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Radical feminism is relatively recent and differs from traditional Marxism in arguing that women's oppression is historically primary,
harder to transform, causes more harm and is more widespread than class oppression.
Similarly it is argued that women's oppression provides a model for
understanding other forms of oppression such as racism and class domination.
Some radical feminists claim that women's oppression is rooted in
biology and its elimination will require a biological revolution transforming women's
relation to reproduction.
Within criminology, radical feminists focus on documenting and analyzing
ways in which the content of law and practices of law enforcement have served to entrench
and strengthen male dominance in society.
To radical feminists, women’s oppression is the most fundamental form of
oppression. Radical feminism focuses on men as oppressors, yet says little about the
possibility of the woman being an oppressor of other women or of men.
Radical feminists do not view prostitution as a harmless private transaction.
Radical feminists believe that prostitution reinforces and perpetuates the
objectification, subordination, and exploitation of women.
Liberal feminism and radical feminism contrast sharply in certain of their
fundamental views.
Liberal feminist thinking is a more reasoned, intellectual perspective than the
radical feminist position, which has both emotional and political centering in its logical
expressions.
It has been said of the radical feminists that their tactics and their philosophy
are inseparable.
RADICAL FEMINIST THERAPY: WORKING IN
THE CONTEXT OF VIOLENCE
B Burstow - Sage Publications, Inc.
Abstract: According to the author, "radical feminism" views "oppression
against women as connecting with but not reducible to all other systemic oppressions and
places special emphasis on the physical violation of Woman as Body." The central
focus of this book is violence against women. One premise of the book is that women are
violently reduced to bodies that are for men, and these bodies are further violated. A
second premise is that violence is integral to the experience of being a women. A third
premise is that extreme violence is the context in which other violence occurs and gives
meaning to the other forms. The final premise is that all women are subject to extreme
violence at some time or live with the threat of extreme violence. The author addresses
childhood sexual abuse, rape, and battery continuums, as well as women's responses to this
violence (depression, cutting, splitting, troubled eating, and protest). The book includes
a detailed exploration of feminist ways of working with women, with attention to the
specific needs of Native women, Jewish women, women with disabilities, prostitutes who are
battered by pimps, women who self-mutilate, psychiatrized women, women with drinking
problems, and women who are considering killing themselves. Each practice chapter is
grounded in and includes reference to concrete interactions with clients. Suggested
readings accompany the chapters.
Against the Dividing of Women: Lesbian Feminism and Heterosexuality
Denise Thompson - fap.sagepub.com
I am arguing for a continuity of interests between lesbians and heterosexual women, and
that lesbians and heterosexual women have common experiences which enable them to
understand and empathize with each other. I document the history of the feminist critique
of heterosexuality from early radical feminism to the contemporary arguments of Rich
(1980), Raymond (1986) and Penelope (1985a, 1985b, 1985c). From a lesbian feminist
standpoint, I suggest that setting up an oppositional dichotomy between `lesbian' and
`heterosexual' divides women from each other and perpetuates the heterosexual hegemony.
The continuing revaluation and redefinition of lesbianism is essential in order to achieve
the political priority of feminism: an end to male domination.
Radical Feminism and the Subject of Writing. Rhodes, Jacqueline - eric.ed.gov
The radical feminists of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as their online
counterparts today, offer provocative examples of networked textuality, a discourse
dependent on the constant and visible contextualization of self and writing within the
discourses of hegemony. Given its potential use for liberatory writing pedagogies, it
seems curious that radical feminism has yet to influence composition studies in any
substantial way. This paper discusses composition and radical feminism, particularly
radical women's sites online. The paper makes some of these sites "visible" to
look at how activist women online move toward collective action through textuality,
combining the relative permanence of a resource site and archive with the ever-changing
association of hypertext links, visitor input, and guest commentary. It notes that the
tension between fixity and fluidity in radical feminist writing mirrors another key
tension in discussions of textuality and pedagogy--namely, the tension between liberatory
pedagogies and material conditions. Bell hooks' concept of "engaged pedagogy" is
key to an understanding of the potential for radical textuality in the writing classroom.
The paper concludes that radical feminist textuality is a discourse of the moment; with
its emphasis on both the personal and the political, the text and the network, it forms a
particularly telling example of writerly subjectivity, mediating between the worlds of
gender politics and print culture to change (and yet resist) both. Cites 12 works. (NKA).
Masculine domination, radical feminism
and change
Clare Chambers, University of Oxford, fty.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/3/325
Abstract: Feminists are starting to look to the work of Pierre Bourdieu, in the hope that
it might provide a useful framework for conceptualizing the tension between structure and
agency in questions of gender. This article argues that Bourdieu's analysis of gender can
indeed be useful to feminists, but that the options Bourdieu offers for change are
problematic. The article suggests that Bourdieu's analysis of gender echoes the work of
earlier radical feminists, particularly Catharine MacKinnon, in important ways.
Consciousness-raising, one of MacKinnon's strategies for change, sits well with Bourdieu's
concept of habitus, despite Bourdieu's own scepticism. The article argues that recasting
the role of consciousness-raising in Bourdieu's theory helps to undermine the
deterministic elements of his work. It concludes that a feminist turn to Bourdieu as an
attempt to understand gender's entrenchment-and-malleability can be fruitful, and that
such a turn might find a re-engagement with the idea of consciousness-raising
helpful.
Defining Feminism - John Hoffman
- blackwell-synergy.com
Feminism is sometimes seen either as multiple or singular as though we have to make a
choice along ideological as well as philosophical lines. Feminism, I shall argue, is both
multiple and singular, since 'liberal', 'socialist' and 'radical' feminisms are
distinctive feminisms that can and should be assessed according to the extent to which
they contribute positively to the development of a post-patriarchal society. The same
holds for the philosophically differentiated varieties of 'feminist empiricism',
standpoint and post-modern theory. Each represent differing feminisms within a single body
of argument unified by its commitment to the emancipation of women. It is important to
distinguish here between the way in which particular theorists regard their endeavours,
and the practical implications of the positions taken.
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