Radical feminism: Encyclopedia II - Radical feminism - Radical Feminist Movement

Radical feminism - Radical Feminist Movement

Radical feminism - Roots of radical feminist movement

Radical feminism emerged in the late 1960s simultaneously within liberal feminist and working class feminist discussions. In the United States it developed as a response to some of the failings of both the New Left and the liberal feminist National Organization For Women. Initially mainly concentrated in big cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston, radical feminist groups spread across the country rapidly from 1968 to 1972.

In the United Kingdom feminism developed out of discussions within community based radical womens' organisations and discussions by women within the Trotskyist left. Radical feminism was brought to the UK by American radical feminists and seized on by British radical women as offering an exciting new theory. As the 1970s progressed, British feminists split into two major schools of thought: socialist and radical. In 1977, another split occurred, with a third grouping calling itself "revolutionary feminism" breaking away from the other two.

Australian radical feminism developed slightly later, during an extended period of social radicalisation, largely as an expression of that radicalisation. Those involved had gradually come to understand that not only the middle class nuclear family that oppressed women, but also social organisations which claimed to stand for human liberation, notably the counter-culture, SDS or Marxist political parties). Often Marxist feminists found that their own parties effectively silenced them, and that the methods used were patriarchal. Women in counter-culture groups related that the gender relations present were very much those of mainstream culture. Based on their experiences in these groups, the women made the conclusion that ending patriarchy, not capitalism, was the most necessary step towards a truly free society.

As a form of practice, Radical feminists introduced the use of consciousness raising groups (CR groups). These groups brought intellectuals, workers and middle class women together in developed Western countries. During these discussions, women noted a shared and repressive system regardless of their political affiliation or social class. These consciousness raising sessions allowed early radical feminists to develop a political ideology based on a woman's view of the world, as opposed to other possibilities, such as the Marxist ideology that was popular at the time. Consciousness raising was extensively used in chapter sub-units of the National Organization For Women (NOW) during the 1970's.

The feminism which emerged from these discussions stood first and foremost for the liberation of women, as women, from the gender roles of society. This feminism was truly radical in both a political sense, and in the sense of seeking the root cause of the oppression of women. Radical feminism described a totalising ideology and social formation which dominated women in the interests of men. This formation was called patriarchy (government or rule by fathers).

Radical feminism - Social organisation and aims in the US and Australia

Radical feminists have generally formed small activist or community associations around either consciousness raising, or concrete aims. Many radical feminists in Australia participated in a series of squats to establish various women's centres, and this form of action was common in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During the mid 1980s many of the original consciousness raising groups had dissolved, and radical feminism was more and more associated with loosely organised university collectives. Since that period, radical feminism has generally been confined to activist student ghettos, inspired in part by famous intellectuals. However, occasionally, working class groups of women have formed collectives dedicated to radical feminism.

In many cases, due to state repression or cooption, the social organisations formed by radical feminists in the 1970s and 1980s were rendered ineffective. In Australia, many feminist social organisations accepted government funding during the 1980s, and the election of a conservative government in 1996 crippled these organisations.

While radical feminists aim to dismantle patriarchal society in a total historical sense, their immediate aims are generally concrete. Common demands include expanding reproductive freedoms and changes to organisational sexual culture (a common demand in US universities during the 1980s).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Radical Feminist Movement", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki