What Is a Woman? – New Yorker article

The New Yorker just published “What Is a Woman? – The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism” by Michelle Goldberg. Her piece provides a good summary of the differences in political analysis between radical feminsts and liberal transgenderists, from their different views on gender and whether “girl brains” exist to the real-world effects on women. Having interviewed Lierre Keith and Rachel of DGR, other radical feminists veteran and new, and prominent transactivists, Goldberg provides a useful introduction to this decades-old debate.

The article makes clear the need for women to have women-only safe spaces for meeting, organizing, and letting down their guard. Goldberg describes the pattern of threats against and silencing of women who question queer theory, from deplatforming to cancelation of venues to straight-up death threats. (The article does not attempt to cover transactivists’ pattern of physically assaulting women who disagree with them.) The article quotes Sandy Stone, a man who identifies as a woman: “I am going to have to say [to women who want women-only spaces], It’s your place to stay out of spaces where transgender male-to-female people go. It’s not our job to avoid you.” Sandy’s statement perfectly illustrates the male entitlement behavior radical feminists are working so hard to dismantle.

Read the whole article to better understand radical feminism & transgenderism, and accusations of transphobia against Deep Green Resistance

For more information, see:

Robert Jensen: Some Basic Propositions About Sex, Gender and Patriarchy

Robert Jensen, a radical activist and professor in Austin, TX, wrote an article last month on the debate within feminism on transgenderism. His piece clearly presents the disagreements between radical feminists, who view gender as a patriarchy-enforcing social construct to be abolished; and the transgender movement, with a more liberal approach of encouraging individuals to choose their own gender roles without challenging the larger system.

The goal of radical feminism is a world without hierarchy, in which males and females would be free to explore the range of human experiences—especially experiences of love, whether sexual or not—in an egalitarian context.

[…]

Nothing in a radical feminist analysis minimizes the social and/or psychological struggles of—nor provides support for violence against—people who identify as transgender or people who do not conform to patriarchal gender norms but do not identify as transgender. Radical feminism is not the cause of those struggles or the source of that violence but rather advocates for an egalitarian society with maximal freedom without violence.

Read the whole article: Some Basic Propositions About Sex, Gender and Patriarchy. You can also listen to Robert Jensen on RAGE Radio: “Community, Collapse, and Despair”, on Derrick Jensen’s Resistance Radio, and in the video “Talking Radical in a Mainstream World.”

Radfems Respond

Several Deep Green Resistance members participated in Radfems Respond the weekend of May 24th 2014, in Portland, OR. The event was facilitated by Samantha Berg, with the goal of providing safe space for discussion:

Hey social justice activists!

Are internet flamewars bumming you out?

Do interactions on social media sometimes make you feel like you’ve entered a fighting pit?

We’re tired of the lightless heat, too. That’s why Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) has arranged for a public dialogue on two of the most controversial issues facing modern feminism, abolishing prostitution and ending gender.

On Saturday May 24 we will honor Memorial Day weekend with a political ceasefire and call for the opening of peace talks. In the spirit of honest, respectful engagement, you are invited to come ask radical feminists any questions on these subjects you may have wanted to ask but were too intimidated by rancorous internet interactions.

Please join us at Multnomah Central Library in Portland for what will be a thought-provoking day for everyone who wants clarification on what radical feminists really think about prostitution and gender.

The panelists shared important information, concepts, and experiences around radical feminism, well worth watching and reading. You can see videos of three of the presenters, and read transcripts from two of those three:

Lierre Keith



Keith speaks on the difference between liberals and radicals.

Rachel



Watch the video above, or read Rachel’s “This Is What I Said At Radfems Respond for her analysis of a radical conception of gender and her experience expressing these politically challenging ideas.

Heath Atom Russell

Read Russell’s “Radfems Respond, WoLF, and MRAs” to learn of her personal experience transitioning to be a transman, then detransitioning, and the backlash she received from the queer community for developing a critique of gender

Other Panelists

Kathleen Barry and Dawn Schiller also spoke, but were not recorded.

