Radical Feminist Research Articles

MAIN CHARACTER’S STRUGGLE AGAINSTS WOMAN OPPRESSION IN “MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS” MOVIE

This study dealt with the struggle of the main character in Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts movie. The objectives were to find out the oppressions that the main character experienced, the struggles against the oppression, and how the main character struggled against the oppression. This study used descriptive qualitative as the method to analyze the data. The researcher used Young's (1990) theory to analyze the data from the movie's script. Marlina, as the movie's main character, suffered from three kinds of oppression; marginalization, powerlessness, and violence. Marlina suffered oppression because she was powerless; she lived in poverty and patriarchal culture in Sumba. Marlina also struggles against oppression by doing feminism; they are; liberal feminism and radical feminism.

1975 – ‘Not just a year, but a lifetime for women’

Abstract The article looks at the significance of the International Women’s Year (IWY) 1975 for the development of Dutch policy on development-related gender equality issues. It analyses how the route to the IWY World Conference and Women’s Tribune in Mexico City was marked by power struggles in and around the United Nations (UN), amongst member states, and between national governments and women’s organisations, in a geopolitical context of the Cold War and Global North–South divisions. The article discusses how, despite little initial enthusiasm for the IWY amongst the Dutch government and feminist groups, engagement with IWY generated a new momentum for national and international policy advocacy that was to come to fruition after 1975.

Mirroring Misogyny in Hell Choson: Megalia, Womad, and Korea’s Feminism in the Age of Digital Populism

In recent years digital populism has emerged in South Korea as a new type of political behavior, marked by the political use of the internet as both a form of political participation and an instrument of mobilization. Technological advances and the diffusion of social media have enabled social polarization, rooted in post-Asian Financial Crisis neoliberal policies, to take on a new, more intense, emotional, and radical dimension in the virtual environment. The article examines a case study of an online conflict over the issue of misogyny in 2015–2016 to reflect on how a group of online feminists, namely Megalia and its splinter off-shoot Womad, have used the new media as a terrain for challenging the pervasive misogyny in Korean society. As the article focuses on the online activists’ strategy of mirroring, it highlights how the experiences and worldviews of members of both groups are rooted in identity politics and argues that the understanding of this online conflict should be embedded in similar global and national socioeconomic processes. Lastly, the case study also identifies some of the challenges that online feminism has encountered in Korea.

Radical freedom: Periyar and women.

This paper looks at South Indian social reformer and anti-caste radical Periyar E.V. Ramasamy's approach to the women's question. Periyar was not just an advocate of social and economic equality between the sexes but espoused a radical concept of sexual freedom for women, which is central to his concept of liberty as such. While the anti-colonialists of his period defended native traditions and customs, Periyar welcomed modernity and saw it laden with possibilities for the emancipation of women. Likewise, where other social reformers addressed the women's question within the ambit of the nation and/or the family, Periyar saw both nation and family as institutions that limited the liberties of women. This paper compares his thoughts with The Dialectic of Sex, the key work of the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone, and highlights the similarities in their approach to women's liberation and sexual freedom, especially their critique of child-rearing and child-bearing. It explores Periyar's booklet Women Enslavedin detail and engages with lesser known, new primary material of Periyar on the women's question, concluding with a discussion of his perspective of the West.

Disregarding Female Dignity in Valmiki’s Epic Poem ‘Ramayana’ and Premchand’s Story ‘Nirvasan’

This paper is an attempt to present the positions of women in Hindu civilization within the context of justifying the purity of women in Valmiki’s celebrated epic poem ‘Ramayana’ and prominent contemporary Indian writer Premchand’s story ‘Nirvasan’. Even though the date of composing the ‘Ramayana’ is not certain, it is estimated that it took place in literature between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC. On the other side, ‘Nirvasan’ belongs to the date in more recent times as late 19th and early 20th centuries AD. This shows us clearly that the traditions and customs have never changed throughout the centuries. Literary intersections demonstrate how to transfer culture from generation to generation. Patriarchal social structure in India will be discussed with the method of radical feminist theory. Women can be seen as in the second plan compared to the men according to this feminist theory argument. Moreover, women are exposed to physical and psychological violence because of the patriarchal system. Patriarchal society is a structure in which men are superior to women in every sense and women are forced to live under the domination of the men. In this social structure, the authoritarian male has a more respectable position in the family and in social life than the woman. Women can be perceived as the object of men’s power and authority. This study aims to provide an insight to the people about Indian culture through the texts by analyzing above mentioned literary works.

