Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism
that calls for a radical reordering of society
in which male supremacy is eliminated in all
social and economic contexts.Radical feminists
view society as fundamentally a patriarchy
in which men dominate and oppress women.
Radical feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy
in order to "liberate everyone from an unjust
society by challenging existing social norms
and institutions."
This includes opposing the sexual objectification
of women, raising public awareness about such
issues as rape and violence against women,
and challenging the concept of gender roles.
Shulamith Firestone wrote in The Dialectic
of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970):
"[T]he end goal of feminist revolution must
be, unlike that of the first feminist movement,
not just the elimination of male privilege
but of the sex distinction itself: genital
differences between human beings would no
longer matter culturally."Early radical feminism,
arising within second-wave feminism in the
1960s, typically viewed patriarchy as a "transhistorical
phenomenon" prior to or deeper than other
sources of oppression, "not only the oldest
and most universal form of domination but
the primary form" and the model for all others.
Later politics derived from radical feminism
ranged from cultural feminism to more syncretic
politics that placed issues of class, economics,
etc. on a par with patriarchy as sources of
oppression.Radical feminists locate the root
cause of women's oppression in patriarchal
gender relations, as opposed to legal systems
(as in liberal feminism) or class conflict
(as in anarchist feminism, socialist feminism,
and Marxist feminism).
== Theory and ideology ==
Radical feminists assert that society is a
patriarchy in which the class of men are the
oppressors of the class of women.
They propose that the oppression of women
is the most fundamental form of oppression,
one that has existed since the inception of
humanity.
As radical feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson wrote
in her foundational piece "Radical Feminism"
(1969):
The first dichotomous division of this mass
[mankind] is said to have been on the grounds
of sex: male and female ... it was because
half the human race bears the burden of the
reproductive process and because man, the
‘rational’ animal, had the wit to take
advantage of that, that the childbearers,
or the 'beasts of burden,' were corralled
into a political class: equivocating the biologically
contingent burden into a political (or necessary)
penalty, thereby modifying these individuals’
definition from the human to the functional,
or animal.
Radical feminists claim that, because of patriarchy,
women have come to be viewed as the "other"
to the male norm, and as such have been systematically
oppressed and marginalized.
They further assert that men as a class benefit
from the oppression of women.
Patriarchal theory is not generally defined
as a belief that all men always benefit from
the oppression of all women.
Rather, it maintains that the primary element
of patriarchy is a relationship of dominance,
where one party is dominant and exploits the
other for the benefit of the former.
Radical feminists believe that men (as a class)
use social systems and other methods of control
to keep women (and non-dominant men) suppressed.
Radical feminists seek to abolish patriarchy
by challenging existing social norms and institutions,
and believe that eliminating patriarchy will
liberate everyone from an unjust society.
Ti-Grace Atkinson maintained that the need
for power fuels the male class to continue
oppressing the female class, arguing that
"the need men have for the role of oppressor
is the source and foundation of all human
oppression".The influence of radical-feminist
politics on the women's liberation movement
was considerable.
Redstockings co-founder Ellen Willis wrote
in 1984 that radical feminists "got sexual
politics recognized as a public issue", created
second-wave feminism's vocabulary, helped
to legalize abortion in the USA, "were the
first to demand total equality in the so-called
private sphere" ("housework and child care
... emotional and sexual needs"), and "created
the atmosphere of urgency" that almost led
to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The influence of radical feminism can be seen
in the adoption of these issues by the National
Organization for Women (NOW), a feminist group
that had previously been focused almost entirely
on economic issues.
== Movement ==
=== 
Roots ===
The ideology of radical feminism in the United
States developed as a component of the women's
liberation movement.
It grew largely due to the influence of the
civil rights movement, that had gained momentum
in the 1960s, and many of the women who took
up the cause of radical feminism had previous
experience with radical protest in the struggle
against racism.
Chronologically, it can be seen within the
context of second wave feminism that started
in the early 1960s.
