my current best understanding is, consciousness raising as a form of material analysis = self-honouring, radical observations and generalizations based on collectively acquired and re-examined, direct lived experiences. we cannot productively generalize from the outside in. our best source of insight into the circumstance and motivations of any group of uniquely antifeminist women (trans-identifying women, ultraconservative women, rape apologists, pro-forced-birth women, so on and so forth) are direct accounts from those among us that had embodied that political alignment before gaining radical feminist class consciousness.
that does not mean we do not get to engage with, argue with, criticize those women, and tear apart their politically fraught and dangerous arguments when we are presented with them. that does not mean we do not analyze and criticise their public statements, rationalizations, art, don't expose the logical and ideological inconsistencies within their rhetoric when they publicly articulate said rhetoric, don't observe and point out the apparent implications of it that are demonstrably regressive, oppressive and dangerous to female class interests. it does not mean we do not observe patterns of their thinking and behaviour from our direct interactions with them and our own lived experience whenever it has intersected with theirs
what it does mean is that the position of an ultra-conservative misogynistic woman, for example, is inherently different than the position of an ultra-conservative misogynistic man, and while their politics and arguments may be the same, their internal condition is fundamentally different. we can generalize and extrapolate about that internal condition to a degree, we even Must do that - but we must also resist the urge to over-simplify it in ways that overshadow the vital input we may get from their own self-reflection, when offered by women who have come to feminist consciousness following a period of a violently anti-feminist politic. because feminist action requires not only an ideological debate with the political opponent of indeterminate sex, but also a vested interest in and an intense curiosity about the genuine condition of all women worldwide.
obviously if the vocally violently anti-feminist women are the last group of women you want to spend your energy on understanding, that's completely fine. there are many more that need your help and the urgency of your care. but that also means that those of us naturally inclined to understand them more intimately, from our own direct lived experiences, conversations and viscerally informed generalizations, will think that you sound ignorant when you generalize about them without any evident sign of their genuine earnest input. i promise they have more interesting and much more intensely self-critical things to say than what you may come up with on your own
