On What Radical Feminism Is and Isn't

[The F-Files]

Not sure if this was ever posted before but I enjoyed it. I hope to interview her soon:


On What Radical Feminism Is and Isn't

Caveat: Recently I have come to agree with radical feminist theorist Joyce Trebilcot that it is wrong-headed for feminists to debate or argue with other feminists with the goal of getting them to change their minds or to come around to our own points of view, replacing their opinions with ours. I agree with Trebilcot that feminism is not about "selling" our "truth" to other women, and that when we try, competitiveness, guilt, and envy — all tools of the patriarchy — tend to infuse our feminist process, making it unproductive to destructive. Feminists didn't arrive at the herstoric distinctives of our movement by way of argument, debate or persuasion. We arrived at the herstoric distinctives of our movement by way of consciousness-raising.

Consciousness-raising has nothing to do with debate, persuasion, arguments, or smacking one another around rhetorically or discursively. It has to do with women talking about the realities of our lives as women under male supremacy, taking one another seriously, speaking only for ourselves, always searching for the way the "givens" of our lives and views have been shaped by patriarchal oppression as well as our own biases and experiences, and then finding — and making — common ground with other women with the goal of changing the world in ways which will benefit us as women. Radical feminism is not supposed to be a meal some women force-feed to other women; it is more like a potluck which is always available to women, where women can pick and choose what will nourish and sustain them at any given moment, where they can leave the rest until it has some appeal for them for some reason or until they find themselves to be a certain kind of hungry and needing a certain kind of sustenance.

It's with these thoughts in my mind that I'm writing this post. I want to give voice to my own thoughts without having any expectation that anybody will be persuaded, but with the hopes that what I say might ring true or be useful or enlightening or empowering for other women reading. Writing is a consciousness-raising experience for me, reading other women's writings is also consciousness-raising, and I assume the same is true for other women. We will understand our own lives and experiences and situations better — our consciousnesses will be raised — as we read about, write about, and talk about our lives, women's lives in general, our own thoughts and ideas. From there we move in the direction of change, both as individuals and as a movement.– Heart

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. While I agree that opposition to porn, the prostituting of women, sadomasochism, and patriarchal religion have been important distinctives of radical feminism, it is important to realize that it is possible — and quite common — to stand in opposition to all of these things without being a radical feminist at all. There are millions of women in the world who hate and oppose pornography, prostitution, sadomasochism and patriarchal religion who also oppose feminism, and especially radical feminism. This is especially true of women trapped within patriarchal religious systems throughout the world.

There is a sort of almost giggly enthusiasm about being "rad" in this group which nettles, especially where the bloggers do not appear to be particularly "rad." "Rad" in its herstoric definition is hard. It costs, sometimes a woman's very life. Always, it gets you into deep doo-doo, very troubled waters, with the patriarchs. It isn't anything to giggle about. It's not festive or funny of fun. It's not the latest fad or rage, or fad or rage material.

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. Especially, radical feminism is about the building of, the creation of, a new world which rejects dominance and subordination in all of its forms in favor of mutuality, and therefore, the potential for real and true love, including erotic love, between human beings, and with it, the flourishing of human creativity which is the offspring of real love. In the end, radical feminism is about the possibility for real happiness and real pleasure for all human beings. Radical feminists believe that this kind of world is not possible so long as some are ruled, dominated, subordinated, and some dominate, rule and subordinate.

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. 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. Radical feminism has to do with going about making change in the world, beginning in our own lives, including in our everyday, apparently small acts and decisions, but never ending there, and not because somebody persuaded us or convinced us that we should, but because we are so compelled by our concern and love for women, and our awareness of what women suffer in the world, and men, too, for that matter, that we can do no less.

Being radical might mean refusing to wear a veil in an oppressive theocratic nation and ending up dying for it, as Homa Darabi did. It might mean leading an uprising against Russian invaders and the Taliban and being murdered by KGB operatives and Islamic fundamentalists as Meena of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan was murdered. It might mean representing Bosnian and Croatian women raped for genocide in Serbian rape camps at your own expense, during wartime, taking the risks, the hits, the threats on your life, as Catharine MacKinnon did. It might mean enduring years of political imprisonment, as has Aung San Suu Kyi or being hunted down by the FBI, placed on its list of 10 Most Wanted, as Angela Y. Davis was. It may mean being fired, in your 70s, with six Ph.Ds under your belt and having published groundbreaking books, after being tenured, and having to scratch and claw your way to justice over the jeers and insults and lies of a society which despises your woman-only politics, as was true for Mary Daly. It may very well mean, at some point, ultimately, particularly as you age, being marginalized, silenced, and forced into poverty, being unable to find publishers for your articles or books or anyone to promote or advocate for the art or music you create, as has been true of most Second Wave radical feminist leaders ultimately(1). It may mean being institutionalized in mental health facilities or adjudged to be mentally ill. It might mean the loss of your children, your home, financial support, and everything you have because you have dared to leave a particular man or to forsake partnering with or marrying men in favor of commiting yourself to women. It might mean risking government levying of your bank accounts or liens against your property because you refuse to pay war taxes when you file your income tax returns. It might mean being targeted by police and homeland security for your ongoing anti-war activism.

