Feminist Theory Ruins Everything: @AmyGoodloe’s Lesbian Sedative

Posted on | May 3, 2014 | 81 Comments

“Allison eased herself carefully across the slippery sheets to the edge of the bed. Her feet dangling off the edge, she groped for the floor. She felt the slick, fur-like material of the rug between her toes. For a moment she played with it, enjoying the sensual tickling sensation on her barefoot. Then she sat up slowly, careful not to wake the girl sleeping on the other side of the bed.”
— first paragraph of Unnatural, by Sloan Britton (1960)

“One of the fundamental tenets of postmodern theory is that all identities are socially constructed, and that, throughout history, dominant groups have had the power not only to construct their own identities, which they disguise as ‘innate’ or ‘natural’ rather than created, but also to construct the identities of groups the dominant group has a vested interest in marginalizing. The appeal of postmodern theory lies in its method of ‘deconstructing’ the power relationships inherent in constructions of identity so that it becomes possible to articulate a counter-ideology which has as its aim the liberation and de-objectification of marginalized groups. The irony in this is that those most often attracted to and who are in a position to utilize postmodern methodology are themselves members of a dominant group, even if only in terms of level of education, and in the attempt to give voice to those who have been historically silenced and oppressed, they frequently run the risk of further marginalizing some members of these groups.”
— first paragraph of “Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Butch-Femme,” by Amy Goodloe (1993)

It is probably unnecessary to say that, given the choice between a lurid pulp novel about lesbianism and an academic treatise about lesbianism, most of us would choose the novel. Academia is overcrowded with bad writers, so it may be unfair to single out the field of Women’s Studies, and even more unfair to pick on the University of Colorado’s Amy Goodloe, simply because hers was one of the first articles that turned up on a Google search: “lesbian + feminist + butch + gender + role.”

(This was utterly random, Ms. Goodloe, and my apologies at your shock to discover your 1993 paper made the subject of online mockery, compared unfavorably to a steamy 1960 pulp novel. After writing about the butch “gender role” thing on Friday, I had in mind to do a follow-up, and you drew the short straw, so to speak.)

Goodloe is clear that her “postmodern” critique is about power. Because “all identities are socially constructed, and . . . dominant groups” possess the power to construct not only their identities but also “those who have been historically silenced and oppressed,” therefore the “method of ‘deconstructing’ the power relationships” aims “to articulate a counter-ideology which has as its aim the liberation and de-objectification of marginalized groups.”

This is less interesting than the plight of Allison, the good-girl-gone-wrong protagonist of Sloan Britton’s 1960 novel Unnatural. Her story — as tacky, vulgar and stereotypical as it may be — is about human emotion. Goodloe’s treatise is about political power:

For the past two decades [i.e., 1973-93 ], the dominant form of feminist discourse has, in attempting to “liberate” lesbian identity from patriarchal control, instead imposed its own identity politics on the lesbian community, with the result that those lesbians whose behaviors or “styles” do not conform to the feminist agenda have been doubly-oppressed — once by the dominant patriarchal culture, and again by the movement that claimed to seek the liberation of all women. This is perhaps most obvious in the feminist critique of role playing among lesbians, which is considered by the dominant feminist discourse to be a barrier to one’s “true” identity as a woman (assuming that there is such a thing). . . .

(Again, this is about who is “dominant” — not in the sexy sense of “dominant,” but in the less interesting political way.)

[I]f theorists make the whole notion of lesbian identity so problematic as to suggest that there can be no such thing, on what grounds then are lesbians to come together in the fight against oppression and homophobia? Deconstructing lesbian identity in such a way perpetuates the “divide and conquer” strategy of the dominant ideology, which has historically been used to deprive oppressed groups of the unity needed for power, by failing to recognize the agency of lesbians in resisting dominant constructions of their identity in favor of ones that more accurately reflect their lived experience.
It is the task of lesbian theory, then, Wolfe and Penelope argue, to both resist a kind of deconstruction that would render lesbians even more invisible, and to work towards the (re)construction of a lesbian identity as it is “experienced through a collective history and culture” . . .

(Checking Goodloe’s curriculum vitae, I don’t see any awards for “Most Boring Thing Ever Written About Lesbianism,” but . . .)

