The most radical feminism
Radical feminism was a comparatively new arrival in Australia and many
women in the Women’s Liberation Movement were not radical feminists –
they were just women liberationists. But radical feminist ideology
quickly became dominant. At the same time, the movement moved away from
directly political activity. The idea of self help projects – halfway
houses, rape crisis centres and so on – inspired many women who wanted
to get down to the nitty gritty of helping those poor women out there.
With the ALP re-elected (for presumably 3 years) in May 1974, and then
IWY in 1975, government grants helped realise many feminist dreams.
Projects of all sorts nourished: novels, non-sexist children’s school
books, historical research, women’s refuges and health centres. Nobody
was too worried about theory when things seemed to be working out so
well in practice.
Suddenly, November 11, 1975 and the world would never look the same
again. For the first time, many women’s liberationists realised that the
political situation had to be dealt with, and the WLM couldn’t do it on
its own.
The political scene darkened during 1976. IWY was over and many grants
dried up. Fraser made cuts in many areas affecting women and the women’s
movement. At the same time problems began to surface in the halfway
houses and health centres. Rosters broke down, personal conflicts broke
up collective projects, and government funding was questioned.
Today the WLM has entered a slump. And although there has been some
re-evaluation, the tragedy has been the continued dominance of radical
feminism.
A glance at Women’s Liberation publications over the past year shows how
widespread is the malaise. Vashti’s Voice thinks that «the WLM has
arrived at an impasse in activity and interest» and that «there has been
a drought period this year in political discussion and thinking around
directions for the WLM». Anne Summers, a Sydney WL activist, comments
after looking at the state of the movement around Australia, that «many
activists are disillusioned and self critical.»
The problem is not lack of activity in itself. For those who want it,
there is endless activity in staffing 24 women’s refuges. 3 working
women’s centres, 5 rape crisis centres and at least 6 women’s health
centres around the country. Quite aside from at least 14 newspapers and
magazines, and many other projects.
WL activists seem to think that where these projects fall down is on
politicisation. Women use services, but don’t understand the ideas
behind a rape crisis centre or a women’s refuge. For instance, in the
Melbourne Women’s Centre, «there were women seeking abortions and crisis
accommodation, but there wasn’t one call to find out what WL is on about
… We are not winning women on politics.»
The general feeling is that the WLM has been co-opted by concentrating
on reforms and bandaids.
And yet no one wants to admit that those who criticised self-help
strategies when they were first starting off were right. Radical
feminists argue now that although self – help didn’t work out as a
strategy it wasn’t a mistake.
In other words, to be a real women’s liberationist these days, you’ve
got to be more feminist than ever before. Instead of reforms, you’ve got
to «further revolutionary goals.»
Behind all this rhetoric is the social reality, the change that has
occurred in Australian society in the last few years. Party due to the
efforts of the WLM itself, WL ideas have become very widely accepted.
Not by everybody of course, but they are no longer outside the
mainstream of society, spurned by all «descent people» as extremes.
Anne Summers describes the widespread influences at government level, in
the churches, and in the conservative organizations such as the NCC.
Women in unions, professional organizations, political parties, the
media, and in the suburbs are organising themselves.
The change hasn’t just been at the top level. Women in all walks of life
have been affected, and the majority of ordinary women, in my opinion no
longer laugh at WL ideas but take them seriously.
Of course, few accept the ideology behind WL demands, but there is no
doubt that there has been a change in attitude to women as a social
group. The society we are dealing with today is not the same as when the
WLM just began.
Radical feminists usually recognize this.
Of course it is true that the new general awareness is not revolutionary
(whether ‘feminist’ or socialist). But what the radical feminists don’t
realise is the opportunities the penetration of WL ideas provides.
Instead of going out into the real world and trying to build on this
base, they retreat into vague theorising. The door stands open but they
won’t walk through.
The radical feminists retreat into their own ideology, their feminist
purity. They are desperately afraid of contamination by the real world.
And so there is an obsession with finding a pure, ‘un-co-opted’ radical
feminist strategy.
Many of the popular strategies and practices of the past few years have
been well criticised in current WL literature. Kerryn Higgs and Barbara
Bloch, for instance, talk about how the movement has developed its own
orthodoxy. Instead of freedom and individual expression there has often
been conformity and compulsive behaviour. They discuss various
conformities, such as sharing, autonomy personal harmony, spontaneity
and lesbianism. Their conclusion is depressing.
Kathie Gleeson criticises the way the movement ignores its development
out of the left, and the refusal to see how all our personal life is
influenced by the political and economic reality around us.
