WHAT IS RADICAL FEMINISM?
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Radical feminism is a movement for the liberation of women from the patriarchy. Radical feminism believes female people as a class are oppressed by male people as a class in a society of male supremacy (the patriarchy). It focuses on pornography/BDSM/prostitution, religion, and beauty standards (dieting, makeup, surgery, performative femininity).
Most radical feminists are also anti-capitalist.
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"Is radical feminism only about trans issues?"
No. Radical feminism is also about the effect of religion, beauty standards and pornography on women, and more.
"Is radical feminism intersectional?"
Yes. Radical feminism is especially for less privileged women, like women of colour, disabled women, same sex attracted women and intersex women.
"Is radical feminism trans exclusionary?"
No. Radical feminism, being for women's liberation from the patriarchy, is for and by female people. This include trans men and observed female at birth nonbinary people. Radical feminism is male exclusionary.
"Do radical feminists only see women as vaginas?"
No. Saying that women have vaginas is not reducing women only to their vaginas, in the same way that saying humans have brains does not reduce us only to our brains.
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"Why is porn bad?"
Porn has countless issues. It affects the brain, the heart and the world. Porn has been proven to be highly addictive, just like a drug. It makes you want more and more. More often, and more hardcore.
Porn triggers the release of dopamine which is normally only released for doing good things (eating, working out, having sex), which makes you want to do it more. But an overstimulation of the creation of dopamine makes the pleasure response go numb. This is why addicts experience substance tolerance. 56% of 1,500 men said their tastes in porn had become “increasingly extreme or deviant.” Porn also fuels sex trafficking and rape culture, by sexualizing violent acts done to women, such as sexual assault or physical violence. A recent study shows that exposure to violent pornography predicts the later perpetration of sexual assault in teenagers.
"But the women consented!"
But what if they didn't? How can you be sure that the women in the porn you watch are consenting?
The question of consent is tricky. For example, if a camera is running without one of them being aware, then the porn isn't consensual, but the sex is. What if a person consented to be filmed, but not to showing it to anyone else? What if someone is being blackmailed? Or what if a person agreed to have sex, but in the middle, their partner suddenly started doing something that the person didn’t expect? Did he or she still give consent?
Obviously, not all porn is non consensual, but some of it is, and there's no way to know. Would you still buy from a company knowing that some, but not all, of their products are made with child labor?
"We need to listen to sex workers!"
Women in pornography aren't only saying good things about the industry. You can find some of their terrifying confessions here, here and here.
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"How does religion hurt women?"
Men have interpreted religious doctrines in order to justify their positions of power and keep women as second class citizens. Religion, religious beliefs and faith are not inherently oppressive, but the way men have hijacked them is. Women in religion are seen as baby-making machines that must be seen and not heard. Religion is the first creator of the gender roles for women, that is, the belief that women are quiet, submissive, caring, shy, and that they must be feminine, wear dresses, be housewives. Religion is also the source of period taboo. It sees women menstruating as unpure, and nobody wants to be near someone who is dirty. It is the reason why period huts, which are deadly (1, 2, 3) still exist today. It is the source of marital rape, the married woman gives up her right to consent, sex is a husband's right. It is the source of honour killings, a woman talking to a man is a whore, a woman loving a woman is sinful, a woman making choices for herself is rebellious, and being a whore, sinful, rebellious is a source of shame for the family who "owns" her. The family has to get rid of the shame, take back its honour. Muslim women are being killed for not wearing the hijab. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Laws against child marriage are getting rejected for being "anti-Islamic".
Religion is the source of women's oppression.
For more resources and statistics, please refer to the GBV stats page.
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"How are beauty standards harmful?"
Imagine a situation where there a two choices, but one has direct negative consequences, and the other one doesn't. You would choose the last one, right? Nobody wants to make a negative choice. Well, that's the dilemma of makeup and femininity and general. If you have ever not worn makeup, one day, after having consistently worn it, people might have asked you "are you sick?". Gender non conforming women are often forced out of the women's toilet, women who don't wear makeup at interviews are less likely to be hired, women who naturally have what we consider "male traits" like authority are called bossy, confident women are called vain and stuck up, cold women are told to "just smile". It is not a choice if one of the options has negative consequences.
While men are allowed to just exist, women cannot. Women are expected to shave, men are not. Women are expected to wear makeup, men are not. Women are expected to wear heels, men are not.
Makeup hides our faces and is expensive, shaving makes us look like the only people who do not have body hair : children, and is expensive, dresses, skirts, and heels restricts our movement and are expensive. Why are we spending so much money trying to not be who we naturally are?
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"Why do radical feminists care so much about trans people?"
