# 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:** 3
**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 21, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/41 "2017-06-21T13:39:47Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > How about 5 words or less? > [@Isamu](#): > > What are they whining about now? That’s 6. 🙂 ---
**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 21, 2017, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/42 "2017-06-21T13:55:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > 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. > [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > I agree with **John**. It doesn’t hang together for me. Individually the thoughts work, but there is no unifying concept? I am putting forth the idea that gender inversion (especially in a heterosexual context) is congruent with radical feminism. It’s not that _they_ have said so; _I_ have said so. (I’m also saying that LGBT people have a lot to thank radical feminism for, even if there have indeed been some adversarial confrontations especially between M2F transgender people and “trans exclusive” radical feminists). ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/43 "2017-06-21T14:01:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Or is there one? I can’t even figure out if radical feminists are in favor of or against “gender inversion”. I _think_ radical feminists are against gender inversion, because gender inversion involves people taking on parts of a traditional role that rad-fems see as exploitative. Perhaps **AHunter3** will correct me. > [@](#): > > 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. It sounds to me like Ms. Dworkin did not have a lot of experience with good sex, as opposed to the other kind. That’s not to say there is nothing true about what she says, but in general, IME that’s not how it works, at least not ideally. Regards, Shodan ---
**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 21, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/44 "2017-06-21T15:02:16Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I am putting forth the idea that gender inversion (especially in a heterosexual context) is congruent with radical feminism. It’s not that _they_ have said so; _I_ have said so. Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place! 😉 ---
**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, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/45 "2017-06-21T15:48:58Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Nowadays on LGBTQIA group chats and in leftist social discussions, the phrase “radical feminism” most often appears in a pejorative mention – TERFS (“trans exclusive radical feminists”) being castigated for their intransigence about female-spectrum transgender people, or disparaged for being anti-sex and anti-free-speech as exemplified by the MacKinnon-Dworkin pornography ordinance from a few decades ago, or accused of lying about data and making up statistics and being these vindictively hateful people who just want to blame males for everything. What is politically correct and acceptable changes. Once sex negative feminism was very popular, and allied with other groups like crazy fundamentalists in their war against fun. Nowadays the gays are having their day in the sun in the mainstream and the transexuals in the fringes. So now the fundamentalists are left to plough a lone furrow in their fight against toilet transgressions. That’s the zeitgeist. And of course the vilification and the fictional statistics don’t help. However the change might only be skin-deep. Although it is currently unacceptable for feminists to publicly speak against the transsexuals or others, there are still prominent feminists who are enemies of fun. Feminists are still perceived as intrusively forcing themselves into areas of interest they have no place. Anita Sarkeesian’s crusade against gamers, the fuss over Joss Whedon’s script for Age of Ultron, the legislating of sexual relationships at universities and other areas where feminists have continued to fight the good fight against sexual liberation, free thought and fun. > [@](#): > > Not that any of that would be a major surprise for the radical feminists I read throughout the 70s 80s and 90s. They knew they were hitting a nerve and were accustomed to receiving bad press and misrepresentation. I am sad to see them undercredited and disregarded by those who benefit from their insights though. Someone who considers themselves to be a radical will expect to be shut out of the mainstream. More than that, radicalism is literally a return to the roots and constitutes an insurrection against the corrupt mainstream, of feminism in this case. How could one hold that belief without believing that the corruption will attempt to defend itself with a reaction against the cleansing fire of your radicalism? > [@](#): > > To review the basics, feminism in a broad general sense was a beacon of hope for me growing up, because its overall attitude towards gender was “hey, if it’s sauce for the goose, it’s sauce for the gander” – that, regardless of whether men and women were different or were just regarded as different, it wasn’t defensible to use a different yardstick of acceptable behavior. They pointed out the inconsistencies and folks recognized the unfairness. For me, as a gender invert, an exception to society’s general rules about males and their personality and behavior, this translated as “hey, if it’s OK for girls, it’s OK for me; and if it’s not OK for girls, then it’s