The primary players and the pioneers of this
second wave of feminism included Shulamith
Firestone, Kathie Sarachild, Ti-Grace Atkinson,
Carol Hanisch, and Judith Brown.
Many local women's groups in the late sixties,
such as the UCLA Women's Liberation Front
(WLF), offered diplomatic statements of radical
feminism's ideologies.
UCLA's WLF co-founder Devra Weber recalls,
"the radical feminists were opposed to patriarchy,
but not necessarily capitalism.
In our group at least, they opposed so-called
male dominated national liberation struggles".These
women helped secure the bridge that translated
radical protest for racial equality over to
the struggle for women's rights; by witnessing
the discrimination and oppression to which
the black population was subjected, they were
able to gain strength and motivation to do
the same for their fellow women.
They took up the cause and advocated for a
variety of women's issues, including abortion,
the Equal Rights Amendment, access to credit,
and equal pay.
Most women of color (who were predominantly
working-class) did not participate in the
formation of the radical feminist movement
because it did not address many issues that
were relevant to those from a working-class
background.
But for those who felt compelled to stand
up for the cause, radical action was needed,
so they took to the streets and formed consciousness
raising groups to rally support for the cause
and recruit people willing to fight for it.
Later, second-wave radical feminism saw greater
numbers of black feminists and other women
of color participating.
In the 1960s, radical feminism emerged simultaneously
within liberal feminist and working-class
feminist discussions, first in the United
States, then in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Those involved had gradually come to believe
that it was not only the middle-class nuclear
family that oppressed women, but that it was
also social movements and organizations that
claimed to stand for human liberation, notably
the counterculture, the New Left, and Marxist
political parties, all of which were male-dominated
and male-oriented.
In the United States, radical feminism developed
as a response to some of the perceived failings
of both New Left organizations such as the
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and
feminist organizations such as NOW.
Initially concentrated in big cities like
New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC,
and on the West Coast, radical feminist groups
spread across the country rapidly from 1968
to 1972.
Radical feminists introduced the use of consciousness
raising (CR) groups.
These groups brought together intellectuals,
workers, and middle class women in developed
Western countries to discuss their experiences.
During these discussions, women noted a shared
and repressive system regardless of their
political affiliation or social class.
Based on these discussions, the women drew
the conclusion that ending of patriarchy was
the most necessary step towards a truly free
society.
These consciousness-raising sessions allowed
early radical feminists to develop a political
ideology based on common experiences women
faced with male supremacy.
Consciousness raising was extensively used
in chapter sub-units of the National Organization
for Women (NOW) during the 1970s.
The feminism that emerged from these discussions
stood first and foremost for the liberation
of women, as women, from the oppression of
men in their own lives, as well as men in
power.
Radical feminism claimed that a totalizing
ideology and social formation – patriarchy
(government or rule by fathers) – dominated
women in the interests of men.
=== Groups ===
Within groups such as New York Radical Women
(1967–1969 (no relation to the present-day
socialist feminist organization Radical Women),
which Ellen Willis characterized as "the first
women's liberation group in New York City",
a radical feminist ideology began to emerge
that declared that "the personal is political"
and "sisterhood is powerful", formulations
that arose from these consciousness-raising
sessions.
This call to women's activism was coined by
Kathie Sarachild in the 1960s.
New York Radical Women fell apart in early
1969 in what came to be known as the "politico-feminist
split" with the "politicos" seeing capitalism
as the source of women's oppression, while
the "feminists" saw male supremacy as "a set
of material, institutionalized relations,
not just bad attitudes".
The feminist side of the split, which soon
began referring to itself as "radical feminists",
soon constituted the basis of a new organization,
Redstockings.
At the same time, Ti-Grace Atkinson led "a
radical split-off from NOW", which became
known as The Feminists.
A third major stance would be articulated
by the New York Radical Feminists, founded
later in 1969 by Shulamith Firestone (who
broke from the Redstockings) and Anne Koedt.During
this period, the movement produced "a prodigious
output of leaflets, pamphlets, journals, magazine
articles, newspaper and radio and TV interviews".