If an oppressed class has no words to define it's oppression, it cannot talk about it. Trans rights activists define "woman" as "anyone that identifies as a woman" but radical feminists disagree because womanhood is not a feeling or something to identify as. Saying womanhood is something someone can identify into raises the question of "what is misogyny?". Could a woman identify as a man to stop being a victim of misogyny? That is a question many trans men have already answered, and the common answer is that despite identifying as men, they may still receive misogyny. Women are oppressed for our biology, not for the way we might identify. Female people as a class are oppressed by male people as a class. For example, a female baby in a society that prefers male babies would be more likely to be killed, even if they would have grown up to be a trans man.
"Why do radical feminists focus on female people?"
The central tenet of radical feminism is that female people as a biological class are globally oppressed by male people as a biological class. For example, underage girls in Florida have to get parental permission to get an abortion. Young girls in the UK and parts of Africa are often victims of female genital mutilation (at high rates like 28 per 1000 among 15 to 49 year old women in London). Female infanticide (killing of female fetuses & babies for the sole fact of being female) is rampant in parts of India, with estimations as high as 117 million girls.
Sex based oppression is a global problem. Radical feminists believe that male power is constructed and maintained through institutional and cultural practices that aim to prop up male superiority via the reinforcement of female inferiority. As such, radical feminists includes anyone of the female sex in feminism, even trans men or observed female at birth nonbinary people. Think about it— a trans man in Florida who got pregnant could still face medical misogyny if he tries to abort, a trans man in the UK could get his genitals mutilated even if he identifies as a man, and a female baby could still get murdered in India, even if he would have grown up to be a trans man.
If you're having trouble understanding why we focus on female people, think of any other social justice movement. Those groups may choose to focus on one issue close to them, though they still acknowledge that other forms of oppression exist and are important. For us, we focus on the oppression of female people.
"Do radical feminists believe in gender?"
No, radical feminists do not believe in gender. Gender is defined as "the two sexes, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones" and "the characteristics of women and men that are socially constructed, the norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman or man". The roles associated with being a man are being strong, confident, cold, while the roles associated with women are being weak, meek and warm. There is a huge problem with these : they serve to keep women as second class citizens, to be seen and not heard. Gender is misogyny.
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Linktree by @lavenderj4ne for links to PDFs of radical feminists books.
Fight The New Drug, a non profit non religious organization to educate about the effects of pornography.
Donate to Vancouver Rape Relief, a female only abuse shelter.
Donate to 28 Too Many, a charity against female genital mutilation.
Donate to PERIOD, a non profit organization fighting to end period poverty.
Donate to Therapy for Black Girls.
Donate to WONDER Foundation for education for women and girls.
Donate to London Black Women's Project for abused women of colour.
Donate to Housing for Women.
Donate to Together Women Project, a women's centre in Yorkshire.
Donate for sanitary products for displaced Afghan women.
Contact me if you want a specific charity or GoFundMe added to this section!
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Men are 99% of rapists.
Nearly 1 in 5 woman has been raped.
1 in 9 girls under 18 experience sexual abuse or assault. 82% of all victims under 18 are female, while 90% of all victims over 18 are female. Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.
84% of victims of online grooming are girls.
More than 5,000 women are killed in honour killings each year.
More than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation.
Women are more likely to suffer from depression.
Women attempt suicide 4 times more than men.
1 in 10 girls in Africa misses school because they don’t have access to sanitary products, or because there aren’t safe private toilets to use at school. In Kenya, approximately 50% of school-age girls do not have access to sanitary products. In India, approximately 12% of its 355 million menstruating women cannot afford period products.
Porn use leads to increased rates of sexual violence.
More than 640 million (26%) women aged 15 and older have been subjected to intimate partner violence.
Of those who have been in a relationship, almost 1 in 4 adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 (24%) have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner or husband. 16% of young women aged 15 to 24 experienced this violence in the past 12 months.
Domestic violence is legal in Russia and 36,000 russian women suffer from beatings by their husbands daily, and 14,000 women are killed by family members every year.
More than 35% of all murders of women globally are reported to be committed by an intimate partner.
137 women daily around the world are murdered by a family member.
The Quran explicitly allows men to rape their slaves, regardless of whether they are married or not (more than once).
In Pakistan, 21% of girls marry before the age of 18. In 2016, a law submitted to the parliament aimed to raise the legal minimum age to marry to 18 for females and introduce harsher penalties for those who arrange child marriage. However, the proposal was withdrawn following strong pressure from the Council of Islamic Ideology, a body that advises the parliament on Islamic law. The council criticized the proposal as “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous.”
The Quran explicitly states that a woman is worth half a man in both legal and monetary terms.
The Quran specifically says that men are above women.
The Quran states "Admonish women who disobey and beat them."
Concise article about the history of compulsory Hijab in Iran.
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