talking about women and girls who will go back to horrendously sexually oppressive situations.

What Germaine Greer was talking about in the quote I referenced was her belief that the day will come, in the future, when women in China, the Middle East, Thailand, Africa, will simply, in huge numbers, be fed up. The revolution that happens then will be unlike any we have so far experienced, in numbers, in magnitude. We already see this happening in Africa where women are staging protests against oil companies and getting arrested for it, and where they are creating and defending woman-only villages like Umoja Village. I am with Greer on this. I don't think any nation, including the U.S., will be able to stop this female power when it breaks forth. It won't be coming out of government bodies, it won't have anything to do with nations or national policies, the U.S. won't be setting any pace for anything; this will be about again women and girls, being fed up and hitting the streets, just to begin with.

I think my earlier posts, in general, are responsive to your comments about "differences" amongst women, but again, I think it is wrong-headed for white U.S. radical feminists to in any way minimize the significance of the different experiences of women of color and white women. I don't think it's up to us as white women to tell women of color that they should focus on prostitution and pornography, if at the same time we are unwilling to consider issues which *are* radical feminist issues to them, even though they might not be to us. That's where we have to listen, pay attention. A huge example of white radfem blindness in this area is all the brouhaha over Cecilia Fire Thunder's plan to create a women's clinic on the Oglala Sioux reservation. In other words, when women of color do something which we figure might directly benefit US-- like building a women's clinic in a state that has outlawed abortion (SD), we are right there with our support. We're down with that. But where the hell were we 10 or 15 or 20 years or 30 years ago when Native Women were fighting for Native American sovereignty rights which would have enabled them provide the health care to Native Women which as white women we have taken for granted all along? We weren't anywhere. We couldn't be bothered. But now they are supposed to view us as their allies, because we want in on something they are doing? It doesn't work that way. Native American women's reproductive rights are both a radical feminist issue and an issue of Native women's tribal sovereignty rights. We, as white American women, aren't directly affected by the way Native women are treated, but these are *women* and we say that we are woman-centered. If we are, then we have to CARE about Native Women's tribal sovereignty issues because they affect Native women. Again, this is one of SO many similar issues and our behavior around this kind of issue is what alienates feminists of color, keeps them from radical feminism, and results in the way blogrolls and blogs break down along racial and ethnic lines.

I really feel that I have said enough now. This is the way I see things; I speak only for myself, not anybody else, not radical feminists as a group, not the movement or any movement, just me. Then again, I have to speak up and say what I think is important to say-- we all do, I think.

Heart

[Heart]

One thought I had which I left out:

Do you think that the fundies worldwide would have had the courage to try and roll back choice and womens rights if they did not see it start in the USA??

I absolutely do. I don't think Islamic fundamentalist regimes, leaders,groups are at all concerned about what is going on in the USA wrt to reproductive choice or who is trying to roll back what. Fundamentalism is a world all its own; it operates by its own rules and thinks it is looking to the divine for guidance. What outsiders may be doing doesn't figure in at all.

Heart

[annared]

Deleted this post, as it went slightly off topic

[soopermouse]

One thought I had which I left out:

Do you think that the fundies worldwide would have had the courage to try and roll back choice and womens rights if they did not see it start in the USA??

I absolutely do. I don't think Islamic fundamentalist regimes, leaders,groups are at all concerned about what is going on in the USA wrt to reproductive choice or who is trying to roll back what. Fundamentalism is a world all its own; it operates by its own rules and thinks it is looking to the divine for guidance. What outsiders may be doing doesn't figure in at all.

Heart

I was referring to teh Christian fundies:
I will give you a clue:

immediately after south dakota, the following events happened in Europe:

1. Italy tried to ban abortions
2. Poland banned abortions
3. the archbishop of canterbury published a survey of a fundie think tank alleging that most women in britain want the access to abortions to be limited.

You live in the USA. I don't think you understand what a major influence the USA is on the rest of the world

[Heart]

Soopermouse, I understand that the U.S. is influential in Europe (although I'm a little surprised by the Archbishop of Canterbury's behaviors), and certainly I can see the Rome-U.S. connection, but I (with Greer) was not talking in my post about female power breaking forth in Europe, but instead the Global South/Third World,in China, Africa, Southeast Asia -- again, I was talking about women of color, not white women -- where, again, women will have nothing to lose, having lost it all already. Teenagers are now being sentenced to hang in Iraq, including a girl who killed a man who was attempting to rape her and her niece; women are being stoned and executed under Sharia laws throughout Africa and in the Middle East. Recently, an African head of state was acquitted of raping a young woman in a home where he was a guest. He said it was consensual though there was every evidence of rape, and he was believed and freed. Women out of the all of these areas are being trafficked and sold into slavery in droves. So many Chinese girl babies have now been aborted that there will be a serious disparity, in about 40 years, between the number of Chinese men of marriageable age and the number of Chinese women of marriageable age and this is giving rise to huge concerns about what's going to happen then. All of these facts and many more, many having to do with the rise of various fundamentalisms, is what I was saying might result in the breaking forth of female power among women of color, mostly. You argued that Greer was wrong, that what the U.S. does is imitated and emulated by the rest of the world. While that may be true of the West, those aren't the areas I was referencing (re the Greer quote). I am saying, we must pay attention to what is going on among women of color, feminists of color, even when we aren't immediately affected.

