The problem wasn’t just about past failures. It was conceptual. Radical feminists didn’t feel the individual was a useful unit of analysis. The relationship between radical feminism and liberalism was a lot like the one liberalism had with Marxism. Marxists had looked at what liberals called a transaction – a business owner hiring a labourer, for instance – and reinterpreted it as an example of class oppression. Radical feminists looked at what liberals called interpersonal relationships and reinterpreted them as part of a system of gender oppression.
