Feminismo Radical

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'El feminismo radical' es una perspectiva dentro del feminismo que pide un radical reordenamiento de la sociedad en la que el supremacía masculina sea eliminado en todos los contextos sociales y económicos , al mismo tiempo que reconoce que las experiencias de las mujeres también se ven afectadas por otras divisiones sociales como la raza, la clase y la orientación sexual.

Las feministas radicales ven la sociedad fundamentalmente como un patriarcado en el que hombres dominan y oprimen a mujeres. Las feministas radicales buscan abolir el patriarcado como un frente en una lucha por "liberar a todos de una sociedad injusta desafiando las normas e instituciones sociales existentes". Esta lucha incluye oponerse a la objetivación sexual de las mujeres, sensibilizar al público sobre cuestiones como la violación y violencia contra la mujer, desafiar el concepto de roles de género y cuestionar lo que Las feministas radicales ven como un capitalismo racializado y de género que caracteriza a los Estados Unidos y muchos otros países. Según Shulamith Firestone en La dialéctica del sexo: el caso de la revolución feminista (1970): "[E] l objetivo final de la revolución feminista debe ser, a diferencia de la del primer movimiento feminista, no sólo la eliminación del ' privilegio' 'masculino sino de la' 'distinción' 'sexual en sí misma: las diferencias genitales entre seres humanos ya no importarían culturalmente. " Si bien las feministas radicales creen que las diferencias en los genitales y las características sexuales secundarias no deberían importar cultural o políticamente, también sostienen que el papel especial de la mujer en la reproducción debería reconocerse y adaptarse sin penalización en el lugar de trabajo, y algunos han argumentado que se debería ofrecer una compensación por este trabajo socialmente esencial.

El feminismo radical temprano, que surgió dentro del feminismo de segunda ola en la década de 1960, típicamente veía al patriarcado como un "fenómeno transhistórico" anterior o más profunda que otras fuentes de opresión, "no solo la forma de dominación más antigua y universal, sino la forma primaria" y el modelo para todas las demás. La política posterior derivada del feminismo radical varió desde feminismo cultural a más sincrético políticas que colocaban cuestiones de clase, economía, etc. a la par con el patriarcado como fuente de opresión.

Las feministas radicales ubican la causa raíz de la opresión de las mujeres en las relaciones patriarcales de género, a diferencia de los sistemas legales (como en feminismo liberal) o conflicto de clases (como en feminismo anarquista , feminismo socialista y feminismo marxista).

Teoría e ideología

Las feministas radicales afirman que la sociedad es un patriarcado en el que la clase de hombres son los opresores de la clase de mujeres. Proponen que la opresión de las mujeres es la más forma fundamental de opresión, una que ha existido desde los inicios de la humanidad. Como escribió la feminista radical Ti-Grace Atkinson en su pieza fundamental "Feminismo radical" (1969):

Se dice que la primera división dicotómica de esta masa [la humanidad] se basó en el sexo: masculino y femenino & nbsp; ... fue porque la mitad de la raza humana soporta la carga del proceso reproductivo y debido a que el hombre, el animal `` racional , tuvo el ingenio para aprovechar eso, los parientes, o las `` bestias de carga , fueron acorralados en una clase política: confundiendo la carga biológicamente contingente en una política (o necesaria) penalización, modificando así la definición de estos individuos de humano a funcional o animal.

Las feministas radicales argumentan que, debido al patriarcado, las mujeres han llegado a ser vistas como el "otro "para el hombre norma, y ​​como tales han sido sistemáticamente oprimidos y marginados. Afirman además que los hombres como clase se benefician de la opresión de las mujeres. La teoría patriarcal no se define generalmente como la creencia de que todos los hombres siempre se benefician de la opresión de todas las mujeres. Más bien, sostiene que el elemento principal del patriarcado es una relación de dominio, donde una parte es dominante y explota a la otra en beneficio de la primera. Las feministas radicales creen que los hombres (como clase) usan sistemas sociales y otros métodos de control para mantener a las mujeres (así como a los hombres no dominantes) reprimidas. Las feministas radicales buscan abolir el patriarcado desafiando las normas e instituciones sociales existentes, y creen que la eliminación del patriarcado liberará a todos de una sociedad injusta. Ti-Grace Atkinson sostuvo que la necesidad de poder impulsa a la clase masculina a seguir oprimiendo a la clase femenina, argumentando que "la necesidad que tienen los hombres del papel de opresor es la fuente y el fundamento de toda opresión humana".

La influencia de la política feminista radical en el movimiento de liberación de la mujer fue considerable. Redstockings la cofundadora Ellen Willis escribió en 1984 que las feministas radicales "consiguieron que la política sexual fuera reconocida como un tema público", crearon el vocabulario de el feminismo de segunda ola, ayudaron a legalizar el aborto en los EE. UU. " el primero en exigir la igualdad total en el llamado ámbito privado "(" las tareas del hogar y el cuidado de los niños & nbsp; ... necesidades emocionales y sexuales "), y" creó el clima de urgencia "que casi propició el paso de la Igualdad Enmienda de derechos. La influencia del feminismo radical se puede ver en la adopción de estos temas por la Organización Nacional de Mujeres (NOW), un grupo feminista que anteriormente se había centrado casi por completo en cuestiones económicas.

Movimiento

Orígenes

Las feministas radicales en los Estados Unidos acuñaron el término movimiento de liberación de la mujer (WLM). El WLM creció en gran parte debido a la influencia del movimiento de derechos civiles, que había ganado impulso en la década de 1960, y muchas de las mujeres que tomaron la causa del feminismo radical tenían experiencia previa con la protesta radical en la lucha contra [ [racismo]]. Cronológicamente, puede verse dentro del contexto del feminismo de segunda ola que comenzó a principios de la década de 1960. Las principales figuras de esta segunda ola de feminismo incluyeron a Shulamith Firestone, Kathie Sarachild, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Carol Hanisch, Roxanne Dunbar, Naomi Weisstein y Judith Brown. A finales de los años sesenta, varios grupos de mujeres que se describían a sí mismas como "feministas radicales", como el Frente de Liberación de Mujeres de la UCLA (WLF), ofrecían puntos de vista diferentes sobre la ideología feminista radical. La cofundadora de la WLF de UCLA, Devra Weber, recuerda, "las feministas radicales se oponían al patriarcado, pero no necesariamente al capitalismo. En nuestro grupo al menos, se oponían a las llamadas luchas de liberación nacional dominadas por hombres".

Las feministas radicales ayudaron a traducir la protesta radical por la igualdad racial, en la que muchas tenían experiencia, en la lucha por los derechos de las mujeres. Ellos asumieron la causa y abogaron por una variedad de problemas de mujeres, incluyendo derechos de aborto, la Enmienda de Igualdad de Derechos, acceso al crédito e igualdad de remuneración. Muchas mujeres de color estuvieron entre los fundadores del Movimiento de Liberación de la Mujer ( Fran Beal, Cellestine Ware, Toni Cade Bambara); sin embargo, las mujeres de color en general no participaron en el movimiento debido a su conclusión de que las feministas radicales no estaban abordando "cuestiones de significado para las mujeres de minorías", mujeres negras en particular. Después de que se formaron concienciación grupos para reunir apoyo, el feminismo radical de la segunda ola comenzó a ver un número creciente de mujeres de color participando.

En la década de 1960, el feminismo radical surgió dentro de las discusiones feministas liberales y feministas de la clase trabajadora, primero en los Estados Unidos, luego en el Reino Unido y Australia. Los involucrados gradualmente habían llegado a creer que no era solo la clase media familia nuclear la que oprimía a las mujeres, sino que también eran los movimientos sociales y las organizaciones que afirmaban defender la liberación humana, en particular el [ [Contracultura de la década de 1960 (contracultura)], los partidos políticos Nueva Izquierda y Marxismo, todos ellos dominados y orientados por hombres. En los Estados Unidos, el feminismo radical se desarrolló como respuesta a algunas de las fallas percibidas de ambas organizaciones de la Nueva Izquierda como Estudiantes por una Sociedad Democrática (SDS ) y organizaciones feministas como NOW. Plantilla:Cita necesaria Inicialmente concentrada en grandes ciudades como Nueva York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC, y en la costa oeste, Los grupos feministas radicales se extendieron rápidamente por todo el país de 1968 a 1972.

Al mismo tiempo, se desarrollaron tendencias paralelas de pensamiento fuera de EE. UU.: The Women's Yearbook de Munich da un buen sentido del feminismo de principios de la década de 1970 en Alemania Occidental:

En su ensayo sobre el Anuario en nombre del movimiento feminista autónomo argumentó que el patriarcado era la relación de explotación más antigua y fundamental. De ahí la necesidad de que las feministas se separen de las organizaciones de hombres de izquierda, ya que solo usarían los esfuerzos de las mujeres para apoyar sus propios objetivos, en los que la liberación de las mujeres no contaba. Los editores de Frauenjahrbuch 76 también se distanciaron explícitamente del lenguaje del liberalismo, argumentando que "la igualdad de derechos define la opresión de las mujeres como una desventaja de las mujeres". Calificaron explícitamente la versión de igualdad de derechos del feminismo como querer ser como los hombres, rechazando con vehemencia las afirmaciones de que "las mujeres deberían entrar en todas las áreas de la sociedad dominadas por los hombres. ¡Más mujeres en la política! Más mujeres en las ciencias, etc. ... Mujeres debería poder hacer todo lo que hacen los hombres ". Su posición, y la de las feministas autónomas representadas en este anuario de 1976, fue la siguiente: "Este principio de que 'nosotros también queremos eso' o 'nosotros también podemos hacerlo' mide la emancipación contra los hombres y nuevamente define lo que queremos en relación con hombres. Su contenido es la conformidad con los hombres ... Porque en esta sociedad las características masculinas fundamentalmente tienen más prestigio, reconocimiento y sobre todo más poder, fácilmente caemos en la trampa de rechazar y devaluar todo lo femenino y admirar y emular todo lo que es se considera masculino ... La batalla contra el rol femenino no debe convertirse en la batalla por el rol masculino ... La demanda feminista, que trasciende la reivindicación de la igualdad de derechos, es la reivindicación de la autodeterminación.

Las feministas radicales introdujeron el uso de grupos concientización (CR). Estos grupos reunieron a intelectuales, trabajadoras y mujeres de clase media en países occidentales desarrollados para discutir sus experiencias. Durante estas discusiones, las mujeres notaron un sistema compartido y represivo independientemente de su afiliación política o clase social. Sobre la base de estas discusiones, las mujeres llegaron a la conclusión de que el fin del patriarcado era el paso más necesario hacia una sociedad verdaderamente libre. Estas sesiones de sensibilización permitieron a las primeras feministas radicales desarrollar una ideología política basada en las experiencias comunes que las mujeres enfrentaron con la supremacía masculina. El aumento de la conciencia se utilizó ampliamente en las subunidades de los capítulos de la Organización Nacional de Mujeres (NOW) durante la década de 1970. El feminismo que surgió de estas discusiones representó ante todo la liberación de las mujeres, como mujeres, de la opresión de los hombres en sus propias vidas, así como de los hombres en el poder. El feminismo radical afirmó que una ideología totalizadora y una formación social - el "patriarcado" (gobierno o gobierno de los padres) - dominaba a las mujeres en interés de los hombres.

Grupos

Logo de las Redstockings

Dentro de grupos como Mujeres radicales de Nueva York (1967-1969; sin conexión con la organización feminista socialista actual Mujeres radicales), que Ellen Willis caracterizó como "el primer grupo de liberación de mujeres en la ciudad de Nueva York ", comenzó a surgir una ideología feminista radical. Declaró que "lo personal es político" y la "hermandad es poderosa"; llamadas al activismo de las mujeres acuñadas por Kathie Sarachild y otros en el grupo. Las mujeres radicales de Nueva York se derrumbaron a principios de 1969 en lo que se conoció como la "división político-feminista", en la que los "políticos" veían al capitalismo como la principal fuente de opresión de las mujeres, mientras que las "feministas" veían la opresión de las mujeres en un hombre supremacía que era "un conjunto de relaciones materiales, institucionalizadas, no sólo malas actitudes". El lado feminista de la división, cuyas miembros se referían a sí mismas como "feministas radicales", pronto constituyó la base de una nueva organización, Medias rojas. Al mismo tiempo, Ti-Grace Atkinson lideró "una escisión radical de NOW", que se conoció como Las feministas. Una tercera postura importante sería articulado por las Feministas radicales de Nueva York, fundadas más tarde en 1969 por Shulamith Firestone (que rompió con los Redstockings) y Anne Koedt. {{sfn | Willis | 1984 | p = 133} }

