A friend of mine posted a conplete misrepresentation of radical feminism

submitted by InvisibleWoman from self.GenderCritical

I felt a rush of blood to my face as I was reading her post. It was very eloquently written, which I am sure will make a lot of people think it's correct, however it was completely incorrect. It said that radical feminism slut shames women and supposes women should not have sexual freedom. It went on to say that radical feminists think men don't have any issues, and that we blame men for all our problems instead of acknowledging that they suffer from the patriarchy as well, through toxic masculinity. It didn't address the fact that women shouldn't be responsible for men's liberation from the patriarchy or the fact that they benefit from it.

She also accused radical feminists of excluding black women and being white exclusive, equating it with white supremacy. It then represented 21st century "intersectional feminism" as taking a balanced view of complex modern conditions which takes into account all the facets of society, whereas radical feminism apparently only cares that men are men and women are women, whatever that means.

I'm actually so angry because she thinks she's helping, but instead she's sharing misinformation. The only feminism to actually address the patriarchy IS radical feminism and this feminism of "choice" that defends BDSM, porn and sexual freedom as a central tenet is just so misguided.

My head is spinning. I think I don't want to ever talk to this woman again, but the damage is done and she is louder. She has tons of followers on instagram and I'm just sitting here wondering how exactly do they feel it's right to lie about things they don't understand. I've never felt the need to lie about liberal feminism. If I am talking about the difference between radical and liberal feminists, I can present facts and that is sufficient. I always think that we should be allies, not enemies.

Does it tell you anything that this friend is in an emotionally abusive relationship with her boyfriend who treats her and her needs as secondary to his own? Oh but he has depression so it's okay because the patriarchy makes men kill themselves.

Edit: typo in the title. Don't type angry.

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[–]Yayme 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

So, I was going to address the whole "slut-shaming" argument.

I do understand that shaming sex-workers is not helpful in the slightest, and in fact probably does real damage. And I also understand that women usually turn to sex-work either out of complete desperation, or because some pimp has gotten them hooked on drugs.

I think liberal feminism's embrace of sex-work is sort of a "live for today" answer to the problem of how can women make ends meet. I mean, I have to doubt that anyone wants their child, or their sister, or their mother, or their girlfriend, or whatever doing sex work. And if feminism is to advocate for women, I think it needs to consider the future of women as well as the current state of women. We need to build a good path for the women that will come after us... and I don't think anyone legitimately views sex-work as a good path for future girls.

And I know that women who have engaged in sex work often claim that it's done no damage to them.... but the facts speak a different story. I saw a doc about porn workers, and it mentioned that quite a few ex porn starts actually shoot themselves in the vagina to commit suicide (which broke my heart). So, I tried to google the stats on it.. and found out there is a category of porn dedicated to shooting women in the vagina.

I kind of hate people right now, and I feel damaged for knowing that's what gets some people off.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh my god I didn't know that...

[–]RoundFork 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sort of like child labor. They’re in a bad situation and must make ends meet, but nobody actually believes they’re living the life they deserve.

There’s only a small minority of women who enjoy sex work, and they shouldn’t speak for the ones forced into it. Like the rich 1% shouldn’t have all the power in capitalism, but here we are.

[–]spinningIntelligence 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Being against sexual.abuse does not mean shaming sexual abuse victims. Prostituted women and girls ("sex workers" includes pimps, to be clear) are victims of sexual abuse, and just because someone throws money at them doesn't mean it's remotely tolerable.

Of course it's a matter of survival for women; that's why radical feminists are against it. Again, these women and girls are victims of sexual abuse; they're not "sluts".

[–]jkfinn 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Hers is nothing more than anti-feminist, in-your-face propaganda. The “pro-sex” women leaders who ripped into the second wave, and split it in two, were all big name arts/performance women or feminist writers. Many were lesbians who knew exactly what they doing and who were taking their marching orders directly from the gay men who ran LGB, or were straight women taking their orders from the porn-is-free-speech ACLU.

The whole point of this is the spread outrageous misinformation and put radical feminists on the defensive. And by painting them as anti-prostitute, puritans, anti-sex, man-haters, and practitioners of vanilla sex, they assured the backing of with-it males, the hip, the sexually licensed, the porn business, liberals, sex liberals...

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The pro-sex "feminism" just upholds the patriarchy. Funnily enough, she even said in her post, paraphrasing, "rad fems say that sex-positivity supports the patriarchy, but it doesn't!". Like okay I'll just take your word for it that it doesn't then, I guess?

[–]firebird 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

I'm sure what I'm about to say is not going to be making me very popular, but I've seen some comments when it comes to race that wouldn't look at all out of place in a community like, say, TIA. So I'd say she isn't entirely wrong.

I agree that the rest misses the mark, though.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

There's been a lot of talk about racism in our communities and I wouldn't say it's completely off base either, but then again, a young white woman in a European country saying feminism is about sexual liberation is also being inadvertently racist.

We can all definitely work on trying to understand problems from different perspectives. I wouldn't say we're white supremacists, however .

[–]firebird 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Good point on the inadvertent racism. Did anyone else comment on that part of the post? Because plenty of times these things go unchallenged here as well, so I understand that there are women saying they don't feel welcome in our community. Then they leave to start their own communities, making this one poorer as a result because eventually you get only one perspective remaining and nobody ever learns anything new.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Nobody really commented anything other than a variation of "yas grl" to her...

