Update: Earlier today, I posted biographical information for each of the signatories to this open statement — this is a very impressive gathering of women! — but I have (reluctantly) removed this now out of concern over whether these women would want this information posted and over concerns about accuracy. I may try to contact all of them and ask them whether they would be willing to have biographical information about them posted here. I wish it could have stayed! But it’s best to be cautious. — Heart

Forbidden Discourse: The Silencing of Feminist Criticism of “Gender”

An open statement from 37 radical feminists from five countries.

August 12, 2013

We, the undersigned 1960s radical feminists and current activists, have been

concerned for some time about the rise within the academy and mainstream media

of “gender theory,” which avoids naming men and the system of male supremacy

as the beneficiaries of women’s oppression. Our concern changed to alarm when

we learned about threats and attacks, some of them physical, on individuals and

organizations daring to challenge the currently fashionable concept of gender.

Recent developments: A U.S. environmental organization that also calls itself

radical feminist is attacked for its political analysis of gender. Feminist conferences

in the U.K., U.S. and Canada are driven from their contracted locations for asserting

the right of women to organize for their liberation separately from men, including

M>F (male to female) transgendered people.

Deep Green Resistance (DGR) reports1 that queer activists defaced its published

materials and trans activists threatened individual DGR members with arson, rape

and murder. Bookstores are pressured not to carry DGR’s work and its speaking

events are cancelled after protests by queer/transgender activists. At “RadFem”

conferences in London2, Portland3 and Toronto4, trans activists accuse scheduled

speakers of hate speech and/or being transphobic because they dare to analyze

gender from a feminist political perspective. Both MF transgender people and

“men’s rights” groups, operating separately but using similar language, demand

to be included in the Rad Fem 2013 conference in London called to fight against

women’s oppression and for liberation.

How did we slide back to the point where radical feminists have to fight for the

right to hold women-only conferences and criticize conventional “gender roles”?

The rise of Gender Studies may be part of the problem. Language is a wonderful

human tool for thinking, understanding, cooperation and progress, so it makes

sense that when people fight for freedom and justice against those who are

oppressing them, the use and misuse of words—of language—becomes part of

the struggle. Originally the term “gender” may have been a useful way around

the communication problem that the word “sex” in English has several meanings.

“Sex” refers to the reproduction of a species, as well as acts bringing about sexual

pleasure AND the simply descriptive division of many plants and animals into

two observable categories—the “sexes.” Using “gender” instead of “sex” allows

feminists to make it clear that all kinds of social relations and differences between

the sexes were unjust, not just sexual relations between the sexes. “Gender”

also covers the artificial, socially-created differences between the human sexes,

the overwhelming majority of which are politically, economically and culturally

disadvantageous to female humans.

“Gender Studies” has displaced the grassroots women’s liberation analysis

of the late 1960s and early 1970s. An early embrace of the neutral idea of

“sex roles” as a major cause of women’s oppression by some segments of the

women’s liberation movement has morphed into the new language—but the

same neutrality—of “gender roles” and “gender oppression.” With a huge

boost from the “new” academic theory coming out of those programs, heavily

influenced by post-modernism, “gender identity” has overwhelmed—when

not denying completely—the theory that biological women are oppressed and

exploited as a class by men and by capitalists due to their reproductive capacity.

Women often can no longer organize against our oppression in women-only

groups without being pilloried with charges of transphobia. But, as a UKbased

radical feminist “Fire in My Belly” wrote in her blog, “Radical feminists

recognise that an individual’s ‘gender identity’ cannot, in a fair society, be

allowed to ride roughshod over biological sex, which cannot be changed.”5

We do not view traditional sex/gender roles as natural or permanent. In fact,

criticizing these “roles” is valid and necessary for women’s liberation. Radical

feminist analysis and activism focus on unequal power relations between men

and women under male supremacy, with real, material benefits going to the

oppressor group (men) at the expense of the oppressed group (women).

The system of male supremacy comes down hard on non-conforming men and

women, as movingly described online by members of the trans community.

While switching gender identity may alleviate some problems on an individual

level, it is not a political solution. Furthermore, a strong case can be made that

it undermines a solution for all, even for the transitioning person, by embracing

and reinforcing the cultural, economic and political tracking of “gender” rather

than challenging it. Transitioning is a deeply personal issue associated with a

lot of pain for many people but it is not a feminist strategy or even individual

feminist stance. Transitioning, by itself, does not aid in the fight for equal

power between the sexes.

There will have to be many advances in science and technology before the

bodies of female humans will no longer be needed for the complicated

and dangerous jobs of supplying eggs and gestating and bearing ongoing

generations to carry on the work of the world. There will also, no doubt, be

struggles to ensure that women are not oppressed in new ways under these

new circumstances.

Not all feminists agree that ‘gender’ should be done away with, nor do

we agree with one another on pornography or prostitution or a radical

transformation of our economy or a number of other issues. But our movement

has a history of airing serious differences in speeches and distributed position

papers, not in physical attacks, threats of bodily harm and censorship of such

analyses. DGR and RadFem stood up for the right to think, speak and write

freely on the question of gender.

Although we may not be in total agreement with DGR’s analysis of gender, we

welcome it as an important contribution to radical feminism and commend

the courage it has taken to stand against the threats and attacks it brought

upon them. We defend the right of RadFem to exclude men, including M>F

trans people, from their feminist meetings and to invite speakers who analyze

gender from a feminist perspective. We also commend CounterPunch online

for publishing the DGR material, which brought similar attacks for transphobia

upon them, including from Jacobin magazine online.

We look forward to freedom from gender. The “freedom for gender”

movement, whatever the intentions of its supporters, is reinforcing the culture

and institutions of gender that are oppressing women. We reject the notion

that this analysis is transphobic. We uphold the radical feminist principle that

women are oppressed by male supremacy in both its individual and institutional

forms. We continue to support the radical feminist strategy of organizing an

independent power base and speaking the basic truths of our experience out of

earshot of the oppressor. We hold these principles and strategies essential for

advancing toward women’s liberation.

————————

Sources:

1 http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/21/55123/

2 http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/article1248683.ece

3 http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/07/the-left-hand-of-darkness/print

4 http://radfemriseup.wordpress.com

5 feministuk.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/radfem-2013-we-didnt-kill-any-men/

Contact: internationalfeminists@gmail.com

Initiated by Carol Hanisch (NY), Kathy Scarbrough (NJ), Ti-Grace Atkinson (MA), and Kathie Sarachild (NY)

Also signed by Roberta Salper (MA), Marjorie Kramer (VT), Jean Golden (MI), Marisa Figueiredo (MA), Maureen Nappi (NY), Sonia Jaffe Robbins (NY), Tobe Levin (Germany), Marge Piercy (MA), Barbara Leon (CA), Anne Forer (AZ), Anselma Dell’Olio (Italy), Carla Lesh (NY), Laura X (CA), Gabrielle Tree (Canada), Christine Delphy (France), Pam Martens (FL), Nellie Hester Bailey (NY), Colette Price (NY), Candi Churchhill (FL), Peggy Powell Dobbins (GA), Annie Tummino (NY), Margo Jefferson (NY), Jennifer Sunderland (NY), Michele Wallace (NJ), Allison Guttu (NY), Sheila Michaels (MO), Carol Giardina (NY), Nicole Hardin (FL), Merle Hoffman (NY), Linda Stein (NY), Margaret Stern (NY), Faith Ringgold (NJ), Joanne Steele (NY)