Durante este período, el movimiento realizó "una producción prodigiosa de folletos, panfletos, revistas, artículos de revistas, periódicos y entrevistas de radio y televisión". Muchas obras feministas importantes, como la de Koedt y su ensayo El mito del orgasmo vaginal (1970) y el libro de Kate Millet Política sexual (1970), surgieron durante este tiempo y en este [ [Entorno social | medio]].

La ideología emerge y diverge

Al comienzo de este período, "la heterosexualidad era más o menos una suposición indiscutida". Entre las feministas radicales, se sostenía ampliamente que, hasta ahora, las libertades sexuales obtenidas en la revolución sexual de la década de 1960, en particular, el énfasis cada vez menor en la monogamia, habían sido ganadas en gran medida por los hombres en las mujeres. Esta suposición de heterosexualidad pronto sería desafiada por el surgimiento del lesbianismo político, estrechamente asociado con Atkinson y 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.

Archivo:Ellen Willis.png

Las Feministas tenían una filosofía más idealista, psicologista y utópica, con un mayor énfasis en "roles sexuales s", viendo el sexismo como enraizado en " patrones complementarios de comportamiento masculino y femenino ". Pusieron más énfasis en las instituciones, viendo el matrimonio, la familia, la prostitución y la heterosexualidad como todos existentes para perpetuar el "sistema de roles sexuales". Vieron a todos ellos como instituciones a destruir. Dentro del grupo, hubo más desacuerdos, como que Koedt consideraba que la institución de las relaciones sexuales "normales" se centraba principalmente en el placer sexual o erótico masculino, mientras que Atkinson lo veía principalmente en términos de reproducción. A diferencia de las medias rojas, las feministas generalmente consideraban que la sexualidad centrada en los genitales era inherentemente masculina. Ellen Willis, la cofundadora de Redstockings, escribiría más tarde que en la medida en que los Redstockings consideraban abandonar la actividad heterosexual, lo veían como un "precio amargo" que "podrían tener que pagar por [su] militancia", mientras que Las feministas adoptaron el feminismo separatista como estrategia.

Las Feministas Radicales de Nueva York (NYRF) adoptaron una línea más psicologista (e incluso biológicamente determinista). Argumentaron que los hombres dominaban a las mujeres no tanto por beneficios materiales como por la satisfacción del ego intrínseca a la dominación. De manera similar, rechazaron la opinión de Redstockings de que las mujeres se sometían solo por necesidad o la opinión implícita de Las Feministas de que se sometían por cobardía, pero en cambio argumentaron que el condicionamiento social simplemente llevó a la mayoría de las mujeres a aceptar un papel sumiso como "correcto y natural".

Forms of action

The radical feminism of the late 60s was not only a movement of ideology and theory; it helped to inspire direct action. In 1968, feminists 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 bras were not burned on that day, the protest led to 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 March of 1970, more than one hundred feminists staged an 11-hour sit-in at the Ladies' Home Journal headquarters. These women demanded that the publication replace its male editor with a female editor, and accused the Ladies Home Journal, "with their emphasis on food, family, fashion, and femininity", of being "instruments of women's oppression". One protester explained the goal of the protest by saying that they "were there to destroy a publication which feeds off of women's anger and frustration, a magazine which destroys women."

Radical feminists used a variety of tactics, including demonstrations, speakouts, and community and work related organizing, to gain exposure and adherents. In France and West Germany radical feminists developed further forms of direct action.

Self-incrimination

On 6 June 1971 the cover of Stern showed 28 German actresses and journalists confessing “We Had an Abortion!” (wir haben abgetrieben!) unleashing a campaign against the abortion ban. The journalist Alice Schwarzer had organized this avowal form of protest following a French example.

Later in 1974, Schwarzer persuaded 329 doctors to publicly admit in Der Spiegel to having performed abortions. She also found a woman willing to terminate her pregnancy on camera with vacuum aspiration, thereby promoting this method of abortion by showing it on the German political television program Panorama. Cristina Perincioli described this as "... a new tactic: the ostentatious, publicly documented violation of a law that millions of women had broken thus far, only in secret and under undignified circumstances." However, with strong opposition from church groups and most of the broadcasting councils governing West Germany's ARD (association of public broadcasters), the film was not aired. Instead Panorama's producers replaced the time slot with a statement of protest and the display of an empty studio.

Circumventing the abortion ban

In the 1970s, radical women's centers without a formal hierarchy sprang up in West Berlin. These Berlin based women’s centers did abortion counseling, compiled a list of Dutch abortion clinics, organized regular bus trips to them, and were utilized by women from other parts of West Germany. Police accused the organizers of illegal conspiracy. "The center used these arrests to publicize its strategy of civil disobedience and raised such a public outcry that the prosecutions were dropped. The bus trips continued without police interference. This victory was politically significant in two respects... while the state did not change the law, it did back off from enforcing it, deferring to women's collective power. The feminist claim to speak for women was thus affirmed by both women and the state."

Leaving the Church

In West Germany, 1973 saw the start of a radical feminist group campaign to withdraw from membership in the Catholic Church as a protest against its anti-abortion position and activities. "Can we continue to be responsible for funding a male institution that ... condemns us as ever to the house, to cooking and having children, but above all to having children". In Germany those baptized in one of the officially recognized churches have to document that they have formally left the church in order not to be responsible for paying a church tax.

Protest of biased coverage of lesbians

In November of 1972 two women in a sexual relationship, Marion Ihns and Judy Andersen, were arrested and charged with hiring a man to kill Ihns's abusive husband. Pretrial publicity, particularly that by Bild, Germany's largest tabloid, was marked by anti-lesbian sensationalism. In response, lesbian groups and women's centers in Germany joined in fervent protest. The cultural clash continued through the trial which eventually resulted in the conviction of the women in October of 1974 and life sentences for both. However, a petition brought by 146 female journalists and 41 male colleagues to the German Press Council resulted in its censure of the Axel Springer Company, Bild's publisher. At one point in the lead up to the trial Bild had run a seventeen consecutive day series on "The Crimes of Lesbian Women".

Genital self-exams

Helped women to gain knowledge about how their own bodies functioned so they would no longer need to rely solely on the medical profession. An outgrowth of this movement was the founding of the Plantilla:Ill (FFGZ) in Berlin in 1974. Plantilla:Source?

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 had accepted government funding during the 1980s, and the election of a conservative government in 1996 crippled these organizations. A radical feminist movement also emerged among Jewish women in Israel beginning in the early 1970s. While radical feminists aim to dismantle patriarchal society, their immediate aims are generally concrete. Common demands include:

• Expanding reproductive rights. According to writer Lisa Tuttle in The Encyclopedia of Feminism it was "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. Plantilla:Vague

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 what many see as: the harm done 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 detrimental effects of prostitution, the raced and classed nature of prostitution, and male dominance over women in prostitution and pornography.

Prostitution

Plantilla:Main 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

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Catharine MacKinnon

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 that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities...."

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. She held 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. Plantilla:Source?

Radical lesbian feminism

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Julie Bindel

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 grounds that their heterosexual identities helped to perpetuate the very patriarchal systems that they were working to undo. According to radical lesbian writer Jill Johnston, a large fraction of the movement sought to reform sexist institutions while "leaving intact the staple nuclear unit of oppression: heterosexual sex". Others saw lesbianism as a strong political tool to help 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 believed to be "the sexual foundation of the social institutions". They argued that heterosexual love relationships perpetuated 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 believed lesbianism actively threatened patriarchal systems of power. They defined lesbians not only by their sexual preference, but by their liberation and independence from men. Lesbian activists Sidney Abbott 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 argued 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 was central to radical lesbian feminism. 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 underlined their belief in the necessity of creating a "new consciousness" that rejected traditional normative definitions of womanhood and femininity which centered on powerlessness. Their redefinition of womanhood and femininity stressed the freeing of lesbian identity from harmful and divisive stereotypes. As Abbot and Love argued in "Is Women's Liberation a Lesbian Plot?" (1971):

As long as 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.

