It's interesting that one of the better summaries on the Web I've found is one of the soc.feminism FAQs. (Tangent: I've found that FAQs in general can be excellent summaries, perhaps because the questions are, after all, "frequently asked". The alt.atheism FAQs are educational resources in themselves, while the talk.origins FAQs are the next thing to a collection of scholarly treatises.)

Anyhow, it's the Terms FAQ from soc.feminism. One of the really useful things about it is that it tends to mention a "seminal" book or two for each category, as (of course) Emma Goldman for anarcho-feminism, or Echols for radical feminism. At the bottom is a contributed discussion of men's movements and their relationships with feminism, which may be of interest to those following the other threads.

Additionally, the Feminist Theory Website divides up their resporces according to various fields within feminist thought. This includes both sub-topics and sub-movements, so it can be a little confusing, but I still find it a handy reference for bokks representing different branches.

We've had several discussions here on the subject on whether one can believe "topic X" and still call oneself a feminist. I think the question of "pro-life feminism" was possibly the most contentious of these debates. (It usually is. ) To my mind, this brings up a perennial and vexing issue for any broad-based movement. Clearly, once cannot say "you're out of the movement!" to anyone who differs on comparatively minor points of approach to the same general goal. Thus, for instance (in the context of the FAQ above) the "cultural feminists" who believe in a feminine mystique, and the "radical feminists" who want to dismantle the whole concept of gender mystiques, are still both feminists.

On the other hand, it would be ludicrous to suggest that someone who suggests that women should go back to being male chattel is somehow a feminist. This is a reducto ad absurdam, but useful for illustration: there has to be a point where someone is by definition no longer a feminist. The definition per ye standard dictionary is: "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes; organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests", so that provides a useful guideline as to where one "draws the line". Yet, inevitably, disagreement arises on what constitutes "women's rights and interests".

Thus, for instance, there's a group (not mentioned in that FAQ) that calls itself "libertarian feminists". Now, I personally dislike this ideology. To my mind, they don't want to change the system; they just want a few rich white women to be allowed in at the top! Yet in comparing it to the definition of feminism, I must (with great reluctance) grant that, technically, they fit the definition of feminism. They want women's rights to play the whole free-market game. Though they do nothing to address the inherent inequalities of that game, they're, by their own lights, trying to equalize the sexes within the context of the game.

On the opposite end, there are inevitable groups that call themselves "feminist" while decrying women's rights! I call this the "Jews for Jesus" effect, as I feel rather the same about them that Mishei has expressed for the Jews for Jesus group. I haven't, alas, been able to find a good representative example in a quick web search, but I know I've encountered it.

It would be, to me, quite interesting to toss in more examples of different categories of thinkers that self-identify as feminist - and why one does, or doesn't, believe they fit the central tenets of feminism.

[ 22 October 2003: Message edited by: April Follies ]

Well, Christina Hoff Sommers, for one. But I'm sure that one's too easy as you're all familiar with her.

However, you'll all love this one:

Older guy. Regularly refers to women he dislikes using slang terms referring to genitals (I'm sure you know the ones I mean). Believes that some undisclosed proportion of men have a need to be "radically dominant" and some undisclosed proportion of women can only be happy as "radical submissives." Interprets this to mean that these people need to be matched up with each other in legally contracted slave-master relationships further solemnized with legal marriages. And in case anyone thinks he's speaking in metaphors--no. He means "slave" and "master"--master tells you to steal something, you go out and steal it. It's not just a sexual game for consenting adults. You sign a contract stating you are a slave--and yes, I realize this is illegal--then you act like it. Failure to do so opens you up to various kinds of corporal punishment.

He makes his living by "counselling" these "radical submissive" women and finding them "radical dominant" men who will generously agree to be their masters and owners. In order to make them happy.

He believes these needs are biological, not the product of social conditioning.

And he calls himself a feminist.

I won't mention his name, although my guess is that he wouldn't mind if I did, since he's very public with these beliefs and runs a few websites extolling his views.

I would suggest that we need to be able to say, at the very least, that folks advocating the enslavement of women by their husbands are not feminists.