I am feeling as though I've already posted one more time than I intended. I think I've pretty much responded to your thoughts and will now respectfully let the words I have already written speak for themselves.

Take care,
Heart

[soopermouse]

Soopermouse, I understand that the U.S. is influential in Europe (although I'm a little surprised by the Archbishop of Canterbury's behaviors), and certainly I can see the Rome-U.S. connection, but I (with Greer) was not talking in my post about female power breaking forth in Europe, but instead the Global South/Third World,in China, Africa, Southeast Asia, where, as I said before, women will have nothing to lose, having lost it all already. Teenagers are now being sentenced for beheading in Iraq, including a girl who killed a man who was attempting to rape her and her niece; women are being stoned and executed under Sharia laws throughout Africa and in the Middle East. Women out of the all of these areas are being trafficked and sold into slavery in droves. So many Chinese girl babies have now been aborted that there will be a serious disparity, in about 40 years, between the number of Chinese men of marriageable age and the number of Chinese women of marriageable age. All of these facts and many more, many having to do with the rise of various fundamentalisms, is what will result in the breaking forth of female power. You argued that Greer was wrong, that what the U.S. does is imitated and emulated by the rest of the world. While that may be true of the West, those aren't the areas I was referencing (re the Greer quote).

I am feeling as though I've already posted one more time than I intended. I think I've pretty much responded to your thoughts and will now respectfully let the words I have already written speak for themselves.

Take care,
Heart

sadly, the US influence is important everywhere.

The data you have cited is accurate, yet I shall remind you of this: the revolution does not normally happen where the reasons for it are strongest, but where the opposition is weakest. The communist revolution did not happen in Germany or America, the strongest industrialized nations of their time, but in Russia, where there was little to no proletariat but where the conditions were best( incapable government).

The only anticommunist violent revolution did not happen in Poland or Czech republic or Russia, where the anticommunist movement was most organized and strong, it happened in poor, downtrodden desperate Romania, where the government was alone and there were no Red Army troops.

That is why I do not see the womens revolution happen in China or in an Islamic country where the opposition would be too strong.

[soopermouse]

actually Heart, I do have to take issue with this

I was analyzing a phenomenon I am seeing on the internet-- a proliferation of blogs in which the blogger identifies as a radical feminist, but does not seem to embrace the distinctives of radical feminism as we understand the term in the United States.

first, I am not sure why do you believe that we should embrace the term "as you understand it in the USA".

Second, your definition is widely not shared amongst a lot of feminists.

All in all, this is what I have to say

for what is worth, Heart, I want this to be clear.

I do not doubt your good intentions. However, even on second and third reading, I did find your post as being insulting and disrespectful for the work on many a radical feminist I know.
Whilst I do understand that the way you apply the theory of radical feminism to its 70's american definition, I am afraid that things have serverely changed from the 1970's. The impact of pornography and prostitution has increased considerably. The number of rapes has increased as well. The dangers that we as women are facing in this world come from the fact that we are perceived as sex objects and not as people, and that is the problem that we are facing now, in our first world environments. How can we aim to clean up the whole world when our own house is a mess??

In your post it was made clear that you believe that a "picket fence feminist" does not really have the right to call herself a radfem. You contested the right of the members of the radfem blogosphere to call themselves that, because many of them are white, middle class, and "white picket fence feminists".If that is truly your belief, as it appears from the post, are you sure that you can call yourself a radical feminist? As far as a white picket fence feminism goes, what is more "picket fence feminism"- having the house and the children as you do, or being a single professional woman like many of us are?

You started this discussion abotu what can be defined as "feminist creds".

What you define as radical feminism is what we define in the 21st century as humanism, and your message is a bit too close to the one that the left and the Democrat party are imposing on the US women, that after all the rest of the things will be put to right then we can address the sexual exploitation.

No, thanks, and it is because even people like yourself, who identify as a feminist, believe that talking about sexual abuse is not worth it, that is the reason why our work is important and needs to be done. Because what is not in the public eye always gets forgotten.

I can assume that one reason for your slant is a generation gap. We do have a lot of other problems in the 00's that were not as apaprent in the 1970's, and maybe that is a good reason why our work might seem not quite as important to you.