One of the problems with the construction of lesbian identity that is often noted by theorists is that it most often takes place within the terms of the dominant discourse, which has established heterosexuality as the “natural” or normative expression of human sexuality against which all other expressions are considered deviant and deficient. One of the first academics to challenge the naturalization of heterosexuality was Adrienne Rich, in an important and controversial essay entitled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980). Rich’s main argument is that heterosexuality is not only not natural or innate, it is in fact an institution designed to perpetuate male social and economic privilege, which means that the ideology of difference as the natural basis for sexual attraction is, in fact, a construction. . . . Rich goes on to argue that it is the primary bonding between women that is, in fact, natural, but which is disrupted by the imposition of compulsory heterosexuality in all women’s lives — or rather, in all but those few who resist heterosexuality in favor of the more “natural” state of woman-identification, which is the broader definition Rich gives to lesbianism. . . .

(We hashed out Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality” argument at great length here last weekend.)

The critique most often leveled against role-playing in the lesbian community comes, as we have just seen, from the feminist belief that all role-playing replicates the very (hetero)sexual structure from which lesbians are supposedly free. The idea that one’s sexual identity might depend on or evolve from such role-playing is considered “unenlightened,” and a sign of one’s successful socialization into the dominant ideology. But there is also a growing body of lesbian-feminist scholarship that attempts to shed new light on our understanding of the function of role-playing within the lesbian community, arguing that lesbian roles not only challenge the constructed nature of heterosexual roles but are, in fact, subversive of the sex/gender system as a whole. . . .

(Here we are getting to the core of why feminism ultimately requires lesbianism. Feminist theory holds that it is “the sex/gender system” which is the source of women’s oppression under patriarchy. If, as Goodloe says in summarizing Rich, “heterosexuality is not only not natural or innate, it is in fact an institution designed to perpetuate male social and economic privilege,” then this “dominant ideology” of heterosexuality is key to women’s oppression. That which is “subversive” of the system — i.e., lesbianism — is therefore liberating.)

According to [feminist Esther] Newton, in “The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman” (1984), the figure of Stephen Gordon [in Hall’s novel, The Well of Loneliness] “was and remains an important symbol of rebellion against male hegemony” . . . because of the way she challenges the “natural” relationship between sex and gender. . . . According to Newton . . . the character of Stephen Gordon is not “mannish” because she wants to be a man, but for the more complicated reasons of resistance to the dominant construction of “femaleness,” and decision to publicly announce and act on her desire for other women — which, in a phallocentric culture, means appropriating the male role.
The claim Newton is making for Hall’s character is that, rather than capitulating to the dominant construction of lesbian identity as a defect of nature, she instead destabilizes gender categories by exposing them as roles that can be assumed by either sex. Masculinity then becomes nothing but a social role, albeit one accorded power and dominance in the culture, and therefore women who reject the prohibitive and dehumanizing role of “femininity” symbolize this rejection by “cross-dressing,” appropriating the codes and symbols of masculinity while remaining fully female. Role-playing then becomes, at least for the “butch” woman, a challenge to heterosexuality rather than a replication of it. . . .

OK, enough with the italic interpolations. You can go read the whole thing. Where you see Goodloe’s article going — and the destination was clear from the start — is toward justifying butch-femme roles among lesbians as an attack on male “power and dominance.” Women who exercise “power and dominance” in their relationships with other women, however, are OK because they’re women, and if femininity is “prohibitive and dehumanizing” for heterosexual women, somehow being submissive toward a butch lesbian is also OK, because it “destabilizes gender categories.” Amid the academic jargon, Goodloe makes this pretty clear:

Because it is butch women who visibly disrupt the dominant ideology of gender roles with their seeming appropriation of masculinity, scholarly attention tends to focus on “butchness” when addressing issues of lesbian identity. The equally important role of femme women in the construction of lesbian identity is ignored, often because of the misconception that femme women are attempting to disguise their homosexuality by “passing” as straight — which is to say, by buying into rather than rejecting the dominant culture’s construct of “femininity.” What [feminist Joan] Nestle suggests, however, is that the femme role is just as threatening to the institution of heterosexuality because of the way it co-opts the conventional female role in order to signal desire for other women, which of course runs counter the very purpose behind the social construction of femininity. What the femme role makes perhaps even clearer than the butch is the performative nature of all roles, which makes it possible for a biological female to “play at” being a woman by exaggerating what the culture has defined as “womaness.”

