Talk:Radical feminism/Archive 1

message: Zen-master has initiated debate over the title of the Radical feminism article. E asserts that the title is either POV, needlessly ambiguous, or politically damaging to the feminist cause. Alternately, others have argued that to alter the title would create neologisms and be confusing. This Straw poll is to gague the opinion of contributors to this article - should the title stand as Radical feminism or be moved to another title such as Feminism (anti-patriarchal), Feminism (separationist), or similar. 
Please vote to keep, change or comment, give reasons and sign with ~~~~. The straw poll will stay open until a consensus or majority emerges, or 1.45pm on 27 April 2005, EST (Australian time). An An
*keep - the title is the proper noun of a historical movement, and means more than its narrow definition in american politics. The name is widely known, and was previously undisputed.An An 04:25, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straw poll: Keep or change title 

message: I've been looking around wikipedia a fair amount recently.  I thought about what subjects I might know more about than an average interenet person and could contribute something to.  I read through the article and the talk page and the debate that was had.  I think what is missing in the article is especially missing in the debate.  
Radical feminism is not just -or in my opinion, primarily- a different type of feminism.  It is primarilly a distinct historical movement that took place among specific people in specific places at a specific time.  The background ideology, root causes, aims, and individual participants were distinct from that of liberal feminism.  
In short, Radical Feminism (in this understanding, which does not preclude the idea of radical feminism as more radical than liberal feminism) started in the late sixties with a membership almost exclusively of disenchanted New Left women who gathered together in Consciousness Raising groups and shared stories of how they had been mistreated and marginalized in their actions for groups like SNCC and SDS.  Their feminist awakening grew out of New Left politics and was tinged with a New Left tactics and disastisfaction with society as a whole.  The CR groups were central to its inception and growth but the highly personal nature of these groups led to factions and splintering quite quickly.  It could be said that this Radical Feminist Movement ended in the early seventies.  It was nonetheless highly influential in that it broadened the feminist debate and forced the liberal feminists like Betty Friedan and NOW to think about patriarchy as a whole and to consider the different struggles faced by women outside of a white middle class perspective; including lesbians, women of various races and ethnicities, and the poor.
below is a link to a research paper on the subject I wrote for a history seminar a few years ago in college.
http://pleasedisposeofthispapermindfully.com/2701.html
I've never done any wikipedia stuff before so I don't know if I should come up with a section to add to the previous article, write a new article incorporating the old, write my own to allow others to fit the two together, or just allow you all to read my thoughts and my essay and think about the distinct historical nature of radical feminism as something that took place outside of the traditional narrative of women's movements in America.  (at least the participants themselves saw themselves outside this narrative of liberal feminism)  I feel this distinction could resolve some of the questions in the above debate and some omissions in the article as a whole.
thank you.  my username is wmblair and it is July 12 05
:Dear User:wmblair.  You might want to add that as a section on the US Radical Feminist movement, try looking at how New Left is organised between the UK and US New Lefts as two different (yet related) sections.  At least in Australia and the United Kingdom, Radical Feminism involved many Old Left members (Trotskyists and Communists who were alienated from their parties) and significant numbers of working class women.  These movements started in CR movements, but developed through frission and differing abortion and sex laws into a much more radical movement (at least in Australia), which squatted &tc. as described in the articles.  This trend of Radical Feminism has a continuity of campus life through until the late 1990s when the government effectively destroyed left wing student movements.  So please, add your edits in to the current article, and add new US specific sections where required! Fifelfoo 10:45, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Fifelfoo that this should have its own section. I am not sure about the roots-paragraph, it could also be split and integrated into the geographical sections.--Fenice 12:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, there is. Sometimes the link is one of influence and sometimes the link is one of criticism. (Ellen Willis, for example, takes on Marcuse head-on in "Women and the Myth of Consumerism.") Why do you ask? Radgeek 04:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radical Feminism as unique historical movement 

message: Someone is going to have to deal with the fact that "militant feminism" redirects to this page. Just because it is somewhat of a pejorative does not mean that it should simply be overlooked. Obviously it is not synonymous with radical feminism, but it is nonetheless related, and that should be reflected here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.214.102 (talk • contribs) 
: You are more than welcome to make a positive contribution to this article. If you see something that needs dealing with, you are welcome to deal with it. There are lots of guides, and you can always ask for help in fixing things if you're not sure how to go about it. Please do consider signing up for a user account, because this makes it much easier to communicate and have your actions attributed to you. AnAn 02:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Militant feminism 

