I ask this question based on several reasons.
- I am seeing the exact same wording from the “Radical Feminists” that I am seeing from the Christo-Fascist Organizations that have words like Family and Concerned in their title.
- I’ve seen this before back during the right wing Schlafly et.al. campaign against ERA, which passed itself off as a grassroots organizing effort, when it was actually a well financed campaign.
- ALEC and the Tea Party.
- The hijacking of “Susan B. Anthony” a feminist icon by the rabid anti-abortion/anti-contraception right wing religious fanatics.
- The hijacking of abolitionist, Frederick Douglass for the same sort of usage as well. Ultra right wingers are turning him into someone they can use to promote an anti-African American agenda.
- The hijacking of “Pandagon.net” in order to use the brand to mask “Radical Feminist” anti transsexual/transgender bigotry.
- It appears as though the owner of the hijacked and rebranded domain is actually a male.
- One of the “Radical Feminists” leading the attacks on transsexual/transgender people is a partner in a law firm that represents Wall Street, while she has been an advocate for the Payday Loan Sharking Industry.
Could “Radical Feminist” itself have been hijacked. As a brand I thought it had pretty much died out in the 1980s after having played a major role in killing Second Wave Feminism.
Let’s face it Radical Feminism is pretty much a caricature of feminism. It is as though someone took Rush Limbaugh’s term “Feminazi” and created a packaged movement that embodied that label. This movement doesn’t appear to support women’s rights. Doesn’t appear to campaign for reproductive rights. Indeed the the much derided “Equity Feminists” seem to have much more focus on both the rights of women and gender equality than do the “Radical Feminists”.
Biology is Destiny
In the early days of Second Wave Feminism there was a button that read: “Biology is not Destiny!” I know. I had one.
Like many highly condensed memes, it was a catch phrase that could be unpacked in numerous ways and could be subjected to a multitude of subtextual readings.
Fast forward a bit and you have the so called “Radical Feminist” pretty much proclaiming biology is destiny with chromosomes and assignment at birth trumping all else. this is at the core of biological essentialism.
Radical Feminists are absolute essentialists. For them biology is destiny. They may disguise their essentialism in blitherings about socialization but at the core their “womyn born womyn” ideology is essentialist. Their idea of “socialization’ is about as based upon the actual process of socialization as “creation science” is based upon science.
They have a laser like aptitude for focusing on one particular definition of either the word sex or the word gender when both words have numerous dictionary approved definitions and/or readings.
The War on Women: Where are the “Radical Feminists”?
Women are currently undergoing a massive assault on their reproductive rights, they are having to fight the war against rape all over again and where are the so called “Radical Feminists”?
They are spending an inordinate amount of time attacking TS/TG people, a tiny minority group that is somehow undermining all womankind along with the foundations of society.
On the one hand TS/TG people are accused of destroying the differences between genders and on the other of being the main foundation of a binary gender structure that oppresses women.
The logical question would be, “How can TS/TG people be both the foundation and the destruction of some supposed gender binary that is itself somewhat of a social construct?”
Ahh… Janice Raymond, former Catholic nun and “Radical Feminist” put forth that basic dialectic nearly forty years ago when feminine trans-women were the supposed pillars of traditional sex roles, fembots being created to replace women who were becoming the feminist army. While trans-women who were part of the feminist and often times lesbian feminist movements were spawns of Satan sent by the male overlords as a Fifth Column to destroy the feminist movement.
Attributing evil to a minority group and making scapegoats out of those who are relatively powerless is an old fascist trick. Some of the other forms are racism, antisemitism, homophobia and yes misogyny.
In the meantime send messages of support to Amanda Marcotte. She is good people and has a long history of standing against trans-hating bigotry.
[alert type=”info”]Cross-posted from Women Born Transsexual[/alert]