Radical Feminism is a trend in the Women’s Movement which openly espouses that men are the enemy. For women who hold this line, complete separation from men in all areas of life is the solution to women’s oppression. Radical lesbianism is the practical extension of this line, though all radical feminists are not lesbians.
For Radical Feminists the origin of women’s oppression lies in the patriarchy. The patriarchy is seen as the “system” we live under. Because men hold all positions of power, it appears to radical feminists that the primary contradiction, the reason for women’s oppression, is because it is men who run the State and the institutions, who put forth the culture, control the media, etc.
Radical feminists see that men are innately aggressive, destructive, violent, and simplistic. Consequently, the society men have built and control is modeled on these “male principles”. The argument goes on, that, because women are innately sensitive, democratic, peaceful, passionate, and complex; the society they build, based on these “female principles”, would be one in which all people would be treated well.
This system of patriarchy then, according to radical feminists, has existed ever since the matriarchy was overthrown. Under matriarchy, they say, women were in control, were supreme and life for all was good. But it was man’s striving for power and domination over women that led to the overthrow of the matriarchy. The men were able to remain in control because they are biologically stronger and emotionally violent. Once men had gotten a taste for oppression of half of humanity, they extended this oppression to those of different races, and then to those who were poorer. Thus national oppression and “class oppression” are modeled after the first oppression, that of women by men.
Radical feminists will even misread Engels to back up this argument. Engels writes: “The first antagonism of classes in history coincides with the development of antagonism between man and woman in monogamy and the first class oppression coincides with the enslavement of the female sex by the male sex”.
Radical feminists interpret this to mean 1) that women are a class and 2) that the first class division was between men and women. As the Albanians point out in the article “A Free Woman Can Live Only In A Free Society”, this is not what Engels was saying. The “first antagonism of classes in history” and “the first class oppression” Engels is referring to is slavery. By “coincides with the development of antagonism between man and woman in monogamy” and “the enslavement of the female sex by the male sex” he is referring to the form of the family that developed alongside this change in the social relations in society. This form of the family – monogamy – in which women’s role is reduced to one of domestic slave and reproducer of the heirs - arose as a result of the introduction of private property and the resulting need for an heir to keep the new wealth in the hands of some men, there was no material reasons for monogamy, nor was there any value in women being oppressed. The radical feminists like all bourgeois feminists in the Albanian’s words, “deliberately leave in oblivion the cause of the antagonism, which is private property, and allegedly on behalf of the emancipation of woman declare war on men”.
One great error radical feminists make in their view of society, is that they take what is the result of women’s oppression, women not being in positions of power, as being the cause of women’s oppression. This leads them to liquidate class society.
The “Patriarchal family” is an important aspect to the radical feminists analysis. The “patriarchal family” is seen as the intermediary between the individual and society. As such it is the partriarchy’s primary means for preserving itself. Male supremist ideas and attitudes and role models for men and women are developed in each generation through the family. Most radical feminists then advocate breaking UP the nuclear, patriarchal family.
Radical feminists divide all of history into matriarchy and then patriarchy. They don’t recognize that society has gone through the periods of slavery, feudalism, and capitalism and will pass on to socialism. All these periods are lumped together as patriarchy because men dominate.
We should contrast this idea of the patriarchy with the way Engels used the term “patriarchal family”. This was a very specific term Marx and Engels used to describe the transitional form of the family and society from 1) the pairing family and the communistic household under mother right to 2) the monogamous individual family which has existed throughout the periods of slavery, feudalism and capitalism. The patriarchal family was one in which one man dominated and had control over the lives of his wife, children, other free persons and slaves. This group of people lived in a community household and worked the surrounding land and railed cattle to survive. Society was made up of these individual patriarchal household communities. This form of the family and society changes. One aspect that remained and which radical feminists isolate and raise above all else is the male dominance in the family and in society as a whole. Even under feudalism where patriarchal relations in the family were strong, this was not the primary aspect of society. Today capitalism has all but destroyed the remnant of patriarchal relations within the family.
