When you expose radical feminism to the disinfecting sunlight of the world's gaze, then at least in theory you kill it. And you kill the rest of feminism too. For the moderate feminisms owe their existence to the existence of radical feminism. Radical feminism is the driving element which keeps ALL of feminism dynamic. Subtract radical feminism and the rest of feminism would grow anemic and devoid of purpose, and eventually fade away.
This throws an instructive light on the cliché that "not all feminists are like that". You see, it is not even necessary for all feminists to be "like that", provided only that some feminists are. That is all it takes. Feminism as a whole plows its destructive furrow through the world by the combined work of all feminists -- even the moderate ones. But the radicals are the real powerhouse, willing to drive the venture toward unthinkable frontiers. The moderates, whether they admit it or not, serve mainly for camouflage because no matter how far the radicals push the envelope, they will always seem comparatively reasonable -- the "good cops" in that timeless game.
Understand, the moderate feminists are not much about pushing the envelope. That is what the radicals do. But when the envelope indeed gets pushed, the moderates can always be counted on to fill up the space which the pushy radicals have opened for them. The mainstream is always migrating in a more radical direction, and so the future of liberal feminism is always radical.
The mainstream is always migrating in a more radical direction, and so the future of liberal feminism is always radical.
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yes, think of all the things taken for granted these days that were scandalous decades ago
and those things of the past considered normal back then that are now scandalized
that saying "he who is a conservative as a kid is mean - he who is a liberal as an adult is a fool" has it's roots in the fact that we are brought up to believe that such and such is the natural order of things [the current zietgiest- AND we are led to believe that this is the way it's always been] but then as we age the zeitgeist, like plate techtonics, has slowly shifted -ever leftward- away from our upbringing and so we now look aghast at the things considered normal today
ronald reagan claims he never left the democrats, the democrats left him. this experience is the norm
i can remember thinking how cool i thought liberalism was when i was a kid and what a bunch of dinosaurs the older people were
and as for rad fem... that will be normal fem in the future [and something unspeakably radical will exist on the left fringe then]
ALL of todays 'normal' fem was radical fem decades ago
It ain't gonna happen, though. It is unsustainable and will collapse, and then, amidst the the tangled wreckage and dust clouds, we will enjoy the fun challenge of making sense of our lives again.
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