not right for the boys and hence it’s not right to pressure me to be that way”. I would also have considered myself a feminist when I was very young. I think it comes from being a massive fan of quantum leap, you know he always travelled through time teaching people the evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, locking “retards” in asylums, &c… I changed my mind when I first got on the internet. It was all Usenet back then, and I encountered feminists on there. > [@](#): > > Now, _RADICAL_ feminism, specifically, came to people’s attention as it began to pinpoint topics that more mainstream feminism in the 70s shied away from: specifically sexuality, both in the sense of sexual orientation (yes, lesbian pride) but also more analytically in the sense of analyzing sexual politics, the politics of sexuality and sexual behaviors. Kate Millett taking contemporary depictions of sex and sexuality and holding them up for us to see how much they were about sex as an act of conquest and hostility, and about the eroticism of men having power over women. Susan Brownmiller writing about rape not as a horrifyingly deviant act but as a horrifyingly normative extension of how things otherwise were between the sexes, and as part and parcel of that overall situation. By going there, by having the courage and nerve to speak of such things as if they could perhaps be otherwise, and daring to condemn these situations instead of accepting them as a shameful but permanent part of human nature, radical feminism was the core from which central feminist tenets and understandings came in the 80s. I feel like there are obvious flaws in taking insights on sexuality from people who were largely lesbian, seemingly obsessed with both sex and power, and writing a decade or more before I was born. When you write, about whatever topic, you inevitably write about yourself. > [@](#): > > Catherine MacKinnon observed in 1987 (_Feminism Unmodified_), “…our subordination is eroticized in and as female; in fact, we get off on it to a degree, if nowhere near as much as men do. This is our stake in this sytem that is not in our interest, our stake in this system that is killing us. I’m saying femininity as we know it is how we come to want male dominance, which most emphatically is not in our interest.” So her position was that the stake women collectively held in society was the thrill of sexual submission? It’s a statement which certainly contains many assumptions, none of which I agree with. That women are subordinated, that men generally get off on sexual domination, the status quo is not in the interests of women, or that there is any connection between the position one holds in society and the position one prefers in bed. > [@](#): > > Adrienne Rich, Jill Johnston and others questioned the “natural” centrality of heterosexuality, positing a different sexuality – a sexuality between women but specifically different because, unlike heterosexuality as it existed and tended to define sexuality altogether, it could be mutually affirming, sensuous, not violent, an alternative to a conventional model of sexuality in which women’s role was that of “natural sexual prey” (Rich) to men. So what do you suppose to be the motive behind such writings? It could be an attempt at an objective view of society, certainly. It could be the writing of someone who wishes it was true. A sexual deviant longing to be dominated. A sort of wish fulfillment, in pretending that what one wishes is true, as might be seen in something like the visionary work “A Novel of Roy Orbison in Cling-Film” by Ulriche Haarburste. It could be a cynical attempt at professional advancement. Selling intellectual bodice-rippers to the gullible masses. It could be the product of paranoia. Many women seem to have an irrational fear of male sexuality. Predators and prey cannot exist without each other, after all. I am reminded of an occasion on which I was taunted by a gang of street toughs for what they deemed my feminine appearance. My natural response was the race after them and teach them some manners. Of course they were faster than me and I was late for an appointment so the chase was extremely brief, but the point is that they outnumbered me and each was taller than me, if more willowy and slender. So why did they flee? Because in the moment they took into themselves the essence of being prey. It was not their bodies which fled, but their minds. > [@](#): > > For me, that resonated powerfully: as a kid, I considered myself to be akin to the girls, regarding them and respecting them as colleagues and seeking them as friends, and now as a sexually adult person I wanted that mutually affirming sharing form of sex and wanted nothing to do with the adversarial and predatory model that was predominant in all understandings and portrayals of “wild uncivilized sex”. > > Nor did I find much to interest me in the non-wild, tamed, civilized version of sex, for that matter. Here there was a disparagement of sex itself as suspect, as something people should abstain from for a prolonged period after attaining the age of feeling the full appetite for it, and even after that should only engage in sex within very narrowly defined permissible channels. Here, perhaps, was a model for engaging in sex (eventually) without embracing all that adversarial and predatory hostility, yeah, sure, but it was basically saying that yes, sex IS like that, it’s just that being like that is bad and naughty so sex is bad and naughty and we will therefore put sex in a cage. And even in this context, sexuality was not