Does this involve a strap-on dildo by any chance, Ms. Goodloe? Because we’re all tired of theory about butch-femme roles, which we are certain must be less interesting than the reality. But the same is true, actually, when feminists write about heterosexuals — all they see is male patriarchal hegemony and the presumed victimhood inherent in “the conventional female role.”

Has no feminist ever considered the possibility that not all heterosexual women are clueless? Are there no happily heterosexual women who are as aware as any feminist of “the performative nature of all roles,” and who take an unembarrassed pleasure in performing “the conventional female role” with conventionally masculine men?

Once you discard the power-obsessed collectivist ideology of feminism, what purpose is served by this demonization of men and this contemptuous disdain for “conventional” women?

Feminism’s critique of gender roles (“all identities are socially constructed”) is fundamentally an ideology of selfishness, embraced by perpetually disgruntled women whose inability to find happiness in traditional relationships is turned into a “sour-grapes” rationalization — the argument that traditional relationships are inherently bad. And to hell with Goodloe’s claim that “the dominant discourse” is what “has established heterosexuality as the ‘natural’ or normative expression of human sexuality.” If heterosexuality is not natural, why are there more than 6 billion people on the planet? Maybe Ms. Goodloe wasn’t paying attention in biology class when mammalian reproduction was explained, but her ignorance of the procreative process is not our fault.

Meanwhile, back in Sloan Britton’s 1960 world . . .

She had often thought of leaving. There were too many times when Lydia made life hell for her. Nothing was worth those hours and days of anguish and despair. Lydia was a sadistic bitch who delighted in tormenting Allison.
But Allison would never leave her.
Allison loved Lydia.
She loved her so much that sometimes she thought it was wrong. Human beings weren’t supposed to love each other so much. There must be something sinful about a love so strong it blotted out everything else, including decency and self-respect.

Yeah, that’s hot — and I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet!

Oh: Sixth annual National Offend a Feminist Week begins Monday and continues through May 11 — Mother’s Day, because where would the heteronormative patriarchy be without dear old Mom?

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Category: Feminism, National Offend a Feminist Week

Comments

81 Responses to “Feminist Theory Ruins Everything: @AmyGoodloe’s Lesbian Sedative”

ariyadesai01
May 3rd, 2014 @ 4:22 am

RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Feminist Theory Ruins Everything: @AmyGoodloe’s Lesbian Sedative http://t.co/0vit3E23RI #TCOT
Chas C-Q
May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:13 am

“The irony in this is that those most
often attracted to and who are in a position to utilize postmodern
methodology are themselves members of a dominant group, even if only in
terms of level of education, . . .”

So, she’s saying that this is largely about competing for attention and influence – to become a “‘thought’ leader” – within one’s own privileged, “dominant” peer group – not about helping “the oppressed.”
RS
May 3rd, 2014 @ 8:43 am

One wonders if the major allure of such a world view is that holding it allows one to distinguish oneself from the crowd. It is a means of dressing up an otherwise mediocre existence which devoid of actual achievement. Who needs to cure cancer or provide succor to lepers and orphans, when all you have to do is deny the central biological fact of human existence?
Evi L. Bloggerlady
May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:21 am

Ha!
This is off topic a bit but given this blog focus on reporting the menace of sexually out of control school teachers…

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152037474017694&set=a.10150949294827694.412818.535947693&type=1
Evi L. Bloggerlady
May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:35 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JCJE0HaFek#t=25 Obama has released homosexual demons on black males…
Zohydro
May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:58 am

I wonder if any ageism is involved here…

As just a casual man-on-the-street sort of observation from someone who been around long enough to notice and is in the acquaintance of a lesbian or two, it seems to me that as lesbians grow older, they become more and more butch!
Regalo
May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:35 am

It’s probably way out of my skill set to comment on this issue as post-modernist academic speak seems to be so much word salad to my binary gender normative male mind. But having read a couple of elucidating articles yesterday, one by Sarah Hoyt, “Navigation is Needed,” and one linked by Ace and Instapundit, “The economics of political correctness,” I actually think I have new take on Goodloe and the Lesbian-Feminist outlook.

