Radical feminism is a current perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on the assertion that male supremacy oppresses women. Radical feminism aims to challenge and overthrow patriarchy by opposing standard gender roles and oppression of women and calls for a radical reordering of society. Early radical feminism, arising within second-wave feminism in the 1960s, typically viewed patriarchy as a "transhistorical phenomenon" prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, "not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form" and the model for all others. Later politics derived from radical feminism ranged from cultural feminism to more syncretic politics that placed issues of class, economics, etc. on a par with patriarchy as sources of oppression.
Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in socialist feminism and Marxist feminism).
Read more about Radical Feminism: Theory and Ideology, Radical Feminism and Marxism, Feminist Dominance in Domestic Violence Discussions, Sex-negative?, Criticisms
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“Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“... feminism is the attempt of women to grow up, to accept the responsibilities of life, to outgrow those characteristics of childhood—selfishness and unworldliness—that we require our boys to outgrow, but that we permit and by our social system encourage our girls to retain.”
—Henrietta Rodman (1878–?)