This is text from Jill Radford’s presentation on the Violence Against Women as Hate Crime? panel discussion at Feminism in London 2010.
Jill Radford’s Presentation (PDF)
A big thanks to you for inviting me back to London to speak at your Feminist Annual Conference – (it’s a big honour – love the ‘F’ word) – and to take the opportunityto congratulate the LFN for their amazing work over the last 10 years.
In addion to what I put in my bio blurb, I’m speaking as a ‘memory bearing woman – mary daly – a fascinating feminist theorist. I am happy to respond to questions later.
The retreat from politics which characterised the Thatcher / Regan era, and the consequent growth of individualism, there was a trend to claim a personalised feminism was no longer definable.
To counter this trend, Joan Scanlon, Liz Kelly and myself wrote an article which amongst other things offered a broad definition of feminism which aimed to be inclusive of the different strands of feminism which emerged in the UK as a consequence of identity politics as well as the different threads of within global feminism
This definition:
Allows for differences between women, at the personal level and our positioning in respect of major global and local power structures: economics and class, race and racism, heterosexuality and patriarchy
It is not prescriptive can contain a range of feminist perspectives:
- Those central to 1970s UK feminism,
- Those of identity politics of the mid-late 1980s Black feminism, lesbian feminism, eco feminism and
- Other perspectives developed in different historical and geopolitical contexts
It does not presume that all women (globally / UK) experience oppression in the same ways or to the same extent, but as defined by their specific social and historical context – recognising changing contexts through time.
VAW = VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
At this time, even the recognition that violence against women is real violence, that can cause death and serious injuries and psychological harm- was as a new and radical.
Jill Radford, 23 October 2010