Ok. I'm glad.
I need to explain some context first (Be ready, it's a biggy):
There are multiple (big and nuanced) ways to see feminism as far as I understand it from right to left. I'll give you an overview to take you deeper and deeper into materialist thinking (it's important to understand my point):
> The fascist vision : Where feminism should basically not exist and women rights are considered a danger. Simple.
> The reactionnary vision : Where feminism is considered from the point of view of men and only incorporates basic social education values. This vision considers that feminists have won and women are now equal to men. They will counter any type of rhetoric that explains that women need more rights or that women are living in oppression. . (they will also attack women right massively on many aspect > Abortion for ex.)
> The Radfem vision (highly reactionnary also) : This is a more radical vision of the reactionary vision that does acknowledge that men are indeed oppressing women in some aspects, not all. Despite advocating for the right of all women.. This is an approach that has major patriarchal biases and considers everything from the point of view of Cis normativity (they reject gender identities). These feminists (in large majority women) will be as hard with their targets as hardcore radical liberal feminist (I'll explain after). We call these women "Radfem" for "radical feminists". They are very easy to recognize as these persons will advocate for major bans on trans people (especially women) and completely focus their entire narrative on them, denying their identities or their rights. JK Rowling is the most famous radfem in the world. Dora Moutot and Marguerite Stern are the most famous radfem in France.
Usually, radfems are former radical liberal feminists who got radicalized because of big racist biases and biases on gender identities. Mila, for example in France, was a simple radical liberal feminist tiktoker. But her atheism and her whiteness made her say crazy stuff on Islam and Muslims. She was hooked by the far right and was slowly radicalized toward fascist ideas (she is now hanging out with neo-Nazis). Radfems will usually end up following the same path toward radical fascist ideas. Even more than simple conservative who think women are men are now equal.
> The Liberal vision : This is the basic stage of society. This is the "girl power" in movies, the representations pushed in stories and the "we must help women achieve success too" of politics. This vision is the most depoliticized. It's the lack of understanding of the existence of patriarchy, but a certain form of awareness that ... "hey! Those women, we should give them more place.. am I right fellows ?" It's the vision that adopts capitalism in the western world and that media will usually push. It's the idea that there are indeed problems of discrimination, but nothing really systemic.
> The radical liberal vision : This is the start of leftism feminism. Usually radical feminists are people who were made aware (often recently) of the oppression that women are facing. They understand clearly that there is a big problem and their response will start to get punchy. With call outs and other stuff (which is a good thing) . But the problem with this vision is that it is STILL a liberal vision. As such the problem of patriarchy is assimilated in a liberal and idealist way and not in a materialistic one. This vision will therefore completely miss the fact that patriarchy is a system of domination and completely individualize every aspect of the responsabilities of men. This is mostly why you will start to hear the terms "deconstruction" in this part of feminism and why you will see women advocating for men to "deconstruct" themselves. And.. sadly, this is where you will also find the profem who are usually men who will advocate for feminism but through their own deconstruction and will NEVER consider their own place in the system of domination that is patriarchy thus potentially continuing to reproduce patriarchal forms of abuse. Patriarchy is considered here as an exclusive byproduct of bad behaviors.
The liberal radical vision has a particularity that it is where most valid and cis progressive white people in the west will end up. Simply because their material condition of existence will not push them to seek more radical forms of struggles. (In France, most mainstream depoliticized influencers - aside from political ones - are liberal feminists and women - the women of Zevent for ex - are often leaning toward the radical side of liberal feminism, with some exception)> it's starting to shift a little.
> The materialistic vision of feminism : Now, this is where it gets interesting. This vision of feminism is as hardcore as the radical liberal vision BUT it approaches feminism through the marxist and materialistic lenses. Patriarchy is not considered a byproduct of bad behaviors anymore, but a product of a domination and exploitation system of men over women. The two key words here are "domination" and "exploitation". This means that patriarchy is a means of complete domination of men over women. This allows feminists and their allies to completely rethink the place of women through the production chain.
With this system, fighting patriarchy will not be done through deconstructions and depoliticized behaviors, but through the complete restructuring or destruction and reconstruction of institutions and systems. It is also the idea that we all participate in the chain of patriarchy and we ALL are benefiting from it, it does not de-responsibilize us, but it gives us more tools to fight the domination system that is capitalism.
Often, Marxists and materialists will consider feminism as a part of the capitalistic oppression. (most class-first people will consider feminism through the angle of capitalism)
> The materialist vision of intersectionnality: This is where I stand. It's basically an extension of the materialistic vision of feminism but this time with the added vision of intersectionality. But not the liberal vision where oppressions are considered as layers on people, but as changing matrices that will be different from context to context depending on the oppression that people are facing.
In this vision, patriarchy (and other systems of oppression like Racism or Ableism) are considered as separate systems of domination from capitalism (systems that do not necessarily need capitalism to exist). As such, feminism is not really considered a distinct fight either, BUT this time feminism is considered as PART of a common fight with many other fights (like mine with ableism or antiracism or anticolonialism etc.).
This vision considers that Capitalism is distinct from many systems, BUT ALL systems coexist and help each other to survive. (for example, capitalism and ableism will form Eugenism and productivity will be normalized to reject handicapped and psychiatrized people.)
This is, I think, the best way to view feminism. It's the one that takes all researches and activism into account and really works the best with other struggles.
(Of course there are nuances in between and even strange exceptions. This is just a "Big picture")
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Ok.
Now that I've explained everything about feminism, you should understand that it is possible to connect different systems of domination and explain how they operate.
Well let's talk about pedophilia first.
