Web 2.0 Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Fandom - Tumblr Posts

thedowncorner

4 years ago

radfem lite(tm) and tumblr discourse

identifying radfem dog whistles: that is, radfem ideology when it’s not obviously and blatantly transphobic or anti-sex worker

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nobody likes TERFs or SWERFs - or so we like to think, even if we don’t entirely know it means to be a terf or swerf. but the truth is that radical feminism - the overarching worldview that contains within it both TERF and SWERF ideology - is fairly widespread and even popular here on tumblr. it’s just that most of the time it’s not identified as being radfem/terf/swerf rhetoric unless the transphobia (or anti-sex-worker sentiment) is blatant and open.

this is the first of a series of posts intended to help fellow people on tumblr identify and understand what I call ‘radfem lite’ - radfem rhetoric that is not obviously transphobic or anti-sex-work, but naturally points one towards becoming a radical feminist (that is, abandoning intersectional feminism, eroding belief in free will (particularly in regards to consent), embracing binarist thinking & gender essentialism, and denying or belittling all forms of societal oppression that are not directly related to misogyny.)

radfem lite rhetoric is frequently a ‘dog whistle’ as well - a phrase or word that has more than one meaning depending on who hears or reads it. non-radfems hear one thing; radfems and their targets hear another. those who become radfems or radfem targets eventually become familiar with the true meaning of the dog whistle word or phrase, but the majority of those who spread it have no idea what they’re really ‘saying’.

some of the things I’ll post about will have overlap with other types of exclusionist thinking, or will have been adopted by those who aren’t radfems so widely that it might seem absurd that it has radfem roots. I’ll try to be clear about why I am attributing a concept to radical feminism when I introduce it.

some things will also have some grain of ‘truth’ to it - the reason why the radfem lite concept seems reasonable to non-radfems. I’ll try to identify that grain of truth, and dismantle or demystify why the reasoning built around it is faulty.

Why am I doing this?

the first and most obvious reason is the number of ‘OP was a terf so I stole this post’ headers i’ve seen that are followed by a post loaded with radfem lite rhetoric. many, many people on tumblr know that terfs (and swerfs) are bad, but don’t know why or can’t identify terf rhetoric if it isn’t labeled ‘terf rhetoric’.

but also: because radical feminist thinking - particularly the anti-porn branch, which bends into SWERF thinking - is highly appealing to fannish tumblr, and forms the basis for a lot of fandom anti-shipper thinking and arguments. I hope that seeing the radfem roots of these arguments will help those leaning into fandom anti-shipper thinking avoid falling victim to radical feminist outreach.

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post 1 / some basics

What is radical feminism?

Radical feminism - which encompasses, among others, subgroups such as trans-(women) exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs/TWERFs), and sex-worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) - is an ideology that holds that the most important and severe axis on which oppression occurs is patriarchal social structure and its inevitable product, misogyny.

By discounting all other forms of oppression and marginalization as being of lesser or no importance, radical feminists (aka ‘radfems’) naturally conclude that those they perceive as men are unable to experience meaningful societal oppression and those they perceive as women are unable to experience meaningful societal privilege. As such:

it is impossible for a (perceived) woman to have a mutually beneficial friendship, business partnership, romance, or sexual relationship with a (perceived) man.

Further, their perception of how oppression works is frequently concerned only with the binary sex organs one is born with (or ‘closest to’/that which was surgically created for intersex people).

The belief that a (radfem-perceived) woman cannot have a good or beneficial interaction - especially sexual interaction - with a (radfem-perceived) man, which (like misogyny) belittles and degrades the ability of women to make decisions for themselves, encourages activists to focus on modifying and correcting the behavior of perceived women rather than focusing on modifying and correcting societal inequalities caused by gender/perception of gender. This misplaced focus disproportionately harms sex workers* and/or any (perceived) woman having sex or in a line of business that radfems consider ‘degrading’ to women**.

The reduction of gender identity and experiences to sex organs alone leads to inclusion and/or exclusion of people from ‘womenhood’ based on whether radfems perceive a person as ‘born male’ or ‘born female’. This causes disproportionate harm to trans people (trans women particularly), leading not only to misgendering, but accusations of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault, (mostly directed at trans women), exclusion from gendered spaces to which they belong, and erasure.** It also harms anyone who does not identify with a binary gender by reducing their experiences to their agab, and anyone who does identify on the gender binary but does not ‘look’ sufficiently like the gender they identify with (which may include those who identify with their agab.)

(*this is because radfems believe that only people they see as women are sex workers and their only clients are people they see as men.)

(**all this potentially leading to even more severe consequences, such as being assaulted, attempting/committing suicide, or being murdered, among others. the consequences of radical feminist ideology are severe.)

Why is all radfem ideology so dangerous?

if you’re wondering ‘what’s the problem with radical feminism when a radfem isn’t a TERF or SWERF’, this is why radfem ideology as a whole is damaging and harmful to embrace:

because its ideology is, at heart, transphobic, and leads to trans people being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, anti-sex work, and leads to sex workers being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, based on the existence of a gender binary created by sexual dimorphism, and leads to erasure and harm of anyone who does not identify on the gender binary

because its ideology is non-intersectional and therefore belittles or ignores many axes of oppression and marginalization that can have as much as/greater effect on any given person’s quality of life

because it flattens societal structures to a single dimension (sexism), encouraging black and white thinking: namely, all (perceived) women are inherently good and all (perceived) men are inherently bad

this harms (perceived) women by putting them on a pedestal, expecting them to be ‘better’ than other genders in every way, only to be knocked off if they don’t appease radfem standards of female behavior

it erases the harm that women with axes of privilege over other women can do to those other women

it erases the harm that women with equal privilege can cause to one another (abuse in a relationship between two lesbian women), and the harm that women can do to those who are not women (predatory women who prey on men/children are erased, for example)

dismisses the victimhood of victims/survivors of oppression or harm who are not seen as women

because its aggregate societal effect is to reinforce patriarchal social structure, misogynistic dismissal of (perceived) women, and magnify sexism, primarily by putting pressure on (perceived) women to perform womanhood to radfem standards while ignoring (perceived) men as being beyond hope of reform.

because all of this hurts everyone, regardless of their gender, and disproportionately harms those marginalized by additional axes of oppression (such as race, sexual orientation, etc).