Here’s My Perspective:

here’s my perspective:

liberal feminism is individualist. it affirms anything a woman does out of choice regardless of the impact of said choice. for example, if a woman chooses to appear in hardcore pornography, great! she chose it! liberal feminism neglects to look at the impact of such actions—young boys and men see this, fetishize it, expect women to enact it in real life. young women and girls see it, think that maybe it’s worth a try because that other woman enjoys it, think there’s something wrong with them for not enjoying it, and possibly get hurt.

radical feminism is not individualist. it is collectivist. in the case of hardcore pornography used above, radical feminism doesn’t care that one individual woman said she liked being in porn. it doesn’t matter because of the great majority of women and girls that are trafficked, raped, abused, and murdered for men’s sexual gratification. it doesn’t matter because of all of the harm the industry does to women and girls at large. the choice of one doesn’t matter when it adds to the collective harm of women as a marginalized class.

radical feminism recognizes women as a sex-based marginalized class. as radical feminists, we have to examine what harms women as a class, not as individuals. liberal feminism—pervasive mostly in the western, developed world—focuses on individual harm, individual autonomy, while failing to realize that a great number of women around the globe do not even have the ability to be autonomous, let alone determine what they do or do not want to do with their lives.

if a majority of women involved in the porn industry are being harmed by it, does it matter that a minority say they enjoy it? if a majority of women are harmed by beauty standards and the beauty industry, does it matter that some women like wearing makeup and shaving their body hair? if a majority of women seek safety in female-only spaces, does it matter that some women don’t care for them? why are a small number of women—mostly white, upper-middle class, western, straight, femininity supporting women—praised for being and claim to be feminists when all they do is reinforce patriarchal values and neglect a majority of their sisters around the world?

more than that, why do liberal feminists not care to do any real analysis of the structures that harm women if a few women claim to enjoy it? why are they mainly listening to the “sex work is work!” crowd and not the countless numbers of women who were traumatized by the industry? why, as a culture, are we prioritizing patriarchal and capitalist values and proclaiming them as feminist? why do liberal feminists not think beyond their relatively small western bubble? why are the reasons for willingly entering the porn industry, per se, (i.e. childhood sexual abuse) not considered? why are the repercussions not considered?

one of my main beliefs is that no woman has a choice until all women have a choice. i don’t care if a relatively small number of white western women (the majority that i see supporting liberal feminism, and also trans rights activists) ‘enjoy’ commodifying themselves because the majority of women don’t have the choice to be commodified. i don’t care if a woman likes wearing makeup because the makeup industry harms women. i don’t care if you choose to reinforce the patriarchy because your privilege protects you from a great deal of its harm because this choice of yours gives men more reason to believe that women enjoy enforced femininity, objectification, abuse, rape, so on and so forth. your choice is meaningless because none of us live in a vacuum.

unless all women are liberated, no woman is liberated. we should prioritize our work around our sisters of all colors, from all parts of the globe whose sex prevents them from having many of the choices we do in the west. we should use our choice to have a voice to uplift the voices of women without such privilege.