To the question of how women’s oppression will be ended, radical feminists give an idealist and reformist answer. Since it is men in power and the “male principle” society is structured after that are the roots of the problem, the solution that logically follows is that women be in power and create society based on the “female principle”. Radical feminists clarify that just putting women into the positions of power of the existing institutions will not bring about change. In fact this is the major contention they have with liberal feminists like “NOW.” What is needed is “women identified women” or women who see that women’s innate characteristics are good and superior to men’s innate characteristics. These “women identified women” must create society and its institutions based on the “female principle”. Collectivity, lack of hierarchy, consensus decision making are organizational principles of the “female principle.”
With this as the final solution, radical feminist activity focuses on two areas 1) consciousness raising and 2) creating alternative institutions, lifestyles? culture. The purpose of the consciousness (*NOW – National Organization of Women) raising is to develop the “woman identified woman”, to dispel patriarchal myths that women have internalized, to develop a sense of power in women; to “discover” themselves particularly their own sexuality, and to develop the female principle innate to women and reject the male principles that have been imposed on them.
“The personal is political” is a concept that radical feminists adhere to. According to this line, our personal lives are the real focus for political change – that transformation of our personal lives will bring about “revolutionary” societal change.
Of course we recognize that any of our social interactions, whether public or personal, reflect a world view – bourgeois or proletarian and then are in this sense political. Dialectically we cannot separate the two. We also see the need to transform ourselves, to develop the correct proletarian world view and to live according to the correct political line in all areas of our lives. But we recognize the relation between our personal lives and life under imperialism. Transformation of our personal lives will not bring about social change, contrary to what radical feminists believe. They see revolution as primarily one of consciousness – a replacement of the female principle for the male principle. It is based on a belief that the power of ideas alone will cause social change. The focus on the personal leads to subjectivism and empiricism in their relations with other people. It also leads to a focus on sexuality, pleasure seeking, individualism, and anarchy.
Creating alternative institutions, lifestyles, and culture based on the female principle is the other major task of radical feminists – bookstores, schools, clinics. Do-it-yourself gynechology and psychiatry are posed as an alternative to the abusive healthcare system dominated by men and patriarchal ideas. There is also a rejection of industrial and technological advancement. Women are urged to regain harmony with their true “roots” which are seen to be independent from men. Technology is rejected as a means for attaining women’s liberation, as is the socialization or collectivization of petty tasks, household work and major production. A separate feminist culture has developed which includes witchcraft, herbology, music, art, “herstory”, religion, poetry, etc. These alternatives are reformism in that they are not aimed at overthrowing capitalism. They are also reactionary in their anti-technology stand and their reversion to barbarism (witchcraft, etc.)
Radical feminists raise the struggle against male chauvinism to an antagonistic level. There is little or no distinction made of men of different classes or oppressed nationalities. All men are the enemy.
Men and women cannot unite to struggle for common goals. And since men “naturally” dominate and take over when they’re around women, they cannot be allowed to participate in women’s activities or decisions affecting women. Thus the “no men allowed” rule in bars, IWD events, bookstores, conferences, etc. Thus these feminists are against the unity of the class and its allies.
The only men some radical feminists may work with are those willing to reject the “male principle” and operate under the female principle. And even to those few some activities are excluded.
The demands and reforms struggled around tend to focus on the personal and the contradictions among the people - thus, rape, wife beating, pornography are issues that radical feminists have taken up. All these are seen as examples of “violence against women”. “All men are potential rapists” is one way this line manifests itself. Rapists and wife beaters are seen as personifying all the violent innate characteristics of men. Radical feminists put forth a call for women to organize themselves into groups and confront rapists and wife-beaters. In some parts of the country, radical feminists have developed rape squads that can be called in. The squad tracks down the rapist. T.iey have donned masks, captured the rapist, tied him up and proceeded to torture him. Radical feminists correctly don’t rely on the police, but for the wrong reasons. Police are seen to always take the side of the man against the women because of the complicity between all men.
We support women’s right to self defense but to organize against rapists as the main enemy is to turn non-antagonistic contradictions into antagonistic contradictions.
The “Blue Bird Five” are an example of the way radical feminists struggle against pornography. This group of women were arrested for spray-painting walls and pasting leaflets denouncing a pornographic movie playing at a Denver theater. Though we support the struggle against pornography and oppose the Blue Bird Five’s arrest and the jailing of these women, we don’t support these kinds of tactics. What we support is mass action against capitalism and all forms of male chauvinism.
