A feminist we know, Rosita Libre de Marulanda, sent us a link to a blog post called “Leaving Liberal Feminism” and we want to share it here at Meeting Ground.
The author, Kate Leigh, recounts her move from liberal (post-modern) feminism to radical feminism by beginning:
I couldn’t honestly tell you when I started following a liberal intersectional feminist philosophy. It was simply part of my thought process and by extension, my life, online and off. I followed all the blogs and pages. I contributed comments and shares. I told people to check their privilege and men need feminism too. Liberal feminism was the only feminism of which I was aware. In fact, I never called myself a liberal feminist while I held those views. I called myself a “Feminist” without realizing there were other types.
She goes on to clearly and insightfully describe the liberal feminism that she followed and to credit the “haters” online for making her understand that there are many strands of feminism. When she raised the question that was bothering her–“What is a woman?”–she couldn’t get an answer that matched reality:
I asked my question with trepidation every chance I got but the answers did not satisfy me. People replied “well, how do YOU know you’re a woman?” But rather than clearing it up, this only confused me further. My answer, which I had been taught never to say, was “I know I am a woman because of my body: vulva, uterus, breasts. I know because I menstruate and can become pregnant.” I could not think of a single characteristic that makes a person a woman beyond the physical body.
As a result of continuing to ask such questions, Kate was called a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) and censored from several online groups. However, the experience led her to look up radical feminist discussion groups where she “found out about the idea of gender as a social construct and it clicked.”
This courageous and well-written personal testimony on her move from liberal to radical feminism is a must read, as are many of the comments that follow it and are in a similar vein.