# About Radical Feminism **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440 "2017-06-20T15:10:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/21 "2017-06-20T19:58:15Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Thanks for the man-splaining and directions. > > Clearly you’re part of the patriarchy problem around here. Everyone is allowed to mansplain. No glass ceiling here. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/22 "2017-06-20T20:00:06Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Heh! There have been many a SDMB thread centered on math or engineering or physics where I’ve been the one who couldn’t follow along at home. > > I don’t tend to think of the Dope as a place where I need to talk down to my audience. > > On the other hand, with this as my new baseline, maybe my subsequent blog posts will yield comments like “Hey, that was well-written and easy to follow, you’re doing a good job crafting accessible writing!” 🆒 There’s a difference between talking down to your audience and knowing your audience. As you’ve seen from the responses to your blog, no one can make sense of what you’re trying to say. I’d suggest rewriting it and think of your target audience as readers of _The New Yorker_ or _The Atlantic_. In other words, educated adults, but not experts in the field. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/23 "2017-06-20T20:24:05Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Based on a skim (i.e., reading the first half-sentence of each paragraph), it didn’t seem like the OP had much of a point to make, he was just witnessing. Witnessing is supposed to go into GD. That’s a reasonable point. But when I took up the idea of reposting my blog posts with the moderators, we agreed (if I recall correctly) that it made sense to be consistent about where it stuck them. The blog posts range from the kind of stuff you see here to “Hey, I did a presentation at an LGBT center, and here’s what went down” or even “Yippee, I finally got the permission to quote the lyric that I needed for chapter 13!” IMHO is a good compromise, really. Some of these are really MPSIMSy and some, like this one, are GDesque through and through. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/24 "2017-06-20T20:24:17Z")
Here’s a Clif’s Notes version (I think): Some liberals are skeptical of radical feminists, because of rad-fem views on transgender women, sex, and porn. This is no surprise to rad-fems, who are accustomed to bad press. But despite this reputation, radical feminism had and has a lot to teach us. Radical feminism addressed sexuality more directly and analytically, and was the core from which central feminist tenets and understandings came in the 80s. Radical feminists imagined a sexuality that was not violent or conquest-based. That resonated for me as someone who did not want to treat girls as prey. Radical feminists speak of the centrality of gender polarization to political and economic affairs. They see power and control and our reactions to them as inherently gendered and patriarchal concepts. It follows that gender nonconforming sexual relationships are radical threats to patriarchy and political and economic oppression. Specifically, gender inversion (in which a male and female adopt the opposite of their traditional gender roles) dismantles the patriarchy where it most matters, in individual sexual relationships. Why gender inversion and not abandonment of gender altogether? For one, it works better in a society that isn’t fully on board with or expecting sexual egalitarianism. Also, while it’s understandable that people would question the value of putting the male in the subservient position, this assumes that the critique of traditional sexual relationships is about some abstract notion of power. But the rad-fems taught us that power is intertwined with gender. Gender inversion destroys that patriarchal power and replaces it with something else that isn’t inherently bad. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/25 "2017-06-20T20:52:33Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Here’s a Clif’s Notes version (I think): > > Some liberals are skeptical of radical feminists, because of rad-fem views on transgender women, sex, and porn. This is no surprise to rad-fems, who are accustomed to bad press. But despite this reputation, radical feminism had and has a lot to teach us. > > Radical feminism addressed sexuality more directly and analytically, and was the core from which central feminist tenets and understandings came in the 80s. Radical feminists imagined a sexuality that was not violent or conquest-based. That resonated for me as someone who did not want to treat girls as prey. > > Radical feminists speak of the centrality of gender polarization to political and economic affairs. They see power and control and our reactions to them as inherently gendered and patriarchal concepts. It follows that gender nonconforming sexual relationships are radical threats to patriarchy and political and economic oppression. Specifically, gender inversion (in which a male and female adopt the opposite of their traditional gender roles) dismantles the patriarchy where it most matters, in individual sexual relationships. > > Why gender inversion and not abandonment of gender altogether? For one, it works better in a society that isn’t fully on board with or expecting sexual egalitarianism. Also, while it’s understandable that people would question the value of putting the male in the subservient position, this assumes that the critique of traditional sexual relationships is about some abstract notion of power. But the rad-fems taught us that power is intertwined with gender. Gender inversion destroys that patriarchal power and replaces it with something else that isn’t inherently bad. Can you edit his posts from now on? ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/26 "2017-06-20T20:58:47Z")