Rather than being just an ideology of selfishness, embraced by perpetually disgruntled women” it seems that the significance of feminist critique of gender roles is that it is a truly niche market where one can obtain intrinsic value from holding a position that cannot be assailed, foremost, by any person not holding like-values – let alone any person not a member of the same biological persuasion.

If Goodloe holds that thought position X provides a fundamental explanation for butch-femme roles, it can only be challenged by others who not only study such gender roles but presumably who have also experienced such gender roles. So the competition for ideas is narrowed by excluding any competing ideas that may come from a heteronormative or even a dissimilar trans-normative viewpoint, increasing the value of Goodloe’s thought position.

However, in the real world, the value of that thought position is about as substantial as the value of thrift shop clothing piled from floor to ceiling in the home of a hoarder. Though Ms. Goodloe may consider each thought position
(or each unraveling cardigan sweater) to be of great importance amongst her collection, unless society accepts her delusion and grants value to those positions the rest of us understand that she needs therapy, a team of clean up specialists with facemasks, and a large dump truck.
M. Thompson
May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:43 am

Man, this is just a great appetizer for Offend a Feminist Week.
RS
May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:40 am

Quite so. The fact that these people can obtain tenured sinecures an public expense and garner attention of purported “thinkers,” says more about the state of Academe, than anything else. Postmodern thought is merely a means to reward irrational thinking.
CrustyB
May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:51 am

There is a reason why lesbians are so mad at the world–nature. Feminists are frustrated that their genitals don’t work together so they can’t get off the same way men and women do. Nature never meant for two women to procreate so it ignored their sex lives. Dildos have no feeling in them. Scissoring? Scissoring is like Santa Claus; it’s a myth. Lesbians rarely do it.
Federale
May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:59 am

It all comes down to the fact that so many women are unavailable to lesbians, who are jealous that men are getting so much more women than dykes are.
RKae
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:08 pm

I appreciate all the work you do, Mr. McCain, but, honestly, I just don’t know how much more I can go down this rabbit hole of nonsense. My head is, to be quite frank, boggled.

I had a friend who went mad. I sat and listened to him rattle off the strangest stuff… and I get that feeling again when I read this feminist lunacy. All it needs is some goofy names thrown in and it will read like some nutty society from “Gulliver’s Travels.”

It all comes down to one thing: they think that people living calm, ordinary, responsible lives are robots stuck in a construct that’s been forced upon them, while anyone indulging in unbridled mischief was “hard-wired” that way and has no option but to follow the dictates of lust.

I’m leaning more toward demonic possession as the problem with these people.
RKae
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:11 pm

Pastor James David Manning! I know of that guy! You need to type his name into YouTube! You’ll be treated to some of his sermons where he calls Obama “the devil” and “a long-legged mack-daddy!”

Deeelightful!
???
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:18 pm

That guy, James David Manning, would seem to veered into-tenth degree kookiness, near catatonic levels.
???
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:25 pm

*[…]to have veered[…]*
robertstacymccain
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:34 pm

“I had a friend who went mad. I sat and listened to him rattle off the strangest stuff… and I get that feeling again when I read this feminist lunacy. “

An interesting observation. Much of feminist theory, in fact, is rooted in a rejection of Freudian psychology, which had dealt with “the woman problem” by diagnosing unhappy women as suffering from various neurotic “complexes” and “syndromes.” Both Freudianism and feminism are essentially therapeutic in their approach to unhappiness, but feminism diagnoses women’s problems as political in nature, offering “consciousness raising” as an alternative to Freud’s “talking cure,” and prescribing political empowerment as the ideal.

This explains why academic feminism so often sounds like lunatic gibberish: These are desperately unhappy people attempting to rationalize their unhappiness.
robertstacymccain
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:41 pm

“. . . jealous that men are getting so much more women than dykes are.”

Yes, and especially jealous that men get the overwhelming majority of the most attractive women. Feminist theory — which attempts to convince women that men are inferior and heterosexuality is harmful — is basically propaganda for lesbian recruitment. Why do you think militant feminism is always targeted at college campuses, anyway?
DaveO
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:42 pm

So, if I read RSM’s presentation on Goodloe correctly, lesbian do not fall in love, they fall into power structure. And, women can not love, but are the subordinate partner in all relationships (heterosexual and work) due to social constructs imposed by dominant men, but can become the equal or dominant partner in all relationships by becoming a lesbian. What a cold, cruel life it must be to live without love, and to live always seeking [manipulative] power over other human beings.
Etc.
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:47 pm

Long-legged mack daddy? Why wasn’t I who thought of that?!
Kirby McCain
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:51 pm

dominant patriarchal cultureWho’s really constructing identities here?
DaveO
May 3rd, 2014 @ 12:52 pm

Textbook (pre-1980s) definition of racism too. It’s all just smack-talk from Manning until he stops driving voters to the polling station to vote Democrat.
robertstacymccain
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:00 pm

Yes — normal love is rejected as oppressive to women, and lesbian love is presented as political. Feminism’s attempt to rationalize the irrational is doomed from the start.
Charles G. Hill
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:07 pm

Precisely. In fact, not being a member of the aggrieved group means you’re not allowed to have any opinions regarding them, because privilege.
David
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:13 pm

From Ms. Goodloe’s thesis:

“…dominant groups have had the power not only to construct their own identities, which they disguise as ‘innate’ or ‘natural’ rather than created, but also to construct the identities of groups the dominant group has a vested interest in marginalizing.”

Does anyone else see the incredible irony and contradiction here? Has not the rallying cry for the last 20 years been “Born this way?” So which is it: is identity and morality socially constructed and malleable, or is it natural?
marti386
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:23 pm

While you’ve done many interesting articles on feminists, I just wanted to point out something.

The women you keep talking about are not feminists. Not mainstream feminists, anyway.

The nutjobs who keep going on about “sex is rape”, PIV, “all women should become lesbians” and “trans women are all rapists” are in fact a very, VERY small slice of feminism, known as Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists”, or TERFs. They are almost always butch lesbians, and usually separatists lesbians at that. They are so stuck in their 60’s feminist theory they can’t see that it’s already 2014, and most of their bullshit has been disproven. That’s why they freak out about trans women all the time. The existence of trans women is something their theories haven’t taken into account, and by their thinking shouldn’t exist. But we do and it scares the living bejeesus out of them.

The LARGE majority of feminists reject radfem theory. Many feminist women have stood with trans women against radfems when they start their anti-trans ranting. Also just to point it out, trans women don’t boycott radfem conferences because they won’t let us in. We boycott them because of their horrid anti-trans thinking.

As a trans woman who is a feminist, I can honestly say that the vast majority of feminists do not want to “abolish gender”. We just want things like equal treatment and equal pay, and control over our own bodies. Things that radfems seem to have totally forgotten about in their zeal to destroy all men and trans women.

I agree with you that radfems are batshit crazy, however.
Matt_SE
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:34 pm

So, all other identities are open for deconstruction and therefore, de-legitimization, but not the lesbian identity (butch or otherwise). Why? Because lesbians find a coherent identity narrative to be politically useful. It gives them power, and so the rest of us are supposed to accept that reasoning.

“It is the task of lesbian theory, then, Wolfe and Penelope argue, to both resist a kind of deconstruction that would render lesbians even more invisible…”

“Seriously, you guys…there is no absolute truth. Except the narrative we’re trying to feed you; you can totes believe in that one.”
RS
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:37 pm

I had a friend who went mad. I sat and listened to him rattle off the strangest stuff… and I get that feeling again when I read this feminist lunacy.

There does seem to be more than a token amount of paranoid delusion in all of this. Not only have they created their own reality, but all evidence contra their metaphysics is deemed deliberately fabricated or the result of a “false consciousness.” Take away tenure and you’ve got your garden variety hobo panhandling on a street corner screaming about aliens trying to control his thoughts through electronic waves broadcast from the Delta Quadrant and amplified by a secret cabal of Lizard People in the basement of the NSA.

