Essay #3: Radical Feminism

I am a radical feminist as an extension of my love for all humankind and my dedication to the principles of my religious faith.


We are at such a crude stage in history, so stuck in maya, that most people cannot even see beyond the world that we are given to imagine a day that will be so much better. Centuries from now, people will look at evidence demonstrating the way that we now live our lives, look at each other and say,


“What? They did what?”


“People killed other people because they thought that they would earn a place in heaven?”


“People considered people of other races, ethnicities, and sexual orientation as somehow different from and even inferior to themselves because of those trivial differences?”


“Corporations encouraged people to smoke, drink, take too many pharmaceuticals, apply harmful substances to their bodies because that would enrich the corporations and the people who run them?”


“Putatively righteous upholders of a religious faith regularly abused and tolerated sexual abuse of children?”


“People of faith denied the reality of global warming even while the splendid state of nature created by the God whom they served was becoming degraded and punishing in its overheated turbulence?”


“And, wow, what were these irrational demands that they placed on women?”


>>>>>  How amazing it is indeed that society pressures women to paint their beautiful faces, often times altering them into garish caricatures of the feminine, giving an appearance no better than the imitative transvestite.


>>>>>  How cruel is the insistence that women cripple themselves by walking around in high-heeled shoes that are the contemporary form of foot-binding.


>>>>>  How selfish are men who may chauvinistically consent to their wives having some semblance of a profession but refuse to do their share of the cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing.


>>>>>  How patriarchal it is that women are asked to forgo their surnames by taking that of their husband in a lingering symbol of the patriarchy consigning women to second-class status.


I am a radical feminist seeking to overturn all of the assumptions and practices that have kept women in a second-class position.


A feminist of whatever degree of radicalism seeks a world in which women and men are completely equal.


 That world will be created with observation of the following principles and modes of behavior:


1) The feminist woman and believer in equal rights for all will not enrich the cosmetic industry or magnify the salaries of executives in that industry or succumb to society’s silly but insidious pressure by painting her face: She will eschew make-up in favor of the naturally beautiful face that God gave her.


2) The feminist woman and believer in equal rights for all will not totter precariously around on high-heeled destroyers of her foot, the contemporary form of foot-binding: She will opt for sensible flats, shoes that make sense for dancing, walking, running, rushing toward every experience of life that God offers her without fear of debilitation or encumbrance.


3) The feminist woman will not accept any domestic role thrust on women by tradition: She will insist, rather, that household chores and child-rearing be shared equally by her and her husband or partner in life.


4) The feminist woman and believer in equal rights for all will not observe any traditional notion of the male as provider: She will rather pursue a professional occupation at least as remunerative as that of the male in her life, thus assuring her financial independence and the likelihood of economic sufficiency; this will eliminate that condition of dependency that can result in male domination and abuse.


5) The feminist woman will not take her husband’s name if she and her significant other decide to marry, thus maintaining observance of a symbol of patriarchy: She will rather keep her own surname or decide on a new name different from that of her spouse; or on a commonly shared new name different from that inherited by either partner.