Chapter 3
Today many feminists describe their feminism as a certain type of feminism; they feel a certain allegiance to say socialist feminism or anarcho-feminism if they support anarchist politics for example, or eco-feminism if they are involved in environmentalism. Back in the Second Wave, these sorts of types of feminism were more important than they are today though and whole journals, groups, campaigns, newsletters, conferences and protests were held around one particular type of feminism or another. Often the types critiqued one another and pointed out the benefits of their type of feminism and their specific feminist analysis, theory or activist methods. In this chapter, I shall explore these types in more detail and consider some of the disagreements between them, particularly in terms of the area of focus in this book, the area of theory and activism against male violence against women.
In 1979, Spare Rib journalist Amanda Sebestyen drew up her infamous ‘tendencies chart’. It was a typology of feminists, a map of all the many different schools of feminism and feminist theory that were influential at the time. It was meant to be taken humorously, but some did not see it as such, and some outside the movement took it literally as a sort of spotter’s guide to the wildlife of common or garden feminists! Today there are still lots of different schools of feminism, some are similar to how they were in the 1970s and there are also some new ones just to make things interesting and even more complex. Things are so complex in fact, that many activists today might feel glad of a modern spotter’s guide to all the different types of feminists. Even if such a guide were created however, feminists would no doubt argue over definitions and borders, just as they did during the Second Wave itself. For some activists today though, the label of just ‘feminist’ alone is quite enough. It is often seen as a label that is radical enough yet broad enough to contain a myriad of views and standpoints. Meanwhile, for other activists, the very idea of boxes or labels of any kind is anathema, and that may particularly be the case for self-defined queer activists for example, as I shall go on to discuss in later chapters.
At the time when RTN was born in the mid-1970s, certain schools of feminism were leading the way in producing pioneering, original and daring theory on male violence against women. It was radical feminism which arguably wrote the book on what male violence against women is, why it happens and what we can do to end it. Revolutionary feminism as well was influential, becoming known for theory on male violence as a form of social control, and also for work on the importance of separatism and political lesbianism within feminist organising. This feminist theory on male violence, which was emerging and being debated at the time, directly influenced the emergence of RTN and the form that the protest took. Let us look in more detail then at some of the theory behind the action.
To recap the herstory then, many different schools of feminism emerged in the West during the Second Wave, each with their own groups, conferences and publications. Many of these were influenced by the trends in American feminism, which took off earlier than in the UK and thus proved an example and inspiration. As mentioned in the introduction, just a few of the recognised schools are liberal feminism, socialist feminism, anarcho-feminism, Black feminism, womanism, eco-feminism, radical feminism, lesbian feminism, separatist feminism, pro-feminism and revolutionary feminism. Referring to these complex historical, political and cultural theories as schools, types or branches of feminism can falsely suggest that there are clear-cut lines of demarcation between all such variances of feminism. Alas, things are not that simple. All of the types of feminism visible and loud enough to be given names and be recognised overlap with each other. Within all of these schools are still emerging ideas and theories, which borrow from one another and indeed from examples of feminism around the globe. Each school also contains individuals who may pick and mix theories and approaches from different strands of feminism in order to make a feminism of their own, while perhaps feeling allegiance enough to one or the other strand to sometimes take on that label.
Socialist feminism is usually recognised by its focus on the role of capitalism in the oppression of women and all people. Sometimes it is asserted that capitalism should be viewed as the primary oppression in the world, and therefore that it pre-dates patriarchy – a significant divergence from radical feminism. Taking theory from the important work of Marx, Engels and Babel for example, socialist feminism (like radical feminism) often identifies the family as a primary site of women’s oppression, viewing women as labourers to the labourer. Through their caring and reproductive work, women maintain the current labour force, reproduce the workers of the future and are also a reserve army of labour themselves, to be called into the formal wage economy as and when required. The assertion sometimes then appears to be that if capitalism were overthrown, women’s oppression would cease to exist. It is this assertion, sometimes made explicitly by some socialist groups, which contributes to just one of the many divisions familiar to those feminists who are immersed in the movement and its various scenes. The concern is that the prioritising of capitalism as the cause of women’s oppression leads to a prioritisation of the class struggle, over and above women’s liberation. In turn, this leads to the perception, by no means universally correct, that women’s rights are sometimes sidelined in some socialist explanations, campaigns and groups.
Liberal feminism is also called equal-rights feminism. It is often scorned in unison by feminists of many hues; it can be distinguished by its focus on reform rather than explicit revolution. This lends to activities within the system, so to speak, such as lobbying government, monitoring equal pay, or the lack of it, working on improvements to maternity rights or campaigning for more women on the boards of major companies. As feminist historian and activist Jo Freeman pointed out though in 1975, scorn against liberals is perhaps misplaced, as their goals are often general feminist goals and, if they were won, would actually have quite revolutionary consequences. ‘Some groups often called “reformist” have a platform that would so completely change our society it would be unrecognisable’ (1975:50). One of the main areas of conflict with liberal feminists however is around women’s participation in a system that many feel is beyond repair. The idea of tinkering around the edges of a patriarchal, capitalist system is unattractive to those feminists who believe their movement is revolutionary rather than reformist.
While feminism in general has been, and still is, subjected to stereotyping, it is radical feminism, and sometimes the lesser-known revolutionary feminism, which are often the targets of much vitriol. They have been accused of many things, for example, splitting the WLM at the (as yet) last National WLM Conference in Birmingham in 1978. This rather grand charge perhaps grew out of the fierce debates that took place at that conference over the wording of the seventh demand, particularly disagreements with revolutionary feminists.
These disagreements centred on whether the wording of the demand should acknowledge male violence against women as a tool of male supremacy benefitting all men, or whether this downplayed the role of capitalism and socio-economic factors, analyses most commonly associated with socialist feminism. This was not the only disagreement however; this last conference seems somewhat marked by controversy, although we should note that the archives suggest that this was not exactly unusual, with plenty of debate and disagreement an expected factor given such serious political formulation. There was equally fierce debate in Birmingham over whether the sixth demand, on lesbian rights and women’s freedom to define their own sexuality, should be split or moved to make up a preamble at the start of all the demands. Some revolutionary feminists had also controversially suggested that perhaps it was time to scrap all the demands altogether, instead making a statement on ending male supremacy, arguing that it was nonsensical to make demands of a patriarchal state.
As well as splitting the entire movement and closing down the national conferences forever, the radical and revolutionary schools of feminism are also accused of splitting the London Women’s Liberation Workshop (Campbell, 1980); alienating activists through an insistence on lesbianism and separatism; essentialising women and men; demanding a shift from political autonomy to sexual segregation (Byrne, 1996); and of being solely responsible for the movement’s reputation as ‘man-hating’ (Gelb, 1986). In 2000, in her history of the London Women’s Liberation Workshop, Setch defines revolutionary feminists as ‘vehement separatists who declared war on men’ (2002:187). Lynne Segal referred to revolutionary feminism as ‘fundamentalist feminism’ in 2013, echoing Patrick Califia’s earlier description of radical feminism as ‘feminist fundamentalism’ (1997:86). These critiques are not entirely history, as any activist will know, and indeed a lot of these same issues arose in my research with contemporary feminist activists, as I shall explore later in this book. For now, it is time to properly investigate the contentious and infamous schools of feminism, and their sets of so many theories and ideas which have been, and still are, so frequently attacked: radical and revolutionary feminism. I will attempt to disentangle their theory and their body of work, particularly their work on male violence against women, from the highly critical received wisdom on these two influential schools of feminism.
Revisiting radical feminism
Just like with the tendencies chart, any definitive summaries or clear definitions of any type of feminism are fraught with difficulty. Everyone has their own unique understanding of their own feminism and everyone sees merits in the theory which resonates with them personally. I am no exception. Just as I am keen to present the merits of those feminist theories I find most persuasive, so have been other authors and historians; and unfortunately, there has not been much support for radical or revolutionary feminism thus far. This situation is not helped by the fact that much of the radical/revolutionary work historically was not even written down, and when it was, it was signed anonymously or simply by ‘a group of feminists’, as activists at the time did not believe in taking individual credit for work which is never produced in a vacuum by one individual. So far, so worthy, but this has unfortunately allowed others, who never identified with those schools of feminism, to define that theory for them and write its herstory.
As part of rectifying this situation then, I will attempt some brief summaries of these two schools of feminism, fraught as such an exercise is. I will outline some of the identifiable, basic identifying features of radical and revolutionary feminism. These are the features which emerge from the literature, the classic American radical feminist texts for example, and the British conference papers and archive periodicals such as the Rev/Rad Newsletter and WIRES. Perhaps it will become clear that these often-demonised schools of feminism are actually not so bad after all, that they share much in common with other feminist perspectives, have indeed contributed to those other perspectives and that they have a great deal to commend them.