Lesbianism is no longer regarded as a strategy for all feminists.
Barbara W. and her friends also make a number of specific criticisms of
the movement’s practices in their long article, which I have already
quoted.
But radical feminism today is no closer to providing workable strategies
than it was in 1974. The women who so well criticise and analyse past
problems either admit their impotence, or have nothing to suggest but
more of the same.
Barbara W. ends her article with 16 «practical and organizational»
proposals. But looking closer it is dear that they are really nothing
more than a statement in point form of the need to deal with the
problems set out in the article. There is only one actually concrete
proposal – to change the name of the coordinating committee!
With all the detailed analysis of mistakes and problems, there is no
real attempt to work out why there were such problems. To the radical
feminists they are simply the result of being «misguided», having the
wrong «attitude», or «understanding». Over the years, «many of our fine
original insights have become distorted (and) our practice has ended up
conflicting with our theory.» Why? Because of «errors in judgement»!
Is it simply the result of a few errors of judgement that «we keep
making the same mistakes over and over again»? Why is it that so many
women find that after 6 years of the movement it gets harder and harder
to reconcile their theory with their practice? Surely at this point
there should be some questioning of radical feminist theory itself.
«The idea that sexism is the basic oppression, that the basic class
system is one between men and women.» This is the fundamental idea of
radical feminism. In the article reprinted here, I have shown what
happens if you follow this idea through to its logical conclusion. I
hope it will be of use to radical feminists who do want to start
questioning the theory itself.
NOTE: In the original article, and in this new introduction, I haw
concentrated on quotes and examples from the Australian movement. This
is not because I think Australian radical feminism is different – quite
the opposite. I believe radical feminism is pretty similar everywhere,
and I could have written a similar article based on literature from
Britain or USA. But this way there is no copout for Australians; no one
can say, «Radical feminism is different – we haven’t made the same
mistakes as overseas.»
Radical Feminism, a comparatively recent trend in the Women’s Liberation
Movement in Australia, is based on the theory that women’s oppression is
the fundamental political oppression, that women are a class and that
they are «engaged in a power struggle with men». Furthermore, according
to ideas of radical feminism, the purpose of male chauvinism is
primarily to obtain psychological ego satisfaction and is only
secondarily found in economic relationships.
This article will attempt to show that defining women as a class brings
the Radical Feminists back to affirming the one thing all women do have
in common – the female role; that the a-historical approach of personal
politics is part of this female role, and that the lack of a strategy
has meant the movement has reverted to those activities traditionally
open to women – for example «self-help» which is no more than charity
dressed up.
AFTER the initial stages of consciousness-raising, after the first rage
had died down, the Women’s Liberation Movement had begun to question, to
ask where the oppression had come from, and try to work out the wax
forward. Radical in its belief that a new society was necessary, the
movement was strongly influenced by the New Left with its emphasis on
conscious and experience. The social group of which the New Left was
composed – white, middle class, students and the intellectually inclined
– had weighed the «affluent society» in the balance and found it
wanting. The housewife epitomised this affluent world of gadgets, and in
fact was one herself. As Betty Friedan put it, she found herself with a
vague, inexplicable feeling of «Is this all?» Alienation and feelings of
powerlessness provided the impetus for the growth of the Women’s
Liberation Movement.
Consciousness raising groups were therefore the first tasks of the
movement. Women came to understand that personal feelings of inadequacy
and helplessness were shared, that they were related to the social
situation of women. Alienation was discovered to be a result of lack of
control over the conditions of your life. In Women’s Liberation terms
this meant no abortion or childcare centres, restricted job
opportunities and low wages, and above all the role expectation that
whatever the individual propensities or talents, all women must become
wives, mothers and housewives.
Betty Friedan’s organisation, N.O.W., had little trouble establishing a
strategy consistent with its limited aims of improved status for women
within the system, and followed the standard pressure group tactics.
However the Women’s Liberation Movement, with its aim of fundamental
change, required a strategy broader in scope. When the momentum of the
movement slowed after the initial burst of enthusiasm, the movement had
to face its own lack of social power, which is essential for change. In
the absence of a strong and clearly radical working class movement, the
movement turned inwards.
The movement at this stage had an extremely emotional, tense atmosphere.
Many women, discovering the oppressive nature of the role with which
they had always identified, suffered an identity crisis, and sought
support and identity in the movement, in sisterhood. Many turned to the
movement as if to a lover, seeking from this new relationship the
fulfilment promised but never provided by the traditional role. In its
inability to find a strategy, the movement rallied its one obvious
strength – unity.
