Credo, ergo Sum: What I Call Radical Feminism

[alixtii]

Liberal feminism provides for us a measure of just how far we have come.

Radical feminism provides for us a measure of just how far we have left to go.

Both measures are equally important, and losing track of either can be dangerous.

I do believe:

• That racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, etc. are systemic, subtly and ubiquitously embedded in our society in places both obvious and invisible, and about as deeply as one can get, in our language(s) (and in our unconsciouses which are structured like a language), in a superstructure which I alternately may call "patriarchy" or "systemic injustice." Remember the word radical comes from a word meaning "root": systemic injustice infects society at its very foundations.
• Thus, that most if not all economies, governments, cultural forms, languages, etc. do in some way flow from this patriarchal root.
• That racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and many but possibly not all other forms of systemic injustice are, if not quite equiprimordial, at least so deeply interconnected that it's never quite clear where one starts and the others end. This is a change in position from my teens when I saw all other forms of injustice as symptoms of sexism in a very second-wave sort of way.
• As a corollary, that it is extremely unlikely that racism could exist in a truly non-sexist society (since there is a sense in which racism is always-already inherently misogynistic), and vice versa. It's even harder to imagine sexism existing in a non-heterosexist society or vice versa. This doesn't mean that once we stop sexism, racism will magically fix itself so much as that we won't be able to stop sexism until we've cleaned up our act on race issues as well. On the same pattern, stopping sexism won't heal the ozone layer, but I have no doubt that the anti-environmentalist urge which impels us to harm the Earth in first place is linked in some way to and motivated by misogyny.
• That the various brands of privilege--white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, cisgendered privilege, etc.--exist even as they are so often invisible and taken for granted.
• That while men are the beneficiaries of male privilege and have certain responsibilities as a result of that, they cannot be "blamed" for patriarchy in any unproblematic way. Indeed, that the urge to blame is itself a patriarchal logic.
• That talk of reverse sexism or other "reverse discriminations" ignores the systemic character of real sexism, racism, etc.
• That male and female are not essential categories but instead the complex interaction of self-identification, behavior, and social interpellation; that the division into male and female is ultimately the result of patriarchal logics.
• That traditionally female values, behaviors, and spheres have been artificially devalued by systemic injustice and need to be reclaimed.
• That being anti-sex (and this includes the passive-agressive "sacralization" of sexuality sometimes found in some religious traditions) is always-already being anti-female and misogynistic.
• That pornography and sex work, while prone to abuse, are not inherently evil, and to view them as such can be misogynistic.
• That there are radically liberatory possibilities in female writing and female pleasure. (Cf. pretty much any French feminist.)
• That there is value in female safe spaces.
• That in a fallen world "pretty good" sometimes has to be good enough; heterosexual sex (or, for that matter, homosexual sex) as practiced by most couples may not be immune to patriarchy or be radically egalitarian and consensual but that's hardly a reason to abstain so long as one is giving it the college try. That even problematic instances of autonomy must be encouraged and celebrated from within the patriarchy, and that to erase this trace of autonomy is to be cooperative with the patriarchal logic.
• That one must use the master's tools to take down the master's house; i.e. patriarchy can only be dismantled from within, and it is possible to use its structures (e.g., "Christianity" or "the romantic comedy genre") against it. This will always necessarily require temporary compromises and cooptations, but can result in demonstrable improvements in both the short- and long-term (at least using the liberal feminist measuring stick). But there is no other choice: il n'y a pas de hors-texte.
• That government legislation is a sometimes necessary but rarely if ever sufficient remedy to systemic injustice.
• That the works of mercy needed to improve the lives of women under patriarchy are important as well as the social action needed to end it. (Cf."the two feet of justice" in Catholic social teaching.)
• Silencing the voices of women and other members of other oppressed groups is never a good thing.

I have, in the past, referred to this complex of positions as "radical feminism," and may well do so again in the future.

The following positions are not ones that I particularly associate with radical feminism, not even my own unique brand of such, but which I think are compatible with it and good to hold in general:

• That dissent, discussion, and dialectic are healthy. Many objections are not stupid and showing that one can respond to them can be a powerful persuasive tool.
• Not getting things completely wrong is almost always a useful and valuable endeavor.

Also, I like slash.

Comments

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'm trying hard not to retreat into theoretical language. I'm not sure I'm succesful, but I'm trying to make the effort.