Radical feminism usually identifies patriarchy as predating capitalism and recognises women and men as two distinct political classes – ruled and ruling, respectively. Radical feminism is generally considered to have emerged first in the US in the late 1960s. I suggest that there are four main defining features of radical feminism which make it distinguishable from other schools. It is important to note that these are not the only features of this expansive and sophisticated school of feminism; they are simply the points at which it can be set apart from others. If you want a simple spotter’s guide then, to tell a rad from a rev and a soc from a rad, then this is how you could identify radical feminism. Firstly, radical feminism believes in the existence of patriarchy and seeks to end it. Secondly, it promotes women-only space and women-only political organising as paramount. Thirdly, it views male violence against women as a keystone of women’s oppression. Fourthly, it expands the understanding of male violence against women to analyse the institutions of pornography and prostitution.
By prioritising male violence against women in their analysis, radical feminism departed from socialist feminism in particular, which generally maintained a class-based analysis of societal oppression, focussed on socio-economic conditions. This latter view, however, could not explain the growing evidence and loud personal testimony of women during the Second Wave. At that time, women’s experiences, shared in CR groups, was busily publicly exposing widespread male violence, affecting women from all socio-economic, ethnic, religious and other backgrounds, being perpetrated by men of all classes and all backgrounds. Into this heightened awareness and growing collective, politicised anger, and indeed, as a direct result of it, radical feminism began to develop theory which framed male violence as a symptom of patriarchy, rather than a symptom of capitalism.
Meanwhile, a little bit later and informed by the development of radical feminism, the uniquely British school of revolutionary feminism emerged. This was the school of feminism which fired up the organisers in Leeds who founded the original UK RTN. The school was first instigated at the April 1977 National Women’s Liberation Conference in London by the feminist activist and academic Sheila Jeffreys, in a workshop paper titled ‘The Need for Revolutionary Feminism – Against the Liberal Takeover of the Women’s Liberation Movement’. This school appears to share much in common with radical feminism. It is unafraid to identify men as a group and as a social class as ‘the problem’ and the cause of women’s oppression. It perhaps goes slightly further in this sense than radical feminism. Feminist policy activist and academic Marianne Hester summarised the features of revolutionary feminism in 1992. She highlighted that ‘it is men who are primarily responsible for women’s oppression, and it is men, rather than “capitalism” or “society”, who benefit from the system of male–female social relations where women as a group are kept subordinate to men’ (1992:33). Like radical feminism, revolutionary feminism also identified male violence against women as a keystone of women’s oppression, perhaps the keystone, a symptom and a tool of patriarchy, which affects all women directly or indirectly.
As these two schools seem to share so much in common, unfamiliar readers may be wondering why there are two schools in the first place. Why and when did the label radical feminist stop being enough for those feminists who then took on the new label of revolutionary feminist? Veteran readers, however, will perhaps be recalling all the many sites of division and debate, the calls to unity, the song published in the second issue of the Rev/Rad Newsletter in 1978, ‘The Raddies and the Revvies Can Be Friends’, the many articles and letters penned on this topic. There are indeed differences between these two similar schools of feminism. The main difference between the two seems to be in the critique from revolutionary feminism accusing radical feminism of turning into what feminist author and playwright Bea Campbell in 1980 called ‘a cult of woman’. By this she meant a form of cultural or lifestyle feminism, involving for example the reclamation of Goddess worship and the promotion of environmentalism, veganism, New Age beliefs or animal rights as intrinsically connected to this particular strand of feminism. Incidentally, it is this notion of cultural feminism that is often still invoked, incorrectly, in criticisms of radical feminism in general. Supposedly then, radical feminism is guilty of conjuring up the ‘different spheres’ debates common in 1800s Europe, by pronouncing the natural, romantic and spiritual superiority of women and femininity. The accusation then follows that radical feminism is essentialist; that it naturalises the differences between women and men and simplistically and naively places women on an angelic pedestal, while blaming all the ills of the world on men as a group and, in fact, also on men as individuals. To put it even more simply then, the critique is that radical feminism essentialises all men and posits that all men are inherently or essentially ‘bad’ or violent due to their biology alone, while all women are inherently or essentially ‘good’. Indeed this would be simplistic and naïve, which is probably why this has never been the main, or mainstream at least, argument of radical feminism. It would certainly not be an argument that I would find persuasive.
