Radical Feminism: Discuss

[& engels' work was based on marx & they both paid tribute to fourier for saying that you could judge the level of a society by the condition of women]

krupskaya did too and she was great if particularly bonkers. but, y'know, provocatively so. i mean she was like valerie solanis without the *actual* man-hating and without the actually being literally bonkers bit. (which perhaps went together)

Mei regarding debates on separatism, you can literally Google for Riot Grrrl or Riot Grrrl yahoo groups and find the archives of these discussions. A brief sketch of them follows.

Please don't ask me to "defend" this, as I am just laying out the territory here, not stating a position. The separatist arguments boil down to this:

1. Separatism (along either gender or racial lines) is necessary because men (white people as a group for the racial version) will NEVER listen to women's voices, will NEVER genuinely allow them a part in shaping society, NEVER allow women into the old boys' network, NEVER take women nor their concerns seriously. You could call it utopian, and things like the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival are experiments in "what *would* a society that was centered on women's concerns and values look like?"

2. Separatism as a necessary step, not necessarily a permanent one: this view says that women have been so injured and silenced that they need a place to heal and deal with their own internal sexism/racism before moving forward in coalition with others. For example, it does no good for woman to talk about her rape experience if some guy in the back is going to say "what were you wearing?", which makes it a defensive and not a healing experience. Women can't work on the issues that are specific to them--for example feeling entitled to voice an opinion, feeling entitled to transgress the "whore (i'll show you my tits, i'm liberated!) / madonna (i'm sweet and emotional and supportive)" stereotypes that people use all kinds of rewards and sanctions to keep them into. This separatism is seen as necessary and temporary consciousness-raising and healing.

3. Selective separatism: when events and organizations are structured so that women get to experience the roles that they are largely left out of: decisionmaking and learning technical skills (like say running a sound board) and guys can participate in certain events but cannot run things and can't be in sensitive workshops or meetings that involve issues that women want to discuss without men telling them "what's the big deal", "prove it", "get over it", or having guys take over, interrupt and do all the other things that they have been socialized to do.

4. Feminist Inclusionist organizations and events where men and women work together in varying states of contention and chaos.

I should also throw in here that "false conscioussness" is also a big issue for stirring usenet-type debates. Saying you are a feminist doesn't make you one; being a woman doesn't make you one. Being a feminist is a political decision and it means more than "i like myself". This one is such a usenet-flame issue that I don't even want to bring it up, but it has to be mentioned in the same breath with separatism because it needs to be pointed out that being a woman doesn't mean you have a feminist political consciousness, just like being a lesbian doesn't mean you have a lesbian-feminist political conscioussness (see Arlene Stein for more on that).

A caveat: I am a sociologist who did a dissertation that crossed fields: social movements, gender, culture, and music. My take on all of this is based on very different concerns and literature than people who are coming from a largely film/literature/women's studies per se perspective. In academic feminism, women's studies is a bit different from feminist sociology so you might see me gloss over some stuff that you would expect to see here--it's not that I don't know about it, but in what I did I was speaking to a different literature.

Ok, well I think I caught up on everything I was supposed to catch up on!

I didn't go to the drumming workshop, or even try.

It was limited to ten people for logistical reasons so it was totally fair to limit it to girls/ladies/whatever because that's who the whole event was primarily for.

Hope there's another ladyfest sometime soon around here.

On the first day when we turned up there was nothing much going on so me and my 3 friends went to a talk "Women, conflict and resistance". None of us are particularly political but I enjoyed the talk/discussion and the enthusiasm of the speakers. It's the first talk of that kind I'd ever been to (kind of a rally almost) and I was fascinated by how it proceeded, with the talkers and audience cooperating so well and being generally supportive of each other.

Then after about twenty minutes I was looking around at the audiences' faces (I like to see the reactions wherever it is, rock concert, classroom, wherever) and I realised that I was the only man there out of 40 or 50 people. It wasn't just the fact that I happened to be the only male that made me stick out a bit, if this had been somewhere else it would have just been an odd coincidence, but here the event was set up for women and the speakers were obviously used to mainly addressing women and all the things they were saying played off male roles against female ones - eg they were talking about being all female groups of protesters in Israel, about the women of Greenham common and about women being paid for the housework they do and about a women's strike day.

After I realised this I started to think a little differently about why the whole event was run as it was. For example, as usual in public spaces people from the audience were not greatly forthcoming during the question and answer section. I've got over that in the last year because I've had to, being a teacher. I had lots of questions but I only asked a couple because I didn't want to dominate things in any way - I would never feel like that normally, I'm not a very 'manly' man and don't usually dominate _anything_, but I'm naturally very inquisitive. I made sure I wasn't going to interrupt anyone else before asking my questions.

One thing I asked was about one speaker's use of the word 'censored', she said that every time they tried to get their cause covered in the media they were 'censored'. It wasn't a particularly controversial cause so I asked who had censored them and it turns out that she meant editors weren't interested largely because they thought their readers wouldn't be.
To me that's a very different problem to censorship and her answer did leave me curious as to why no one had pointed this out to her before. I think maybe that without males around to intimidate/dominate/out-shout the women (I'm not convinced that is what happens, but it seems to be an axiom of ladyfest) it just ends up that the most bossy women assume that role.

Afterwards my 3 friends, all women, said that every time one speaker in particular mentioned men she looked at me, as if she was addressing me directly, as if I somehow represented all men. I hadn't noticed it really. At one point she said something about women and the caring professions and tacked something on the end like '...of course men do some valuable work in this area too...' then something about gay men. I got the impression that this was added for my benefit. Maybe she assumed I was gay (I'm not) because I was there at all.

It was very nice being among such a high proportion of women, and I always felt welcomed.
I'll try to write more later.

anybody ever read any Luce Irigaray or Monique Wittig? where is a good place to start, i will admit i am completely clueless on this except for parts of where they have influenced Butler/Pollock etc.

irigaray - may as well start with 'this sex which is not one'. dunno wittig

http://tshirthell.vo.llnwd.net/e1/shirts/products/a1199/a1199_bm.gif

Sorry, I've nothing else to add to this conversation.

Je, Tu, Nous is the one on Routledge classics. Kinda sounds like it might be REALLY about French.

read Irrigary in school like 20 years ago and have vague memories of digging it but that's all I got

not sure where to put this but my office had a nice cathartic moment with this today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqHYzYn3WZw

Radical feminism has come to be identified or usually aligned with the gender critical movement. The UK in particular seems to be very much thus.

Probably because "radical feminism" is part of the phrase "gender critical" is a euphemism for...

haven't heard the phrase gender critical before, but I like it

no, you're not supposed to

i mean unless you wanna be history's greatest monster who is only defending a principled position for the sake of women and female-only spaces, then you're supposed to

ok :)

Yeah, no, it's bad.

I do tend to avoid using TERF, though, mostly because I feel like these people aren't actually feminists, no matter what they say. They're transphobes and I call them that.

a euphemism for a euphemism

I think there's an honest argument to be made that gender itself is a patriarchal tool. However, that relies on the identification of gender with gender role, and that's not uncontroversial. Some folks believe gender to be a private mental object rather than a public social one, or some combination of the two.

I've mentioned this elsewhere but I do know a trans person who self-describes as gender critical

The trans folks I speak with pretty much all don't care for gender roles and all they imply. So at least that approach to the issue seems amenable in principle to trans people. On the other hand, just about anyone defending the idea that gender roles are a biological imperative is going to run into a lot of static.

What I'm getting at here is that I think the relationship between the public and private concepts of gender are key to understanding radical feminist positions on the matter of trans identity in a larger cultural context.

luckily all the other problems with the relationship between public and private have been sorted out already so this one last thing shouldn't be too tough to handle

'gender critical' is just classic transphobic 'feminist' rhetoric - take what seems to be/should be a fairly innocent feminist-sounding phrase and turn it into a dogwhistle for 'transphobic biological essentialist' and in doing so attempt to falsely position their ideological enemies (anyone pro-trans rights) as in favour of gendered oppression and supporting gender roles etc. which is obviously untrue

Yeah to be "gender critical" sort of presupposes being "sex uncritical"

At first I thought 'gender critical' was a tautology: like, of course gender is a critical notion.

Anyway, what I find especially worrisome is the intersection between 'feminist' transphobic discourse and archaic, borderline ecofascist concepts such as the Great Mother.

I can't take euphemisms like "gender critical" or (another one I have seen) "trans skeptical" any more seriously than old military euphemisms like "collateral damage". It's not just that such terms are inherently weaponized - mostly I'm not entirely sure they're effective. I can't speak for other people but when I see people making arguments using, with a straight face, weasel words like those, I find it relieving. When people use those words, to me it's indicative that they're not arguing in good faith, and opposing them becomes a simple matter of pointing that out, if absolutely necessary, and just plain ignoring them as toxic, if not.