Just have to say, I read it, and while it did involve some more attention than I usually have to put into online writing for the masses, it was totally understandable, even for someone without specialized knowledge. I’m not quite sure, **AHunter3** , how you feel gender inversion does away with the subject-object paradigm. Doesn’t it still rely on the ‘fence’ to define relationships between people, even the sex characteristics of the participants don’t match their culturally-expected behaviors? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/27 "2017-06-20T21:04:12Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > You lost me here: Authentic frontier gibberish. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/28 "2017-06-20T21:45:56Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Here’s a Clif’s Notes version (I think): > > Some liberals are skeptical of radical feminists, because of rad-fem views on transgender women, sex, and porn. This is no surprise to rad-fems, who are accustomed to bad press. But despite this reputation, radical feminism had and has a lot to teach us. > > Radical feminism addressed sexuality more directly and analytically, and was the core from which central feminist tenets and understandings came in the 80s. Radical feminists imagined a sexuality that was not violent or conquest-based. That resonated for me as someone who did not want to treat girls as prey. > > Radical feminists speak of the centrality of gender polarization to political and economic affairs. They see power and control and our reactions to them as inherently gendered and patriarchal concepts. It follows that gender nonconforming sexual relationships are radical threats to patriarchy and political and economic oppression. Specifically, gender inversion (in which a male and female adopt the opposite of their traditional gender roles) dismantles the patriarchy where it most matters, in individual sexual relationships. > > Why gender inversion and not abandonment of gender altogether? For one, it works better in a society that isn’t fully on board with or expecting sexual egalitarianism. Also, while it’s understandable that people would question the value of putting the male in the subservient position, this assumes that the critique of traditional sexual relationships is about some abstract notion of power. But the rad-fems taught us that power is intertwined with gender. Gender inversion destroys that patriarchal power and replaces it with something else that isn’t inherently bad. If I’m understanding it properly, you’ve summarized the OP well. Then again, I respect the work and through process of the OP as well. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/29 "2017-06-20T21:59:56Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Heh! There have been many a SDMB thread centered on math or engineering or physics where I’ve been the one who couldn’t follow along at home. I’ve been posting here a long time. I’ve never come across a math or engineering or physics OP that was as dense and as lengthy as your OP. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, with this as my new baseline, maybe my subsequent blog posts will yield comments like “Hey, that was well-written and easy to follow, you’re doing a good job crafting accessible writing!” 🆒 Personally–at the risk of marking myself as a dunce–I have a hard time understanding even your more accessible writing. Perhaps I’m too accustomed to technical writing, where succinctness and precision are emphasized, but it’s like you use 100 words when 30-50 would suffice. **Procrustus’s** tone is harsher than mine, but I agree with him. “Subject-object adversarial worldview” makes me want to throw something because it sounds needlessly abstruse. Perhaps it communicates something to someone who is already a true believer and knows the lexicon, but to a person like myself who was never exposed to liberal arts beyond ENG 101 and HIST 101, it causes me to put up a huge cognitive block. Instead of stoking my curiosity, it’s making me roll my eyes. When I was in grad school, I participated in a semester-long workshop where feminist studies scholars and women scientists got together to discuss critiques of science from a feminist perspective. Our discussions were always kinda interesting since it was clear (at least to me) that the scientists (the group I was a part of) didn’t understand any of the texts we had been assigned to read, even though we really wanted to (the whole thing was completely voluntary and time-consuming, after all). The feminist scholars tried to break things down for us, but there was always a lot of head-shaking and eye-rubbing on my end of the table. My grad advisor participated in the workshop along with me. She’s one of the most outspoken feminists I know, and she has her own litany of criticisms against science (or more accurately, the biases that exist in science). But even she was frustrated with the whole thing. I have no doubt that if we’d been tasked with discussing scientific writings, the feminist studies scholars would have struggled too. But the whole point of the workshop was to enrich us with feminist thought so that we would do better science. I’m sorry to say that I believe it created more confusion than enlightenment. ---
