RADICAL FEMINISM

• FIRESTONE

  • Patriarchy:
  • The origins of women's patriarchy lie in women’s biological capacity and care for infants, since performing this role makes them dependent on males. 
  • Patriarchy is the primary and most fundamental part of all inequality and conflict. 
  • Men are the women’s main enemy. 
  • All men oppress women. All men benefit from patriarchy.
• FIRESTONE

  • The personal if the political:
  • Radical feminists believe all relationships involve power, and they are political when one dominates the other.
  • Radical feminists focus on the way in which patriarchal power is exercised through personal relationships, often through physical or sexual violence.
  • Brownmiller argues the fear of rape is a powerful deterrent against women going out alone at night.

  Sexual politics - personal relationships are political because men dominate women through them.
• FIRESTONE

  • Achieving women’s liberation:
  • Separatism - living apart from men and creating a new culture of female independence, free from patriarchy.
  • Consciousness raising - women-only consciousness raising groups that may lead to collective action against men. 
  • Political lesbianism - heterosexual relationships are ‘sleeping with the enemy’ and therefore lesbianism is the only non-oppressive form of sexuality.
  • Form a matriarchal family.