You're totally right, though, weakened as we are, our community keeps fragmenting. I know we're supposed to be looking forward and finding a way to make ourselves heard and understood but I don't even know how anymore.

[–]firebird 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

All we can probably do is keep moving forward, keep trying. Attempt to build bridges to make our community stronger again.

For what it's worth, this post was good in that regard. You explained your perspective even though you were angry. And I certainly appreciate the sentiment of wanting to be allies, not enemies.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks, it's nice to hear that, actually. We keep going, then.

[–]Veneficca 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I agree somewhat, but I see far worse in liberal feminist communities. There tends to be a very condescending "othering" of women of color, and an assumption that all feminists - even all women - are white middle-class+ Americans. Their silence toward TIM's comparisons of black women and TIMs speaks volumes.

I've also seen radfems accused of being racist simply for criticizing Islam or acknowledging that male violence is a global problem, rather than just "cishet white men."

[–]firebird 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

While you are completely right on every point of criticism, it's not actually going to fix anything. Patting ourselves on the back for not being as bad as some other group is not going to improve our own community. Maybe this is my perfectionist nature talking, but I think there's always room for improvement and leading the conversation in a different direction when criticism is brought up is not going to get us there.

[–]Veneficca 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

We can address misrepresentations of radical feminism and try to improve at the same time. This post's conversation is about inaccuracies in depictions of radical feminism. I won't be silent when that happens and I will continue to point out liberal feminists' hypocrisy.

[–]firebird 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If those were your intentions, I'm going to be honest and say that they would have come across more clearly if you'd just replied directly to the post instead of to my comment. Especially since at this point I've already made it clear that I agree on everything else, so to me it genuinely felt like you were trying to derail the point I was trying to make.

[–]Veneficca 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sorry, that wasn't my intention.

[–]mangosplums 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Do you have any examples of the comments? I haven’t seen them and I’m curious.

[–]firebird 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

An example would be the "white people are the real victims these days" types of comments. Very similar to how there are always men complaining about how they're worse off than women these days and how feminists just want to be superior. I'd rather not get more specific than that because my intent was never to target specific people.

One of the people who replied to me on this thread did a much better job at explaining things so I can recommend reading her comment as well.

[–]mangosplums 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the response. “White people are the real victims these days” comments are gross, I really don’t like when people in gendercritical spout gross conservative views. Unfortunately we have a few of those here.

[–]Realwoman 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You should respond. She's too far gone, but respond for the others that can read it.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah I will say something, ask her to back up the claims. I just hate losing friends... Thankfully I've made rad fem friends lately otherwise I'd go crazy

[–]yousaythosethings 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I would just ask her where she got that info because you would like to read more. It’s very clear that she’s not reading the words of anyone that’s even remotely a radfem.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah I think I am going to do that. There's zero sources provided for the claims made. I could also say things like that- did you know ornithologists are actually bat-exclusive? They think bats are disgusting and just study birds because they're bird supremacists. They blame bats for all bird problems. We need to stop this cruel bat-shaming. Don't associate with orinthologists!

[–]TeaAndCigarettes 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Unless this can affect your professionally or something I would probably respond with some "I understand the points you're making but you have the tenants of radical feminism wrong. Here are some academic sources about what they're actually about."

Cause...even at the very core of the philosophies she's wrong. You don't even have to argue with her, really.

[–]InvisibleWoman[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's very interesting to see that her main source of claims is other instagram posts and social media in general, and not academic writers, considering that she herself is an academic. It tells me how watered down the idea of feminism has become, and what's left by the time it reaches an average person.

There was a time some years ago when I heard a lot of "everybody can be a feminist" in the media and even though I was very young, I was conflicted about the idea. Surely, there are requirements for calling yourself a feminist, surely there are core ideas you must believe, I thought. The entry requirements disappeared and you no longer had to feel uncomfortable abour your ignorance, or feel pressured to learn more. Whatever you were doing, whoever you were, congratulations, you were now a feminist. We truly are living in a post-truth dystopia.

[–]RoundFork 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The last part: ask them what MEN’S RIGHTS have actually done for men. It’s always women like her taking care of them, thanks to liberal feminism.

Now Radical feminism is solely for women, so although we could empathize, women have done enough for men.

[–]spinningIntelligence 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Prostitution is sexual abuse. Being against sexual abuse does not mean shaming sexual abuse victims. And sexual abuse victims are not "sluts".

[–]Jalaces 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wow. Radical feminism just means feminism that identifies oppression of women as the original, root oppression. There's a lot of diversity of thought within people who hold that overall idea.

[–]yishengqingwa666 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Cut her off.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sometimes you just have to walk away from toxic people.

[–]mangosplums 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The thing that angers me here is the idea that radical feminism excludes black woman. There is zero basis for this. It’s completely false. In fact a lot of gender critical women are black. TRAs made up this accusation to try to made radical feminist look bigoted. Did she even cite any evidence for that claim? She literally just quoted a TRA taking point without any examples to back it up? I wish some RF black women would respond and shoot her down about that.