No, Ghandy was not wrong on the Radical Feminists in Philosophical Trends
It is often asserted that Anuradha Ghandy got confused about radical feminists in her critique of the radical trend in her seminal work on feminism. However, she was simply referring to an early split between radical feminists that have been ignored by current commentators.
I have often heard the claim that Anuradha Ghandy’s critique of radical feminism should be rejected in part or whole because of apparent confusion on the position of radical feminists on pornography. Because today “radical feminism” has become synonymous with anti-pornography, contemporary readers of Ghandy’s seminal work Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement jump to the conclusion that Ghandy was confused when she criticized a faction of radical feminists for supporting pornography and prostitution.
However, the confusion lies not in Ghandy’s appraisal, which as I will show was actually correct, but in the lack of historical knowledge by commentators on the early pornography debates among radical feminists.
The controversy surrounds the following passages from Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement:
“The first trend are advocating free sexual relations, de-linked Radical Feminism from any emotional involvement whether with men or with women. In fact the solutions that they are promoting make an intimate human relationship into a commodity type of impersonal relationship. From here it is one step to support pornography and prostitution. While cultural feminists strongly opposed pornography, the radicals did not agree that pornography had any adverse impact on the way men viewed women. Instead they believed that pornography could be used to overcome sexual repression. Even on questions of reproductive technology, the two sides differed. While the radicals supported repro-tech the cultural feminists were opposed to it. The cultural feminists were of the opinion that women should not give up motherhood since this is the only power they have. They have been active in the ethical debates raised by repro-tech, like the rights of the surrogate or biological mother.” (52–53)
“The radical trend by supporting pornography and giving the abstract argument of free choice has taken a reactionary turn providing justification and support to the sex tourism industry promoted by the imperialists which is subjecting lakhs (100.000s) of women from oppressed ethnic communities and from the third world countries to sexual exploitation and untold suffering. While criticizing hypocritical and repressive sexual mores of the reactionary bourgeoisie and the Church, the radical trend has promoted an alternative which only further alienates human beings from each other and debases the most intimate of human relations. Separating sex from love and intimacy, human relations become mechanical and inhuman.” (57–58)
The confusion stems from the widespread understanding that radical feminists today oppose pornography and prostitution. Thus, it is claimed, that Ghandy must have gotten something wrong here. To situate this conversation, let’s first review a basic distinction made by historians of feminist thought on the radical trend.
Rosemarie Tong, in Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, divides the radical trend into “radical-libertarian feminists” and “radical-cultural feminists.” She argues that “just because radical feminists agreed in principle that sexism is the first, most widespread, or deepest form of human oppression did not mean they also agreed about the nature and function of this pernicious ism or the best way to eliminate it.” On the other hand, she argues that “radical feminists split into two basic camps — radical-libertarian feminists and radical-cultural feminists — and depending on their camp, these feminists voiced very different views about how to fight sexism.”
While some have disputed this distinction of libertarian versus cultural feminists in the radical trend in favor of others, this sorting is still widely accepted. I will now quote Tong at length to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the libertarian/cultural split in the radical feminist trend.
“Radical-libertarian feminists urged women to use pornography to overcome their fears about sex, to arouse sexual desires, and to generate sexual fantasies. These feminists claimed that women should feel free to view and enjoy all sorts of pornography, including violent pornography.
Some radical-libertarian feminists even invited women to engage in rape fantasies in which men ‘had their way’ with women in bed. There is a difference between an actual rape and a rape fantasy, insisted the most ‘libertarian’ members of the radical-libertarian feminist camp. The same woman who derives sexual pleasure from playing Scarlett O’Hara–Rhett Butler sex games with her boyfriend would protest loudly were he actually to attempt to rape her. Just because a woman wants to explore whether power games are part of what makes sex ‘sexy’ for her does not mean she wants to serve as an object for male violence in real life.
Rather than stubbornly insisting that pornographic representations of men sexually dominating women somehow harm women in real life, said radical-libertarian feminists, feminists should engage in an entirely open-minded and nondefensive examination of pornography, saving their venom for real rapists.”
Tong then juxtaposes the radical-libertarian view on pornography with the radical-cultural view, which sounds a lot more like what we think of when we hear “radical feminism” today.
“Ironically, radical-libertarian feminists’ defense of pornography served to increase, not decrease, radical-cultural feminists’ opposition to it. Radical-cultural feminists stressed that sexuality and gender are the products of the same oppressive social forces. There is no difference between gender discrimination against women in the boardroom and the sexual objectification of women in the bedroom. In both instances, the harm done to women is about men’s power over women. Pornography is nothing more than patriarchal propaganda about women’s ‘proper’ role as man’s servant, helpmate, caretaker, and plaything, according to radical-cultural feminists. Whereas men exist for themselves, women exist for men. Men are subjects; women are objects, they said.
Radical-cultural feminists insisted that with rare exception, pornography harms women. First, it encourages men to behave in sexually harmful ways toward women (e.g., sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence). Second, it defames women as persons who have so little regard for themselves that they actively seek or passively accept sexual abuse. And third, it leads men not only to think less of women as human beings but also to treat them as second-class citizens unworthy of the same due process and equal treatment men enjoy.”
As we can see here, Ghandy is using “radical trend” or the “first trend” to refer to what Tong terms “radical-libertarian feminism” and uses “cultural feminism” to what Tong terms “radical-cultural feminism.” Today, these two camps have morphed into what we would simply call “libertarian feminism,” standing in support of pornography and prostitution, and “radical feminism,” standing against pornography and prostitution. But like all categories constructed to understand a fluid, dynamic, changing, and sometimes contradictory movement, they will change. We can’t assume that what “radical” means today is what it meant a few decades ago.
We can thus conclude that Ghandy’s appraisal of radical feminism was not based on a false premise, mistake, or confusion. Rather, our understanding of the history of feminism is both incomplete and muddled. Rather than lapsing into western chauvinism—assuming without proper research that Ghandy “made a mistake” because her writing doesn’t fit with our preconceived notions of feminist history—we should attempt to thoroughly investigate her claims with intellectual rigor before offering judgment on her characterization of the debates within the radical trend of feminism.
