Feminist Theory, Fourth Edition by Josephine Donovan

Author:Josephine Donovan [Donovan, Josephine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory
ISBN: 9781441186294
Google: mfSoAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2012-03-08T03:33:02+00:00

6

Radical Feminism

Feminism must be asserted by women . . . as

the basis of revolutionary social change.

Roxanne Dunbar, 1968

Radical feminist theory was developed by a group of ex-“movement women” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, primarily in New York and Boston. “Movement women” were those who had participated in the political activities of the civil rights and antiwar campaigns of the 1960s. Much as nineteenth-century feminists became aware of their own oppression through the treatment they received from their male cohorts in the abolition movement, so twentieth-century radical feminists came to their consciousness in reaction to the contemptuous treatment they received from male radicals in the “New Left.” That treatment was exemplified at the 1969 antiinauguration demonstration in Washington. When feminists attempted to present their position at the rally, “men in the audience booed, laughed, catcalled and yelled enlightened remarks like ‘Take her off the stage and fuck her.’”1 A description of similar experiences may be found in Marge Piercy’s article, “The Grand Coolie Damn” (1969).2

Much of radical feminist theory was therefore forged in reaction against the theories, organizational structures, and personal styles of the male “New Left.” Having themselves experienced continual “second class” treatment within male radical organizations and because of the machismo radical style, women were concerned that their organizations express internal democracy and allow for an authentic women’s style (or, at least allow for such a style to emerge). In terms of theory radical feminists became determined to establish that their own personal “subjective” issues had an importance and legitimacy equal to those great issues being dealt with by the New Left—issues of social justice and peace. Eventually radical feminists came to believe that all these issues were interrelated, that male supremacy and the subjugation of women was indeed the root and model oppression in society and that feminism had to be the basis for any truly revolutionary change.

Other central theses of radical feminism, developed at the same time and in the same process, included the idea that the personal is political; that patriarchy, or male-domination—not capitalism—is at the root of women’s oppression; that women should identify themselves as a subjugated class or caste and put their primary energies in a movement with other women to combat their oppressors—men; that men and women are fundamentally different, have different styles and cultures, and that the women’s mode must be the basis of any future society.3

An early article which articulated many of these ideas was Roxanne Dunbar’s “Female Liberation as a Basis for Social Revolution” (1968). Dunbar urged women not to work in mixed groups like SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), but to form an independent women’s movement.4 Women’s grievances, she contends, are not “petty or personal, but rather constitute a widespread, deeply rooted social disease.” Indeed, all people live “under an international caste system, at the top of which is the Western white male ruling class, at the very bottom of which is the female of the non-white colonized world” (49). Western imperialism is rooted in sexism.

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