message: Surely, as an adjective it cannot mean "the root"? It has to mean "of or pertaining to the root" or "going to the root".  And the etymology should be: "(from Late Latin rādīcālis, having roots, from Latin rādīx, rādīc-, root)" or something Roastpotatoes 02:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "radical" in Radical Feminism 

message: This article gives very little idea that radical feminism isn't (or at least historically wasn't) one single monolithic philosophy. Certainly the (now disappeared) schools of materialist radical feminism (eg, Redstockings, Shulamith Firestone) was very different from the more matriarchal tendencies that eventually became the dominant tendency of radical feminism. And even within the latter, there's a difference between cultural feminism and lesbian separatism on one hand and the more activist approach of Dworkin and MacKinnon. Also, ecofeminism is clearly rooted in cultural feminism, so that deserves some discussion as well. In other words, a good historical/ideological survey is as called for here as it would be in an article about Marxism. Peter G Werner 06:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Differing tendencies within radical feminism

message: Some people believe these type of women should belong in the kitchen
I've just added a "Criticisms" section that will probably make no one happy. I've briefly summarized critiques from men's rights, liberal feminist, leftist, and queer positions, as well as the position of Ellen Willis and Alice Echols that contemporary radical feminism is essentially cultural feminism.
What I've written is far from perfect; the criticisms are rather brief and terse, and I'm largely quoting from memory, so I don't have citations handy. (But then this entire article suffers from lack of citation, so I'm far from alone in that sin.) It at least serves as the rough beginning of a "criticisms" section that others can build upon. Peter G Werner 23:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a good start, Señor.--Rockero 00:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed --Jgda 02:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks very much, at least the ball is rolling now... hopefully it won't be summarily deleted like previous critisisms. Easter rising 13:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, your criticisms section is well-done. Citations lack, but citations lack in the whole article. I sincerely hope it's not deleted. Matt620 21:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Criticisms" section added 

message: The above user's addition did not rehash already stated material. It mentioned a divide between 'real feminism' and 'radical feminism' which certainly exists in the minds of many feminists and anti-feminists alike whether we agree with it or not, and it mentions the drive for a matriarchal society and makes a suggestion that this could be potentially dystopic and oppressive. I don't see where these were before stated. Stylistically, the points were made inelegently: was that the real reason it was deleted?--Jgda 00:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that it looked like it was written by a 12-year-old did have a lot to do with the reversion, yes. Basically, it was so crappy it needed either a total rewrite or reversion. In thinking how I'd rewrite it, I really didn't see any new points there (its already been stated that radical feminism is viewed by many as misandrist), plus it seemed more a statement of the POV of the author, not a verifiable criticism from an outside source.I'm really not trying to protect radical feminism from all criticisms, but please review the points I've made above – Wikipedia articles need to include summaries of notable criticisms found in verifiable, published sources; Wikipedia is not a place to air personal pet criticisms. Peter G Werner 08:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 58.105.101.3

message: why does wikipedia has 10 different articles of feminism?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.9 (talk • contribs) 03:51, July 31, 2006 (UTC)
:Because there are at least 10 different kinds of feminism. While I may disagree with some of their stances, each kind is different, and each deserves representation. I hardly see the quantity of articles relating to feminism as propaganda, but I see the content of some of the articles as being rather POV. I invite you to make edits to existing articles, so long as they're NPOV. But first, I'd advise you to sign up for an account (your IP address has made many contributions, and should probably be registered) and sign your comments with "--~~~~" without the quotes --Ringmaster j 05:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  more propaganda 

message: I've let stand (with minor edits) the following text under criticisms:
:"Many Men's Rights and Father's Rights activists view radical feminist agendas and legislature such as the VAWA as invoking the profiling and sexual imagry used by the Woman's KKK and simply excluding 'black' from the old WKKK jargon while inserting 'oppression' as an added profile of all men. The term Feminazi is often used to describe Radical Feminist discrimination or vilification of men based upon their differing genetic code, much like the KKK denegration of blacks, or NAZI propaganda directed at jews or others excluded from the priviledged class."
I'd like to know, however, whether this is actually representative of the "Men's Rights" critique of radical feminism, or if this is just a pet criticism on the part of Loneranger4justice. If its the latter, it doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article. Peter G Werner 19:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Loneranger4justice contributions 