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. It is possible to be conservative as the day is long and absolutely devoted to dominance hierarchies while also opposing pornography. 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.

It's very true that we all cut our deals under male heterosupremacy. This is unavoidable. At the same time, our love for women is going to compel us to lie awake nights dreaming up ways we — and ALL women — can STOP cutting those deals. It's going to compel us to avoid, wherever we can, the kinds of personal compromises which actively harm other women. Participating in the routines and rituals of the patriarchal beauty establishment funds that establishment, supports it, and entrenches it. Getting married (whether we are het or lesbian) entrenches and perpetuates heterosupremacist values and oppressions. Buying misogynist music, movies, entertainment, supports the men who make them. To enlist in the military is to support the making and the funding of war, including war for conquest, imperialism and colonization. To apply for work at Dow Chemical or Monsanto or Halliburton or Boeing is to offer personal support for the way these and other multinationals and defense contractors devastate the earth, destroy communities and cultures, foul and pollute the air, land, water, and make war for conquest possible. Elective cosmetic surgeries, surgeries for weight loss, elective c-sections actively support patriarchal medicine as an institution that has always made, and continues to make, war on women. To shop at Wal-Mart is to support and endorse an exploitive and abusive corporation which is actively harming men, women and children throughout the world. It costs, a little or a lot, to reject these things, but it's possible, many women have, and to suggest that it's too hard, to use the unavoidability of cutting deals as an excuse for compromise, adds insult to injury in light of the work of the Arundhahti Roys, the Vananda Shivas, the Catharine A. MacKinnons, the Meenas, Homa Darabis, Cindy Sheehans, Emma Goldmans, Alice Pauls, Shulamith Firestones, Kate Milletts, Robin Morgans, Sonia Johnsons of the world, who put themselves right out there, their lives on the line, and have taken the hits for all of us, some of those hits including losing their lives fighting for women.

Again, I speak only for myself here. I do not speak for radical feminists or any feminists. But I do speak for myself. One important distinctive of feminism, and obligation of radical feminism, is that we do find our voices as women and that we use them on behalf of women, and in the interests of building a new world, as often as possible. Hence, this post.

Heart

(1) See The Politics of Erasure by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, Women's Space.
Link:
http:// womensspace. wordpress.com/2006/05/28/on-what-radical-feminism-is-and-isnt-2/

[gerry]

(radical feminism) it is more like a potluck which is always available to women, where women can pick and choose what will nourish and sustain them at any given moment, where they can leave the rest until it has some appeal for them for some reason or until they find themselves to be a certain kind of hungry and needing a certain kind of sustenance. Heart

This confuses me. Because it seems Heart spends a good part of the rest of the statement contradicting this, but at other times supporting it? If radical feminism is a very inclusive political stance, then how is it that it is a buffet? anyone else confused by this otherwise moving piece? she seems to take both sides (i apologize for posting if this is supposed to be among women--as it sounds; but am trying to address the ideas of it)

[KatetheGreat]

I'm actually a bit confused too... more specifically at the part where she claims that there are many women who aren't radical feminists who oppose pornography and patriarchal religion - but that these are women trapped in patriarchal religion.

As well, I am in favour of a very egalitarian marriage and family so I obviously don't qualify for rad-fem status, but I am anti-porn and I don't side with patriarchal religious views either. So where do I fall?
It's confusing.

There are activists like Gail Dines and OAG who are married and have children but still do anti-porn work, so I wonder what their titles would be if the only two options are to be a religious woman or a radical feminist opposed to marriage.

