If radical feminism revolves around the notion that there are those in positions of power (loosely, men) and those who are disempowered (loosely, the rest) then to what extent does the radical system perceive the necessity for establishing methods of negotiating with the powerful on behalf of the the disempowered, or does it try to avoid such negotiation as 'playing into' the existing power structures?
This cuts straight to the quick as to my critique of radical politics. While I for the most part agree with their modes of analysis, it's hard to see the traditional 1970s radical feminists as arguing anything other than the latter claim--that negotiating on behalf of the disempowered with the powerful is playing into the existing power structures, which need to be torn down in toto, don't ask me how.
As a result, traditional radical feminists eschew pursuing change through legislation or litigation. I'd probably agree that liberal feminism is a little too law-happy, to the detriment of enacting cultural change, but it's simply a fact that the most meaningful and important changes to a woman's lot in society have been wrought by liberal feminists working through the political system. No, it's not a throwing off of the yoke of the patriarchy, but in the meantime it's an important work of marcy, and by increasing the scope of women's ability to be actors culturally and politically increases the possibility in my mind of eventual radical change.
Furthermore, it's not as if the radical feminists have, as far as I can tell, a coherent agenda for cultural change either (at least if we discount lesbian separatism) beyond women telling their own stories--something vitally important, but not sufficient. Here too I think a series of negotiations and compromises are necessary; we can't just replace everything in the library with Margaret Atwood; we need the Joss Whedons, whose works are empowering and deeply problematic at the same time. Enacting cultural change requires speaking to people in a language they can understand, which requires a partial and temporary appropriation of the patriarchal mythos in order to deconstruct it.
Do you remember just how horrible Dissenter's Tolkein fanfic was?
Liberalism and radicalism always tend to exist in an uneasy tension with each other, and my temperament is to be a radical. (If for no other reason than that I am still young.) And yet for all that I am a radical--my brand of feminism is not the "liberal feminism" of the ERA brand (that's my mother's feminism)--I can see the good work that liberal feminism has done: suffrage, anti-discrimination laws, assurance of basic rights like holding property and not being raped. So too can I see the compromises with authority which brought about these reforms, and problematize them--and problematize them I do! But that does not change the fact that the plight of women is better than it was 100 years ago, for all the fact that the feminist movement consisted for much of that time of middle-class white (heterosexual) women who, no, did not speak for all women.
Liberalism is necessary for concrete change, but radicalism is the vision which both motivates it and critiques it.
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Date: 2009-03-01 02:39 pm (UTC)This cuts straight to the quick as to my critique of radical politics. While I for the most part agree with their modes of analysis, it's hard to see the traditional 1970s radical feminists as arguing anything other than the latter claim--that negotiating on behalf of the disempowered with the powerful is playing into the existing power structures, which need to be torn down in toto, don't ask me how.
As a result, traditional radical feminists eschew pursuing change through legislation or litigation. I'd probably agree that liberal feminism is a little too law-happy, to the detriment of enacting cultural change, but it's simply a fact that the most meaningful and important changes to a woman's lot in society have been wrought by liberal feminists working through the political system. No, it's not a throwing off of the yoke of the patriarchy, but in the meantime it's an important work of marcy, and by increasing the scope of women's ability to be actors culturally and politically increases the possibility in my mind of eventual radical change.
Furthermore, it's not as if the radical feminists have, as far as I can tell, a coherent agenda for cultural change either (at least if we discount lesbian separatism) beyond women telling their own stories--something vitally important, but not sufficient. Here too I think a series of negotiations and compromises are necessary; we can't just replace everything in the library with Margaret Atwood; we need the Joss Whedons, whose works are empowering and deeply problematic at the same time. Enacting cultural change requires speaking to people in a language they can understand, which requires a partial and temporary appropriation of the patriarchal mythos in order to deconstruct it.
Do you remember just how horrible Dissenter's Tolkein fanfic was?
As I wrote in my Non-Defense of the Organization for Transformative Works: