The nice thing about lesbian separatist radical feminism is that it requires nothing from me.

[xiphias]

So, a bunch of people on my friends list have been linking to a post that someone wrote last year about the misogyny in Firefly/Serenity. And, y'know, there's actually a lot of interesting stuff you can do with that, but this post was written from a radical feminist point of view, by a lesbian separatist.

And I was just thinking about how EASY radfem is for me to deal with.

See, I'm a man. And so, by lesbian separatist radical feminist logic, I can never understand a woman's point of view. And THAT means that I have no obligation to try.

Now, the way I was raised, I can look at how society is set up, I can see in what ways the deck is stacked to give men more power for being men, I can see how society promotes some sorts of interactions, and values some types of personality traits more than others. In the forms of feminism in which I was raised, I can look at those things, and see if I can find ways to work around them, to change how I think about them, to work to change society to be more equatable, to allow people to be who they are, to respect the contributions of all sorts of people, to value cooperative and consensus-building interactions . . .

But, from a radical feminist point of view, the differences are not cultural, they're inherent, and, as a man, no matter what I do, I won't change.

And that's so cool. That lets me entirely off the hook. By the feminism with which I was raised, I have a responsibility to work toward a more fair and more just world. But by lesbian separatist radical feminism, I can do whatever I want, because, as I have no ability to be different than I am, I have no responsibility to try.

Comments

[mr-clarinet.livejournal.com]

sorry, i think we misunderstood.

i didn't mean to say women HAD to have sex with men; whatever people choose to do is absolutely their choice. and that is the point. this strain of feminism frequently argues that because of the sexist matrix of contemporary life, a woman can NEVER give consent in heterosexual sex, hence the "all het sex is rape" espoused by the woman in the article. an ideology i find incredibly dangerous.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

In fact, the poster specifically said that.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

"Fascism" is not a synonym for "incredibly dangerous." When lesbian separatism uses the unites the power of government and industry to prevent all heterosexual sex, heck when lesbian separatism seeks to obtainthe power of government and industry in the hopes of using it to enforce its tenets, then you can accurately call it fascist.

[mr-clarinet.livejournal.com]

it's accurately described as "fascistic" in the sense that it denies individual agency to a higher theoretical authority.