In reality though, during the Second Wave, activists themselves were not altogether confident on the differences between these two or any other schools of feminism. Many feminists pointed out that actually the differences between liberals, radicals, revvies and socialists were not that clear and that there was much overlap between them. Many radical feminists described themselves as anti-capitalist for example, and many socialist feminists did not subsume patriarchy under capitalism. Nor was it only radical or revolutionary feminists who organised or attended the early RTN marches or made up the groups of activists who established provisions for women affected by male violence. As the activist and academic Professor Liz Kelly points out, such practical work to address the effects of violence against women and children united many feminists, even while their theories often differed. ‘Violence against women was a faultline in the many acrimonious debates between socialist and radical feminists in the 1970s, yet at the local level the reality was always more complex. Feminists of all shades established refuges and rape crisis centres in small towns and cities’ (2013:134).
Although a focus on male violence against women unites both radical and revolutionary feminism, Kelly’s quote above highlights that this was also a major site of departure with other schools of feminism, in particular with socialist feminism. As introduced above, the radical analysis was often seen by some as just antimale, as just simplistically claiming that all men always oppress all women, on an individual, one-to-one basis, as if men never face any form of oppression themselves. To make such a claim is to simplify radical feminism inexcusably, is to miss entirely the point of theory we should instead be learning from. It can and must be possible of course, to view masculine cultures and practices as harmful, not just to women, but to all life, without subjecting the categories of woman and man to some sort of icy cryonic treatment and essentialising them in stasis.
While it has been misread, misunderstood, simplified and criticised, it was nevertheless radical and revolutionary feminism that contributed most to the Western feminist theory on male violence, filling a gap that demonstrably was not being filled by any other school of feminism at the time. In 1984, Weir and Wilson stated in an article for New Left Review that radical feminism had determined contemporary theory not only on violence and pornography, but also on race and peace. In his history on the WLM, Bouchier (1983) for example, alleges that socialist feminism could not ‘compete’ with the theory being produced by radical and revolutionary feminists, as the former’s analysis of patriarchy and male violence was lacking or sometimes even absent altogether. As stated earlier, the feminist theory on male violence against women was emerging at the time as a direct result of the explosion of CR groups across the UK. In these groups, women collectivised their intimate knowledge of male violence, and through that process, were able to understand their experiences not as individual problems or personal failings, but as a consequence of structural male supremacy and female subordination. Out of these experiences grew urgent explanations for male violence against women, explanations which were rarely biological, despite the critique of radical feminism as essentialist.
Both radical and revolutionary feminism emphasised patriarchy as responsible for women’s oppression and male violence as the most brutal manifestation of male supremacy, as well as a cause of it. From this perspective, male violence was then able to be understood as a form of social control. As some rad and rev feminists wrote in the introduction to a classic text on male violence, this violence can be understood as a tool in ‘the maintenance of men’s domination over women’ (Jeffreys et al., 1985:6). Male violence was not seen in isolation, but as the extreme end of a continuum, which included girlhood sexual abuse, workplace harassment, exposure to pornography and degrading sexist advertisements for example. This continuum of male violence ranged from ‘the insistence on crippling fashions through to incidents of rape and murder’ (ibid.). All these facets of oppression were seen to instil fear in women, whether women had been directly affected by male violence or not. All of these examples on the continuum were considered to underline men’s power and restrict women’s lives, operating as ‘threats to our lives and well-being, and blocks to our freedom, our creativity and our selfrespect’ (ibid.). In turn, the fear of male violence was seen to then encourage women into dependence on male partners and family members. The irony of men being portrayed as women’s natural protectors from other men was not lost on feminists who knew then what the statistics still bear out today – that women are in fact most at risk from known men in their own homes.
Apart from their important focus on male violence, another unifying feature between radical and revolutionary feminism was their emphasis on women-only political organising, and their radical and pioneering investigation of political lesbianism and separatism, following earlier feminist activity in the US. Like their focus on male violence, these ideas were also controversial within the WLM at the time, and indeed still are, and they set these two schools of feminism apart from others. Two incidents in particular serve to highlight these conflicts. Firstly, the part publication of the American Radical Feminist ‘CLIT Statement’ in the London Women’s Liberation Workshop newsletter in 1974 on lesbian separatism, which engendered such a hostile response, the group chose not to print the remaining chapters after only the third instalment. Secondly, the debates initiated by the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group with their paper on ‘Political Lesbianism’, initially a conference paper for a radical and revolutionary feminist conference, and then published in WIRES in 1979.
This paper, later reproduced in a small booklet from OnlyWomen Press in 1981, sought to question the role of heterosexual women within the movement, and indeed the desirability of heterosexuality at all, in a revolutionary movement requiring all of women’s energy and passion. The paper suggested that women should withdraw their energies from men through separatism. As explained earlier, this is therefore going much further than autonomous women-only organising or spaces, which are temporary and not in exclusion of mixed political, cultural or social activity. The argument was that women should consider forging full-time women-only communities and lives, giving their energy not to men, but only to the WLM and their sisters within it. This did not mean becoming a lesbian necessarily, though this is how the idea has often been mistaken and misquoted. Contrary to much rumour since, the paper was not suggesting that women should simply pursue same-sex sexual activity; it was really more about political activity. It was about the political choice to dedicate one’s life to women. In fact, in the paper, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group clearly reassure heterosexuals that the lesbian bit is not compulsory, and that celibacy is always an option.
Now that some of the defining features of radical and revolutionary feminism have been explored and some of the differences between them outlined, let us turn back to the critiques of these schools which were set out earlier in this chapter. These schools of feminism are accused of man-hating, of an alienating insistence on lesbianism and of promoting an unrealistic, unnecessary and sexist separation from men. It is true that both these schools of feminism did indeed promote the benefits of autonomous women-only organising and in some cases separatism. They promoted these for political reasons, valid reasons which should not be dismissed so lightly under the tired catch-all charge of ‘man-hating’. At the time, separatism was considered an option, a possible political strategy vital for movement success. On a less full-time level, autonomous women-only organising was also considered vital, and political self-organisation was considered a right for all oppressed groups; indeed, as I pointed out much earlier, it was a feature of many social justice movements at the time, not just the WLM. Unsurprisingly, many groups of the Second Wave were women-only, as were CR groups, because these were aspiring to be safe spaces where women could raise their feminist consciousness. The broad National WLM Conferences were also women-only after 1971, and self-organisation seems to have been a staple of the mainstream WLM in the UK, including for socialist and liberal feminist groups, even if this was through a caucus or small self-organised group within a larger mixed group, a tactic also used in trade unions and left organisations, a situation that is still the case today. It is important to note that autonomous organisation was not a new phenomenon however, it was not some radical US import, it had long been a part of trade unions for example, and there is a tradition of women-only organising in the many long-standing liberal or conservative women’s guilds, societies and philanthropic trusts in the UK. The widespread and seemingly popular women-only feature of the Second Wave is in fact one of the key differences between the movement then and now, as well as between the RTN march of the past compared to the protest today. It is a feature which still arouses many passionate views amongst contemporary feminist activists, perhaps being more controversial than it was then, as I will discuss later in this book.
While there was a long tradition of women organising politically separately from men, what was new was the radical and revolutionary feminist analysis of women-only organising as essential to the project of women’s liberation, and their definition of men as a group as a barrier to this project. Looking back through the archives and original texts it is clear that many feminists viewed it as counterintuitive to attempt to organise for liberation alongside members of the oppressing class – men. It was perhaps such an unapologetic analysis, alongside their promotion of separatism and their focus on male violence, which partly led to the familiar critiques of ‘man-hating’ and essentialism, critiques which are still popular today of course.
To conclude then, it is just worth reiterating that contrary to popular belief, original theory from both radical and revolutionary feminism was usually careful to underline that patriarchy, and the violence identified at its core, was not natural or biological. This is clearly emphasised in a classic text of edited collections from Women Against Violence Against Women or WAVAW campaigners. ‘We have concluded that men’s sexual behaviour has been socially constructed to be aggressive, exploitative, objectifying. It is not nature that has constructed this effective system for the exploitation of women’ (Jeffreys et al., 1985:7). Despite such evidence, the accusation of essentialism is one that is frequently directed against feminism in general, and against radical feminism in particular. The belief still seems to be that certain types of feminism – read: radical feminism – have tried to argue that all men are rapists, or that all men, every single one of them, are violent and abusive simply because of their male sex. In the more academic arenas, there is also an assumption that certain types of feminism, usually meaning radical feminism, are guilty of essentialism by viewing men and women as distinct social classes and by promoting a movement of women as a class. In Chapter 5, I shall explore these and some of the other challenges that are rallied against radical feminism in particular. I shall attempt to reclaim radical feminism as a valid, modern and relevant political theory, one which is fully compatible with contemporary understandings of gender. Before moving on to those more theoretical debates, it is time to return to the activism that did manage to unite so many feminists of different schools during the Second Wave, the activism against male violence against women and in particular the birth of the RTN protest in the UK.