FAQ

No, the "radical" in radical feminist does not indicate extremism. Radical feminists just consider patriarchal society to be fundamentally misogynistic and flawed.

Not at all. While some radical feminists consider themselves part of "fourth-wave feminism," a movement that began around 2012, the radical feminist movement originated in the late 1960s within second-wave feminism, from a group called the New York Radical Women established by Shulamith Firestone.

Definitely not. Radical feminism is a revolutionary left-wing movement, and thus its members are overwhelmingly progressive/left-leaning. Radical feminists are also most likely to be atheistic or agnostic; we identify organized religion as one of the primary methods by which patriarchy is enforced.

No. While men can and should certainly be allies, primarily by challenging male supremacy in male-dominated spaces, the liberation of women is a movement for women and by women.

Radical feminism is not based on superiority, but on an analysis of power structures. We don't believe women are "better" than men; we believe women are subjugated by men. The goal of the movement is to dismantle a system (patriarchy) that grants one group dominance over the other, rather than reversing which sex is dominant.

No, radical feminists do not hate trans people. Radical feminists are concerned with protecting women's rights and abolishing gender roles, not with discriminating against or restricting the rights of trans people.

No, and in fact many foundational radical feminist texts and collectives have been spearheaded by women of color. While liberal feminism has often failed women of color by settling for the individual success of certain (usually privileged) WOC, radical feminism seeks to destroy patriarchy entirely in order to liberate ALL women – especially marginalized women, who experience the most oppression in patriarchal society.

Absolutely!

To put it simply, yes. While the critique is not of an individual woman choosing to wear makeup (we understand and usually sympathize with the societal conditioning behind that choice), radical feminism is staunchly against the multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to profiting from women's insecurities.

Radical feminists are against sex work, and certainly against sex buyers, but not against sex workers. Rather than seeing sex work as "empowering," we recognize it as a trade that institutionalizes the exploitation, subjugation and abuse of women, in particular poor and marginalized women. Many radical feminists support the Nordic Model, which decriminalizes sex selling and criminalizes sex buying, in addition to providing resources to help women safely exit the industry.

To radical feminists, gender is not an internal identity or feeling, but rather a socially constructed hierarchy used to justify the subordination of women to men. Abolishing gender means leaving behind the rigid system of "masculine" vs. "feminine" roles that dictate our current treatment in society. We seek a world where men and women can express themselves freely, without feeling obligated to justify that expression through arbitrary labels.

It depends. While some radical feminists practice "separatism" – creating women-only communities to heal and thrive outside of patriarchal influence – the main goal of the movement is to end patriarchy for everyone. We advocate for a world where women have the right to their own spaces, resources, and boundaries. The abolition of male supremacy would vastly improve life for everyone, but radical feminism centers the liberation of women as a distinct and crucial political project.

Terms like "pregnant people" and "menstruators" reduce women to their biological functions, while terms like "non-men" define men as the default human and women as merely a sub-type. Both of these approaches are dehumanizing and misogynistic. Radical feminists also object to the idea that everyone is allowed to decide what women are called with the exception of women themselves.

For radical feminists, the word woman is not a feeling or performance; it is the material reality of being an adult human female. We object to the recent redefinition of the word because it dissolves the unique political class that feminism exists to protect. If we cannot agree on one word to describe women (if the category is splintered into terms that describe us only as a biological type, an identity, or a set of stereotypes), then women cannot have specific, enforceable legal rights and protections.

When woman is turned into a feeling or a subjective category, women are also forced to use qualifying labels like "cis" or "biological female" just to describe ourselves. We refuse to be relegated to a sub-type of our own category. It is telling that while the word woman is being stripped of its boundaries to accommodate others, the word man remains largely unchallenged. We are reclaiming the right to our own name without the need for qualifiers.

Finally, history shows that any replacement for the word woman will eventually be deemed "offensive" or "inconvenient" by a society that resists female self-advocacy. We have already seen the shift from woman being contested, to female becoming unacceptable, to biological woman infringing on others' rights. If we allow outside groups to define us, there is no evidence that we will ever be allowed a stable definition at all.