I agree there is danger in being too exclusionary. I'm reminded of my upbringing in a Baptist church, where we were taught to view Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Anglicans as "cultists" and "not really christian." I don't see how it helped anyone to create those divisions over what seem to me now to be fairly arbitrary differences in faith. And I know that, similarly, there are radical feminists who believe that all "real" feminists are by definition radical feminists--and if you're not a radical feminist, you're not "really" a feminist. Personally I think it is more productive to keep the group as inclusive as possible and reserve the right to disagree with each other, even vehemently.

That is, I can agree someone is a feminist while arguing that they are dead wrong about women's problems and solutions to those problems.

I think, however, that the dictionary definition is a bit limited. I prefer something like:

1. Believe that men and women are and ought to be treated as equals.
2. Understand that, while both sexes suffer from sexism, women generally carry more of that burden; and thus activism and programs addressing this imbalance are required.
3. Some action towards this goal, from speaking out in personal conversation to running NOW.

Is this the type of thought that you had in mind?

I looked through that horrible 'Surrendered Wife' book. If people want to take part in de-facto D&S relationships that's great for them, but sheesh, preaching it as a solution to human ills just scares me. Plus, on a more serious note, it seems like an open-ended invitation to abusive situations.

I like athena's definition of feminism - it hits the key point that antifeminists whine about: "if it's about equality, why is it called 'feminism'?" Well, genius (to the antifeminist) that's because although gender roles hurt both sexes, the higher societal value was assigned to the male role, so the female role has, for lo these many years, been a lot harder to live under. Still *grumble grumble* in the range of 70 cents to the dollar, as I understand it.

That's only looking at it from my hopelessly Western perspective, too. As you go out into the developed world, the biases against women become more obvious and painful. Sometimes people forget that 'feminism' is not just a local phenomenon, that it also retains a significant contingent reaching out worldwide as well.

*lol* Ah, Hoff Summers, the 'feminist' all feminists love to hate.

On the other hand, trying to make the fantasy 'real', as opposed to realistic, is serious Danger, Will Robinson! territory, I'm thinking. Actually ordering someone to steal, or actually obeying that order, starts cutting into the good of society, and they ain't got the right. Trying to set up a dynamic where people actually think this level of brain-abdication is 'good', and reenforcing it with validation, is near-criminally negligent, I'd say.

Beyond that, I'd certainly say it isn't "feminist" behavior. Encouraging women to play with all sorts of consensual sexual variations, this I can see as feminist. (Thus Paglia.) Even if what they want to do is play with the idea of being submissive. However, when you're working on persuading women to enter a situation where they'd no longer have a choice - that is, a permanent submission no-safeword no-option situation - that is about limiting women's choices and options, not expanding them, and therefore, I'd say, anti-feminist. Basically, you can't say it's about women's rights if you're trying to persuade a woman to give up (not set-aside-by-agreement-to-be-picked-up-later) her rights.

In one, radical feminists are about changing the way we think of gender, gender roles, gender stereotypes, etc. I've always found gender roles just a wee bit irrelevant to modern life, so I'm all in with this. The lit that tends to get classified under "radical feminism" often makes sense to me.

In the other (popular?) definition, radical feminists are those who push the definition of feminism to extremes, coming near to female supremicism - rather like the "gender feminists" Zoot described, or the "cultural feminists" of the soc.fem FAQ. It's also a term that anti-feminists like to use for what they dislike in feminism.

See, what gets me about "gender" feminism as I understand it (and note: I don't think I've ever run into one outside of academia) is the dislike of men. I've even been told I can't be a "real" feminist if I genuinely like men.

Which I do.

I'm all for challenging gender roles and stereotypes, and I think that if men and women are ever going to be partners, that has to happen. Certainly, in my own personal life, I have no use for "traditional" gender roles. I share a very equal partnership with my dearly beloved.

[ 22 October 2003: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

quote:

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Originally posted by April Follies:

So who are these radical feminists really, and how do I know if I'm one?

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I hope someone will correct me...I'm out of my depth, but I thought that what characterized radical feminists was their position that 'patriarchy' was the dominant structural characteristic of this society, in the same way that Marxists tended to reduce all other structures (including gender inequality) to capitalist class relations.

So (dating my reading now), writers like Firestone claimed that the "base" of ths structure was the relations of reproduction. I think McKinnon and Dworkin's position on pornography was considered to be radical, because they saw it purely as a tool for men's control over women.

Anyway, this is excatly the sort of thing I'm hoping to learn about here...

[Edited to add] Oh yeah...actually, I've been kinda concerned about what seems to be a flowering of 'mainstream' S&M references (pop movies, etc), and while "whatever gets you through the night", if you're a consenting adult, a lot of it plays to a misogynist theme, no?

[ 22 October 2003: Message edited by: Mush ]

The thing is, the bit about radical feminism as being anti-male seems to be to be a yes-and-no issue. As one commentary I read put it, "radical feminists are less entranced by making coalitions with men." So there may be a bit of a separatist bent there.

On t'other hand, the tendency to question the institutions of gender is apart from that separatist tendency - in fact, to an extent it runs counter. If, after all, we blur "the role of women", we also somewhat blur what are "women's issues".

Now, the main of radical feminists seem to agree that "the root problem is patriarchy"; that is, the institutions and frameworks are defined in a male-dominated sense, and so we have to do a fair bit of 'unbuilding' and 'rebuilding from the ground up' of institutions before we can make long-term progress. That is, we have to change the very assumptions from which the dialogue stems. I can go with this.

But there's at least a subset of radical feminism that agrees with the statement, "All men experience a net benefit from the existence of patriarchy." I tend to part company from this particular viewpoint. I've known too many 'transgender' men to think that they're undergoing a net benefit from the way society is structured.

So I guess I'm a very wishy-washy radical feminist, or rather, a feminist with some elements of radicalism but not others. It couldn't be easy, nooooooooo...

quote:

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Originally posted by Mush:

Oh yeah...actually, I've been kinda concerned about what seems to be a flowering of 'mainstream' S&M references (pop movies, etc), and while "whatever gets you through the night", if you're a consenting adult, a lot of it plays to a misogynist theme, no?

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Another tricky question, oh yeah. Some people refer to the BDSM thing as being about "power exchange". Well, whenever you're thinking about power and its give and take between people, you're going to be, inevitably, dealing with the social structures of power as well.

Thing is, some of the automatic condemnation of these things seems to be as firmly rooted in conventional thinking as is misogyny itself. That is, a lot of people seem to be displeased by these things simply because they're apart from traditional sexual expression. These objections remind me of a specific feminist's condemnantion of lesbianism as "unnatural thing for a woman to do". Basically, she used feminism as a justification for her pre-existing view, which was very traditional - i.e., rooted in patriarchy!

However, that's only the case for some criticisms; others seem spot-on. When you look at these things, they're very heavily biased toward the male-dominant side of the equation. Thus, saying that they tend to convey misogyny does seem to be borne out by the relative frequencies.

I have a hypothesis of my own on the subject. I see the "power exchange" as a fairly fundamental human expression (not necessarily 'instinctual', but at least ingrained in the culture at a very basic level). To play (consentually, fully informed, etc) with these sorts of things in a sexual context is not in itself harmful, I'd say - if nothing else, it's a safety valve for people that might otherwise try to assert dominance over others in other aspects of life.

However, "some are more equal than others"; that is, the further one goes from the societal norm, the more difficult people will tend to find the expression. Thus, those expressing male power and female lack thereof are closer to "socially acceptable" than the reverse. As a result, the overwhelming numbers will favor the male-power expression of things.

Re: Power Exchange...Hmmm..I suppose...nothing's always one way or t'other...yes, I also see a good amount of female-dominant images in pop media. Actually, it might be less harmful than the "vanilla" sexual images that are ubiquitous.

People who are into Kink, are into it for a wide variety of reasons and practice it in a wide variety of ways. Sometimes it's an exclusive, monogamous relationship with a dominant man and a submissive woman, but very often it's a bisexual, pansexual, gay, lesbian, woman-topping-woman, man-topping-man, two or more dominant women binding and humiliating a man, a man dressed as a woman submitting to a woman (or vice versa) or any combination of all of the above, and more. The common thread throughout these relationships and/or 'scenes' is that they are safe and consensual. If they are not entirely consensual, and have a reckless regard for the safety of anyone, they are something else entirely.

In my discussions with radical feminists, the definition they've given me has been: seeing patriarchy as the dominant organizing feature of society (score one for Mush ) and proposing solutions that seek to get at the root of patriarchy by completely reorganizing society. Radical feminists, by and large, have no patience with things like quotas for women's participation in certain professions because they see the whole system as flawed and in need of a total shakeup. Sort of like hard-core Marxists who see nothing good in capitalism as it currently exists and want to see it wholly replaced by something entirely different.

