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In recent weeks I have talked about radical feminism with a female friend and a female co-worker. We were talking about smth that radical feminism has a view on, and so I brought up a radfem point of discussion and presented radical feminism to them. Ever since encountering FDS and RadFem, I constantly see it in my everyday life. I just wonder to what degrees should I talk about it (obviously only with other women who fds leaning or not flat out pickmes.). I hope I'm not being a 'heroine' here, but I wish more women knew about these concepts, but I also wanna be smart here and avoid unwanted arguments, or even discarding pickme-leaning friends who are otherwise great and are just brainwashed. I used to be a pickme until relatively recently, so it's a huge change. There's a larger chance I'd bring some FDS concepts up now as I'm into feminist media more than ever now as I often encounter pickme behaviour and depracating male behaviour and can finally see it for what is.
Edit: Thank you for all your advice, Queen! It's hard out there for RadFems, and as always, I am grateful for this space and for your words of wisdom! 😘
I find a good way of validating the inner radfem in each of my friends was to begin by validating their discomfort.
Women are taught to ignore instincts, question our observations, downplay our needs, and gaslight ourselves (and if we miraculously evaded female socialisation, men will do these things to us, setting us straight 🙄). So when my friends bring up that they felt disrespected, ignored, or otherwise let down by the men in their lives, I always affirm that it’s totally okay.
”You’re not alone.“
”The way you feel about this is valid.“
”Yes, actually, that *does* sound a bit disrespectful - would you like to talk about it some more?”
“That’s funny - I had another friend go through this, too. Isn’t it strange how many women have the same stories sometimes?”
”If I were in your shoes, I’d be angry, too.”
”I wonder why men never have stories like this - the rules seem so different for them.”
”If you need to vent about this some more, I’m here.” (So much as energy allows, at any rate.)
Amazingly, I found that for some women, these simple acts of validation are enough. One friend broke up with her abusive boyfriend a few weeks after we had a conversation where the only thing I did was acknowledge she had the right to feel hurt and betrayed by his abuse and porn use. I didn’t tell her to leave, or that she deserved better, or anything - she left entirely of her own accord. And she’s made it a point to not date men who use pornography in the future, either.
Because women are not foolish - we know the logical course of action to take, and how best to take it in these important life moments. (And if we don’t, we will find out because we’re resourceful as hell.) All we often need is ‘permission’ to realise that we’re not wrong to feel the way we feel. To make more radfems (or at least radfem aligned women), be the one who amplifies the inner voice of the women in your life, and we often find our own way.