Many important feminist works, such as Koedt's
essay The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm (1970)
and Kate Millet's book Sexual Politics (1970),
emerged during this time and in this milieu.
=== Ideology emerges and diverges ===
At the beginning of this period, "heterosexuality
was more or less an unchallenged assumption".
Among radical feminists, the view became widely
held that, thus far, the sexual freedoms gained
in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, in
particular, the decreasing emphasis on monogamy,
had been largely gained by men at women's
expense.
This assumption of heterosexuality would soon
be challenged by the rise of political lesbianism,
closely associated with Atkinson and The Feminists.Redstockings
and The Feminists were both radical feminist
organizations, but held rather distinct views.
Most members of Redstockings held to a materialist
and anti-psychologistic view.
They viewed men's oppression of women as ongoing
and deliberate, holding individual men responsible
for this oppression, viewing institutions
and systems (including the family) as mere
vehicles of conscious male intent, and rejecting
psychologistic explanations of female submissiveness
as blaming women for collaboration in their
own oppression.
They held to a view—which Willis would later
describe as "neo-Maoist"—that it would be
possible to unite all or virtually all women,
as a class, to confront this oppression by
personally confronting men.
The Feminists held a more idealistic, psychologistic,
and utopian philosophy, with a greater emphasis
on "sex roles", seeing sexism as rooted in
"complementary patterns of male and female
behavior".
They placed more emphasis on institutions,
seeing marriage, family, prostitution, and
heterosexuality as all existing to perpetuate
the "sex-role system".
They saw all of these as institutions to be
destroyed.
Within the group, there were further disagreements,
such as Koedt's viewing the institution of
"normal" sexual intercourse as being focused
mainly on male sexual or erotic pleasure,
while Atkinson viewed it mainly in terms of
reproduction.
In contrast to the Redstockings, The Feminists
generally considered genitally focused sexuality
to be inherently male.
Ellen Willis, the Redstockings co-founder,
would later write that insofar as the Redstockings
considered abandoning heterosexual activity,
they saw it as a "bitter price" they "might
have to pay for [their] militance", whereas
The Feminists embraced separatist feminism
as a strategy.The New York Radical Feminists
(NYRF) took a more psychologistic (and even
biologically determinist) line.
They argued that men dominated women not so
much for material benefits as for the ego
satisfaction intrinsic in domination.
Similarly, they rejected the Redstockings
view that women submitted only out of necessity
or The Feminists' implicit view that they
submitted out of cowardice, but instead argued
that social conditioning simply led most women
to accept a submissive role as "right and
natural".
=== Action ===
Radical feminism was not and is not only a
movement of ideology and theory.
Radical feminists also take direct action.
In 1968, they protested against the Miss America
pageant in order to bring "sexist beauty ideas
and social expectations" to the forefront
of women's social issues.
Even though there weren't any bras burned
on that day, this protest is famous for the
phrase "bra-burner".
"Feminists threw their bras—along with "woman-garbage"
such as girdles, false eyelashes, steno pads,
wigs, women's magazines, and dishcloths—into
a "Freedom Trash Can", but they did not set
it on fire".
In 1970, more than one hundred feminists staged
an 11-hour sit-in at the Ladies' Home Journal.
These women demanded that the editor "be removed
and replaced by a woman editor".
The Ladies Home journal, "with their emphasis
on food, family, fashion, and femininity,
played an important role in maintaining the
status quo and thus were instruments of women's
oppression".
One member explains the motivation of the
protest noting that they "were there to destroy
a publication which feeds off of women's anger
and frustration, a magazine which destroys
women.
In addition, they "used a variety of tactics-demonstrations
and speakouts" about topics such as rape.
Through "tireless[ly] organizing among friends
and coworkers, on street corners, in supermarkets
and ladies' rooms" these radical feminists
were able gain an amazing amount of exposure".
