Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.
Radical feminists view society as fundamentally a patriarchy in which men dominate and oppress women. Radical feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy as one front in a struggle to liberate everyone from an unjust society by challenging existing social norms and institutions. This struggle includes opposing the sexual objectification
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Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, and social privilege. A patriarchal society consists of a male-dominated power structure throughout organized society and in individual relationships. Most contemporary societies are, in practice, patriarchal. Patriarchy is associated with a set of ideas, a patriarchal ideology that acts to explain and justify this dominance and attributes it to inherent natural differences between men and women. Feminist theorists have expanded the definition of patriarchal society to describe a systemic bias against women, and most feminists saw that oppression of women
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Anarcha-feminism combines anarchism with feminism. Anarcha-feminism generally posits that patriarchy and traditional gender roles as manifestations of involuntary coercive hierarchy should be replaced by decentralized free association. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class conflict and the anarchist struggle against the state and capitalism. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice versa. L. Susan Brown claims that "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist". Anarcha-feminism is an anti-authoritarian,
… Read more anti-capitalist, anti-oppressive philosophy, with the goal of creating an "equal ground" between the genders. Anarcha-feminism suggests the social freedom and liberty of women without needed dependence upon other groups or parties. Anarcha-feminism began with late 19th and early 20th century authors and theorists such as anarchist feminists Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Milly Witkop, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, and Lucy Parsons. In the Spanish Civil War, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres ("Free Women"), linked to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica, organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.