message: Feminism and especially "Radical feminism" is widely compared to fascism. So there is no reason not to add it to "See also" section. --TRFA 19:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a sufficient section on criticism for this article.  Placing a "See Also: Fascism" is making a POV declaration that Radical feminism is Fascism.  If you can cite a source stating that RF is comparable to Fascism, then add it appropriately to the criticism section as a sourced claim. --Puellanivis 23:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Could this article use a quotes section? Perhaps even as a subsection of the Criticisms section? It seems to me that much understanding of radical feminism and it's criticisms could be gained by simply including some of the radical statements made by it's leading proponents. --Staggerbot 23:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Fascism]] 

message: "In addition, radical feminists also took direct action. In 1968, they protested against the Miss America pageant by throwing high heels and other feminine accoutrements into a freedom garbage bin."
Is this section clear enough? As a reminder, the bra burnings never took place. It seems to imply it. --EarthSprite∞ 06:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  2.2 Action 

message: I take issue with the latter portion of this article.
Radical feminism also often viewed as sex-negative, or anti-sex because of some identifying as radical feminists' often strong opposition to forms of sexual expression they see as patriarchal, such as pornography and BDSM and in some cases sexual intercourse and fellatio as well.
Radical feminists have also been criticized for making alliances with the political right in opposition to pornography and prostitution, for example, during the Meese Commission hearings in the United States and in the contemporary "abolitionist" anti-prostitution movement.
The politics criticized here are precisely the politics that, for example, Ellen Willis ("Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism", 1984, collected in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays, Wesleyan University Press, 1992, , p. 117–150) criticized as "cultural feminism", distinct from "radical feminism"; indeed, in Willis's words, not merely distinct but "antithetical" (p. 117).
Like Willis, I'm suspicious of attaching the term "radical feminism" to anything after about 1975. Not that something later can't be both feminist and radical, but that this particular political current was more or less played out by that time. Cultural feminism did indeed go off in the directions criticized here; Willis and others then (starting around 1980) developed a more syncretic politics that built on the insights of radical feminism but which recognized the importance of other categories of oppression and which was, in Willis's own term "pro-sex" (a term she first used in "Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex?", which appeared in the Village Voice in 1981; I don't have a more precise citation at hand), or, in the now more current term, "sex-positive". This last eventually fed into third-wave feminism, which owes very little to the (in my view) rather puritanical politics of cultural feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, Catherine McKinnon, Women Against Pornography, etc. 
The question, fundamentally, is whether the latter should be called "radical feminist". Admittedly, there is something of a line to be drawn from radical feminism via The Feminists and especially Ti-Grace Atkinson and political lesbianism; but I agree with Willis's conclusion (again "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism" p. 117) that this ceased to be radical feminism when it became "a moral, countercultural movement aimed [I would qualify this with "primarily" - JM] at redeeming its participants" rather than transforming society. - Jmabel | Talk 07:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather not act unilaterally on this, but in my view this material should either be removed or contextualized. I'm going to feel free to edit it in the next day or two; if someone disagrees with how I approach it, please bring it back here. - Jmabel | Talk 19:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Since Shanoman appears to have been the author of the relevant passage, and there was no citation on these criticisms, I will feel free to edit. - 69.17.114.183 18:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sex-negative? Etc. 

message: Does someone have a citation for Shulamith Firestone and Judith Brown being involved in African-American Civil Rights activism prior to their feminist involvement? For Firestone, it wouldn't surprise me at all, but I don't remember ever reading this. I know next to nothing about Judith Brown; if she merits mention in the context of this article, probably she deserves an article of her own, if someone knows enough about her to write it. - Jmabel | Talk 07:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Civil Rights activism 

message: I don't have a political objection, but this is simply a problem. There are enough other sources. --Tothebarricades 09:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: TTB, it was an unreferenced mess when I got here, I was just trying to get it out of the status of being tagged as unreferenced & possible OR. I knew that about half of it could be clarified/cited from one essay by Willis, so I got hold of a copy and did that much on it. Now it's someone else's move. Probably someone at least slightly sympathetic to the Dworkin/MacKinnon school should have at it. And, yes, there are plenty of other sources. We probably also should have a more coherent take on the "liberal feminist" and "socialist feminist" critiques of radical feminism (and vice versa). - Jmabel | Talk 05:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is over-dependent on Willis 

message: I've added a dubious tag to the end of the second paragraph in Radical_feminism#Radical_feminist_theory_and_ideology.  I'm referring specifically to the soapboxing: "men in industrialized western societies must be held personally accountable for the attitudes and actions of men in tribal-low agricultural societies" - this not only violating, wikipedia is not a soapbox; the policies on writting with a neutral point of view; it is unsourced and unverified.  Either it gets verified and sourced and rewritten neutrally or it gets deleted--Cailil  talk 12:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That was part of a large gobbit of POV dropped into the article; actually, the bit you quote strikes me as one of the least objectionable parts (it may or may not be true, but it at least claims to be a description of Radical Feminist ideas, rather than being an unsourced attack on them). Anyway, I've reverted that edit, as it's unsourced and, in most cases, unsourcable, POV. VoluntarySlave 17:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  dubious tag 