going to be mutually affirming, not as far as I could see: the nice girls had to preserve their reputations and also refrain from tempting the boys, and the boys were to suppress their desires and not sully the chastity of the girls, and then when he could adequately support a family he could get married and then she’d let him do it to her. The sexuality inside the cage was the same sexuality; the notions and understandings of it were still polarized and painted a picture of male sexuality that I wanted no part of. In that respect the radical feminist belief if the same as that of the most retrograde a regressive persons from the fundamentalist fringe or the distant past. Nothing is as required to be, all things are what you make them. Radical feminism could have adopted a form of positive liberty whereby one changes oneself, not merely railed against a world of sin. > [@](#): > > Radical feminists tended to see sex as insurrection; they observed that even though it was politically dangerous to women in the current context, putting women in the position of sleeping with the enemy and eroticizing male domination, it was treated as dangerous by the patriarchy as well, and for good reason. The same intimacy that threatened women with too much identification and connection with their oppressor was a threat to the patriarchal system and its requirement that women be perceived as other. Sex is biologically engineered to promote pair bonding. If one’s first loyalty is to one’s “other half”, then there is something held near than the ideology, whether that is feminism or something else. For that reason is poses a threat and provokes a response, a sort of Junior Anti-Sex League. > [@](#): > > Jan Raymond and Mary Daly, among other radical feminists, have indeed been hostile to any acceptance of transgender women. Those who have expressed such sentiments are not the entirety of radical feminism, though. Buried among the more publicized nasty sentiments, though, have been radical feminist voices whose concerns about the transgender phenomenon mirror, almost exactly, the concerns now being voiced by nonbinary activists: that jumping the fence, as it were, is not a radical solution to the fence between the genders, insofar as it leaves the fence intact. Neither the radical feminists nor the current wave of nonbinary genderqueer folks have a sufficient excuse for being as intolerant as they’ve often been towards people who simply feel that they personally will be happier when transitioned so as to be treated and perceived as the persons that they are. But it is a gross oversimplification to portray radical feminism as intrinsically opposed to transgender people. To me the TE and RF seem like very different and seperate things. IT only makes sense for the two to commingle if one considers men to be inherently alien and is worried about corruption and infiltration. > [@](#): > > Radical feminists spoke of the centrality of gender polarization. They said the political dynamics between the sexes was the central keystone issue in our society, and that the sexual dynamics as made erotic within patriarchal heterosexuality was the fundamental building block around which our political power arrangements were patterned. It wasn’t the first time that one social factor had been pinpointed as the central core of all politics – Marxism had done it with labor and the ownership of the means of production – but it was the first to come along in a century and it took some common-place everyday understandings and inverted them to make sense of them in new ways: it wasn’t that the awful world of competitive social and economic posturing tended to invade and corrupt the intimacy of sexuality and sexual relationships but that the corrupted form of sexuality and sexual relationships eroticized and rendered irresistible those forms of interaction and made them present everywhere that people interacted. There have always been such people who are over-interested in sex. Freudians. Wilhelm Reich. Some people just think with the wrong parts. Some women identify with their sex above all else and hence see society that way. Some other people don’t like race mixers for the same reason. They see it as “us and them”, and it’s harder to hate them when you’re fucking them. > [@](#): > > Society as we know it, as many of us conceptualize as human nature, is sexual subject-object polarized adversarial dynamics, writ large. Robin Morgan wrote about feminism as the “larger context”: > For almost two decades, I’ve written about, lectured on, and > organized for the ideas and politics of feminism for the sake of > _women_ …as a matter of simple justice. If, in fact, these > were the sole reasons for and goals of the movement and > consciousness we call feminism, they would be quite > sufficient…nor is it necessary to apologize for feminism’s > concerning itself 'merely" with women, or to justify feminism on > the “please, may I” ground that it’s good for men too… In the > long run, it _will_ be good for men, but even were it > permanently to prove as discomfiting for men as it seems to be in > the short run, that wouldn’t make women’s needs and demands any the > less just. So the fact that I place feminism in a “larger > context” is neither an apology nor a justification. It is simply > to show, once and for all, that _feminism is the larger > context_… The “Otherizing” of women is the oldest oppression > known to our species, and it’s the model, the template, for all > other oppressions. Until and unless _this_ division is > healed, we continue putting Band-Aids on