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Title: The Feminist Question
Author: Traci Harris
Date: September 12, 2001
Language: en
Topics: feminism, Bring the Ruckus
Source: Retrieved on March 14, 2019 from https://web.archive.org/web/20190314161012/http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/36
Notes: Traci Harris is a member of Bring the Ruckus.

Traci Harris

The Feminist Question

There has been a great deal of criticism of the Bring the Ruckus

document and how it has addressed the feminist question. I have given a

great deal of thought to this and have grappled myself with my personal

feminist feelings and how they fit into the Ruckus. I have revisited the

statement numerous times and have focused on the section in which we

state the need for any new revolutionary organization to be explicitly

feminist. We have been criticized for not focusing enough on feminism,

but instead “tacking on” a feminist ideology or “adding” the discussion

of the feminist struggle to the statement. In my attempts to address the

questions of feminism, I revisited another document based in feminist

theory, bell hooks’ Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center, and in doing

so I am here to say this about the document:

We in the Ruckus have written a document that is explicitly radically

feminist in nature.

Bring the Ruckus focuses on the eradication of the politics of

domination, not the achievement of equality. bell hooks states in her

book that it is necessary to address the ideology of domination that

permeates Western culture on various levels in order to be radically

feminist. Feminism is not a lifestyle choice but instead a political

commitment. Focusing on this political commitment and resistance to

domination engages us in revolutionary praxis. A focus on the lifestyle

of feminism ends in resorting to stereotyped perspectives of feminism.

The criticisms of the Bring the Ruckus document as not being a feminist

document or for “tacking on” a feminist ideology negates the radically

feminist nature of the document.

Radical feminism is not rooted in competitive either/or types of

thinking. bell hooks claims that we are socialized to think in terms of

opposition rather than compatibility, and we in the Ruckus tend to agree

with this thought. This competitive thought process leads to a

misconception that one is a feminist because you are not something else.

Bring the Ruckus, in line with radical feminist theory of bell hooks,

sees anti-racist work as totally compatible with working to end sexist

oppression rather than two movements competing for first place.

Much of the feminist movement, both historically and presently, focuses

on “man as the enemy” instead of developing a political consciousness

and an in-depth analysis of women’s social status. As a result, feminism

has been focused exclusively around women’s relationship to male

supremacy and the ideology of sexism. hooks states that this is once

again the focus of equality of the sexes instead of the eradication of

the cultural basis of group oppression. In shifting the focus to the

later form of eradication, we explore all of the aspects of women’s

political reality. This means that race and class oppression are

recognized as feminist issues with as much relevance as sexism, as they

are in Bring the Ruckus.

Radical feminism focuses its attention to the systems of domination and

the inter-relatedness of sex, class, and racial oppression. In order to

have a strong movement firmly grounded in feminism it is vital to

understand this interconnected thought. Radical feminists challenge the

prevailing notion of power as domination and attempt to transform its

meaning. It is our acceptance of the current value system of the culture

that will lead us to passively absorb sexism. We must reconceptualize

the power structure otherwise we will fall into the same old trap of

shaping a feminist movement using class and race hierarchies that exist

in larger society.

Struggles for power and the rights to dominate and control others

undermine the feminist movement. Bring the Ruckus directly challenges

the current power structure. In the current structure, women are forced

to obtain their own power on the terms set by society. hooks’ states

that as long as the US is an imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal

society, no large female majority can enter the existing ranks of the

powerful. Bring the Ruckus argues for an end to the current power

structure. In doing so it not only furthers the movements of racially

oppressed groups, it furthers the feminist movement.

In actual numbers, I am one of two women currently in Ruckus, but we are

not the only two feminists. More importantly, we are not the only two

RADICAL feminists. This document does not advocate the “feminist”

lifestyle because it advocates feminist politics instead. We do argue

for a feminist structure of the organization that does insure women’s

participation and a commitment to feminist political work. We do argue

for a feminist vision in which gender relations are completely

transformed, but these things could not be accomplished if we advocated

a feminist ideology that falls in line with old definitions and

stereotypes. Instead we argue a view of race, class and sex and the

interconnectedness of all of these oppressions that is radically

feminist in nature. We argue for the end to the current system of power

and domination along radically feminist lines. We demand the end of

racism because it is completely compatible with the demands to end

sexism. We fight capitalism because of its interconnectedness with

sexist oppression.

Feminism has not been “tacked on” to the end of this document nor has it

been ignored in addressing the key struggles. Bring the Ruckus is

radically feminist not only in its thought, strategy, vision and

structure, but in its arguments against power, racism, imperialism, and

the state.