.png)
Over the past two or three years I have got into reading radical feminist literature. I had read all the books in my university's (very small) feminist section, so I thought I knew a lot, but of course I realise now that they only included liberal feminist books (The Beauty Myth etc- a great book, but still focused on individualism).
Now I have an insatiable hunger for anything rad fem. But I feel like I am self-harming sometimes by reading these books. Mainly because it becomes obvious that the arguments we have today are exactly the same as the arguments they were having in the 60s and the 70s, except nowadays a lot more ground has been lost.
It seems that women as a whole were a lot more aware fifty years ago than they are today. They were organising, holding conferences, speaking in congress; they seemed to have been really visible. They could say things back then, that nowadays would get you shut down so fast by men and women alike.
Am I being overly pessimistic?
I think something to consider is that when a group feels threatened it fights back a lot harder. In some ways I think the manosphere is realizing women are waking up. In the 60s and 70s there wasn’t really a ton of threat. Women had just began to get their own bank accounts but it probably felt more like a funny little thing they were letting women do to stop our “complaining”.
Fast forward 50 years and women are making their way in the world without men and we’re wising up because women are speaking more openly and its harder to lie to us because we have internet and ways of seeing trends that wouldn’t have been possible 50 years ago. Its harder to lead us around blindly.
The manosphere can feel us rising in our power and whether we know it or not women are very powerful, more like a slow moving glacier than the masculine power of a fire cracker. So if it feels like we’re losing ground don’t worry, that’s just the patriarchy in its death throes trying to stop the inevitable. We’ll gain it all back eventually because if there’s one thing I know about women it’s that we never give up.
If you want something more inspiration consider reading or listening to Demetra George’s Mysteries of the Dark Moon.
I just wanted to touch on this comment, because I've been there very recently myself. I think this is an important and powerful observation.
I think often about the Gloria Steinem quote, "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."
My advice is, you don't have to read everything all at once. It's heavy material. I had to pepper things up with other lighter material and different topics, otherwise I was getting deep into hatred and anger in a way that felt unhealthy.
With that said, don't be afraid to be angry. There have been some great posts recently on anger, like this Stay Mad post (thanks @SayNad !). And also there is a difference between the feeling of deep, powerful, righteous anger, and the feeling of despondent hopelessness.
Remember that even though things are super shitty, it is still ok to enjoy things too--as silly as it sounds, sometimes I have to consciously remind myself to look for something positive so I don't get stuck in a bad place. Like "I enjoy this after-rain smell", or "I love the way I feel after yoga", or a warm latte in the morning.
And then once you feel recharged, you can dive back into the literature.
Stay mad, and strive for balance. ❤️
Good on you for reading radical feminist theory, it can definitely feel so good and illuminating to read what our foremothers have gone through and prevailed despite oppression. It does make me depressed to see how much we've regressed as a society when it comes to women's rights and liberation, but I'll say this: As long as we have access to knowledge, we can always empower ourselves to keep going, even when things look extremely bleak for us as women. We can still gather in secret. We can still have discussion and organize events, even if online only right now, to get things done.
I'm the same age as you and though I became a radfem in college, I am still so angry about the current state of affairs. The best thing to do is keep reading, keep meeting other women, and stay angry. That anger is a pretty strong motivator.