The Patriarchy System as the Trigger of Sexual Coercion in The Novel Moxie By Jennifer Mathieu

This research analyses how the patriarchy system acts as the trigger of sexual coercion as reflected in the novel Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu. The objectives of this research are 1) to determine the forms of sexual coercion in the novel Moxie, and 2) to determine how the patriarchy system triggers sexual coercion in the novel Moxie. The researcher used Alison M. Jaggar’s radical feminism theory as the main theory and Smuts's and Smuts’ theory of sexual coercion as the supporting theory in analyzing the collected data. Jaggar’s radical feminism theory is used to analyze how the patriarchy system triggers sexual coercion while Smuts and Smuts’ theory is used to analyze the forms of sexual coercion. The research methodology of this research is qualitative descriptive; in which the relevant data were collected from the text found in the novel Moxie. This research resulted in direct coercion such as sexual harassment, intimidation, and rape as the form of sexual coercion found in the novel Moxie. This research also resulted in patriarchal ideology and patriarchal stereotypes being the triggers of direct coercion in a patriarchal society.

From Lucifer to Jezebel: Invitational Rhetoric, Rhetorical Closure, and Safe Spaces in Feminist Sexual Discourse Communities

ABSTRACT This essay applies Craig Rood’s concept of rhetorical closure to the specific case study of the creation of feminist discourse communities to discuss sexuality. It looks at the editorial policies of two feminist discourse communities in order to more broadly analyze the ways that rhetorical closure operates constitutively along with invitational rhetoric. It connects these issues to past and current debates about censorship, echo chambers, safe spaces, and trigger warnings in order to show when and how rhetorical closure is intended to prevent harm. Like Rood, I do not resolve questions on distinguishing the effectiveness or ethics of rhetorical closure. Examining a radical feminist periodical of the nineteenth century and the twenty-first-century feminist blogosphere shows how invitational rhetoric works with and as rhetorical closure.

Music against Fascism: DIY Versus the Right Wing Safety Squad

ABSTRACT Five days after the Ghost Ship fire killed 36 people in Oakland, CA, a group of 4-Chan users calling themselves the Right Wing Safety Squad began a campaign to shut down similar do-it-yourself venues that they saw as “hotbeds of liberal radicalism and degeneracy.” This essay argues that these venues were targeted not simply because of their politics but because the embodied practices of music-making that occur there—performing, dancing, singing along, applauding, and having fun—have the potential to create community across perceived differences. These kinds of communal connections are a threat to alt-right ideologies that leverage difference to keep people frightened of one another. Taking cues from cultural rhetorics, I embrace my identity as an old scene kid in order to share my relationship with underground music scenes, tell the story of the alt-right’s campaign, and discuss the significant role music-making practices play in creating underground communities

O ser livre das meninas de hoje

Este ensaio - fruto de uma conferência - reflete sobre as eventuais transformações que a pandemia trará para o cotidiano das meninas, a partir da sociologia da Infância e do feminismo radical. Começa por reconhecer a crise - ou “ruína” - de instituições emblemáticas da modernidade, como o Estado e o mercado e a sua correlação na educação, no trabalho e na família. Para fins analíticos, o conteúdo centrado no adulto das perguntas retóricas transborda: quantos anos você tem? E o que você quer ser quando crescer? Em uma chave existencial, o significado da vida presente e futura está conectado. Os epistemes da dor perguntarão sobre um método, mas apenas reflexões serão propostas.

Disappearing Women

This article focuses on the representation of Methodist preacher Mary Bosanquet Fletcher (1739–1815) in her biography by the Revd Henry Moore. His omissions and commentary served to neutralise some of her more radical ideas and early feminism, which can be discovered by reading her manuscript journals, as well as the manuscript correspondence between Mary Tooth, keeper of Mary Fletcher’s papers, and Henry Moore. The product of archival research in the Methodist collections at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, this article owes a great debt to archivists Dr Peter Nockles and Dr Gareth Lloyd.

Getting Radical: Feminism, Patriarchy, and the Sexual-Exploitation Industries

The sexual-exploitation industries, including prostitution and pornography, are patriarchal institutions that are inconsistent with dignity, solidarity, and equality. Radical feminism offers a compelling analysis not only for women but also for men striving to be fully human.

Conocimiento histórico y conciencia feminista: el lugar de las mujeres en la Historia

El artículo propone una reflexión sobre el proceso de construcción de la historia de las mujeres a partir de la obra de reciente traducción, La creación de la conciencia feminista, de la Edad Media a 1870, de la historiadora y feminista Gerda Lerner. El abordaje de la historia de las mujeres es deudor del contexto histórico de los años 60 en los EEUU en el que eclosionan diferentes movimientos que, como el feminismo radical, cuestionaron las relaciones económicas, políticas, sociales y culturales del capitalismo.

Feminist diagrams

On 4 January 1971, Ti-Grace Atkinson delivered a talk entitled ‘Strategy and Tactics: A Presentation of Political Lesbianism’. The talk was later published in her collected essays, Amazon Odyssey. The essay contains thirty-five diagrams: ten ‘Strategy Charts’, three ‘Tactical Charts’ and twenty-two ‘Tactical-Strategy Charts’, which map a strategy of the ‘Oppressor’ (men) and the tactics that the ‘Oppressed’ (women) might develop to lead to a revolution – lesbians, significantly, are the ‘Buffer Zone’ between these two classes. In the only reference I have managed to find to these diagrams, they are referred to as ‘crazy’. This article re-visits these diagrams, exploring the role of the diagram in how Atkinson attempts to map patriarchal relations and also imagine a feminist revolution. Taking Atkinson’s diagrams as a starting point, the article then uses them to begin to narrate a genealogy of the diagram in feminist theory, exploring a diagrammatic imaginary that is an often-used but rarely discussed tactic in feminist writing. Finally, the article opens out to consider how this history of feminist diagrams might be a precursor to more contemporary feminist data visualisations.

Gender differentiated perceptions held for triggers of child neglect in post-conflict northern Uganda

ABSTRACT Although considerable research exists on Child Neglect (CN), gender-differentiated perceptions that fuel CN are not yet known. In the patriarchal family settings, the perception often held of mothers is that of childcare and fathers as providers. Drawing on interviews with 35 parents reported for CN in post-conflict northern Uganda, this paper explores the gendered triggers of CN and interventions directed at children under CN. The paper uses radical feminism and nested ecological theories to examine gendered perceptions often held about motherhood and fatherhood in relation to childcare and explains the risk factors for CN for caretakers from northern Uganda. Narrative responses were audio-recorded and transcribed. Qualitative content analysis was used to scrutinize parents’ perceptions on CN. Parents highlighted triggers for CN as; spousal separation and custody of children, polygamy, disorientation of cultural and social norms and the burden of single parenting. Case reporting and community dialogues were identified as interventions. The paper argues for mainstreaming gender into family and child protection strategies for improved childcare while targeting both fathers and mothers to enhance safety of children. This paper contributes to the debate on CN by bringing out gender perspectives on parents’ intentional CN in northern Uganda.

Histories of Technology Culture Manifestos

Abstract Taking impetus from a collaborative conversation about writing a feminist repair manifesto, this article is focused on examining radical feminist manifestos, new technology manifestos, and their intersecting themes and influence upon cyberfeminist manifestos. Its theoretical underpinnings include histories of repair and maintenance and the manifesto as technological form. As a practice, repair and theorisations of repair regarding technology take into account invisible labour and create a relationship of care not only within communities, but in relation to everyday technologies. Since this work to write a feminist fixers’ manifesto was inspired by the iFixit Repair Manifesto, the NYC Fixers Collective manifesto, as well as manifestos from radical feminist technology movements, it seemed appropriate to consider and critically engage the function of manifestos in these various maker and digital technology communities, as well as the history of radical feminist manifestos in response to cultural oppression. By looking more deeply at specific historical instances and their function, I aim to uncover the importance of such artefacts to give voice to alternative narratives and practices, to subvert systemic oppressions while at other times reproducing them in their form. I argue that there is power in iterating and proliferating manifestos with a critical stance and work to establish the knowledge-producing and world-making potentials of manifesto writing.

Sexual Harassment, Sexual Violence and CSR: Radical Feminist Theory and a Human Rights Perspective

This paper extends Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scholarship to focus on issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence. Despite a significant body of work on gender and CSR from a variety of feminist perspectives, long-standing evidence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in business, particularly in global value chains, and the rise of the #MeToo movement, there has been little scholarship focused specifically on these issues in the context of CSR. Our conceptual paper addresses this gap in the literature through two key contributions. First, we extend the theoretical base of CSR scholarship by drawing upon and explicating radical feminist theory, a resource that has been underutilized in the field to date. This theoretical perspective is well placed to offer insights around the issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence, and to explain the centrality of these concerns to the gender equality agenda in business and in CSR. Second, building upon insights from radical feminism, and from research on CSR and human rights, we explicate a business and human rights approach to sexual harassment, sexual violence and CSR. We point to ways in which this approach might be more effective in addressing these issues than previously adopted strategies and suggest directions for future research arising from our analysis.

