Every once in a while, somebody tells me, or says where I can see it, that there are radical feminists who aren't exclusionary. To which I say, not all radfems are TERFs or SWERFs, but radical feminism itself remains fucked up.
(I know you know this, I'm at least attempting to build to a point.)
Here, lemme go find the thing I said last time this happened, I was pleased with how that one came out.
No, not all radical feminists are terfs. But radical feminism has other massive problems. At the root (see what I did there), it is inherently racist, classist, ableist, and much more. This is because the core tenet of radical feminism is that the most essential, important divide in society is sexism, and it discounts any perspective that places anything else as equal or greater, including in individual experiences. If a Black woman says that she feels more harmed by racism than sexism, radical feminism says she’s wrong. If a disabled woman talks about the intersectionality of her experience, radical feminism says she’s wrong. That’s what radical feminism means. It places sexism at the root — which is radix in Latin, the origin of radical — of all oppression.
Like I said, IKYK.
The radfem way of dealing with all these women (people they count as women) saying that it doesn't work like that for them is by chalking it up to "false consciousness". The idea that women who want to talk about any other oppression they experience as more important is a symptom of just being completely saturated in sexism, producing these "false" views.
So if I say, as a cis woman, that the bullying I took was much more ableism than sexism, then that is my "false consciousness" talking, and they get to dismiss it. And everybody else, too. They are inured by this to not-listen just like conservatives are by their positions. And they've been holding this line for decades, despite all the evidence. They are inherently reactionary. Which is the reason why they ally so readily with conservatives.
"False consciousness" is what they use to build walls between themselves and other women, while claiming to speak for "all women". That itself is exclusionary. All radfems are *ERFs, it's just the variable first letter.
...I think that got to where I was going. I think.
no subject
(I know you know this, I'm at least attempting to build to a point.)
Here, lemme go find the thing I said last time this happened, I was pleased with how that one came out.
Like I said, IKYK.
The radfem way of dealing with all these women (people they count as women) saying that it doesn't work like that for them is by chalking it up to "false consciousness". The idea that women who want to talk about any other oppression they experience as more important is a symptom of just being completely saturated in sexism, producing these "false" views.
So if I say, as a cis woman, that the bullying I took was much more ableism than sexism, then that is my "false consciousness" talking, and they get to dismiss it. And everybody else, too. They are inured by this to not-listen just like conservatives are by their positions. And they've been holding this line for decades, despite all the evidence. They are inherently reactionary. Which is the reason why they ally so readily with conservatives.
"False consciousness" is what they use to build walls between themselves and other women, while claiming to speak for "all women". That itself is exclusionary. All radfems are *ERFs, it's just the variable first letter.
...I think that got to where I was going. I think.