(Of course, to be fair, the secret NSA cabal is on the fourth floor and the brain waves are coming from Alpha Centauri. Some people just can’t handle the truth.)
robertstacymccain
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:42 pm

So you’re saying that, inter alia, Adrienne Rich, Catharine MacKinnon, Mary Daly, Janice Raymond, Marilyn Frye, Dee Graham, Andrea Dworkin and Judith Butler are not influential feminists? You’re saying that the radical feminist critique of heteronormative patriarchy is not required subject matter in every Women’s Studies curriculum in the English-speaking world?

You’re telling me, in other words, that there is a “mainstream feminism” which condemns and rejects all of these core theoretical doctrines that any sophomore Women’s Studies major knows by heart? Bullshit.

As I have made clear previously, I’ve read enough to know that feminism has its exoteric (public) discourse and its esoteric dogma, which is revealed to and discussed among members of the cult. Feminism aims at the destruction of the traditional family and the gender roles associated with it. This goal has been so often declared by feminist leaders for so many decades that anyone attempting to deny it now is simply dishonest.
RS
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:47 pm

Alright, McCain. Let’s see how you incorporate this tidbit of biological truth into Radical Lesbian(TM) worldview.

: )
Matt_SE
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:48 pm

Two points:
1) It’s funny how the “fringe” radfems seem to occupy the central position in the feminist “circle of inclusiveness.” They’re the ones publishing the books that are used on campuses.
2) I can’t help but notice how the trans woman movement will benefit from denying point #1.
Matt_SE
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:51 pm

You’re not allowed to say that. You need to “check your privilege.”
Didn’t you get the memo?
Wombat_socho
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:53 pm

Takeaway quote from that article: “And so it seems that in perpetually dangerous Australia, even the sex can kill you.”
Wombat_socho
May 3rd, 2014 @ 1:54 pm

Well, we should give some of them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re ignorant. Especially the younger, cuter ones. 😉
robertstacymccain
May 3rd, 2014 @ 2:12 pm

Has not the rallying cry for the last 20 years been “Born this way?”

Welcome to Progressive Cynicism, my friend: The Left is always opportunistic, willing to make whatever argument will gain them power; once having gained power, however, the “mainstream” mask is discarded, and those who had hitherto supported the Left’s agenda are confronted with the fundamental ideology.

You may research how, for example, Lenin made “All Power to the Soviets” a rallying cry, and pledged Bolshevik support for the Constituent Assembly — until the seizure of power was accomplished. Then, the Constituent Assembly was adjourned by force of Bolshevik arms, and the autonomy of the soviets was brutally suppressed under the (oxymoronic) doctrine of “democratic centralism.”

It might help also to read Destructive Generation by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, which chronicles numerous examples of how the same principle — the Left’s ruthless, anti-democratic power-oriented ideology in action — disappointed the hopes of so many idealists in the 1960s and ’70s.
marti386
May 3rd, 2014 @ 3:11 pm

“So you’re saying that, inter alia, Adrienne Rich, Catharine MacKinnon, Mary Daly, Janice Raymond, Marilyn Frye, Dee Graham, Andrea Dworkin and Judith Butler are not influential feminists?”

Yeah, pretty much. The only ones I know still beating the drum of Daly, Raymond and Dworkin are radfems. Most have moved on since then. As I’ve said, most of them disagree with radfems quite violently. And I know PLENTY of het feminists who take serious issue with the idea that all PIV is “rape”.

My mom was a feminist. She NEVER wanted to abolish gender. I don’t either. Neither do any of my feminist friends.

To be fair, I don’t blame early rabble rousers like Raymond for making the conclusions they did then. That was 40 freaking years ago. Feminism was a new thing. And 40 years ago, women did face a lot of issues that needed to be addressed. But feminism has evolved, and by large most feminists don’t agree that men are rapists by default. They also don’t think that trans women are “agents of the patriarchy sent to infiltrate feminism from the inside in order to destroy it” ( a real radfem theory, btw). But I do blame them for CONTINUING these ridiculous ideas, even after tons of evidence has emerged that they are wrong. While a lot of them are still covered in Women’s Studies, mostly it’s to get a sense of history. Women’s studies also cover newer, saner forms of feminism.