**Author:** ![Majestic\_Lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Majestic\_Lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Majestic_Lee)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/30 "2017-06-20T22:14:55Z")
I’ll get my coat… 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/31 "2017-06-20T22:16:00Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Can you edit his posts from now on? Indeed. I have no dispute with the substance of the OP, but i think I got a little PTSD from the language used. Sometimes pseudo intellectual jargon is illuminating, sometimes just annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/32 "2017-06-20T22:19:44Z")
It reads like a retread of the standard obsession with dominance & submission and demonization of men that is standard to a certain segment of the left. The kind of people who don’t believe in friendship, affection or kindness as possible motives for behavior; just power. The sort who think that a woman who has sex with her boyfriend to cheer him up is being raped, because she’s not doing it for herself and therefore by definition is a victim. The sort of people who think like Christian fundamentalists, except they switch out “Satan” with “the patriarchy” and “sinners” with “men”. Really, it’s just a wordy re-statement of why so many people consider radical feminists to be hateful control freaks. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/33 "2017-06-20T22:42:25Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Here’s a Clif’s Notes version (I think): > > Some liberals are skeptical of radical feminists, because of rad-fem views on transgender women, sex, and porn. This is no surprise to rad-fems, who are accustomed to bad press. But despite this reputation, radical feminism had and has a lot to teach us. > > Radical feminism addressed sexuality more directly and analytically, and was the core from which central feminist tenets and understandings came in the 80s. Radical feminists imagined a sexuality that was not violent or conquest-based. That resonated for me as someone who did not want to treat girls as prey. > > Radical feminists speak of the centrality of gender polarization to political and economic affairs. They see power and control and our reactions to them as inherently gendered and patriarchal concepts. It follows that gender nonconforming sexual relationships are radical threats to patriarchy and political and economic oppression. Specifically, gender inversion (in which a male and female adopt the opposite of their traditional gender roles) dismantles the patriarchy where it most matters, in individual sexual relationships. > > Why gender inversion and not abandonment of gender altogether? For one, it works better in a society that isn’t fully on board with or expecting sexual egalitarianism. Also, while it’s understandable that people would question the value of putting the male in the subservient position, this assumes that the critique of traditional sexual relationships is about some abstract notion of power. But the rad-fems taught us that power is intertwined with gender. Gender inversion destroys that patriarchal power and replaces it with something else that isn’t inherently bad. You’re really good at this. > [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Can you edit his posts from now on? Umm… that’s not a bad suggestion… ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/34 "2017-06-20T22:46:31Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > You’re really good at this. > > Umm… that’s not a bad suggestion… Friendly suggestion, you may want to look at the way **Richard Parker** edited what you wrote and made it much more understandable without “dumbing it down.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/35 "2017-06-20T22:51:13Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Here’s a Clif’s Notes version (I think): > > Some liberals are skeptical of radical feminists, because of rad-fem views on transgender women, sex, and porn. This is no surprise to rad-fems, who are accustomed to bad press. But despite this reputation, radical feminism had and has a lot to teach us. > > Radical feminism addressed sexuality more directly and analytically, and was the core from which central feminist tenets and understandings came in the 80s. Radical feminists imagined a sexuality that was not violent or conquest-based. That resonated for me as someone who did not want to treat girls as prey. > > Radical feminists speak of the centrality of gender polarization to political and economic affairs. They see power and control and our reactions to them as inherently gendered and patriarchal concepts. It follows that gender nonconforming sexual relationships are radical threats to patriarchy and political and economic oppression. Specifically, gender inversion (in which a male and female adopt the opposite of their traditional gender roles) dismantles the patriarchy where it most matters, in individual sexual relationships. > > Why gender inversion and not abandonment of gender altogether? For one, it works better in a society that isn’t fully on board with or expecting sexual egalitarianism. Also, while it’s understandable that people would question the value of putting the male in the subservient position, this assumes that the critique of traditional sexual relationships is about some abstract notion of power. But the rad-fems taught us that power is intertwined with gender. Gender inversion destroys that patriarchal power and replaces it with something else that isn’t inherently bad. Much better, but I still don’t get the point. In particular, what does the first sentence have to do with the rest of all that? We start out with “liberals” but never return to them. My main problem, I believe, is that I can’t understand what the thesis is. Or is there one? I can’t even figure out if radical feminists are in favor of or against “gender inversion”. We have “liberals”, “radical feminists” and “gender inversion” but I can’t figure out how they all fit together. Who is advocating for what and who is advocating against it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/36 "2017-06-21T00:35:30Z")
