What are your thoughts on radical feminism?

I enjoy performing femininity, e.g. makeup, feminine fashion, but I don’t delude myself into thinking “I do it for myself” anymore. I don’t live in a state of cognitive dissonance. Our decisions are not made in a vacuum. Women have been socialised to perform femininity to feel good and attractive. That’s reality. I agree with radfem theory, however, I make a conscious choice to perform femininity. Your life choices do not have to perfectly align with every ideology. I just do what I want and accept that I’ve probably been conditioned a lot to like what I do, but such is life. I really like what Lilith wrote of, “Feminist Realism”. She has a great take on this, acknowledging radfem theory but calling out that it’s not always a practical way to live as a heterosexual woman. Read her article and/or listen to the pod episode.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1DR8FfojtWrsXESut1hxZW?si=slDLkfmiT3qpaaoiVJNQfg

Why do you love shaving and wearing make up? It's not what we do. It's why we do it and to be aware. Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, the social domination of women by men. Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing societal rights, privileges, and power primarily along the lines of sex, and as a result, oppressing women and privileging men. It's a philosophy. Not individual choices.

I'm a radical feminist and what most women indulge in as "feminine" is male constructed. It's all superficial. Wearing revealing clothing that appeals to the male gaze, making up your face to look like another woman, shaving so you imitate the body of a pre-pubescent child bc ew gross women. The funny thing about femininitiy, which has become capitalistic, is that it requires a woman to buy shit inorder to be considered feminine. You're not wearing makeup, you're considered to be lazy and/or you didn't get ready for the event- it doesn't matter how attractive you are without makeup or how clean cut, well dressed you are. You're going to have to wear heals to give you that 🌟feminine apperence🌟 at the cost of your discomfort. You gotta shave off all your body hair despite how counterintuitive it is to your health because of the accidently cuts, ingrown, etc. Not once when you were mentioning femininity did you mention the unique tangible things actual femininity provides like being a creator, guider/mentor, femininity, our intuition, the strength to endure, the will to persevere, emotional intelligence, on average possessing more than two brain cells bc most men seem to not have that trait. Femininty has become, ironically enough, male identified. Since men view women as objects their idea of femininty is surface level: the clothing, the makeup, being passive and easily manipulated, sweet and agreeable- shit like that. And that's what women view femininity as- thats what get radical feminist annoyed, it's all male identified no matter how you slice (just because other things are male identified/sexualized doesn't mean we just ignore the nuances of this topic). Isn't it strange how masculinity has nothing to do with buying a bunch of stuff, that make them uncomfortable (and is really a way to make them seem insecure about their manhood since their value is based solely on a thing that detiroates rapidly as they age making them more susceptible to negative influences but i digress) just to please the female gaze. A man is masculine by being a PROVIDER and PROTECTOR (which are also feminine traits might I add, women don't just sit on their asses and look and pretty) not dressing up in the latest and greatest fashion trends.

If you enjoy this superficial form of femininity, knock yourself out, we have choice feminism for a reason. Just don't be delusional about your actions as if your choices were made in a void like one commenter said.

I agree with radfem politics. I think other radical feminists that are heterosexual would benefit greatly in their relationships by applying FDS strategies. There's obvious radfems on the FDS forums applying the strategies I see as well.

The criticisms against make-up are that they take up our valuable time, our money, and restrict us (can't wash our faces throughout the day of sweat, heels damage our feet and calves, skin can't breathe and make-up could make skin worse). And that of course women shouldn't have to wear make-up to the doctor to be treated seriously, or that if men can get and keep good jobs by being clean faced then so should women. I acknowledge we have social pressures and rewards to perform femininity and I know I don't just do it for fun even if I do enjoy it. If I were the only human on an island and I knew I wouldn't see any other humans for a year or be filmed I likely wouldn't shave or wear make-up and choose comfort instead.

FDS also acknowledges all the efforts we put into femininity because society demands it of us and adds that to the reasons why we cannot do 50/50. Even if you wore zero make-up and did nothing feminine you still bring more to the relationship as a woman than men do and earn less money in the same job positions.

So I just try to minimize these as much as possible. I put on minor make-up that takes me 5 minutes and only if I'm going somewhere nice, it's not for running errands. I have my hair short and can curl it up cute in several minutes. I choose boots or comfy sandals over heels because I don't want the foot health problems. If I wear a dress I make sure it's not restrictive and I don't wear anything where I have to worry about boobs or butts falling out. I am perfectly comfortable going out bare-faced and and hairy but it took me a lot of work to be ok with that. Part of my leveling up is going to a dermatologist to work on my painful cystic acne.