The movement gained momentum, while a "prodigious
output of leaflets, pamphlets, journals, magazine
articles, newspaper and radio and TV interviews"
were produced.
=== Radical egalitarianism ===
Radical egalitarianism, "an approach to the
distribution of economic resources", aimed
to "diminish differences among people" based
on "culture or a way of life".
Because of their commitment to radical egalitarianism,
most early radical feminist groups operated
initially without any formal internal structure.
When informal leadership developed, it was
often resented.
Some of the feminist leaders reacted with
defiance, some quit the movement", and "others
tried to respond to the criticism by echoing
it and withdrawing from [their] leadership
roles, in classic guilty liberal fashion".
Many groups ended up expending more effort
debating their own internal operations than
dealing with external matters, seeking to
"perfect a perfect society in microcosm" rather
than focus on the larger world.
Resentment of leadership was compounded by
the view that all "class striving" was "male-identified".
In the extreme, exemplified by The Feminists,
the upshot, according to Ellen Willis, was
"unworkable, mechanistic demands for an absolutely
random division of labor, taking no account
of differences in skill, experience, or even
inclination".
"The result," writes Willis, "was not democracy
but paralysis."
Willis believed that part of the reason the
problems weren't dealt with was because "of
the unconscious fear that feminists' demands
for freedom and power would provoke devastating
retribution".
When The Feminists began to select randomly
who could talk to the press, Ti-Grace Atkinson
quit the organization she had founded.
=== Social organization and aims ===
Radical feminists have generally formed small
activist or community associations around
either consciousness raising or concrete aims.
Many radical feminists in Australia participated
in a series of squats to establish various
women's centers, and this form of action was
common in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
By the mid-1980s many of the original consciousness
raising groups had dissolved, and radical
feminism was more and more associated with
loosely organized university collectives.
Radical feminism can still be seen, particularly
within student activism and among working
class women.
In Australia, many feminist social organizations
accepted government funding during the 1980s,
and the election of a conservative government
in 1996 crippled these organizations.
The movement also arose in Israel among Jews.
While radical feminists aim to dismantle patriarchal
society, their immediate aims are generally
concrete.
Common demands include:
Expanding reproductive rights: "Defined by
feminists in the 1970s as a basic human right,
it includes the right to abortion and birth
control, but implies much more.
To be realised, reproductive freedom must
include not only woman's right to choose childbirth,
abortion, sterilisation or birth control,
but also her right to make those choices freely,
without pressure from individual men, doctors,
governmental or religious authorities.
It is a key issue for women, since without
it the other freedoms we appear to have, such
as the right to education, jobs and equal
pay, may prove illusory.
Provisions of childcare, medical treatment,
and society's attitude towards children are
also involved."
Changing the organizational sexual culture,
e.g., breaking down traditional gender roles
and reevaluating societal concepts of femininity
and masculinity (a common demand in US universities
during the 1980s).
In this, they often form tactical alliances
with other currents of feminism.
== Views on the sex industry ==
Radical feminists have written about a wide
range of issues regarding the sex industry
– which they tend to oppose – including
but not limited to: harm to women during the
production of pornography, the social harm
from consumption of pornography, the coercion
and poverty that leads women to become prostitutes,
the long-term effects of prostitution, the
raced and classed nature of prostitution,
and male dominance over women in prostitution
and pornography.
=== Prostitution ===
Radical feminists argue that most women who
become prostitutes are forced into it by a
pimp, human trafficking, poverty, drug addiction,
or trauma such as child sexual abuse.
Women from the lowest socioeconomic classes—impoverished
women, women with a low level of education,
women from the most disadvantaged racial and
ethnic minorities—are over-represented in
prostitution all over the world.
Catharine MacKinnon asked: "If prostitution
is a free choice, why are the women with the
fewest choices the ones most often found doing
it?"