Backlash

Samantha Berg’s “The City of Roses Shall No Longer Tolerate Feminism” gives an excellent overview of the threats and backlash from local queer activists, angry that radical feminists were gathering to speak.

“Politics of Reality” Book Review

Ben Cutbank / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin

The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, written by Marilyn Frye in the 1980’s, is one of the most instructive books I have read to date. The succinctness of each of her essays, which cover such fundamental topics for the feminist learner as white privilege, male supremacy, lesbianism and gay rights, and violence against women, combines with an impressive comprehensiveness that leaves the reader with little room for debate. It’s simple, but forceful, similar to, I would assert, the works of radical environmental author Derrick Jensen, and especially his two-volume book, Endgame.

In one essay, a difference between love and arrogancetwo forces that, in a sense, speak to the entire battle of life against oppressionis drawn out:

The loving eye does not make the object of perception into something edible, does not try to assimilate it, does not reduce it to the size of the seer’s desire, fear and imagination, and hence does not have to simplify. It knows the complexity of the other as something which will forever present new things to be known.

The arrogant perceiver’s perception of the other’s normalcy or defectiveness is not only dead wrong, it is coercive. It manipulates the other’s perception and judgment at the root by mislabeling the unwholesome as healthy, and what is wrong as right. One judges and chooses within a framework of values — notions as to what ‘good’ and ‘good for you’ pertain to….If one has the cultural and institutional power to make the misdefinition stick, one can turn the whole other person right around to oneself by this one simple trick.

As a woman living under the rule of patriarchy, and as someone with a radical feminist analysis, Marilyn Frye is no stranger to the meaning of privilege, both in concept and practice. As one might expect, she speaks thoroughly and often about the privileges afforded to men over women. However, her analysis doesn’t stop there: those with white skin, including white women, experience a certain kind of privilege as well, because the dominant culture is both patriarchal and white supremacist. Connecting these dots is both crucial and, unfortunately, too rare. Says Frye:

In a certain way it is true that being white-skinned means that everything I do will be wrongat least an exercise of unwarranted privilegeand I will encounter the reasonable anger of women of color at every turn. But ‘white’ also designates a political category, a sort of political fraternity. Membership in it is not in the same sense “fated” or “natural.” It can be resisted.

Members of the dominant culture must be able to mark or define the sex of human beings so that it’s clear who is to subjugated and who is to do the subjugating, who is to be exploited and who is to do the exploiting. Masculinity and femininity are concepts created and enforced by patriarchy to keep the social order running smoothly. As Marilyn Frye puts it:

I see enormous social pressure on us all to act feminine or act
masculine (and not both), so I am inclined to think that if we were to
break the habits of culture which generate that pressure, people would
not act particularly masculine or feminine.

Imagine a bird in a birdcage. The bird is confined by numerous wires that connect with each other in order to imprison the bird. If one looks at one of the wires alone, it could seem silly as to why the bird doesn’t simply fly around it to freedom. However, it takes stepping back and seeing the whole picture that is the birdcage in order to understand why the bird is trapped. This is the classic metaphor that Frye has used to describe the meaning of oppression. She goes further to give a basic definition:

Oppression is a system of interrelated barriers and forces which reduce, immobilize and mold people who belong to a certain group, and effect their subordination to another group (individually to individuals of the other group, and as a group, to that group).

In a discussion of the gay liberation movement, and the fatal mistake
of gay men often trying to embrace masculinity instead of rejecting it,
Marilyn Frye speaks to a different vision, a lesbian vision, in a line that I
believe is one of the most powerful in the book:

The general direction of lesbian feminist politics is the dismantling of
male privilege, the erasure of masculinity, and the reversal of the
rule of phallic access, replacing the rule that access is permitted
unless specifically forbidden with the rule that it is forbidden unless
specifically permitted.

This book is crucial reading for any person with the love and courage it takes to fight for a better world. While anyone would benefit from heeding the lessons that Marilyn Frye has put forth, I especially think that men need to hear this radical feminist message and begin to join women in the fight against patriarchy and for the liberation of all of life.