I too try to avoid the word "TERF", not because I feel it's necessarily inaccurate, but because I do think it's a loaded and contentious word that has, I think, done a lot to undermine radical feminism. I find "transphobe" (or just plain "phobe", as I've started abbreviating/generalizing it) is more broadly applicable.

But I'm also a descriptivist, and I don't expect "TERF" to go away any time soon. I certainly have little sympathy for anybody who characterizes it as a "slur".

My experiences is that as I've encountered more and more trans and genderqueer people, as I've listened to more and more people's experiences, my willingness to make broad and sweeping statements - radical statements - has decreased. My focus at this point - and this may change with time - is on celebrating and affirming diversity rather than on interrogating and criticising discourse. From where I am right now, compassion and kindness are more important than critical interrogation. The two approaches are not incompatible, but there's definitely a tension between them.

If that all sounds vague and new age-y, a specific example: When I first started coming out, I had a lot of frustration regarding my perception that gender was an arbitrary social construct. I was sympathetic with those who wished to abolish gender entirely. Since reading about what John Money did to David Reimer, I've walked back that position. To me, Money is a perfect example of someone who let their abstract ideals take precedence over, really, the basic human rights of another human being. If I have a broader criticism of radicalism (in a feminist context or otherwise), it's that I worry that it can sometimes create a context where such behavior is excused or defended.

My experiences is that as I've encountered more and more trans and genderqueer people, as I've listened to more and more people's experiences, my willingness to make broad and sweeping statements - radical statements - has decreased. My focus at this point - and this may change with time - is on celebrating and affirming diversity rather than on interrogating and criticising discourse. From where I am right now, compassion and kindness are more important than critical interrogation. The two approaches are not incompatible, but there's definitely a tension between them.

Well said.

My experiences is that as I've encountered more and more trans and genderqueer people, as I've listened to more and more people's experiences, my willingness to make broad and sweeping statements - radical statements - has decreased. My focus at this point - and this may change with time - is on celebrating and affirming diversity rather than on interrogating and criticising discourse. From where I am right now, compassion and kindness are more important than critical interrogation. The two approaches are not incompatible, but there's definitely a tension between them.

isn't this is basically a small-c conservative position though, one that leaves the status-quo in place, a status-quo that benefits men and damages women? one could still argue that it's the right position to take despite this, but my impression is that many/most of the anti-TERF/anti-'gender critical' ppl deny this tension you acknowledge between kindness/cautiousness and critical interrogation, deny that accepting trans and gender fluid identities blunts critiques of patriarchy

I have never understood the argument that accepting trans and gender fluid identities blunts the critique of the patriarchy and honestly it’s not something that stands up to scrutiny. If it was the case, you wouldn’t hear about butch (cis!) women being harassed entering women’s toilets, or see the bleed into blatant homophobia. Neither of these outcomes are opposed by the patriarchy; quite the reverse in fact.

accepting trans and gender fluid identities would seem to mean accepting there is such a thing as a person's 'real' gender outside of 1. their physical sex and 2. how they are socialised and hailed or recognized by society - there's clearly a tension between that and radical feminist critiques of gender

What are the radical feminist critiques of gender that I’m clearly missing then? Cos all I’m seeing are people engaged in constant vicious attacks on trans people and dogwhistling constantly about the safety of children.

I'm not smart or eloquent enough to articulate this well, but this gets at some of what I'm trying to say:

When I say that a person is male or female - a man or a woman, a boy or a girl - I aim to convey *only* some brute facts about the body, related to sexual and reproductive anatomy and functions. Those brute facts are very far from socially constructed. I defend the concept of two, and only two, sexes, because they truly are the facts of life - a constraint on our existence that cannot be escaped.

But, while I defend the reality of sexual dimorphism, I do not defend the gender binary, where ‘gender’ reflects social and cultural expectations of how each sex should think or act. The complexities of gender - by which I mean the social roles and expectations, cultural and symbolic significance, that societies attach to the sexes, and which are often socially, sometimes violently, enforced - were not the subject of my previous article. [trans and non-binary people] are actual males and females who are punished, bullied and vilified for acting in ways that are considered unacceptable for males and females to behave.