A large percentage of prostitutes polled in
one study of 475 people involved in prostitution
reported that they were in a difficult period
of their lives, and most wanted to leave the
occupation.MacKinnon argues that "In prostitution,
women have sex with men they would never otherwise
have sex with.
The money thus acts as a form of force, not
as a measure of consent.
It acts like physical force does in rape."
They believe that no person can be said to
truly consent to their own oppression and
no-one should have the right to consent to
the oppression of others.
In the words of Kathleen Barry, consent is
not a "good divining rod as to the existence
of oppression, and consent to violation is
a fact of oppression".
Andrea Dworkin wrote in 1992:
Prostitution in and of itself is an abuse
of a woman's body.
Those of us who say this are accused of being
simple-minded.
But prostitution is very simple.
... In prostitution, no woman stays whole.
It is impossible to use a human body in the
way women's bodies are used in prostitution
and to have a whole human being at the end
of it, or in the middle of it, or close to
the beginning of it.
It's impossible.
And no woman gets whole again later, after.
She argued that "prostitution and equality
for women cannot exist simultaneously" and
to eradicate prostitution "we must seek ways
to use words and law to end the abusive selling
and buying of girls' and women's bodies for
men's sexual pleasure".Radical feminist thinking
has analyzed prostitution as a cornerstone
of patriarchal domination and sexual subjugation
of women that impacts negatively not only
on the women and girls in prostitution but
on all women as a group, because prostitution
continually affirms and reinforces patriarchal
definitions of women as having a primary function
to serve men sexually.
They say it is crucial that society does not
replace one patriarchal view on female sexuality—e.g.,
that women should not have sex outside marriage/a
relationship and that casual sex is shameful
for a woman, etc.—with another similarly
oppressive and patriarchal view—acceptance
of prostitution, a sexual practice based on
a highly patriarchal construct of sexuality:
that the sexual pleasure of a woman is irrelevant,
that her only role during sex is to submit
to the man's sexual demands and to do what
he tells her, that sex should be controlled
by the man, and that the woman's response
and satisfaction are irrelevant.
Radical feminists argue that sexual liberation
for women cannot be achieved so long as we
normalize unequal sexual practices where a
man dominates a woman.
"Feminist consciousness raising remains the
foundation for collective struggle and the
eventual liberation of women".Radical feminists
strongly object to the patriarchal ideology
that has been one of the justifications for
the existence of prostitution, namely that
prostitution is a "necessary evil", because
men cannot control themselves; therefore it
is "necessary" that a small number of women
be "sacrificed" to be used and abused by men,
to protect "chaste" women from rape and harassment.
These feminists see prostitution as a form
of slavery, and say that, far from decreasing
rape rates, prostitution leads to a sharp
increase in sexual violence against women,
by sending the message that it is acceptable
for a man to treat a woman as a sexual instrument
over which he has total control.
Melissa Farley argues that Nevada's high rape
rate is connected to legal prostitution.
Nevada is the only US state that allows legal
brothels, and it is ranked 4th out of the
50 U.S. states for sexual assault crimes.Indigenous
women are particularly targeted for prostitution.
In Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and Taiwan,
studies have shown that indigenous women are
at the bottom of the race and class hierarchy
of prostitution, often subjected to the worst
conditions, most violent demands and sold
at the lowest price.
It is common for indigenous women to be over-represented
in prostitution when compared with their total
population.
This is as a result of the combined forces
of colonialism, physical displacement from
ancestral lands, destruction of indigenous
social and cultural order, misogyny, globalization/neoliberalism,
race discrimination and extremely high levels
of violence perpetrated against them.
=== Pornography ===
Radical feminists, notably Catharine MacKinnon,
charge that the production of pornography
entails physical, psychological, and/or economic
coercion of the women who perform and model
in it.
This is said to be true even when the women
are presented as enjoying themselves.
It is also argued that much of what is shown
in pornography is abusive by its very nature.
