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Existing political and social structures are opposed by radical feminism because they are essentially patriarchal. As a result, radical feminists are wary of political action inside the current system, preferring to focus on cultural change that weakens patriarchy and its attendant hierarchical institutions.
Radical feminists are more militant than other feminists in their approach (radical meaning "going to the root"). Instead of seeking legal changes to the system, a radical feminist seeks to deconstruct patriarchy. Radical feminists also oppose reducing oppression to a class or economic issue, as socialist or Marxist feminism did or did at times.
To equate radical feminism with man-hating assumes that patriarchy and men are philosophically and politically inextricably linked. (However, Robin Morgan has defended "man-hating" as the oppressed class's right to despise the oppressor class.) Patriarchy, not men, is what radical feminism rejects.
Radical feminism grew out of a more significant revolutionary current movement. Despite the movements' purported underlying empowerment goals, women who participated in the anti-war and New Left political activities of the 1960s were denied equal influence by the men inside them.
Many of these women formed feminist organisations while preserving many of their original political radical beliefs and practices. "Extreme feminism" became the phrase for feminism's more radical side.
The usage of consciousness-raising organisations to promote awareness of women's
oppression is linked to radical feminism. Later radical feminists focused on sexuality, with some even shifting to extreme political lesbianism.
Critical Radical feminists organised demonstrations against the Miss America pageant in 1968. radical feminists were Ti-Grace Atkinson, Susan Brownmiller, Phyllis Chester, Corrine Grad Coleman, Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone, Germaine Greer, Carol Hanisch, Jill Johnston, Catherine MacKinnon, Kate Millett, Robin Morgan, Ellen Willis, and Monique Wittig.
Groups that were part of the radical feminist wing of feminism include Redstockings, New York Radical Women (NYRW), the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU), Ann Arbor Feminist House, and The Feminists, WITCH, Seattle Radical Women, and Cell 16.
Key Issues
• Women's reproductive rights, including the freedom to choose whether or not to have a child, have an abortion, use birth control, or be sterilised.
• Assessing and then dismantling conventional gender norms in private relationships and public policy
• Understanding pornography as an industry and activity that causes harm to women, even though several radical feminists disagreed.
• Understanding rape as a display of patriarchal power rather than a desire for sex
• Under patriarchy, prostitution is defined as women's sexual and economic oppression.
• A look at parenting, marriage, the nuclear family, and sexuality, emphasising how much of our culture is founded on patriarchal ideas.
• Other institutions, such as government and church, are criticised as traditionally rooted in patriarchal power.
Consciousness-raising groups, actively offering services, organising public rallies, and putting on art and cultural events were all tools employed by radical women's groups. Radical feminists and more liberal and socialist feminists frequently favour university-based women's studies programmes.
Some radical feminists championed a political version of lesbianism or celibacy as an alternative to heterosexual sex within a patriarchal culture. Within the radical feminist community, there is still debate concerning transsexual identity.
Some radical feminists have supported transgender people's rights, seeing it as a new form of gender emancipation; others have opposed trans people's existence, particularly transgender women because they perceive trans women as embodying and furthering patriarchal gender standards.
Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism/Feminists (TERFs), with the more informal monikers of "gender critical" and "rad fem," identify their views and themselves as TERFs.
Many feminists have abandoned radical feminism due to their involvement with TERFs. Many feminists no longer affiliate with the word because they are trans-inclusive, even though some of their ideas are comparable to the fundamental ideals of radical feminism.
Despite their disagreements regarding abortion, one of the most well-known TERF organisations in the United States collaborated with South Dakota Republicans to outlaw medical intervention for trans youth.
For the most part, radical feminism was progressive, but it lacked an intersectional lens since it saw gender as the most crucial axis of oppression. It was dominated by white women, as were many feminist movements before and after, and lacked a racial justice emphasis.
Feminism has been advancing towards a movement to eradicate all oppression since Kimberle Crenshaw developed the term intersectionality, giving a name to the behaviours and writings of Black women before her. Intersectional feminism is becoming increasingly popular among feminists.
Written By: Aishwarya Neeraj
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