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
… Read more of women, raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence against women, challenging the concept of
gender roles, and challenging what
radical feminists see as a racialized and gendered capitalism that characterizes the
United States and many other countries.
Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's
oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal
feminism) or class
conflict (as in anarchist
feminism, socialist
feminism, and Marxist
feminism).
Non-binary or genderqueer is an umbrella term for gender identities that are neither male nor female?, which means identities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the
transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is
different from their assigned sex, though some non-binary individuals do not consider themselves
transgender. Non-binary people may identify as having two or more genders (being bigender or trigender), or having no gender (agender, nongendered, genderless, genderfree), or having a fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid), or being third gender or other-gendered (a category that includes those who do not
… Read more place a name to their gender). Gender identity is separate from sexual or romantic orientation, and non-binary people have a variety of sexual orientations, just as cisgender people do.
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Agender people, also called genderless, gender-free, non-gendered, or ungendered, are those who identify as having no gender or being without a gender identity.
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Bi-gender, or dual gender is a gender identity that includes any two gender identities and behaviors. Identifying as bigender is typically understood to mean that one identifies as both male and female or moves between masculine gender expression and feminine gender expression, having two distinct gender identities simultaneously or fluctuating between them.
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Demigender is a gender identity of a person identifying partially or mostly with one gender and at the same time with another gender.
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Genderfluid people often express a desire to remain flexible about their gender identity rather than committing to a single
definition. They may fluctuate among
different gender expressions over their lifetime, or express multiple aspects of various gender markers at the same time.
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Transfeminine and transmasculine may be used by individuals to describe an aspect of femininity or masculinity within their identity. Transfeminine may be used by individuals who were assigned male at birth but align more closely with femininity, while not necessarily fully identifying as a woman.
LGBTQ an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and
queer. It functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or
transgender. Other common variants also exist, such as
LGBTQIA+, with the I standing for "intersex" and A standing for "asexual" or "aromantic". Longer acronyms also exists, such as LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, transsexual,
queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual). Various flags represent specific identities within the
LGBT movement, from sexual or romantic orientations,
… Read more to gender identities or expressions, to sexual characteristics.
Gender roles are socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given
society considers appropriate for men and women.
Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity.
Gender roles influence a wide range of
human behavior, often including the clothing a person chooses, the profession a person pursues, and the personal relationships a person enters. Various groups, most notably the
feminist movements, have led efforts to change aspects of prevailing
gender roles that they believe are oppressive or inaccurate.