Gail Dines holds that pornography, exemplified
by gonzo pornography, is becoming increasingly
violent and that women who perform in pornography
are brutalized in the process of its production.Radical
feminists point to the testimony of well known
participants in pornography, such as Traci
Lords and Linda Boreman, and argue that most
female performers are coerced into pornography,
either by somebody else, or by an unfortunate
set of circumstances.
The feminist anti-pornography movement was
galvanized by the publication of Ordeal, in
which Linda Boreman (who under the name of
"Linda Lovelace" had starred in Deep Throat)
stated that she had been beaten, raped, and
pimped by her husband Chuck Traynor, and that
Traynor had forced her at gunpoint to make
scenes in Deep Throat, as well as forcing
her, by use of both physical violence against
Boreman as well as emotional abuse and outright
threats of violence, to make other pornographic
films.
Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Women Against Pornography
issued public statements of support for Boreman,
and worked with her in public appearances
and speeches.Radical feminists hold the view
that pornography contributes to sexism, arguing
that in pornographic performances the actresses
are reduced to mere receptacles – objects
– for sexual use and abuse by men.
They argue that the narrative is usually formed
around men's pleasure as the only goal of
sexual activity, and that the women are shown
in a subordinate role.
Some opponents believe pornographic films
tend to show women as being extremely passive,
or that the acts which are performed on the
women are typically abusive and solely for
the pleasure of their sex partner.
On-face ejaculation and anal sex are increasingly
popular among men, following trends in porn.
MacKinnon and Dworkin defined pornography
as "the graphic sexually explicit subordination
of women through pictures or words".Radical
feminists say that consumption of pornography
is a cause of rape and other forms of violence
against women.
Robin Morgan summarizes this idea with her
oft-quoted statement, "Pornography is the
theory, and rape is the practice."
They charge that pornography eroticizes the
domination, humiliation, and coercion of women,
and reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes
that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment.
In her book Only Words (1993), MacKinnon argues
that pornography "deprives women of the right
to express verbal refusal of an intercourse".MacKinnon
argued that pornography leads to an increase
in sexual violence against women through fostering
rape myths.
Such rape myths include the belief that women
really want to be raped and that they mean
yes when they say no.
It is disputed that "rape myths perpetuate
sexual violence indirectly by creating distorted
beliefs and attitudes about sexual assault
and shift elements of blame onto the victims".
Additionally, according to MacKinnon, pornography
desensitizes viewers to violence against women,
and this leads to a progressive need to see
more violence in order to become sexually
aroused, an effect she claims is well documented.German
radical feminist Alice Schwarzer is one proponent
of the view that pornography offers a distorted
sense of men and women's bodies, as well as
the actual sexual act, often showing performers
with synthetic implants or exaggerated expressions
of pleasure, engaging in fetishes that are
presented as popular and normal.
== Radical lesbian feminism ==
Radical lesbians are distinguished from other
radical feminists through their ideological
roots in political lesbianism.
Radical lesbians see lesbianism as an act
of resistance against the political institution
of heterosexuality, which they view as violent
and oppressive towards women.
Julie Bindel has written that her lesbianism
is "intrinsically bound up" with her feminism.During
the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1970s,
straight women within the movement were challenged
on the basis of their heterosexual identities
perpetuating the very patriarchal systems
that they were working to undo.
A large fraction of the movement sought to
reform sexist institutions while "leaving
intact the staple nuclear unit of oppression:
heterosexual sex".
Others saw the logic of lesbianism as a strong
political act to end male dominance and as
central to the women's movement.
Radical lesbians criticized the women's liberation
movement for its failure to criticize the
"psychological oppression" of heteronormativity,
which they believe to be "the sexual foundation
of the social institutions".
They argued that heterosexual love relationships
perpetuate patriarchal power relations through
"personal domination" and therefore directly
contradicted the values and goals of the movement.
As one radical lesbian wrote, "no matter what
the feminist does, the physical act [of heterosexuality]
throws both women and man back into role playing...
all of her politics are instantly shattered".