Feminsts like Gloria Steinhem and Julie Bindel have long removed themselves from “radical” thinking, and have spoken out against radfems.

Personally I think radfems like Raymond are snake oil salesmen. They’ve made cushy lives selling this drivel, and they don’t want to rock the boat. I have a hard time believing that any of the “pillars” of radical feminism really still believe half of what they sell to their desperate audience. Radfems are losing the battle, and they know it. Only a moron still believes in 2nd wave feminism. There is now 3rd wave, 4th wave and Womanism, much better forms of feminism to think.

As a trans woman who has had over 15 years experience dealing with radfems, I have to say they are indeed a small group. There’s literally no more than a few dozen radfem sites out there, but they cross-post each others writings in some weird form of inbreeding, feeding off each others hate, and becoming increasingly unhinged. They exist in a internet vaccum that has no meaning in the real world. Their radfem conferences never seem to draw more than a few dozen attendees. They are a VERY loud and obnoxious group however, which is why they always seem to be hijacking the feminist movement.

But trust me, they aren’t.
M. Thompson
May 3rd, 2014 @ 3:20 pm

Australia: the continent where daily survival is a struggle.
M. Thompson
May 3rd, 2014 @ 3:20 pm

Pretty girls get away with lot, including being foolish.
Nick
May 3rd, 2014 @ 3:45 pm

i can see why trans-hating radfems would be rare. all of the radical feminists i know love trans people. they also despise the gender binary and believe gender is 100% social construct, but simply gloss over the inherent contradiction of considering genitals meaningless while sympathizing with the trans community. as far as the college-aged crowd is concerned, that IS feminism today: gender isn’t a legitimate thing, except when it’s a special flavor, and everything different about men and women is a social construct perpetuated by patriarchy.

it seems the necessity of lesbianism is sort of a sub-point of goodloe’s, where the primary argument is more about the patriarchal power structures that make lesbianism desirable. would you really argue that those ideas are rejected by mainstream feminists today?
RKae
May 3rd, 2014 @ 4:01 pm

“The Left is always opportunistic, willing to make whatever argument will gain them power…”

The left’s whole strategy is built on bait-and-switch, and of course, incrementalism (which is really just a constant flow of bait-and-switch; they’re in an endless stream of selling you one lie while they’re unmasking the previous one).
RKae
May 3rd, 2014 @ 4:02 pm

The craziest feminists ARE mainstream in that the mainstream left never disowns them, decries them, or distances itself from them.
marti386
May 3rd, 2014 @ 4:13 pm

Actually the mainstream feminists do plenty to disown them. It hardly seems to get mentioned though.

When radfems held their “Radfem 2012” conference in the UK, it was opposed by many mainstream feminist groups including The NUS Women’s Campaign, The Brighton Feminist Collective, the Royal Holloway Feminist Society and the Oxford Feminist Society. They are opposed by many feminists all the time.
LRRP
May 3rd, 2014 @ 5:09 pm

Yeah, but it all starts to sound like: “I’ll be a non-conformist – just like everybody else!”
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 5:33 pm

Steinem may not agree with the rads. But I’d suggest it’s mostly over tactics and a few pronouncements. She’s still down for the marxism angle.

Ever since the mid-eighties, feminism has been a marxist, homosexual ghetto, and the territory previously staked out for actual feminism is so empty it looks like abandoned Detroit.
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 5:35 pm

Political love.

That ought to be a new term, although it probably needs tarting up with prefixes and a dash.
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 5:36 pm

This topic demands more research.
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:06 pm

If you want to hear an amazing black pastor, the Reverend Dr. Yuille is your man.

Here he is, getting an award from the Frederick Douglass Society (starts with the introducer):

BONUS: he’s back on the radio.
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:09 pm

Dang, I read that once and understood every word. Howcome the “feminist” writers Stacy refers to can’t accomplish that?
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:17 pm

I think feminism would get a huge boost if humans “evolved” some of the more, ahhh, aggressive aspects of reproduction.

Like say, where the developed fetus eats its way to freedom.

They just don’t realize how good human females have it.
Etc.
May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:19 pm

What kind of research?
K-Bob
May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:21 pm

Thorough.