But in the 70's the rape rates were less than today. We are looking at 1 in 3 women being raped today, is that not enough of a reason to talk about it in your opinion?As such, yes I can understand why this might seem a a secondary fight for you, and not a good enough reason for anyone to call themselves a radfem.

You also assume that most of us just talk about it on our blogs. Don't you think that it is a bit presumptuous of you??

You do not know us. What you know is what you see on the blogs, and quite frankly you don't seem to see much about our work outside the internet. Strange as it migth seem, some of us might not want to brag about it to gain feminist cred.

Just because you do not see it it does not mean that there isn't any.

It does seem apparent to me that you are unhappy with us third wavers. Your post accuses us of being privileged, white picket fence feminists, and to have embraced radical feminism as a fad.

Frankly, the radfems you are talking in your post are strawradfems, and I do believe that, if your intentions are the ones you professed here, then you do owe us those only-s that you consider are implied. Nothing is implied.

being in trouble with the patriarchy seems to be how you would identify a radfem, yet you do not know us. Maybe before attacking us, you might want to remember that some of us do have a need for our privacy, and as such there are details that we might not want to post on the internet.

the world has changed severely since the 1970's. We have a lot of problems now that you did not have back then, and I do not think you or anyone else has the right to judge or try to silence any of us just because you do not agree with your views on what radical feminism is, or isn't. Your post was nsulting, and if at least one radfem blogger decides to step down because of it, I believe you owe her, and the rest of us, an apology.

One of the things that feminism was supposed to be about is the right to not be judged by others and to be accepted for who we see ourselves as. As such, I am sorry, but I do find your post insulting.

[Heart]

Soopermouse, you quote me where I say this:

"I was analyzing a phenomenon I am seeing on the internet-- a proliferation of blogs in which the blogger identifies as a radical feminist, but does not seem to embrace the distinctives of radical feminism as we understand the term in the United States."

But you omit my next line, which is critical:

And you know, I think it's okay if they do that, but I also think it's important to say what I said because otherwise (1) herstoric radical feminism gets erased; (2) people new to feminism never hear what herstoric radical feminism really was or is.

I don't want what herstoric feminism in the United States has been to be made invisible or erased because it is being redefined or defined differently. We can have the new definition-- feminism is always being defined and redefined by new feminists. But if someone is going to take a word which has had meaning historically and use it differently, then those who are using it as it has always been used will want to talk about it. There still *are* Second Wave radical feminists doing our work today, we are using the definition as it has always been used, and I am one of those women.

Heart

[soopermouse]

but in defending the herstoric concept, does that make it acceptable to minimize our work?


because seems that this is all this is about: the second wavers rejecting the third wavers. I do not think this is worth it. Is your ownership of the term radfem so damn important that you feel entitled to attack us? If so, this is a sad day for me and the movement, as it seems that some misplaced prides seem a whole hell of a lot more important than the actual work being done. After the work done or not done back then, you still went on to have your children and live your life enjoying the same advantages reserved to those that toed the line of the patriarchy.

You did that, and the work was not over, not by a longshot. It has fallen onto us, and now in the name of the past you believe that you have the right to attack and minimize our work??
You don't.


You are so busy defending the second wave that you are intentionally alienating and hurting the third wave's work. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, we do have our share of work, in a world that is seriously different from the one you faced in the 70's. As such, instead of being so focused on the past that you are throwing the present off the window, I suggest that you do consider this: what is more important in terms of now.

So, please, stop doing this. You have become the obstacle in the path of our work, and you should know better than that. If you do not want to join us or if the problems that we are working on seem irrelevant to you, so be it. But you and no one else has the right to try and silence us in the name of the past.

We are facing now a lot of issues that have stemmed from the unfinished work of the second wavers including the social stigma associated with being a feminist.
As such, whilst I do respect all of the work done by the second wave, I am not recognising yours or anyone else's right to try and silence us, for whatever reason.

You just don't seem to understand the threat we are living under as of now. If you would, then you would refrain from attcaking us now, when Roe is in danger, when all of the freedoms of the women in your country are in danger, with attacks that are undeserved and unwarranted.

You might not choose to see it as such, but your post was an attack directed at us. And I am not standing for it.

[Army Of Me]

I had a few doubts about whether or not I should post on this thread. My intention with this comment is not really to agree or disagree with either of the 2 main writers above. (disclaimer done - waits for shit to fly - oops.)

I was around in the 70's and believe me, the problems were around then, it's just that due to technology and the backlash (which has now been going on for a generation or more - if you were around then, it's obvious) against the original feminist ideaology,the problems are on a much much bigger scale and yes, include issues that were not even named at the time (such as sex-traffiking).

But feminism is and always was about humanitarianism, love and the right to be treated/represented as something other than a fuck-object. Everything follows from that IMHO.

Call me simple.