Radicalesbians reiterated 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 rhetoric should be considered a rhetorical failure. Critics also 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 Catharine MacKinnon and John Stoltenberg have supported the notion that transwomen are women, which has been described as trans-inclusive feminism, while the vast majority, most notably 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.

Those who exclude trans women from womanhood or women's spaces refer to themselves as gender critical and are referred to by others as trans-exclusionary. Radical feminists in particular who exclude trans women are often referred to as "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERFs", an acronym to which they object, say is inaccurate (citing, for example, their inclusion of trans men as women), and argue is a slur or even hate speech. These feminists argue that because trans women are assigned male at birth, they are accorded corresponding privileges in society, and even if they choose to present as women, the fact that they have a choice in this sets them apart from people assigned female. Gender-critical or trans-exclusionary radical feminists in particular say 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", and hence, gender is not an identity but a caste position, and gender-identity politics are an obstacle to gender abolition. 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 "it 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.

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. Jeffreys 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 the "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".

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 discrete biological sexes. That information threatens to transform the traditional biology of sex difference into the radical biology of sex similarity. That is not to say that there is one sex, but that there are many. The evidence which is germane here is simple. The words "male" and "female," "man" and "woman," are used only because as yet there are no others." In 2015, radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon said:

"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 ... 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."

Reception

Plantilla:Expand section Gail Dines, an English radical feminist, spoke in 2011 about the appeal of radical feminism to young women: "After teaching women for 20-odd years, if I go in and I teach liberal feminism, I get looked [at] blank ... I go in and teach radical feminism, bang, the room explodes."

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 and so, 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".

Ellen Willis' 1984 essay "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism" says that 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 according to Willis. 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 it as unable "to integrate a feminist perspective with an overall radical politics", while viewing this limitation as inevitable in the context of the time.

References

Parenthetical sources

• Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader. (ch. "6: Radical Feminism, Ti-Grace Atkinson") New York University Press. pp. 82–89. ISBN 978-0814715543.
• Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader. (ch. "28. Lesbianism and the Women's Liberation Movement, Martha Shelley") New York University Press. pp. 305–309. ISBN 978-0814715543.
• Dines, Gail (June 29, 2011). Gail Dines on radical feminism. YouTube. WheelerCentre (Sydney Writers' Festival).
• Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975. (1st ed.). University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1786-4.
• Evans, Sara M.. "Re-Viewing the Second Wave". Feminist Studies. 28 (2): 258–267. doi:10.2307/3178740.
• Firestone, Shulamith. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. (1st ed.). William Morrow and Company. ISBN 0-688-12359-7.
• Jeffreys, Sheila. Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism. (1st ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0415539395.
• American Women in the 1960s: Changing the Future. (1st ed.). Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-9905-2.
• MacKinnon, Catharine A.. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. (1st ed.). Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-89645-9.
• Willis, Ellen. "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism". Social Text. The 60's without Apology (9/10): 91–118. doi:10.2307/466537.

Further reading

• Hanisch, Carol; Scarbrough, Kathy; Atkinson, Ti-Grace; Sarachild, Kathie (August 12, 2013). The Silencing of Feminist Criticism of "Gender". Meeting Ground OnLine.
• Notes From the First Year. June 1968. (via Duke University Libraries.)
• Redstockings Women's Liberation Archives. Redstockings.
• Welch, Penny (February 2001). Strands of Feminist Theory. University of Wolverhampton.

Books and journals

• Radically Speaking. 1996. Spinifex Press. ISBN 1-875559-38-8.
• Coote, Anna; Campbell, Beatrix (1982). Sweet Freedom: The Struggle for Women's Liberation. Picador. ISBN 0-330-26511-3.
• The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality. (ch. "The Feminist Foundations of Language, Gender, and Sexuality Research by Mary Bucholtz") (2nd ed.). Wiley Blackwell. pp. 23–47. ISBN 978-0470656426.
• Radical Feminism. Times Books. ISBN 9780812962208.
• Feminists Who Changed America, 1963–1975. 2006. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03189-2.