Radical feminism was one of the waves of feminism that emerged in the 1960s. It is called radical because it is inspired in Marxism and proposes fighting the roots of oppression against women, not because it is an extreme feminism.
It emerged as an opposition to liberal feminism, which describes women’s situation as an inequality. In contrast, radical feminism considers it an oppression or exploitation. Likewise, while liberal feminism advocates for women’s emancipation through legal equality, radical feminism considers itself revolutionary and understands that the oppressions that women encounter are much more complex. Therefore, eliminating them requires a change at all levels of society.
Some of the propositions and assertions of radical feminism include: denouncing the sexual objectification of women and rape culture; being critical of prostitution; recognizing sexuality and desire as a political construct; highlighting gender-based violence against women; being critical of androcentrism; and being critical of the sexual division of labour.
Its slogan is ’The personal is political’,and its main works include Sexual Politics by Kate Millet, and The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone.
Recently, this wave of feminism has gained popularity because it has become the centre of some public debates, especially in Spain where radical feminist activists reiterate that cisgender women are the political subject of feminism. They argue that only people who were biologically born with female genitalia encounter patriarchal oppression and, thus, are the focus of the feminist fight.
The plural version of this concept is also used to reflect the diversity of approaches and the heterogeneity of the members of this social movement.
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