Now that I've explained everything about feminism, you should understand that it is possible to link different systems of domination together and explain how they work.
Psychiatry, for the most radical materialists - those who usually face, like me, its impacts - is an institution of oppression. I won't go too deep into this because it would require the explanation of the movement that is anti-psychiatry, but in short, WE consider psychiatry as a tool of capitalism and ableism combined. For us (without much detail), this institution is a tool to marginalize unproductive members of society and a tool to push people back into the production. ("we will heal you so you can go back to work")
It is important to understand the origin of Psychiatry and the fact that its scientificity is questionned (I will let you check that, I'am not knowledgable enough for that. Have fun lol). Psychiatry, but also psychology and psychoanalysis, are liberal responses to mental struggles. As such… Just like liberal feminists, they INDIVIDUALIZE the problem.
For liberals, mental struggles are "a problem with mental health", therefore, it is a problem that must be solved by working directly on the person itself.
But in reality, WE know that MOST mental struggles are responses to highly detrimental material conditions of existence. For exemple, If you lose your job, you have more chances to start a "depression." When you are trans, you will most likely experience "gender dysphoria," which is not something natural but a socially constructed phenomenon (trans people have gender dysphoria not because they are trans but because they were educated, raised, and gendered in their opposite gender identity, it is a form of harm created by their social circle and social construction).
Careful tho :
It is important here to understand that antipsychiatry does not consider that conditions like schizophrenia do not exist, but we consider that those conditions are a result of material consequences of trauma and other stuff like that.
The problem to tackle is therefore not schizophrenia, but what causes people to develop it. We do not individualize problems, we think in terms of systems and structural issues. We refuse the psychiatrized look on the problem.
For that reason, antipsychiatry is NOT advocating for the absence of treatment or medication, but it will advocate strongly for a peer-helping solidarity network around the person. Not through the help of psychiatry, as people who can't come back to production and will be considered by the institution as "too harmful for themselves or others" will most likely be sent to psychiatric institutions. >> BAD STUFF HAPPENS THERE.
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And... Pedophilia is not different. For psychiatry, pedophilia is considered as an illness to treat and by liberal feminism as an illness and condition to eradicate.
BUT IT'S NOT AN ILLNESS NOR A INATE MENTAL CONDITION
Although it does not have the same social status as other psychiatrized conditions because people who are considered pedophiles can hurt physically children and women in general. They are… - like most other psychiatrized people - products of systems of domination and their concrete consequences.
In reality Pedophilia is not a problem that concerns psychiatry but patriarchy. Pedophilia is the same form of domination that men impose on women, but this time on children.
Pedophilia is a form of masculine and patriarcal domination. I repeat those words but they are very important to understand. It's a form of domination that imposes the domination through the infantilization of women and by contrast the objectification of girls AND boys, because yea.. the objectification of males bodies IS - like I've repeated many time on this sensitive section - a symptom of patriarchy. This is why most convicted pedophile are men, and not women (even if they still exist). Pedophilia is a simple way to assert a domination and control over others.
But it is also linked to patriarchy in the sense that it completely denies one simple thing : consent.
The absence of consideration of consent, is the ultimate tool of domination of men over women and also of men over men. It's control. And in society, this problem is systemically spreaded.
This is why I facepalm most of the time when I see people here talking about the age of maturity. Because the problem has never been majority, the problem is the absence of the consideration that consent CAN'T be established when there is a relationship of domination between two person:
- This means relationships between children and adults should never happen
- This means relationships between adults with major age gaps should ALSO never happen
- This is also why grooming (adults or children) is a problem with celebrities or why it is a problem for a teacher to date a studient (event a major one)
The same way some people rape others for control, some people will choose to objectify younger and younger women and boys and even rape them ALSO for pure patriarchal control.
At the end of the day, the term pedophilia was created by the capitalist, ableist and patriarcal system as a way to de-responsibilize people who simply use the same domination on children as on other women. Because children, much like other adults, are ALSO victims of domination systems.
But they are also under a form of oppression that actually NO ONE talks about : the domination of adults over children.
If we hurt a child to teach them a lesson > It's a form of imposition of domination
If we prevent a child from being themselves > It's a form of imposition of domination
If we force our values and thinking patterns through microaggressions and mental correction > It's a form of imposition of domination
Children are among the most ignored social groups on the planet.
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Now.. you should be understanding how Pedophilia is actually not an illness but a product of patriarchy. And we can now takle its relationship with CAPITALISM.
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"The Epstein files" : When patriarchy and capitalism are synchronized and completely out of control
This one will be very easy to understand if you managed to follow the two previous explanations. It's simply the extension.
Capitalism, just like Patriarchy, is a major system of domination. It's the system that produces the exploitation of people and pushes people who are born with the right capitals (economic, social, and cultural) into positions of power, sometimes to an unthinkable degree.
In the US, capitalism has very little to no shackles (unlike France), as such, billionaires there have the power to impact elections and circles of power very effectively. This means that people like Trump, who are horrible people, can simply rise to power with the help of their economic capital and prevent themselves from being attacked by the system.
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So.....What do you think happens when those types of people are also raised with an HORRIBLE patriarcal vision?
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Well… The Epstein files happened. A circle of like-minded billionaires and powerful people who do horrible things to children. Not because of some illness or mental condition inside of them… but… because…
THEY CAN.
AND THEY NEED TO ASSERT THEIR DOMINATION.
Both for themselves and their social circle. It's sadly very simple…
And the only way to stop that from happening is to change or destroy the capitalist and patriarchal systems.
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No joke, this might be one of my best post to date. I'm proud of it. I'm usually not that efficient. I really hope you read it carefully.