our most mortal wound. > > — _The Anatomy of Freedom_ The rationale seems to be that the solution to being “othered” is to other those people twice as hard. > [@](#): > > Marilyn French wrote about power as the central patriarchal obsession, and taught us to recognize power by its own central imperative: the possession of control. Everywhere, she said, we see the sacrifices made in the name of obtaining and retaining control, as if it were an intrinsic good and a necessity in and of itself. And here again is the eroticized sexual imperative, the attempt to seize and make things happen according to one’s own will and without concern for the will of that which is being controlled except as a possible impediment to be conquered. There certainly seems to be an obsession with power on the part of these people, but not in any way patriarchal of course. A mirror image of that which they believe to be there. They imagine an eroticised psychopathic power, all seizing and conquering and so on, but it only exists within them. Radical feminists seem to be perverts, is what I’m saying here. Power-mad sexual deviants, driven by sexual paranoia. > [@](#): > > Within the pages of lesbian radical feminism, as lesbian feminists sought to explain why this was important beyond the expressed choice of who to have sex with, came the growing recognition that in both gay and lesbian sexuality the people involved are not anchored by the body in which they were born to a preordained scripted role – you weren’t tied to being butch or femme, to being the man or the woman, on the basis of your bodily sex; and that that was, itself, radical. It wasn’t how patriarchal heterosexuality was constructed and hence it was a threat, which went a long way towards explaining the hostility reserved for gay and lesbian people. I’m not aware of any hostility towards lesbians. It was never illegal, certainly. There were never beatings or lynchings, as there were with gay men, and there is no disavowal by the progressive stack now, as there has been for homosexual men. > [@](#): > > To say “patriarchal heterosexuality” was, and still is, somewhat akin to speaking of “women’s lingerie” or “earthly lifeform” – our conventional understanding of the category completely eliminates any need for the adjectives because those are the only forms we have tended to encounter. In the feminist imagining, certainly. In reality, men are never in a position of power in any form of heterosexual relationship. > [@](#): > > Genderqueer sexual politics is radical sexual politics, and especially so the specific formulation of gender inversion: whether we refer to it as “heterosexual” or choose not to, to posit sexual relationships between male people and female people in which the participants are not gendered as men and women, respectively, elaborates on the radical departure from subject-object adversarial dynamics spoken of by the lesbian feminists; specifically, it extends it to where it is needed the most, directly dismantling what we’ve been describing as the core of the whole system. Untying male-female sexual possibilities from heterosexuality as we know it. That would depend on your definition of “genderqueer sexual politics”, as that is a non-standard term. > [@](#): > > “Why”, you may ask, “is it necessary to embrace gender inversion? Isn’t it more useful to discard gender and embrace absolute gender equality instead? And if the female role is and has been on the receiving end of patriarchal oppression, of what conceivable value is it to issue a loud political hurrah for males styling themselves as feminine and wanting to be the girl in their relationships? Isn’t that just making a fetish of the accoutrements of being one of the oppressed?” A better question would be “what is gender inversion”. Is the man taking it up the arse? Is the woman working 50 hours a week and paying for everything? > [@](#): > > Firstly, let’s consider the limits of “let’s just be equal shall we” optimistic idealism against the backdrop of the current eroticized ‘devil boy chase angel girl’ polarization. We go bravely forth (or we send forth the subsequent generation, all consciousness-raised and socially aware) into a social world that knows there may be sexually egalitarian people. It also knows to expect the continued existence of people in the traditional mold. The social milieu of expectations therefore is newly open to equality while still entirely familiar with the orthodox which is gender-specific. Anyone who has had to spend an evening doing arithmetic homework knows that when you do averages, the average that you obtain is less than the higher number, so when you average out the expectations of sexually egalitarian and sexually orthodox, your result is going to be sexually orthodox by some amount. Some would argue that we’re dealing here with insuperable forces of nature. I’m not normally big on biotruths, but sex is a special case. We have sex problems for the same reason we have obesity problems. People love sugar. So we’re probably going to end up with things being in the orthodox manner for ever, and can only make allowances for those who diverge. > [@](#): > > Secondly, yes, I can understand the misgivings about a set of traits and behaviors marked as submissive and subservient and offering them to males as a desirable experience and identity. But it is the subject-object adversarial worldview that tends to see things only in terms of power over and of domination or submission. Exactly _WHAT_ is it that males are deprived of in a patriarchal context? Does it not strike you as odd