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Awhile back I had promised a post that would make an effort to define radical feminism. I like to think that I can define things, and neatly fit them into some kind of comprehensible box. I will usually set out to do this and my project goes awry just from the sheer fact that things aren’t so cut and dry, neat or easy to get to the bottom of.

The one thing I do know is that “radical” means to get to the root. I would say that in my short lived experience with radical feminism, it is very much about both the cultural and institutional ways that misogyny is maintained. Radical feminism is not about reforming the system we live in, it is about creating a new one altogether.

Am I a radical feminist? Still don’t know. I think so, but I’m not sure. At the very least, I ascribe to the above paragraph. But otherwise, the need to know is becoming less important in comparison to just familiarizing myself with various authors and theories. In Ain’t I a Woman, bell hooks ties up her book with some of the reasons why feminism has failed. I think that what she has to say is really powerful. Though I’d been reading bits and pieces of things that addressed issues like this, reading this passage was really a light bulb moment for me. Specifically, that we are vying for power in a system that works by the very virtue of the fact that certain segments of society have little to no power.

Although the contemporary feminist movement was essentially motivated by the sincere desire of women to eliminate sexist oppression, it takes place within a framework of a larger, more powerful cultural system that encourages women and men to place the fulfillment of individual aspirations above their desire for collective change. Given this framework, it is not surprising that feminism has been undermined by the narcissism, greed, and individual opportunism of its leading exponents. A feminist ideology that mouths radical rhetoric about resistance and revolution while actively seeking to establish itself within the capitalist patriarchal system is essentially corrupt. While the contemporary feminist movement has successfully stimulated an awareness of the impact of sexist discrimination on the social status of women in the U.S., it has done little to eliminate sexist oppression. Teaching women how to defend themselves against male rapists is not the same as working to change society so that men will not rape. Establishing houses for battered women does not change the psyches of the men who batter them, nor does it change the culture that promotes and condones their brutality. Attacking heterosexuality does little to strengthen the self-concept of the masses of women who desire to be with men. Denouncing housework as menial labor does not restore to the woman houseworker the pride and dignity in her labor she is stripped of by patriarchal devaluation. Demanding an end to institutionalized sexism does not ensure an end to sexist oppression.

The rhetoric of feminism with its emphasis on resistance, rebellion, and revolution created and illusion of militancy and radicalism that masked the fact that feminism was in no way a challenge or a threat to capitalist patriarchy.

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