Radical feminism grew out of this search for a theory to unite all
women, a search for a «female» culture to replace the «male» culture
which was seen as being the main enemy. All those social realities which
do divide women were ignored by the simple expediency of relegating them
to the male domain, whereby they were made unimportant.
From the beginning, the movement had argued that many «female»
characteristics such as emotions were in fact good and necessary for all
humans. This gave way now to an advocacy of the female culture, which in
turn amounts to the only thing that does cut across all class, race and
national lines for women: the female role.
As Radical Feminism has grown and developed it has retreated more and
more into the female role.
Just as so many men have told us in the past. Radical Feminists now tell
us that women are earthy, unaggressive creatures, who think differently
and whose sexuality is different – more diffuse and romantic.
Thus the constant pressure in the movement to be «sisterly», to have no
disagreements, and to relate totally to everybody. Articles are written
attacking thought and theory as «male». Women, «suddenly» develop an
interest in crafts, particularly those not exactly traditionally
regarded as unsuitable for females, e.g. weaving or crocheting. When an
action is not completely successful the response of many Women’s
Liberationists is to blame themselves.
It is extraordinary that Radical Feminist women, while complaining that
males have written women out of history, will unflinchingly make these
generalizations. To ignore politically powerful (and warlike) women such
as Scrimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir; or even the
hundreds of women psychologists and sociologists who have studied
sexuality – among them Margaret Sanger, Helene Deutsch, Margaret Mead;
to ignore these women is to deny that women do have a history.
Furthermore, to maintain that women have been successfully and totally
suppressed to the point where they have been completely unable to
participate is to accept the idea that women are passive; and it is to
deny that women have repeatedly been able to overcome their conditioning
so far as to break through to real activity.
The exceptionally elitist attitudes to their less famous contemporaries
who participate in «male dominated» left organisations is not only
insulting; it is inconsistent with any ideas of sisterhood to have such
contempt for the sincerely held beliefs of socialist women.
The reaffirmation of the female role is taken to its logical conclusion
by Jane Alpert. Her theory that women should rule and be worshipped by
virtue of their potential motherhood brings us full circle, back to the
gilded cage from which we have so desperately been trying to escape. But
this time the purpose of the bars is not to keep women inside – instead
the radical feminists waul to keep the world out.
The radical feminists have contributed important insights into what is
wrong with capitalism. One of the most sophisticated radical feminist
writers. Shulamith Firestone, analysed important questions, such as
love, children, and the relationship between sex and racism. But
Firestone, as do all the others, continued to suffer from the lack of a
strategy. They had no idea of what to do. In the search for something to
do, for social power, radical feminism looks towards models in past
societies, where women ruled, or female groupings were powerful.
Alternatively, the «key» is thought to lie in lesbianism, vegetarianism,
or the occult.
In «The First Sex», by Elizabeth Gould Davis, the idea of the «noble
savage» is given a new twist. This book very popular with Radical
Feminists, advances the theory that the prehistoric matriarchies were
ruled by physically and psychically superior, vegetarian women.
Unfortunately, meateating, lustful men took over, and today we see the
consequences.
Medieval (and modern) witches and midwives are idealised, with their
«great healing powers of skill in midwifery – (they) obtained skills
through inborn psychic gifts, generations of experimentation – or
perhaps being attuned to their natural instincts by living a quiet life
in the woods.»
Again we find the Radical Feminists arguing that women are closer to
nature!
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world!
Short cut theories, proposing a single universal key to open the door to
feminist heaven, abound.
Last year the key was Lesbianism. A large number of Radical Feminists
became lesbians, not out of sexual interest, but as a point of political
principle. It was argued simply that «feminism is the theory, lesbianism
is the practice.» Lesbians maintained that they were the real
revolutionaries, being women who had refused to submit to the female
role. The realization was, however, not long in coming that relating to
a woman can still be highly role-defined.
This year the key is fashion has been the question of health/nature
healing/vegetarianism. Alienation, or lack of harmony between mind,
emotions and body can be overcome by the amazing healing qualities of
food. Furthermore, «Meat eating and male violence seemed locked
together.» Institutional medicine will be superseded by astrological
birth control, female nature healers and the healing crisis (or in more
female terms, suffering).
The theories of matriarchy and witches, of lesbianism and nature healing
lead naturally into an ideology enjoying growing popularity – female
superiority. This is a very convenient solution to the search for power,
since it suggests women are in fact powerful now.
