Written by No Anodyne (via Elaine Charkowski)
For all kinds of reasons, the concept of “feminism” has been stretched beyond all useful meaning by people with counter-agendas, as well as know-nothings. It’s tempting to abandon the word now that it has lost so much of its power, but rather than giving into that despair, it’s time for those of us who really care about the concepts of feminism, misogyny, and the patriarchy to dig deep for our righteous indignation and save the concepts many people hope women will abandon.
It’s way past time to shift the frame for “feminism” back to something with real meaning and with that shift, stand firm about what “radical feminism” means as well.
Seeing the grotesque harm of rape and sexual abuse and demanding justice for women who are raped and sexually abused doesn’t make you a feminist. That’s a mere baseline for being considered a decent human being. Living free of the threats, fear, and reality of rape and sexual abuse is a human right and all humans should have that right and support that right.
Believing that women who are prostituted by men are human and therefore deserve human rights does not make you a feminist. That’s a mere baseline for being considered a decent human being. Living free of being prostituted, bought and sold, trafficked, and enslaved is a human right and all humans should have that right and support that right.
Noticing and calling attention to the fact that some men treat some women badly does not make you a feminist. That’s a mere baseline for being considered a decent human being. Living free of every type of abuse is a human right and all humans should have that right and support that right.
Understanding that the continuum from sex discrimination all the way through sexual harassment harms women’s access to economic equality does not make you a feminist. That’s a mere baseline for bring considered a decent human being. Economic fairness and justice are human rights and all humans should have them and support those rights.
Noticing instances of sexism, even calling them out, doesn’t make you a feminist. That’s a mere baseline for being considered a decent human being. Being free of being singled out for maltreatment, debasement, or dismissal because of a recognizable trait is a human right and all humans should have that right and support that right.
The frame of “human rights” should be very clear and easy to understand. But understanding these simple principles does not make you a feminist.
Feminism is the word that was coined to advance the idea that females are inherently at risk because of a specific system, the patriarchy, they live within. And it is the movement, based on that idea, that seeks to dismantle that system.
A feminist understands that pornography is a tool of the patriarchy, created, owned, and controlled by men, used to depict women as the sex class and is therefore systemized dehumanizing of women.
A feminist understands that prostitution is a tool of the patriarchy, created, owned, and controlled by men, used to position women as the sex class and therefore systemized dehumanizing of women.
A feminist understands that the right to bodily autonomy is central to women’s liberation and further understands that all efforts by men and patriarchal institutions to control women’s reproduction is systemized oppression of women as the sex class.
A feminist understands that gender is a social construct used by men and the patriarchy to keep females locked into the sex class and that any reinforcement of gender serves only to solidify women’s position in that class.
A feminist understands that heteronormativity and mandatory PIV sex are tools of the patriarchy, created, owned, and controlled by men, and are used to position women as the sex class and therefore systemized dehumanizing of women.
Recognizing and understanding the concept of a systemized and institutionalized misogyny (i.e., the patriarchy) is what makes one a true feminist. Further, a feminist understands that prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, sexual abuse and violence, rape, sexual harassment, gender-essentialism, heteronormativity, mandatory PIV sex, and control of reproduction are specialized subsystems of the patriarchy that serve as its functioning units to control women’s lives.
Every feminist also understands that all human institutions (religious, educational, military, medical, industrial, science, cultural, entertainment, technological, legal, corporate, social, governmental, financial) have significant aspects of male dominance that, when combined in society overall, not only enable the patriarchy, but make it impervious to permanent reform.
Radical feminists understand that it will only by completely dismantling all of that, and rebuilding, that women will be completely free to be simply human.
Radical feminists also understand that each and every man has a fundamental stake in the patriarchy’s existence; that men as a class create and maintain, and men as individuals rely on and benefit from, the patriarchy’s subsystems and institutions. There is no way in hell that men could contribute to that complete overhaul — given that it’s the patriarchy that protects, defends, enables, and feeds men every day of their lives from their moment of birth to their moment of death (and ridiculously, beyond death and previous to life). There is no way that men are going to knock the very foundation of their status out from under their own feet and efforts to include them in the feminist movement is a waste of women’s precious time and energy.
Recognizing all of this, radical feminists do not get confused between what the overhaul looks like and what it looks like for women to survive in the meantime. Finding ways of mitigating the damages of the patriarchy’s subsystems and institutions is what we all must do just as a fact of living under the patriarchy. But we must also be the ones who keep a very clear vision beyond our current conditions to what it could be like if the patriarchy were completely destroyed.
Language — our language — is one of our most precious and powerful tools in this fight. In these times of backlash against feminism, many people are using our tools, including our most precious words, in ways that destroy the core concepts or make them meaningless and thus, useless.
Women must fight to keep our tools our own. Our tools help us maintain our vision and help guide us in the hard work toward our own liberation. We must be determined to not allow others to misuse them, or worse, use them against our movement for women’s liberation.
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