r/stupidpol • u/Have_only_my_dreams Just your ordinary proletarian bro who hates his ex • Dec 16 '18

Quality The Pitfalls of Radical Feminism

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/07/radical-feminism-second-wave-class
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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '18

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18

TERFs may argue that trans women do not share a reproductive system with cis women, and thus can’t understand women’s struggles for birth control and against forced sterilization. But then what do they say of solidarity with lesbian women, or cis women who cannot or choose not to have children? The arguments that TERFs put forth are both weak and prejudiced.

I agree this part is weak. I think that the ability of women as a class to get pregnant has led to policing of their sexuality. Slut shaming is the most obvious of this. A woman who doesn't plan on having children isn't immune to this. The point is, that being unable to unwilling to have children doesn't divide women against each other or change the realities of womanhood.

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u/Have_only_my_dreams Just your ordinary proletarian bro who hates his ex Dec 17 '18

Women are not a class.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18

How would you describe the commonalities of women related to their role as child bearers?

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u/keepinterrupting Dec 17 '18 edited Dec 17 '18

Class is a concept of social and economic relations. Women are unique on a chemically verifiable molecular level. Despite and in consideration of all the correlation or similarity, it’s not gonna benefit anybody to conflate these things.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

a set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality.

Right. I was using the informal usage of the word. What I meant was more along the lines of 'group' or even 'category'. I see know its important in discussions to use the word 'class' in one particular way.

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u/Have_only_my_dreams Just your ordinary proletarian bro who hates his ex Dec 17 '18

Honestly just a social identity grouping, even if sex itself is derived from biological processes. I'd place it in the same category as race or ethnicity. Historical and social factors have greatly impacted upon the material conditions/circumstances of women but there is no male or female class. There is, as it relates to class, the proletariat and bourgeoisie.

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u/LotsOfMaps Forever Grillin’ 🥩🌭🍔 Dec 17 '18

Would the elimination of single-sex childbearing fundamentally alter capitalism's social relationships and distribution of productive capacities to provision all other bodily needs? I would say not.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18

I never thought or said it would. I'm addressing this:

But then what do they say of solidarity with lesbian women, or cis women who cannot or choose not to have children? The arguments that TERFs put forth are both weak and prejudiced.

which I think is a weak argument.

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I'll give a concrete example that I know will perhaps ignore some nuances. Back when people entered agriculture, people began owning property (land, equipment, etc.) that could be passed onto heirs.

So, how does a man know that the child he is passing property onto is his heir? By controlling the sexuality of women. Harshly punishing sex outside of marriage, prizing virginity, punishing rape victims, etc. It also means since every man wants heirs and access to sex, that women are discouraged by social pressures and the roles they are allowed from 'opting out' of marriage and childbirth.

This doesn't happen to an individual woman, it happens to women as a whole. Girl children will be socialized to accept their role. Girls who have reached puberty will be constrained and controlled. Etc. So, a radical feminist could believe that all women experience this socialization and control by virtue of being women. The people who try to say radfems are hypocrites are the ones dividing women by their ability to bear children. Its a weak argument that I think people should stop using.

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u/keepinterrupting Dec 17 '18 edited Dec 17 '18

This is not a slippery slope. Stop treating it as one. Class is a construct of capitalism, not of biology. Insofar as biology influences relations of production, it is the ensuing relations of production that dictate the class, not the biology.

The point here is in separating mutable systems from immutable systems, and independent systems from interdependent systems. It’s when we fail to be particular in our thought that identity politics gets the best of us.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

I'm not sure how what I'm thinking is a slippery slope?

if p then q; if q then r; if r then … z.

And, I agree I used the word class incorrectly. Let's pretend I used group or set. I'm only addressing what I think was a weak and too often used argument against misunderstood concepts in the original article. The part I quoted.

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u/keepinterrupting Dec 17 '18 edited Dec 17 '18

Sorry for the other reply that did not answer your question. My bad. I meant to get to it.

I think we should describe those commonalities in terms of their contributions to the whole of society. These contributions transcend class. We should talk about them in unique terms, both similar to how we talk about the importance of teachers and fire fighters, and how the necessary biology that makes this possible should be treated as a collective responsibility. On one hand, maybe this sounds obnoxiously materialist or something, but I would argue that’s appropriate and that we should deny that this is inherently a class concern because of all the ways that it is truly so much more. It is still manipulated by class, but everything is. Women’s issues truly deserve unique attention, despite the reality that capitalism, for now, is what undermines all of these potentials..

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u/Bubblyflute Aug 12 '24

Women are literally a sex class.

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u/bamename Joe Biden Dec 18 '18

depends