These anarchistic and semi-terrorist tactics reflect the petty bourgeois character of this movement, other issues are those focusing on sexuality and petty bourgeois individualism – right to sexual preference, abortion, rights of prostitutes. Lesbianism is seen as a progressive step forward – an expression of human beings’ capacity to love everyone that has been socialized out of us.
To sum up, the radical feminist line holds the following: that the origin of women’s oppression is the patriarchy. The main enemy is the patriarchy and male chauvinism. The way to end women’s oppression is for women to take control and build society based on the “female principle” of collectivity, nurturance, cooperation, non-aggressiveness, non-dominance,* subjectivity. The focus of their activity is on individual consciousness raising and creating alternative institutions, cultures, and lifestyles. The struggle against male chauvinism is an antagonistic struggle, for men are seen as the enemy. There can be no unity between, men and women with the exception of those men who operate by the female principles. Demands and Reforms center on contradictions among the people – personal life, sexuality, rape, wife beating, pornography, lesbianism. Tactics are anarchistic, semi-terrorist. In essence the line is idealist, reactionary, and reformist. It is an example of the impatience, disenchantment and degeneration of the petty bourgeoisie.
Participants deepened their understanding of two points: 1) the origin of women’s oppression – in particular, the role of the patriarchal family as a transition form of the family and society between primitive communism with its group/pairing marriage and civilization with its monogamous marriage; and 2) the difference between the way radical feminists and Marxist-Leninists would support women’s right to self defense – in particular, the Inez Garcia case.
On the first point it was pointed out that under primitive communism the community is the primary economic unit of society. But with the development of the monogamous family, the economic unit becomes the family. The question is one of how the economic surplus is divided up. As the transitional form, the patriarchal family passes wealth and the primary economic role to the male, but the surplus is shared by the extended family or community.
It is important to understand that under primitive communism, women are the primary contributors to the means of subsistence as they gather fruits and nuts (as opposed to tending gardens) which are always available as food. Hunting and game is an irregular source of food, thus it is secondary. The division of labor makes women in charge of the primary means of subsistence. Also, as a remnant of group marriage, descent is recognized through the mother and what little wealth there is passes through the mother’s line. Consequently, women are held in high regard.
Under the patriarchal family, herds and cultivation replace hunting and become the primary source of subsistence. Thus, due to the division of labor, the men are in control of this new source of subsistence.
Bourgeois sociologists have taken from Marx and Engels’ descriptions of the development of the family and society and revised them. They use the terms “patriarchy” and “matriarchy” to categorize all societies as either male or female dominated. Feminists have picked up on these terms to fit their unscientific analysis of society. In fact there is no such thing as “matriarchy” and “patriarchy” in the sense that radical feminists and Bourgeois sociologists use these terms.
The second point made in the discussion concerned the Inez Garcia case. Inez Garcia was charged with murder for killing a man who had assisted another man in raping her. Fifteen minutes after the incident, she had gotten a gun, followed the man and shot him. The legal issue in the trial was whether the killing was done in self defense. The radical feminists supported this case as an example of women’s right to self defense against rape. The question raised for discussion was how Marxist-Leninists would view this case.
Marxist-Leninists should make a distinction between the way the leadership of the women’s movement put forth the line and with the ways the masses took up support of the case. We don’t have a difference with Inez Garcia. We support her case. But we do have a difference with the line put forth by the leadership of the women’s movement. Whether it is Inez Garcia or riots in the ghetto, it is correct to support resistance by the masses against their oppression. But we can also show in that support that we cannot glorify acts of spontaneous violence. Also we can give support against the state in prosecuting, making clear that we don’t support the tactics unconditionally. We don’t glorify the spontaneity of these acts of resistance. Our role is to give consciousness to the struggle.
Radical feminists supported this case as the correct way to deal with rapists. Their line is that women should go on the offensive – track the rapist down. We see the right to self defense not as meaning to go on the offensive, but as defensive. Self defense means to use whatever means of force as is necessary to protect oneself and where the situation involves a contradiction among the people, that it be treated as non-antagonistically as possible. In a rape situation there is the danger of the woman being killed. Under particular conditions then, the need to protect oneself may include having to kill the attacker.
What distinguishes the way radical feminists and Marxist-Leninists support Inez Garcia’s case is the different propaganda that is put out about it.