And there's no "man-hating" component to radical feminism. I don't know who you've been talking to, Zoot, but you've been misled. Yes, there are individual radfems who hate men--but then there are individual anti-feminists that hate men, too. Most of the radfems I've spoken to have been heterosexual, involved in relationships of various forms, and have reproduced the old-fashioned way (involving a penis, that is). In fact, I've even met male radfems.

bell hooks is a good example of a radical feminist writer who does believe that all other forms of feminism are "not really feminism" (which I don't agree with) but does believe that men are generally good people who can be valuable allies in the fight against sexism. So if you're looking for a demonstration of what I'm talking about, I would recommend any of her books--her last three (including Communion, I think it's called) are all about how men and women can build love relationships based on equity. Doesn't sound like man-hating to me.

Like April, I find myself agreeing with bits and pieces of each type of feminism without really being able to identify wholly with any of htem.

http://www.enslavement.org.uk/jacobs.html

The first link at the top is Jacobs' own. It's been a few years since I've visited it in person and, from what I remember, this is *not* something you want to read at work. You could get in trouble.

One of his "students" ended up nearly dead from a beating received by the "master" he set her up with. When this happened he did not see it as a call to examine his practice or his methods or even his insight into this one particular case. He went to get her and brought her back to her "master."

I'm not posting this to be gratuitous but I did want to make absolutely clear that what I've been using as an example is NOT what I would see as BDSM. I don't confuse the two at all. This is something called "Absolute Power Exchange", it only goes one way (from woman to man), it is not a fantasy or a game or something with any boundaries, women have been seriously injured (and maybe killed, for all I know).

And now it's probably best that we drop it because I don't think that discussing it will actually contribute to the discussion and some people (like me) may find it upsetting. Initially I wanted to refer to it only as an example of what is obviously not feminism (although he claimed to be feminist); I guess though it was too extreme for most people to have a frame of reference for what I was really talking about.

Which is *not* BDSM.

quote:

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And there's no "man-hating" component to radical feminism. I don't know who you've been talking to, Zoot, but you've been misled. Yes, there are individual radfems who hate men--but then there are individual anti-feminists that hate men, too. Most of the radfems I've spoken to have been heterosexual, involved in relationships of various forms, and have reproduced the old-fashioned way (involving a penis, that is). In fact, I've even met male radfems.

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Now, I'm not saying that this 'male=enemy' concept actually forms a part of feminist theory - radical or moderate, straight or queer - but you cannot entirely separate the theory from the people who formulate it, follow it, conceptualize it, etc. There are elements in feminist theory that can lead one in the direction of discriminatory and sexist attitudes towards men in general, if one is not careful to separate gender-based power structures from the the individuals who are of the gender that currently inhabit them.

A movement cannot be held responsible for the personal views of one or two whackos who claim to belong to it. IMO. All movements have whackos.

I can also confirm from my own experience what you say about anti-male anti-feminists. See, back in the day, when I was younger and stupider, I got onto the newsgroup alt.feminism, thinking this would be a feminist newsgroup. Boy, was I surprised. The anti-feminists had taken over long since, turning it mostly into a competition of who could hate feminism and feminists the most. (The real feminist discussions, it turned out, were going on soc.feminism.)

In the spirit of optimism, and, as I say, youthful stupidity, I stuck around alt.fem for awhile to try to defend feminism in general - to show that the anti-feminist claims were largely exaggerated, and focused on a few non-representative elements to boot. I tried really hard to show the other sides of feminism in a calm and rational way. However, when one poster told the others that the very fact that I was being reasonable in discussion proved that I was a "wolf in sheep's clothing", I 'bout gave up.

However, one of the more entertaining moments came when people were posting comments by some women that were quite evidently anti-male, and indeed rather virulently so. See, these anti-feminists cried, what feminism really thinks? So out of curiosity I did a bit of background research. It turned out that the three women quoted had all said, very directly (and in one case rather hysterically) that they were anti-feminist; that they disliked feminism and all it stood for! Posting those quotes in response gave me great satisfaction, though I fear that I was one of a very few who actually cared about the actual facts of the case.