They argued that the women's liberation movement
would not be successful without challenging
heteronormativity.Radical lesbians believe
lesbianism actively threatens patriarchal
systems of power.
They defined lesbians not only by their sexual
preference, but by their liberation and independence
from men.
Lesbian activists Sydney Abbot and Barbara
Love argued that "the lesbian has freed herself
from male domination" through disconnecting
from them not only sexually, but also "financially
and emotionally".
They argue that lesbianism fosters the utmost
independence from gendered systems of power,
and from the "psychological oppression" of
heteronormativity.Rejecting norms of gender,
sex and sexuality is central to radical lesbian
feminism.
Lesbianism as a political act represents an
ability to create identity from all aspects
of the human condition, both masculine and
feminine, while rejecting societal identities
that are imposed onto bodies by a culture.
Radical lesbians believed that "lesbian identity
was a 'woman-identified' identity'", meaning
it should be defined by and with reference
to women, rather than in relation to men.In
their manifesto "The Woman-Identified Woman",
the lesbian radical feminist group Radicalesbians
underline the necessity of creating a "new
consciousness" that rejects normative definitions
of womanhood and femininity, which center
on the powerlessness.
This redefinition of womanhood and femininity
means freeing lesbian identities from harmful
and divisive stereotypes.
As Abbot and Love argued in "Is Women's Liberation
a Lesbian Plot?"
(1971):
As long at the word 'dyke' can be used to
frighten women into a less militant stand,
keep women separate from their sisters, and
keep them from giving primacy to anything
other than men and family—then to that extent
they are dominated by male culture.
Radical lesbians reiterate this thought, writing,
"in this sexist society, for a woman to be
independent means she can't be a woman, she
must be a dyke".
The rhetoric of a woman-identified-woman has
been criticized for its exclusion of heterosexual
women.
According to some critics, "[lesbian feminism's
use of] woman-identifying rhetorics should
be considered rhetorical failures".
Other critics argue that the intensity of
radical lesbian feminist politics, on top
of the preexisting stigma around lesbianism,
gave a bad face to the feminist movement and
provided fertile ground for tropes like the
man-hater or bra burner.
== Views on transgender topics ==
Since the 1970s, there has been a debate among
radical feminists about transgender identities.
In 1978 the Lesbian Organization of Toronto
voted to become womyn-born womyn only and
wrote:
A woman's voice was almost never heard as
a woman's voice – it was always filtered
through men's voices.
So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going
to be a girl now and speak for girls."
And we thought, "No you're not."
A person cannot just join the oppressed by
fiat.
Some radical feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin,
Catharine MacKinnon, John Stoltenberg and
Monique Wittig, have supported trans-inclusivity,
while others, such as Mary Daly, Janice Raymond,
Robin Morgan, Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffreys,
Julie Bindel, and Robert Jensen, have argued
that the transgender movement perpetuates
patriarchal gender norms and is incompatible
with radical-feminist ideology.The argument
against trans inclusion states that since
trans women are born male, they are accorded
corresponding privileges in society.
Even if they choose to live as women, the
fact that they have a choice in this sets
them apart from people born female.
Their insistence on 'being women' is seen
as another form of entitlement stemming from
their privileged position.
Further, these radical feminists reject the
feminine essence concept of transsexuality
(the idea that there is a "female brain" or
innate feminine feeling).
They believe that the difference in behavior
between men and women is the result of socialization;
Lierre Keith describes femininity as "a set
of behaviors that are, in essence, ritualized
submission".
In this view, gender is not an identity but
a caste position, and gender identity politics
are an obstacle to gender abolition.
They hold the same position with respect to
race and class.
Julie Bindel argued in 2008 that Iran carries
out the highest number of sex-change operations
in the world because "surgery is an attempt
to keep gender stereotypes intact", and that
"[i]t is precisely this idea that certain
distinct behaviours are appropriate for males
and females that underlies feminist criticism
of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'."