I agree with **John**. It doesn’t hang together for me. Individually the thoughts work, but there is no unifying concept? ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/37 "2017-06-21T00:44:38Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Could you give us a 100-word summary? How about 5 words or less? ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/38 "2017-06-21T02:42:22Z")
What are they whining about now? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/39 "2017-06-21T02:50:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > We have “liberals”, “radical feminists” and “gender inversion” but I can’t figure out how they all fit together. Who is advocating for what and who is advocating against it. Here is what you do. Wait until the end of the meal and when the check comes, see if one picks up the tab or if the other insists on splitting the bill. Then, if they share a cab, the one who ends up doing the walk of shame - that’s the poseur. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/40 "2017-06-21T13:30:33Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > a) “Society – as we know it (and) as many of us conceptualize as human nature…” > > As Myrian Miedzian once put it: “It is a universal fact of human existence that what we know best, that which forms part of our everyday mental landscape, is also that which we most take for granted, and question the least. And so some of the strongest jolts to our awareness, the deepest reorientations in our thought, often come from being confronted with the obvious.” Myrian Miedzian is right. But consider this. There is no we. The conception you have of society is not the same as that which I have. It’s true that perception of society is often taken as perception of human nature, but there is no objective perception of society. Hence we can never know society, and any mistaken conceptualisation of human nature must inevitably be based on a conceptualisation of society which is equally as likely to be mistaken. > [@](#): > > b) …“subject-object”… > > As Andrea Dworkin succintly put it: “Man fucks woman. Subject verb object”. Subject-object basically means an interaction in which one person is doing something to another person, as distinguished from people doing something together. > > The notion here is that there’s a fundamental difference between thinking of sex in terms of “Did he fuck her yet” or “Yeah baby I wanna get a piece of that”, on the one hand, and “I think they’re upstairs having wild monkey sex” or “Voulez-vous couchec avec moi” on the other — That’s a very macho point of view. That use of language is entirely focused on the male experience. Women also have agency and desires. Each person is likely to be focused on their own, “wanning a piece of that”, but there will be analogous desires on the female side. Mayhap Dworkin saw the issue thus because she was herself a lesbian and her experience of sex was one of pursuing women. IT could be that the objects of her verbs would see things differently. > [@](#): > > c) … “polarized, adversarial”… > > “Polarized” is restating a lot of what is already embedded in “subject-object”, but with additional emphasis on the fact that the experience of sex is very different for the subject (the fucker, if you will) and the object (the fuckee). That doesn’t in and of itself mean that it is necessarily _unpleasant_ to be done unto — but “adversarial” highlights the way in which the players are set against each other in this pageant, as opponents. I do not believe this to be representative of society. The competitive element is within groups, both with sex and society. Men compete with men to get women into bed, not with women. Women compete to have rhe highest heels. Men compete to have the largest muscles. Just examples. Sexual competition is not so generally characterised by competing as to who goes on top. This statement also limits women once again to a passive role as she who is acted upon. They do go on top. Femdom is very popular. People use double headed dildos to indulge in pegging. So I do not accept the existence of a polarised experience or the absolute existence of a fucker and a fuckee. > [@](#): > > c) …“dynamics”… > > The “dynamics” of anything means, basically, “how power works here”. The operation of power as a process, a sequence of events, a dance of sorts. A horizontal mambo. > [@](#): > > d) …" writ large" > > Kind of like saying "extrapolate what you see at this level to the entirety of society. As Sonia Johnson once said People is society at large do not commonly comport themselves as if they were in bed. Nor is there some gestalt whereby doing unto one does unto the collective. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440.md?page=3)