Loud & Proud

Radical Feminism

Wow guys, I’m really sick of people using “radscum” and “radical feminism” to describe an ideology they know nothing about.

Things Radical Feminism is NOT:

- a term used to describe feminists you disagree with
- a term used to describe “extreme” feminists, whatever that means
- a manhating movement
- a militant movement
- a transphobic movement
- an anti-sex movement
- a movement that uses the term “die cis scum.”
- a movement for female supremacy

Things Radical Feminism IS:

- a movement that focuses on how patriarchy and existing gender structures oppress women
-a movement that aims to dismantle the patriarchy by, among other things, expanding reproductive rights and changing the sexual culture
- A movement that believes gender is socially constructed
- on trans issues, their problem with transgenderism is that it reinforces the gender binary. That’s why radical feminists would NEVER say “die cis scum.”
- radical feminists tend to be against BDSM and pornography because they believe it reinforces patterns of patriarchal oppression.

This is a really nice summary of what different types of feminism believe:

“Radical feminists locate the root cause of women’s oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in socialist feminism and Marxist feminism).”

I’m still trying to figure out what kind of feminist I am but this is what I gathered from some basic googling. Please educate yourself before throwing out terms that you don’t understand as insults.

I’m not in the mood to completely dismantle this bullshit, but I will say this; you cannot strip away the extremely hurtful and problematic shit that people who label themselves radical feminists do simply because you don’t like it. Those assholes are called “radscum” for a reason. They are horrible, scummy people and will be labeled as such. If you don’t do those things, you should have no problem with radscum being called out for what they are.

The fact remains that whether you like it or not, feminism (especially white, cis, radical feminism) is rife with problems. If you want to make it a better, more inclusive movement you need to address those problems head on. Separating yourself from those problems and trying to say that the people who do those things aren’t “real feminists” will get you nowhere.