Personally, I agree with a lot of radfem theory. However I don't see femininity as a bad thing. It's different to performative femininity which is about appealing to the male gaze. To me, femininity is about being comfortable with how you are as a woman. I've always loved dresses and skirts and feminine clothes in general. It's part of how I express myself but I wouldn't see it as part of my femininity. I don't feel any less feminine if I'm in jeans and a hoodie. It's just sort of intrinsic, if that makes sense. It's in my ability to empathise and rationalise in a way that most men are incapable of doing, for instance. It's also just plain biology. I don't shave, although I do sometimes wax my legs/armpits for summer and swimming. I was thinking about why the other day and it's definitely not because I like it. It's also not because I care about what men think because I don't. It's learnt behaviour from the pickmes who actively shame women who don't remove body hair. Whenever I leave my house in shorts with my legs unwaxed there are pickmes (usually older women) who will actively stare and give me looks of disgust and repulsion. If I can't be bothered to deal with that, I just end up conforming. It's really sad and I hope by the time I'm their age it's no longer a thing.

I consider myself a radfem and I think the makeup/shaving argument is a waste of time. You really gonna come for my mascara and say I'm not a feminist when I wanna go over human trafficking?? The irony is rich and denyed at every turn. The makeup/shaving argument is still reducing women's feminist/agency down to their looks (and the feminists going hard for this argument are usually YOUNG- like all they have is their allowance to make their mark on the world)

Femininity and makeup aren't feminist issues- don't think that bc you like it or not that it's a feminist stance. I think learning how the beauty industry is built on mysoginistic constructs is helpful to deprogramming yourself when you first learn about feminism. But in the grand scheme of things arguing over whether or not to buy makeup isn't the feminist activism Twitter would have you believe.

Literally forget makeup/femininity as part of feminist discourse- it doesn't fucking matter- it doesn't make us women and it doesn't help our harm women establishing and protecting our rights. Even women who face severe punishment for not conforming to their cultural feminine standards- the crux of the issue is that women don't have rights.

TLDR; complain about a hammer/stick all you like, the stick is just a tool it's better to focus on who's beating you with it than to get angry at the stick.

*I also hold the same view w the 'smash the patriarchy' bs. Like patriarchy is a tool, it's not our opponent, it's the weapon we must parry.

At least as far as the stuff I've read anyway, radfems make it pretty clear that just because they examine some things (like makeup and hair removal) through a critical lens, doesn't mean we're not allowed to do said things.

They're merely pointing out that just because we like a thing doesn't make it "feminist". Which is a good point that makes sense to me.

They're not really coming for our makeup, as far as I can tell.

They're saying don't judge other women for not wearing makeup. Don't be one of those people who make workplace rules that require only the women to wear makeup to be considered "presentable" for work.

What qualifies as feminist? It's things we can do together that raise women up as a group.

As a young woman I never left the house without make up. I thought my natural face was that bad. Terrible. I was ashamed of my face. (I was f-ing fresh faced and radiant, but I didn't see it that way, then - I had dutifully taken in every so-called flaw, and the skills to hide them). These 'flaws' were really just normal things that made me ME. I also often went for the 'effortless natural' look (which often takes far more effort than when you can actually tell she's wearing make up). Well, into my early-mid twenties I wore less and less, til eventually I embraced my beauty from within, accepted everything about my face that, actually, was gorgeous! I detached from all these weird 'conventional beauty' norms (WTAF are these for real? they are super bizarre. and getting more so!) And... I gotta tell ya - it was FREE-ING. I started to see my actual face every day! Make up, particularly the way it is considered a requirement these days, is WEIRD. Once I broke out of the illusion, I saw it for what it was/is. I like the way some commenters have referred to it as 'performative', and I personally wouldn't really call it performative *femininity*. I get that not everyone will agree with this, and that is ok, but I do believe true femininity comes from within. It may result in playing with make up, but the vast majority of makeup use these days is from the outside- in, aiming for a more white/Caucasian appearance, stoking self hate/shame/insecurity, while our truly beautiful and powerful inner feminine forces are suppressed to oblivion and feared like evil witch. Aaaaaaanyway. Sis, you can do what you want, and these days I do put some on more often than in the past, but I also live in a much more urban area where perceptions and expectations are weirder and more manufactured than some less urban areas. The stigma re actually looking like yourself is real. And I don't want to be fighting that battle every time I leave the house. Life can be tough enough as a woman... So I play the game, shave my legs sometimes, pop on the odd bit of concealer etc... But I'm under no illusions of what I'm doing...

Like almost all "organized" philosophies and movements, there are parts of it I really back and others that I'm lukewarm about or fully reject. I don't see femininity as a male construct. You can go all over the world and in different cultures, and there's always some sort of ritual / performance that both women and men perform for the sake of attracting a partner.

To that end, if I expect my man to be well-groomed and put in the effort to be masculine, then I should expect no less of myself to be feminine.

To note: I genuinely enjoy looking and presenting as feminine. So I don't know if my bias plays a part in this.

Their objection to a lot of art forms women have invented (even if their current form is mostly under the control of patriarchy) reminds me of this video by Karolina Źebrowska: https://youtu.be/zNwTqanp0Aw Nowadays we think of the corset as being a tool of the patriarchy, designed to oppress women, but in reality, it was a female-run industry, and the first people to object to them were men who didn’t like women having anything for themselves. The same thing with makeup. The fist people to object to women wearing makeup were men who were appalled that women had freedom over how to present themselves in public, and that *gasp* ugly girls might disguise themselves as pretty girls, and we’ll ever know the difference!