Language is, I suppose, the medium of communication, that which we use to communicate to ourselves or others, of which the basic unit is the concept. Spoken language assigns certain sound-images to certain concepts, so that the sounds /d/ and /g/ with a certain vowel in between signifies a dog. Non-verbal language assigns other types of signs to concepts.

Thought is, I guess, a sequence of concepts.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

one could think about something by visualing/feeling/tasting/etc the thing itself rather than a symbol of it.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But recognizing it as a thing requires being able to have a symbol of it.

I'm not necessarily denying that a mystical state of pure experience is possible--philosophers call it apprehension--but I'm not sure I could call it thought, because there's no way to respond to this experience without categorizing it. It seems more like pure undifferentiated being.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think you need a symbol of it. You don't need to know what it is even, if you just record the image like a photograph, although you can still look at it and explore it and think about it and alter it etc.

its not mystical, and if it is not thought, then you think i do not think?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, if one does not know what it is even, I'm not sure what one could do about it. If one does not recognize the bus hurtling at one as such, one does not know to step out of the way. (One might step out of the way anyway acting on pure instinct, I suppose, but no, I don't think I would call that thought.)

Assuming you don't live your entire life just on instinct--which seems to me obvious, since we're engaging in this conversation--then you're obviously able to recognize things for what you call them.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

so take away the issue of life/death and instinct. you need to know what the bus is if you want to board it. if i was on this bus before, i recognise it as the thing i was on before, and know i can get on it. if they paint it or put a different ad on the side or that bus broke down and they replace it with a different model, i will not recognise it, and not get on it (and then miss work and be fired!)

also, i don't think of it as a bus, but when i want to communicate about it to you, i must translate as one might with a foreign language.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

" the thing i was on before, and know i can get on it" would, under my definition, be a concept in a language, even if you don't think of it as a bus. (Again, I'm thinking we're simply defining these things differently; I'm not doubting your experience.) Indeed, the very idea of translating something into English as if it were a foreign language assumed there is a concept to be translated, doesn't it?

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

well i wouldn't literally think "thing i was on before...", i'm translating for you.

does translation require the source to be in language? to use the idea of trees/computers(ai)/etc you mentioned below- if I scan a page from a textbook into the computer, is that image in language? I do not think it is. However, if I want it translated, I can run software that will 'translate' the pattern of light and dark into something that the human user will recognise as language (the computer, does not have to even understand that translation as language- it is just assigning the codes after all and those words mean nothing to it. i think that is somewhat similar to my not being able to hear half the sounds most people do, not making sense of phonetics, etc but having learned how to move my tongue and throat (like computers assigning character codes) that someone else can understand, even if I cannot.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

to use the idea of trees/computers(ai)/etc you mentioned below- if I scan a page from a textbook into the computer, is that image in language? I do not think it is.

And I do. Thus the difference in definitions.

the computer, does not have to even understand that translation as language- it is just assigning the codes after all and those words mean nothing to it

But the computer's software is programmed in a language. Indeed, what is language if not "assigning codes"?

And to invoke the experience of consciousness is, I think, a distraction; we don't know what a computer understands but I do know that my neurons are exchanging symbols without understanding, and that language arises organically out of these processes.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

Language has grammar- what is the grammar of an undefined image?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, in translating the image from textbook to screen, the scanner finds a grammar, does it not? In interpretes it by sorting it into categories of light and dark and finding patterns. There is a structure which underlies the machine's translation. How is this not a grammar?

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

So having only 2 states: on/off constitutes a language in your opinion?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Sure!

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Actually, thinking about it more, I'm not sure how language could ever consist of anything else. My neurons only have two states: firing and not-firing. The entire edifice of language is built out of those humble beginnings.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

an on/off state at closest is code for a language; code itself is not language.

if on/off constitutes language, scientists would have to accept that a paramecium had language; they're resistant about acknowledging a chimp or parrot as having/being-able-to-use language.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, I just said not too long ago that a tree had a type of language. I've always said that this entire discussion was over definitions.

So the question is, how are you defining language?

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

you said a tree could think, which i did not understand to mean a tree had language :)

i don't have a definition for it.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, I said "I actually sort of think a tree can think too [. . .] but insofar as that it is the case, it seems to me that a language is present."

Not to mention this entire conversation began with me defending the notion that language was necessary to structure thought, that language was that in which we think.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

i guess i did not understand the grammar re the tree; & although the conversation began with that, i didn't assume it automatically applied to all living things brought up.