that a patriarchy, a system of male power and privilege, should deny freedoms to its males with such intensity as it denies variant gender expression? The answer is that power is not a substance owned by the powerful. Power is instead a relationship that defines all parties involved, the powerful and the oppressed alike. There are no contradictions because there is no patriarchy. Our society is not a patriarchy, it is not designed or run to benefit men. The Occam’s Razor of patriarchy theory: there is no patriarchy. > [@](#): > > It’s _not_ about seeking subserviency or making a fetish of being dominated; there is and has always been an encoding of traits as feminine as part and parcel of encoding power as male, AND no, the boys don’t get all the good ones. You’re never going to understand this if you don’t understand that some things are more desirable than power. But yes it is not a desire to be oppressed (by women or anyone else). I share Robin Morgan’s and Marilyn French’s radical feminist vision of a world no longer anchored by the obsession with controlling others. I’m already not obsessed with controlling others. It’s not possible to control others. Feminists are just topping from the bottom. ---
**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, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/46 "2017-06-21T17:05:58Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > the fuss over Joss Whedon’s script for Age of Ultron, [total sidebar] What the hell are they going on about? Bashing Joss does seem to be the order of the day. No need to answer. I will research, now that I have more context.[/sidebar] > [@blindboyard](#): > > There are no contradictions because there is no patriarchy. Our society is not a patriarchy, it is not designed or run to benefit men. The Occam’s Razor of patriarchy theory: there is no patriarchy. Unless there is something in the referenced texts with which I am not familiar (entirely possible), we are going to disagree on this point. Our society is still very much constructed (given its historical basis) for the benefit of men and runs to the larger benefit of men. ---
**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 21, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/47 "2017-06-21T18:23:52Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I _think_ radical feminists are against gender inversion, because gender inversion involves people taking on parts of a traditional role that rad-fems see as exploitative. Perhaps **AHunter3** will correct me. Radical feminists do not as of yet have a position on gender inversion _per se_. Most of the world does not as of yet have a position on gender inversion yet. I may succeed in changing that, by putting the idea out there and causing people to react to it and decide how they feel about it. > [@](#): > > It sounds to me like Ms. Dworkin did not have a lot of experience with good sex, as opposed to the other kind. That’s not to say there is nothing true about what she says, but in general, IME that’s not how it works, at least not ideally. > > Regards, > Shodan My experience would tend to corroborate yours. But my experience also includes running head-on into that “sex equals man fucks woman” atttitude. I know full well of what she speaks. It’s not everywhere in the sense that air is everywhere but it’s everywhere in the sense that email spam is everywhere. I would be amazed if you had not had to wade through and evaluate and discard those notions yourself. Attitudes, perhaps expressed by your classmates and neighbors or male cousins and friends to the effect that if you find female people sexually fascinating you gotta go do stuff, there are techniques, strategies, etc, that sex is something we male folks _do to them_, it’s up to _us_ to make it happen. Not to mention wink-wink nudge-nudge “jokes” about ignoring lack of consent or strategies to get around it. No? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place! 😉 Hi, John! I did. Look, lots of folks have expressed appreciation for the **Richard Parker Condensed Version** , including me. A complex and detailed photograph can be used as the source image to make a 32 x 32 pixel icon. Doing so in such a way that the gist of the original image is captured in the icon is a true talent, but it’s an inherently lossy process. My original post may have benefitted from a friendly editor (I just spewed the thing out freehand and moved one paragraph, fixed a couple typos and ran with it). But it’s length and complexity are not just pillow-fluff. (IMHO, anyway). My summary is a summary that summarizes; the statement is indeed embedded in the original. ---
**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 21, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/48 "2017-06-21T18:29:43Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > There are no contradictions because there is no patriarchy. [QUOTE=AHunter3 (8/13/2012)] [I tend to view patriarchy deniers as being as out of touch with reality as holocaust deniers](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15380114&postcount=41) [/quote] > [@blindboyard](#): > > When you write, about whatever topic, you inevitably write about yourself. Indeed. ---
**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 21, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/49 "2017-06-21T18:40:24Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > My original post may have benefitted from a friendly editor (I just spewed the thing out freehand and moved one paragraph, fixed a couple typos and ran with it). But it’s length and complexity are not just pillow-fluff. (IMHO, anyway). > > My summary is a summary that summarizes; the statement is indeed embedded in the original. A thesis statement is always a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/50 "2017-06-21T18:57:37Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > My experience would tend to corroborate yours. But my experience also includes running head-on into that “sex equals man fucks woman” atttitude. I know full well of what she speaks. It’s not everywhere in the sense that air is everywhere but it’s everywhere in the sense that email spam is everywhere. I would be amazed if you had not had to wade through and evaluate and discard those notions yourself. Sure. This might be part of the “everyone thinks their experience is the norm”. AFAICT the rad-fems think the “man fucks woman, woman gains power by withholding sex, men regain power by rape” is all there is to heterosexuality. And it’s not. And as radical feminists become more and more radical, they move further and further from the experience, not only of men, but of women. Which I believe contributes to why people are more reluctant to identify as feminist nowadays. Early and classical feminism succeeded because it resonated with the experience of many or most women. Radical feminism doesn’t. Sex doesn’t necessarily imply exploitation. Women don’t get paid less than men for the same work. There are real, persistent, biologically based differences between the sexes. And there is no crying in baseball. Except during the play offs. Regards, Shodan ---
**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 21, 2017, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/51 "2017-06-21T19:43:19Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Radical feminists do not as of yet have a position on gender inversion _per se_. Most of the world does not as of yet have a position on gender inversion yet. You could possibly help move that process forward by explaining exactly what the holy hell “gender inversion” _is_? > [@](#): > > My original post may have benefitted from a friendly editor. Your posts would benefit even more from a ruthless editor. ---
**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 21, 2017, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/52 "2017-06-21T20:01:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > You could possibly help move that process forward by explaining exactly what the holy hell “gender inversion” _is_? [Yep](http://ahunter3.livejournal.com/3438.html). That’s what this whole process is about. ---
**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 21, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/53 "2017-06-21T20:25:34Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > [Yep](http://ahunter3.livejournal.com/3438.html). That’s what this whole process is about. I note that in one of your early posts you say that your [del]manifesto[/del] [del]treatise[/del] book on this is 95,000 words long. I [note](https://electricliterature.com/infographic-word-counts-of-famous-books-161f025a6b09) that is longer than _Of Mice and Men_, _Animal Farm_, and _A Christmas Carol_ put together. You might want to reflect on what each of those stories managed to convey in 30,000 words or so. Then wonder if what you need to say can’t be said in half of that. ---
**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 21, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/54 "2017-06-21T21:31:29Z")
It’s not a manifesto or a treatise, it’s a memoir. Akin to a novel, a good story to read with characters and dialog and all that shit. Not a work of radical feminist theory. (I’d like to write one someday though) My book is not particularly long for a good novel. (Admittedly any length can be bloody awful for a bad story). _Rubyfruit Jungle_ was shorter at 74,400. _The Women’s Room_ was longer at 153,760. _To Kill a Mockingbird_ is 100,388 words long. _Gone With the Wind_ weighs in at 418,053. _Anne of Green Gables_ is almost exactly as long as my book. You might want to reflect on whether or not you have a point, and how and why you are making it. I have an editor. He will suggest any places where I should consider cutting or reducing verbiage or condensing two scenes into one, etc, before it goes into print. It may not be to your liking, may not appeal to your taste in literature. But I’m not particularly worried that you or other potential readers like you will pass it by because it isn’t a shorter read. ---
**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 21, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/55 "2017-06-21T21:47:04Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > It’s not a manifesto or a treatise, it’s a memoir. Akin to a novel, a good story to read with characters and dialog and all that shit. Not a work of radical feminist theory. (I’d like to write one someday though). Okay, then without having to read your novel, and without having to read every entry on your blog, can you explain (in a couple of dozen words, not a couple of dozen paragraphs) what you mean by “gender inversion?” Because when I google that, I get a Wiki entry for “sexual inversion”, an archaic term for homosexuality, which I do not think you mean. I’m not trying to be difficult when I say that I do not know what you mean by that term. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/56 "2017-06-21T21:50:27Z")
While I by no means understand everything you write, **AHunter3** , I am very glad to read what you write. It’s good to have my thinking challenged. It’s good to read something difficult sometimes. I can’t say the comments you sometimes get are good to read, but you do have a few intelligent readers here and there, so I hope you keep on keeping on. ---
**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 21, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/57 "2017-06-21T21:53:27Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Okay, then without having to read your novel, and without having to read every entry on your blog, can you explain (in a couple of dozen words, not a couple of dozen paragraphs) what you mean by “gender inversion?” Because when I google that, I get a Wiki entry for “sexual inversion”, an archaic term for homosexuality, which I do not think you mean. I’m not trying to be difficult when I say that I do not know what you mean by that term. I got this from his blog: > [@](#): > > I’m a girl, that’s my gender; I’m male, that’s my sex; I’m attracted to females, that’s my orientation. > I don’t feel as if I were born in the wrong body. I can understand what he’s saying. I"m not sure why it’s as difficult to live like that as he implies. I’d actually like to hear more about what the “problem” is. Also,by and large, I find his blog much clearer than the OP here. ---
**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 21, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/58 "2017-06-21T22:05:35Z")
> [@Darren Garrison](#): > > I’m not trying to be difficult when I say that I do not know what you mean by that term. I know you don’t. I’m not deliberately being an obtuse jerk about it, i.e., I’m not trying to be difficult either. These are reposted blog posts and I tend to write them _as if_ stuff I’d said in previous blog posts had been read by the folks reading it, even though that’s not always so; they build on each other and so forth and it would be cumbersome to restate everything that wasn’t already out there in general public consciousness each time I reference it. In brief: _gender invert_ is a specific type of _genderqueer_. (Genderqueer is an “umbrella” term, a sort of “etc” category into which lots of non-identical gender-variant folks group themselves). Genderqueer in general means “not the expected or normative gender identity”. Gender invert means that either you are a physically male person who identifies as a feminine gender (girl, woman, gal, etc) or else you are a physically female person who identifies as a masculine gender (boy, man, guy), AND you do not reject either your biological sex or your gender as inappropriate — this is just who you are, a male girl or a female boy or whatever terms you end up using. A gender invert would not necessarily be a person whose sexual orientation was towards the opposite biological sex or towards the reciprocal gender-inverted people of that opposite biological sex for that matter — in other words like most gender identities, it exists separate from sexual orientation. But in practice every person I’ve ever met who has formulated a gender identity along these lines has done so after considering and rejecting the possibility that they were gay (or lesbian), or bi, “nope that’s not it”, and also considered and rejected the possibility that they were trans and would benefit from hormones and genital reassignment surgery, “nope that’s not it either”, because those possibilities are out there to be considered, and this one sort of isn’t, those of us who fit the description have to figure it out pretty much entirely on our own. The reason you don’t already know this is that there’s no readily recognized term for it. “Gender invert” is MY term. (Not that it’s never been used at all, but it’s not a term that everyone with a basically similar description is likely to be using – they all had to find their own ways of describing themselves). Which, once again, is what the whole process is about. Why I wrote the book and why I write the blog. ---
**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 21, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/59 "2017-06-21T22:09:41Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I got this from his blog: > > “I’m a girl, that’s my gender; I’m male, that’s my sex; I’m attracted to females, that’s my orientation.” Okay, that is just the [Gender [del]Hippo[/del] Unicorn](http://www.transstudent.org/genderunicorn1.jpg). > [@](#): > > I can understand what he’s saying. I"m not sure why it’s as difficult to live like that as he implies. I’d actually like to hear more about what the “problem” is. But where does the “inversion” come into play? (eta written while above post was being posted) ---
**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 21, 2017, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440/60 "2017-06-21T22:41:19Z")
My recurrent complaint with the “unicorn” and its close siblings like this [Genderbread Person](http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Genderbread-2.1.jpg) is first they explain in compellingly clear ways why you can’t just designate someone as “a man” or “a woman” – you got their bio sex, you got their internalized identity, you got their presentation to the rest of the world, so it’s multifaceted, right? Then they include sexual orientation and it gives you two freaking choices: you’re into women or you’re into men 😕 WTF? If for YOU it is more complicated than “man” vs “woman”, then who you’re attracted to might not boil down so easily to such limited categories either, hey? ETA: OK, they do have “other” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-radical-feminism/789440.md?page=4)