(According to the BBC in 2014, there are no
reliable figures regarding gender-reassignment
operations in Iran.)By contrast, trans-inclusive
radical feminists claim that a biology-based
or sex-essentialist ideology itself upholds
patriarchal constructions of womanhood.
Andrea Dworkin argued as early as 1974 that
transgender people and gender identity research
have the potential to radically undermine
patriarchal sex essentialism: "Work with transsexuals,
and studies of formation of gender identity
in children provide basic information which
challenges the notion that there are two distinct
biological sexes.
That information threatens to transform the
traditional biology of sex difference into
the radical biology of sex similarity".
More recently, in 2015, radical feminist Catherine
MacKinnon said that "male dominant society
has defined women as a discrete biological
group forever.
If this was going to produce liberation, we'd
be free...
To me, women is a political group.
I never had much occasion to say that, or
work with it, until the last few years when
there has been a lot of discussion about whether
trans women are women" - and further, "I always
thought I don't care how someone becomes a
woman or a man; it does not matter to me.
It is just part of their specificity, their
uniqueness, like everyone else's.
Anybody who identifies as a woman, wants to
be a woman, is going around being a woman,
as far as I'm concerned, is a woman."In The
Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male
(1979), the lesbian radical feminist Janice
Raymond argued that "transsexuals ... reduce
the female form to artefact, appropriating
this body for themselves".
In The Whole Woman (1999), Germaine Greer
wrote that largely male governments "recognise
as women men who believe that they are women
... because [those governments] see women
not as another sex but as a non-sex"; she
continued that if uterus-and-ovaries transplants
were a mandatory part of sex-change operations,
the latter "would disappear overnight".
Sheila Jeffreys argued in 1997 that "the vast
majority of transsexuals still subscribe to
the traditional stereotype of women" and that
by transitioning they are "constructing a
conservative fantasy of what women should
be ... an essence of womanhood which is deeply
insulting and restrictive."
In Gender Hurts (2014), she referred to sex
reassignment surgery as "self-mutilation",
and used pronouns that refer to biological
sex; she argued that feminists need to know
"the biological sex of those who claim to
be women and promote prejudicial versions
of what constitutes womanhood", and that "use
by men of feminine pronouns conceals the masculine
privilege bestowed upon them by virtue of
having been placed in and brought up in the
male sex caste".Radical feminists who hold
these views have been called transphobic and
trans-exclusionary radical feminists ("TERFs").
== Criticism ==
Early in the radical feminism movement, some
radical feminists theorized that "other kinds
of hierarchy grew out of and were modeled
on male supremacy-were in effect specialized
forms of male supremacy".
Therefore, the fight against male domination
took priority because "the liberation of women
would mean the liberation of all".
This view is contested, particularly by intersectional
feminism and black feminism.
Critics argue that this ideology accepts the
notion that identities are singular and disparate,
rather than multiple and intersecting.
For example, understanding women's oppression
as disparate assumes that "men, in creating
and maintaining these systems, are acting
purely as men, in accordance with peculiarly
male characteristics or specifically male
supremacist objectives".According to Ellen
Willis' 1984 essay "Radical Feminism and Feminist
Radicalism", within the New Left, radical
feminists were accused of being "bourgeois",
"antileft", or even "apolitical", whereas
they saw themselves as "radicalizing the left
by expanding the definition of radical".
Early radical feminists were mostly white
and middle-class, resulting in "a very fragile
kind of solidarity".
This limited the validity of generalizations
based on radical feminists' experiences of
gender relations, and prevented white and
middle-class women from recognizing that they
benefited from race and class privilege.
Many early radical feminists broke ties with
"male-dominated left groups", or would work
with them only in ad hoc coalitions.
Willis, although very much a part of early
radical feminism and continuing to hold that
it played a necessary role in placing feminism
on the political agenda, criticized its inability
"to integrate a feminist perspective with
an overall radical politics", while viewing
this limitation as inevitable in the context
of the time.
== See also ==
== Notes
