Anonymous asked: His is kind of an awkward question but from what I gather being a radfem just means holding men and the patriarchy solely responsible for women's oppression which I think is a little shortsighted but not /evil/ which seems to be the consensus on tumblr, and I also don't understand how this leads to them being TERFs. I've done a fair bit of research into it but I can't work it out so I was wondering if you could explain the issues with radical feminism?
Its tricky. The definition of radical feminism is a bit hard to get to, because its so debated. I would argue (along with I think most contemporary feminists trying to account for its origins) that radical feminism emerges from a realization that class reductionist marxist feminism cannot adequately account for the experiences of women. Beauvoir, McKinnon, Wittig, Dworkin, all more or less not that while there is a socioeconomic nature to the oppression of women, the marxist reduction to socioeconomics is not analytically sufficient to explain womens experiences. As such, radical feminism posits an alternative theory which centers the oppression of women and the enforced supremacy of men as the central structure of oppression in the lives of women.
Critics of radical feminism have noted that this merely decenters one totalizing structure (the material relations of historical materialism) with another, and thus maintains a tendency to bracket out questions of racial, class based, and colonial repressions. I’m not particularly interested in sorting out that debate right here, but it is worth thinking about the fact that the mere act of centering patriarchy as “Solely responsible” caries some weight to it in terms of how it shapes the lens through which we analyze violence in womens lives. Doesn’t mean its incorrect but we should be honest that its a contested position.
So having established a bit of an understanding for what defines radical feminism, and having acknowledged that the definition itself is a site of debate, we can move on to what I take to be your real question, which is how that analytic move which radical feminism emerges out of leads to an antagonistic stance towards trans women.
Here, again, there is controversy. My own professor and department chair Bonnie Mann (in her open letter to Lierre Keith, which you can find from google) maintains that it largely comes down to the fact that the idea of a man becoming a woman does not compute within the sex-caste analytic radical feminists employ, and thus trans women pose a theoretical threat to the totalized explanatory power of radical feminism. For her, it seems that its easier to reject trans women out of hand than it is to amend radical feminist theory to account for why such “sex-caste class traitors” might exist in the first place.
In my view, there are certain tensions within radical feminism already which I believe lead to trans antagonism. Radical feminism is internally divided over sexual difference and its ontological status. Beauvoir’s famous “One is not born, but becomes a woman” is a concept fraught with transnational issues, and is a site of hot debate. Irigaray who will maintain that sexual difference ought to be centered and celebrated, and Wittig who maintained that sexual difference was merely ideology which must be combated, both sought approval of their interpretations from Beauvoir (Neither quite got it actually).
Irigaray and the other psychoanalytic french feminists ended up rising to prominence in the united states, leading to a specifically american brand of radical feminism that tended to center sexual difference as an ontological stable reality which needed to be affirmed and centered. McKinnon insists that neither she nor Dworkin really took this stance, and in an interview with the transadvocate she really double down on an insistence that she agrees with Wittig’s approach to sexual difference, and rejects its affirmation.
All that said, an internal debate over the status of sexual difference, largely resulted in the movement supporting a position which centered it and demanded it be recognized as ontologicalally constituted. This I believe is a foundational reason that contemporary and especially anglo/american radical feminism ends up with a trans antagonistic standpoint, it lays the groundwork for Daly and Raymond to make the invader claims they make, which are predicated on an insurmountable and essential difference between the sexes.
So, is trans antagonism inextricable from radical feminism? As it exists today, perhaps. Could the movements internal debates have resolved in other ways? Absolutely, the impetus was there. Myself and many others maintain that Wittig provides a framework for a trans inclusive radical feminism. But that is not the radical feminism which won out, it is not the radical feminism which dominates within the academy and activist spaces today.
“If the new common wisdom that hotly overt homophobes are men who are “insecure about their masculinity” supplements the implausible, necessary illusion that there could be a secure version of masculinity (known, presumably, by the coolness of its homophobic enforcement) and a stable, intelligible way for men to feel about other men in modern heterosexual capitalist patriarchy, what tighter turn could there be to the screw of an already off center, always at fault, endlessly blackmailable male identity ready to be manipulated into any labor of channeled violence?”
— Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Epistemology of the Closet
in 2019 we’re not gonna purposely make ourselves sad anymore!!! no more looking at that blog bc you know it’ll make you sad! no more clicking on a link to a song that brings back bad memories or a post that reminds you of bad times just to make yourself feel bad!! we’re gonna start to love ourselves in 2019 and strive to be happy bitch!!!!!
“We’re debuting a razor with 19 razors and 74 lubrication strips,” Gillette’s head of North American grooming Pankaj Bhalla announces to a room of trade journalists and general shaving enthusiasts at Gillette’s Global Innovation Summit in early November.
“Just kidding — no, we’re not,” he adds, without taking a breath.
There are 50 or so spectators eating banana-and-Nutella mini waffles and tiny rounds of avocado toast among cocktail-height tables. The tables have what look like modest wedding centerpieces, except there are no goldfish or floating flowers and there are Gillette razors stabbed into piles of blue rocks ostensibly designed for fish tanks. Bhalla tells the crowd that the theme of 2019 will be “to design with meaning.”
The glitz of this “summit” implies unquestioned success; the stress sweat visible on the brows of its speakers implies disaster. Neither is exactly untrue. Though Procter & Gamble’s Gillette brand (tagline: “The Best a Man Can Get”) still holds about 54 percent of the global market share for razors, that’s down from 70 percent in 2010.
The entire razor industry is flailing. It’s not just that Gillette is getting a smaller piece of the pie; the pie itself is also getting smaller. That’s partly driven by the fact that the population of the United States is aging: When you get old, you don’t grow as much hair, so you don’t shave as much, and then (unrelated) you die.
We are also, as a society, becoming relaxed about hair. Too relaxed, if you are in the market of selling razors. Beards and mustaches and stuff are en vogue. The country is getting less interested in pressuring women to keep themselves as hairless as infants seven days a week. A recent report from the global market research firm Mintel highlights the fact that 25 percent of women ages 18 to 23 — and 22 percent of men, but who cares — agree that it is “acceptable for women to have visible underarm hair.”
According to Mintel, sales of “shaving and hair removal tools” are estimated to see about $3.5 billion in sales in 2018, a decline of nearly 4 percent from the year before. Worse, Mintel’s analysts predict there will be no growth for at least the next five years.
Yet in tandem with the downward spiral of the necessity of shaving tools, we are experiencing the arrival of an extreme number of new shaving tools to buy. At the same time, there’s only so much true innovation possible for an item like a razor, which does one thing and almost always does it well.
It’s a classic example of capitalism working not quite the way that was promised but the way it does when put into practice by humans. We see it time and again — with the hotel industry, with cable TV, now with razors: Shrinking markets are not allowed to simply shrink, but instead inspire aggressive pandering, bizarre advertising, and nichification of products that have no reason to be so differentiated.
A surplus of choice implies to consumers that this is the type of purchase they should care deeply about. Why else would there be so many options?
I’m just the messenger relaying a coworker’s project to help her out. Here’s her message in full:
“We are talking to 200,000 Black people in 2018. The Black Census Project uses an interactive online tool as well as in-person surveys so Black community members can share their stories and discuss their concerns. The survey collects information about key issues impacting Black communities including: generational oppression, mass incarceration, police violence, and inequities in healthcare and economic access. The information gathered will guide the priorities and positions of the Black Futures Lab. This survey is historic—you should take it so that your voice can be heard, and so that the things you care about can get addressed.”
Katabira (Summer Kimono) with Autumn Scene of Nonomiya Shrine in Yuzen Dyeing and Embroidery on White Ramie Ground. 19th century, Japan. Kyoto National Museum. Note that this kimono is so sheer that the backside image shows the red lapel area of the front
Americans be like: My grandpa 😠😠😠 served in the Korean War 😠😠😠 and killed 9 people 😠😠😠 to fund his college degree in clownery 😠😠😠 Respect him or leave the country 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬
That’s a super light story huh? My great grandfather got killed in action from a land mine to protect this country. If you don’t wanna respect the history or stand for a national anthem😁then leave to your peaceful home and fuck right off
How did your great grandpa stepping on a landmine protect this country
