IT WAS RADICAL FEMINISM

It was radical feminism that showed how our society is male supremacist. It was radical feminism that showed how gender – the sex class system – is oppressive because it is necessarily based on relations of domination and subordination, in which men have to dominate and control women in order to be “men” and for women to be subordinated to men in order to be “women.” It was radical feminism that called attention to the political nature of battery, rape, incest, and other forms of sexual abuse in maintaining and enforcing male dominance. And it was radical feminism that called attention to and saw the necessity in challenging all of the institutions that serve to maintain rape culture and through which male dominance is normalized, legitimated and enforced (Millett, 1977; Dworkin, 1988; Jeffreys, 2004).

In doing so, radical feminism developed radical critiques of capitalism and class dominance, imperialism and colonialism, white supremacy and racism, and patriarchy and sexism in line with radical traditions of left-wing thought, and also developed these further by looking at how sexuality might be the site of sexist oppression and male dominance (Millett, 1972; Dworkin, 1983). And because they did so, they also developed radical critiques of institutions such as conventional beauty practices, fashion, romantic love, marriage, and the sexual-exploitation industries – particularly prostitution and pornography – by pointing out their basis in women’s oppression by men (Millett, 1972; Dworkin, 1983; Jeffries, 1997, 2000b, 2005, 2009).