https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1250/sex-is-not-psyche/

accepting that gender (rather than sex) is a 'real' thing, that some people just are men or women or neither in a metaphysical sense, separate from their physical sex or how they are 'gendered' by society - this legitimises the concept of gender, and gender can't be separated from this division into an oppressor and an oppressed class. a distinction between sex and gender where 'sex' is objectively observable biological differences and 'gender' is the socially constructed system that legitimises patriarchy, i.e. in this definition 'gender' is specifically what is socially constructed, what *isn't* 'real', what can be challenged and critiqued and eventually demolished and consigned to the dustbin of history

and if accepting trans identities means supporting the idea that if one's gender identity does not match one's biological sex, then one can/should have their body modified to make it fit better, either with hormones or binding or surgery - this seems problematic if you believe that gender is purely socially constructed? why should these painful, potentially dangerous physical changes be necessary, why should there be a link between the physical form of your body and whether you are stereotypically masculine or feminine in your, thoughts, tastes etc?

you might say that physical modification is not compulsory and many trans ppl identify with a gender that doesn't match their biological sex without changing their body in any way - but from the radfem pov NO-ONE'S gender identity matches their biological sex, no-one is really inherently 'a male gender person' or a 'female gender person'. some trans ppl do not identify as male or female at all - but either you take the position that some people are male gender or female gender and some ppl aren't (which is incompatable with the radfem pov b/c no-one is really male gender or female gender), or the position that EVERYONE is not actually male gender or female gender, in which case you have reached a position that is indistinguishable from radfem perspective?

and even if body modification is not mandatory, the rise in ppl accepting trans identity and an inherent gender identity as a real thing has undeniably led to an increase in the number of people undergoing these body modifications with all the pain and suffering that involves. you might say that this is still an improvement and before scores of ppl were suffering in silence in bodies that they felt didn't match their identity, but as this kind of body modification becomes a socially accepted thing then doesn't that make it harder to fight for a world were ppl do not feel compelled to changed their bodies to match how 'masculine' or 'feminine' they feel? (or to avoid the harassment and abuse that comes with being gendered female?)

idk sounds like concern trolling to me

you might say that physical modification is not compulsory

and even if body modification is not mandatory

let me just state for the record: it's not

Yeah I was going to say. You can consider this debate to be about lofty and abstract ideas about gender and sex, but that’s not how “gender critical” is used in the wild, and that debate is very much of an exclusionary nature.

jesse singal wrings his hands similarly and constantly about FORCED BODY MODIFICATION FOR THESE CONFUSED CHILDREN WHO WILL REGRET IT and i continue to hope he explodes

I hope the same for Glinner.

but once you take body modification out of the equation then what is left aside from a feeling of disconnect between your biological sex and the stereotypical qualities associated with or demanded of ppl with that biological sex in our society? unless you think that gender is a 'real', not purely socially constructed thing, then this disconnect exists for everyone, although it causes some ppl a much greater degree of distress and pain than other. and accepting that gender is a 'real' thing has actual material effects on people's lives, just like accepting race as a 'real' thing has actual material effects on people's lives, it can't just be dismissed as 'lofty and abstract ideas'

I think you’re confusing what I think. When I think of actual real effects on people’s lives, I’m thinking of how the constant demonisation and picking away at the right of people to live as they choose plays out in reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/14/homophobic-and-transphobic-hate-crimes-surge-in-england-and-wales
So no, I don’t really give much of a thought to the “gender critical” side of the debate considering it seems mostly to be used as a shield for bigotry.

generally i find people who hammer this hard on the ONLY TWO SEXES thing to be extremely fuckin suspicious

i guess i am really trying to engage with the ideas in your posts soref but i don't seem to have the same stakes or perspective in this argument? like if body modification isn't necessary and one's personal conception of gender can be disconnected from their appearance and the social expectations others have of them... that's... cool? doesn't seem to undermine any critique of the patriarchy which forces social roles onto everyone? "real" and "purely socially constructed" also do not seem to be opposite ideas to me. and from being friends with trans people i get the sense that people who gravitate toward body modification have thought about all of this shit relentlessly and come out the other side knowing that "gender" is ultimately construction and the sum of their experiences have told them that they're women and/or men, and if they can feel more comfortable in their bodies while doing this... good? we put on makeup bc the external doesn't match the internal, it's all construction, and it doesn't seem inherently contradictory to me. that we share a fundamental idea about gender with radfems is great except that transphobes in that community use it to undermine, exclude, and isolate trans people, it's a bad faith distortion on their part, which is the fuckin problem

On a slightly different tack this looks like a really interesting book - has had a lot of heat on its lines around the abolition of the family.

Abortion is a form of necessary violence. We need to move away from arguments designed to placate our enemies, and defend abortion as a right to stop doing gestational work | @reproutopia

Sophie Lewis is the author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family pic.twitter.com/qntnD2Zb3Z

— Verso Books (@VersoBooks) June 7, 2019