is it worth using the words radical feminism anymore? seem distracting
I am not ceding the concept of abolishing patriarchy through radically altering society to people who think gender-segregated bathrooms are a foundational institution of women's rights! I refuse!
Pretend it says āTERFs are the ones who suckā Iām on mobile and itās past midnight
Can't be stated enough just how badly "oh, but we don't want to recognize trans women as a type of women so we'll tie the theory in knots to avoid that" sabotages any attempt at radical feminism. It immediately results in having to discard bangers like "sex itself is a social construct that reinforces patriarchy" because it implies that insofar as "real woman" is a thing, trans women are part of that category.
Sex is a social construct? Nope, too inclusive of trans women.
Feminism should include women who canāt give birth for whatever reason? Canāt have that, too inclusive of trans women.
AMAB folks are not inherently stronger/smarter/better in any way? Well we need something to cling to and use to insist trans women are different and dangerous!
Itās really fucking dire. Iāve seen TERFs insisting that actually the pink tax is good because it harms trans women. Iāve seen TERFs saying the Christian tradwife trend is āmore feministā than allowing trans women to exist. Iāve seen TERFs saying theyād rather go through all the worst parts of menopause than let trans women have easy access to estrogen and progesterone. Just relentlessly abysmal stuff.
The only thing āradicalā about TERFs brand of āradical feminismā is how radically stupid and self-destructive it is. Iāve heard this touted as reasoning for using the term FARTs instead of TERFs, but, and this is mostly just my personal take, I think weāre in too deep to change the term we refer to them with at this point. TWERF and SWERF are the only ones Iāve seen make any real waves and I figure itās because theyāre intuitive if you already know what TERF stands for and what theyāre about.
It's actually an incredible case study in theory collapsing in the face of unwillingness to adapt. You hit one sticking point where the theory implies a conclusion that this group doesn't want, and it propagates backwards until they're uprooting foundational ideas because they chose to resolve the contradiction in the exact wrong direction.