[Heart]

Hello

When I say radical feminism is a buffet, I am contrasting it with something that is force fed to some women by others. That's where consciousness-raising comes in. Learning "about" various aspects of radical feminism and being able to talk about them is not the same things as making something your own by way of an a-ha moment, or a series of a-ha moments in which you recognize that something in your own life or that has happened to you is part of something much larger and systemic. An example would be, it's one thing to say we stand in opposition to SM. It's another thing to recognize, firsthand, the way submission and dominance are, in fact, functioning to oppress us in our own intimate relationships. The first instance is head knowledge, the second results from consciousness-raising, and the knowledge derived from it belongs to us in the way it would not if it were just something in our heads, that we agreed with because of what we read. All of the understandings and insights of radical feminism are available to us, banquet table style, but each woman has to come into her own insights about these things via consciousness raising (which can happen in an unlimited number of ways, not just via traditional CR groups, for example.)

more specifically at the part where she claims that there are many women who aren't radical feminists who oppose pornography and patriarchal religion - but that these are women trapped in patriarchal religion.

Kate, the operative word there is "trapped." There are many women who aren't radical feminists who oppose pornography and patriarchal religion, but who are trapped in patriarchal religion.

As to marriage and family, those are deals women cut with patriarchy just like all the other deals. Women can speak out against traditional marriage, and do, even when they are traditionally married. That's part of the whole consciousness raising thing. When they got married, they didn't see it as problematic. Once they were married, perhaps they came to see things differently. It's like capitalism. Perhaps at one time, we didn't recognize the destructive ins and outs of the economic system we live in, but as we experience life under capitalism and see the harm it causes, we begin to speak out against it. We can participate in capitalism (out of survival, because we have no other meaningful choice) and yet oppose it and speak out against it. In the same way, we can be married and speak out against traditional marriage, or we can speak out against the aspects of heterosexual marriage which tend to oppress women.

I wonder what their titles would be if the only two options are to be a religious woman or a radical feminist opposed to marriage.

I am not following you here. I don't think I posited these as the only two options.

As to titles, there's no head honcho of radical feminism, there is no hierarchy, and anyone who tells you there is should be avoided. There's a body of understanding or knowledge or insights created by radical feminists. If we agree with them, then we are radical feminists.

Heart

[KatetheGreat]

I realize what you're saying, but what I'm asking is that, like my mom or some of the other women who are very happy in their marriages, say I never come to see it as harmful: am I hopelessly delluded? Is it possible to come to an egalitarian standard of marriage?

I think it is, and not because I'm young, delluded, and hoplessly naive, but because I've seen it be a positive thing for some people to have this vow to another person.

[Heart]

Kate, if you never come to see it as harmful, then you never come to see it as harmful. Same with your mom. Same with any woman. How you see things is not my or any radical feminist's call.

I personally do not believe, in the world as it exists, that it is possible for women and men to have egalitarian relationships, however well-intended individual men and women might be. NOTE. I didn't say men and women should NOT have relationships. If, as women, we wait around until we can be sure we can do whatever we do in an egalitarian context, we will never do anything, and that is not going to be satisfactory. I think men and women can work in the direction of egalitarian relationships, and that that work is worthwhile, but I think the deck is way stacked in the man's favor, and that the woman is going to often feel as though she is pushing a large boulder up a steep hill.

But, that's me, it's how I see things. I wouldn't presume to tell another woman what to think or experience and I wouldn't presume to tell her why I believe she doesn't see things the way I do.

I think all we can do, as feminists, is call things as we see them, tell our own stories, our own truth, listen carefully to one another, dig deep in order to see where power imbalances, whether on a micro or macro scale, might exist.

Best,
Heart

[MaggieH]

I think all we can do, as feminists, is call things as we see them, tell our own stories, our own truth, listen carefully to one another, dig deep in order to see where power imbalances, whether on a micro or macro scale, might exist.

I agree, Heart.

[gerry]

I understand this piece much better upon a second reading---altho i grasped all its main distinctions first time around.

I wonder: if radicalism itself (i should not have to add inclusive since that is supposed to be a given) is any different from radical feminism? (i guess the answer wd include references to male supremacy being too central to just be another consideration)

And as to defining what kind of lives or actions are attributable to radicals or radical feminism... well, i think it is all about being on the road to radicalism (more inclusive politics) as opposed to on the road to liberalism. I say this because the power of patriarchy is so over-arching as to make the whole idea of freedom to choose or self-determination illusory (for women i mean)

**********

I fully support all of Heart's comments on pornstitution work, bloggists, etc I still have not found a single bloggist that i am in sync with, in the way i am with so many feminist BOOK writers. (actually it's easier to be on the same page with some very good leftist bloggists---most are women) Of course, I'm sure there are some i have not read.

[KatetheGreat]

I do understand what you mean, and I think it's very well written.
I will say though that maybe, much like Gail Dines or OAG, I can see some aspects without adhering to the others.
I guess I can't call myself a radical feminist, and that's fine, even though I have a lot of respect for radical feminists and feel like I do my part to speak out against sexism.
I'm figuring out it's near impossible to define myself under one lable and I may have to accept that.