More recently, female superiority is advocated quite openly. One writer
has only minor reservations «about saying straight out that there are
important innate differences between men and women, that biology is
destiny, and that biology has made women infinitely superior to men.»
The advocates of female superiority lend to hesitate because of one
consequence – if men are naturally inferior, it gives them a cop-out –
they can’t help being bastards. However there are more serious political
implications than this. Advocacy of female superiority is no less sexist
or potentially oppressive than male chauvinism. It is authoritarian,
elitist and reactionary. Furthermore, one logical conclusion is
inescapable: if the female role epitomises all that is good in human
nature, and females are superior to males, then women are not oppressed.
How long will it be before we see an article pushing this line?
Before the industrial revolution, the family’s economic function was
conspicuously productive. The family farm was the fundamental unit for
production of basic necessities. But with the industrial revolution, the
point of production was moved to the factory, and the family, at least
in urban areas, lost any obvious productive function. The only remaining
one, the production of labour power (the production and maintenance of
the worker him or herself) is invisible, disguised as a personal service
a wife does out of love for her husband. The function of the family,
apart from the economic one of consumption, became mainly political.
Training in authoritarian attitudes and sexual repression, socialization
of children into the competitive, super-individualistic psychology of
capitalism – that is the major task of the family.
Based on the apparent divorce of the family from economic production,
the myth grew of the family as «outside» society, as a refuge, where
personal life is carried on and where the man may recuperate from the
pressures of the world. Despite the large numbers of women (and children
who worked, this theory was developed particularly during the Victorian
period. The Englishman’s home was his castle – his wife, in her peaceful
sanctuary, formed the basis for capitalism’s version of a woman’s place.
Thus women’s oppression today is based on the role of woman as the
centre and lynchpin of the family. The apparently personal nature of the
family, separate from society, has meant that women tend to see their
problems in a personal, particularist way. During its early stages, the
Women’s Liberation movement concentrated on breaking down this false
consciousness and through consciousness-raising groups helped women to
perceive the social nature of their oppression. Thus the concept: «the
personal is political».
The catchword now amounts to: «the political is personal». Everything
must be looked at in a personal subjective way.
The problem here is that the Radical Feminists fail to see that the
personal, subjective approach is a historically conditioned part of the
female role; instead they regard it as inherently female. This
a-historical approach traps them into acceptance of the essentially
bourgeois ideology that the family, and consequently women, are «outside
society».
No doubt such enthusiastic protagonists of women’s liberation as John
Ruskin would unhesitatingly agree with a theory that women remain
untarnished by not being exposed to the world!
Seeing the family as outside society leads to the frequent attempts to
change family and sexual relations by sheer willpower. Thus the Radical
Feminist communes such as Amazon Acres.
Twist and turn as they might, Radical Feminists like everyone else are
still unable to avoid the pressing question: «What to do now?» The
answer usually given is simply do what you want.
Like all change-your-head theories, Radical Feminism is voluntarist and
utopian. It upholds a vision of a new society, of fundamental change, «a
female world based on love trust, freedom and humanity.» But this world
remains a distant dream.
Radical Feminism either declares this world will spontaneously arise, or
that if we try hard enough we’ll get it. Voluntarism, the idea you can
do anything you want right now, is in the long run demoralising when
disillusionment sets in. In the short run, the lack of a strategy
condemns a movement to activity only around short-term objectives. A
strategy, an understanding of how to build the movement and to bridge
the gap between immediate actions and the eventually massive social
change – this is an essential concept. Radical Feminism is lacking such
a concept.
The movement, under the influence of Radical Feminism, has largely
reverted to those immediately actionable activities traditionally open
to women – good works. The present movement around self-help is little
more than charity. Setting up child-care centres, halfway houses, health
centres and rape crisis groups – while these may be necessary and
useful, they do not help to build a movement capable of changing the
nature of society. In fact, as charity organisations usually do, they
excuse the government and the whole society from taking the
responsibility. And such an isolated institution can even be co-opted
into the governmental structure. This is evident from the dependence of
the Women’s Health Clinic in Sydney and the Women’s Centre in Berkeley,
California on government grants.
This is not to say we should not act around short-term objectives.
However while doing so we need to develop an understanding of how to
build, a strategy that takes us towards our ultimate goals.
We need to really understand consciousness, which the Radical Feminists,
for all their obsession with it, clearly do not. Consciousness is
changed in the process of people struggling to change society … and
themselves.
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