message: It's something I mention here. You could check it!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.88.124 (talk) 00:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at phallocracy's history the reasoning behind its merge is lack of notablity.  Phallocracy is a neologism coined by some radical feminists, and quite honestly I have rarely seen it used.  Unless somebody can show why the term is a) a notable neologism (in a way that it does not violate WP:NEOLOGISM) and b) that it is notable outside of the context of radical feminism, then there's no reason for it to even exist as a redirect--Cailil  talk 00:16, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

text: You should know, wikipedia is not a reliable source. --Zslevi (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirection from "phallocracy" 

message: Is there evidence that feminazi has ever been widely used to specifically refer to radical feminism. The term is most often used by conservatives that make no distinction between different sub-types of feminism. If no source can be provided, I move that the term be removed from this article. -Neitherday (talk) 20:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Feminazi?

message: Apparently there was some sort of overlap between the two and the Weathermen had a "smash monogamy" campaign. Someone may wish to put a reference into the section on radical feminism and marxism. I'm a little over my head on all the currents and just came in here because my proposed edits on Bill Ayers' page included a link to radical feminism and I was curious if there was already something over here. TMLutas (talk) 15:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radical feminism and the weathermen 

message: There should maybe be a line or two about the relationship between radical feminists and religion. While some are quite anti-institution and anti-patriarchy, others are known to be quite fond of more matriarchal sects like Wicca and Goddess-worship. ADM (talk) 06:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The mission of the discussion of Wicca, goddess worship, and the roots thereof from such writers as Johann Bachofen, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Marija Gimbutas is a big problem for the current article, which does not trace the roots of radical feminism to any point before the 1960s. Having read The First Sex as a teenager, I know radical feminism has roots dating around a hundred years before the 1960s, and these older roots certainly need discussion for a complete article. Also, criticism of radical feminism from conservative Christians would also be very much worth adding - I know from reading Robert Bork just how harsh this criticism can be. luokehao (talk) 09:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: The article primarily mentions the US branch of the radical feminist movement, but there is also an important brand of radical feminism within European and Canadian society as well. These more reginal brands of the movement ought to be mentioned too. ADM (talk) 06:10, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Europe and Canada

message: "That said, radical feminists also recognize that women's experiences differ according to other divisions in society such as race and sexual orientation."
There are a lot of things wrong with this second sentence which, I notice from the article's history, was only added a couple of weeks ago. First, though it is a perfectly good idiomatic expression, "that said" is simply not encyclopedic. You just don't find it, except perhaps in a quotation, in a good encyclopedia article. Second, the idea which comes after it is so obvious that it's vacuous. Why would anyone think that wanting an end to "male supremacy" would preclude someone from recognizing that women's lives are affected by other social factors such as race, social class, and sexual orientation. Third, is the statement even supported, except in a very indirect way, in the cited sources? Did anyone actually check this?
If editors still want to incorporate the ideas of the second sentence of the lead into the lead I would suggest something along these lines:
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy, among other social injustices, is eliminated in all social and economic contexts. FBPlunger (talk) 02:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: You can object to the grammatical composition, but you cannot delete content that is verified with reliable sources. Editors have the choice of either improving the text, or moving it to another location -- but editors can't just delete material because they're nitpicking. Pyxis Solitary  (yak). L not Q. 08:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Editors edit. That means they make whatever changes to an article they deem are appropriate. Verifiable material is deleted on Wikipedia all the time if it is deemed inappropriate for other reasons. I've given what I consider good reasons for changing the lead paragraph as I did, or in some other way to avoid an unencyclopedic, colloquial usage. What are your good reasons for keeping it? FBPlunger (talk) 16:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The benefit of readers seeking information. This isn't a yard for playing "quién es más macho". Pyxis Solitary  (yak). L not Q. 11:28, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Second sentence of lead

message: Apokrif (talk) 14:30, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No. As seen in the section: "". Prostitution is self-explanatory. Pyxis Solitary  (yak). L not Q. 00:44, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

text: No. Every reader will understand the single word "prostitution" in this context, by far the most common meaning of the term. Binksternet (talk) 00:52, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should the "Prostitution" section be retitled "Prostitution of women" or even "Prostitution of women when clients are men"?