Protection or Patriarchy? Gender Ideology and Support for Anti-pornography Legislation, 1988–2018

Though religious conservatives espousing patriarchal views have historically been on the forefront of anti-pornography efforts in the USA, the past few decades have witnessed an increasing secularization of the anti-pornography movement. This shift is characterized by greater rhetorical dependence on scientific studies, secular anti-pornography activist groups, and arguments surrounding the protection of women from exploitation or abuse. Using both aggregated and disaggregated data from the 1988–2018 General Social Surveys, we estimate a series of binary logistic regression models in order to examine the potentially changing connection between espousing a more patriarchal ideology and support for anti-pornography legislation, net of relevant correlates. Among Americans in general, embracing a more patriarchal ideology is positively associated with support for anti-pornography legislation across all survey years. Moreover, interactions indicate that Americans who adhere to a more egalitarian ideology, and particularly women, show a decline in their support for anti-pornography legislation over time. Despite the prominence of feminist anti-porn groups and arguments in past decades, findings contradict the idea that support for strict anti-pornography legislation among the general public has ever been discernibly driven by egalitarianism. Rather, it has been and remains robustly connected to patriarchal beliefs and values prescribing traditionalist gender roles. Findings elucidate the dominant underlying gender ideology present in both historic and contemporary attitudes toward sweeping anti-pornography legislation and demand scholars and policy-makers disentangle rhetoric (of protection) from reality (patriarchy).

Feminism and Its Discontents: Punishing Sexual Violence in India

Following the infamous gang rape of a young woman in New Delhi in 2012, India introduced a host of legislative reforms, including harsh punishments for sexual offences. Indian feminist groups, though invested in some of these reforms, have been critical of the carceral approach, but other than denouncing the death penalty, they have largely abstained from conversations around appropriate punishments for sexual crimes. Mapping the responses of feminist groups to the J. S. Verma Committee, this article underscores inconsistencies between the positions on defining sexual offences on the one hand and suggesting appropriate punishments on the other. It argues that the absence of engagement around complex issues of criminal law and sentencing not only left feminists divided on the outcome in Mahmood Farooqui’s case but also revealed unintended consequences of the newly introduced law on rape. The article concludes by questioning the use of criminal law as a site for feminist reform.

When the personal is not political: experiences of collective agency amongst participants in the domestic violence response in London, UK

ABSTRACT How are changing times impacting on the possibility of collective agency by actors and agencies responding to domestic violence against women in London? The struggle against the domestic abuse of women was grounded in the 1970s women’s liberation movement under the rallying cry of ‘the personal is the political’. Over time, the domestic violence (DV) response has become professionalised and mainstreamed, located in public sector agencies and charities, with small feminist groups challenging gender inequalities in different settings. These combined efforts are having no impact on the incidence of DV, and recent years have seen dramatic cuts in DV services. A snowball sample of 25 professionals, policy makers and activists across the DV response engaged in semi-structured interviews exploring their work experiences, particularly experiences of ‘multi-sectoral collaboration’, the professional instantiation of collective agency. Thematic analysis depicted an exhausted and divided sector. Nearly all informants saw DV as rooted in gender inequalities, and viewed collaborative working as essential for tackling its interlocking individual and social drivers. However, contemporary feminism was seen as completely irrelevant to the daily realities of professionals’ work. The paper explores how the current economic, political and cultural contexts of interviewees’ work experiences were hostile to the practice of multi-sectoral collaboration. Such contexts actively militated against collaborator solidarity, the inclusion of survivor voices and a social change orientation – preconditions for effective collective agency in tackling such a complex and multi-level social problem.

Gender and modern-day slavery in Nigeria: A critical analysis of baby factory and terrorism

The trans-Atlantic slave trade had, for long, been abolished and yet many countries of the world are experiencing the resurgence of slavery that manifests in several different forms. Because the Nigerian situation presents some peculiarities, this research therefore uniquely explored two underexplored but growing trends: (1) Unlawful confinement of girls in ‘baby factories’ (illegal clinics and orphanages) and (2) the exploitation of girls and women by the Boko Haram terrorist group. These were expounded within the framework of radical feminist theory. Although men are also victims, children and women have been the most at risk populations. As victims in the terrorist dens, girls and women suffer as economic-slaves, sex-slaves and suicide-mission-slaves. In the baby factories, they serve as economic-slaves, sex-slaves, procreation-slaves, and money-ritual-slaves. The choice of women in providing these services is a testament to the disproportionate economic and power relations (such as inequalities, poverty, social exclusion, exploitations, and obnoxious cultural practices) inherent in patriarchal societies. This was also explained within the contexts of women's vulnerability which intersects with national and human insecurity factors to further predict their never-ending victimisations and bondage. Thus, it was concluded that the two phenomena constitute aggression, violence and abuse largely targeted at children and women, with long-term traumatic effects on victims. The problem requires national and transnational security interventions to combat, involving inter-security agency and public-private partnership to scale up control measures and safeguard victims' rights. • Unlawful confinement of girls in ‘baby factories’ (illegal clinics and orphanages) • Exploitation of girls and women by the Boko Haram terrorist group • Resurgence of modern-day slavery • Girls and women suffer as economic-slaves, sex-slaves, procreation-slaves, money-ritual-slaves, and suicide-mission-slaves • The predictions of radical feminist theory