via Amanda, I find that Molly is offering to answer your good-faith questions about feminism. Since she’s encouraging other bloggers to do the same — and since feminist bloggers have widely varying perspectives — I’ll open up the floor here, too. None of us represent The Feminism in its entirety, but I hope that we’re able to give a few different feminist perspectives on various issues. So ask away, here, there, or elsewhere.
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Where’s my dinner?
What are your thoughts on feminism and multiculturalism?
How can feminist bloggers make their voices heard over the din of “mainstream” political blogosphere? This question presupposes that feminist bloggers are (a) not heard and (b) would want to be heard – feel free to disagree with either premise, or any ones that remain unstated.
Less filling, or tastes great?
Patriarchy: Your dinner is in the frozen food section at the grocery store. While you’re there, why don’t you get some for me, too, and heat it according to the package directions. Thanks!
Jill, it’s a broad question, but as you were very recently an undergrad — what are those of us who teach feminism/women’s studies doing right, and what could we do better, to reach younger budding feminists of your generation?
How do you define a feminist? Is anyone who calls herself/himself a feminist, if not what sentiments is one required to share in order to be called a feminist?
How does feminism measure its success, which statistical measurement devices would you consider important? What about failures (can it fail)?
I’ve been reading the questions posted on Molly’s blog, Amanda’s blog, and your blog, and I’m incredibly confused as to what “Less filling, or tastes great” is referring to. Did I miss the joke?
On to the question: consentual BDSM. Be it the male or the female who holds the ‘power’ in a scene (in porn, in 24/7 relationships, or just in people’s fantasies and experiments), I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the relationship between current patriarchal culture and S&M. Also, when done with love/care/affection, can such a sexual practice coexist with feminism as you understand it?
Jill, I’m going to play presumptuous douchebag and give my own answers….
Patriarchy: Order a pizza. I’ll have mine with ham and mushroom.
David: I generally support them. If you’re asking about how to resolve the conflicts between the two, I would suggest that for any issue in which they’re at odds, there are ways to resolve the issue with simultaneously feminist and culturally appropriate solutions. Case in point, recent work in opposition to female genital cutting has tended to be far more culturally appropriate than it used to be. Western feminists have accepted that waltzing in and wagging fingers did more harm than good, and that there has been home-grown opposition and resistance to female genital cutting in areas that practice it. I can’t see how the two can’t be reconciled on other issues.
Matt: The same way other subversive voices are heard — word of mouth and faith. Ignoring issues of on-line marketing and so on — the nuts and bolts of being heard in the literal sense. I’m assuming you mean heard and taken to heart, not just hits or links or trakbacks. Tell meaningful stories, tie them to meaningful issues. Connect with people. That’s how marginal voices get heard. It’s slow, it’s inefficient, but it’s true humancommunication, and that holds power.
Mark: Although I personally go for tastes great, everybody has their own path, and we shouldn’t shame or marginalize the “less filling” crowd. It’s a valid choice, and we have to affirm it’s validity. ;)
Hugo: I haven’t taken any women’s studies in University, but I had a Women’s Studies major for a roommate. She was frsutrated with a lot of the second-wave sex-negative politics in some of the faculty members, but she loved the emphasis on intersectionality, especailly as it related to women of colour in developing nations. She also loved, LOVED, her transguy prof who introduced her to trans politics. You’re not exactly the typical second-waver, so it may be easier for you to engage and adopt new theory, but I would say the best thing you to do is to keep learning and keep becoming a better and better feminist. I know you identify as pro-feminist, but I think there’s a lot of power in men claim to be full unmodified feminists. Every time I meet a new feminist crowd, I kin of hedge it until I see if they generally accept that men can be feminists. Every single time I’ve heard back an emphatic “yes, men can be feminists, and there need to be more”. So I embrace the term.
Tuomas: “Feminist”, like all other ideological/political labels, is beyond our ability to define it. Ultimately, it means what it means to individual people, and they decide based on their individual understanding to accept it or reject it. On the other hand, it’s also a social definition. “Feminism” means different things to different crowds, and it varies. It’s negotiated and fluid. What’s feminist in our crowd is anti-feminist in another. There was an anti-trans feminist trolling around on here a few weeks ago. To her, men and trans people (of any kind) couldn’t be feminists. There are a lot of us on here who would have trouble agreeing that a transphobe can really be a feminist, but, again, the definition is fluid and negotiated. Nobody owns “feminism”, nobody has the right to define it for the world. Generally, though, you have to believe at least that women are as valid as human beings as men. Beyond that, I’m sure you’ll get into some kind of disagreement about something.
“Feminism”, as a boundless and non-concrete entity, can’t really have successes or failures. People and groups can have successes or failures in ways that make the world a happier place for some cross-section of feminists, people cna succeed or fail in efforts to improv the world according to their feminsits beliefs. But there’s not Central Office of Feminism that has specific agendas or initiatives. To me, Feminism ultimately means making women more free to be their true selves — removing social and psychological barriers, giving a hand in self-actualization. The same goes for anti-racism or any other anti-opressive politics. MY idea of a feminist or anti-racist paradise is not one in which sexism and racism don’t exist as private prejudices — it’s one where sexism and racism can’t hurt anyone. Individually held prejudice doesn’t hurt anyone unless the person who holds it weilds some kind of power over the people they are prejudiced against. When women are free to be their own person, it’s a success. When they’re less free, it’s a setback. There are no failures, only setbacks.
That’s not to deny the reality of the individual suffering in women’s lives. I don’t mean to say a rape of a murder or a denied abortion is just a “setback”, and no big deal. They’re huge deals. But none of us have the power to make the world perfect overnight. If we could, we would have. Terrible things happen. They’re horrors to be fought against and minimized as much as humanly possible until we can remake the world as a free place.
I wanted to ask you one of my old essay questions, but I can’t find the politics folder with my feminism stuff. Which I worries me as I might need those essays for my university application.
Anyway, can feminism ever be a conservative ideology?
I need help answering the question I receive FREQUENTLY at my site (got one this morning!) as to why feminists can’t solve all the problems stemming from oppression in OTHER countries before presuming to “whine” about oppression at home.
Other than “fuck of already,” I mean.
What do sex-positive feminists believe? (and, what I’d really like to know, what do sex-negative feminists or sex-negative people believe?)
What is your take on the relationship between beauty or beauty culture and feminism?
Jill, what are your favorite books about feminism?
My question was inspired by the following blurb on a development-newsletter thing in my e-mail today:
Colombia
Wives and girlfriends of gang members in one of Colombia’s most violent cities have called a sex ban in a bid to get their men to give up the gun. Dozens of women are said to be taking part in what is being called the “strike of crossed legs,” a move backed by the mayor of Pereira. The city saw 480 killings last year. Studies found that local gang members were drawn to criminality by the desire for status, power, and sexual attractiveness, not economic necessity. (BBC)
What do you think about Lysistrata-type sex boycott ideas to force men to act their age or give up lives of crime or to end wars or whatever? Is this a feminist idea or not? I myself find it kind of appealing but as right now I don’t have a significant other, I could only participate in such a boycott symbolically….
hi, i got here via pandagon.
re: colombia gang sex-strike. i am positive that a very similar thing happened in the past, except with guerilla/militia fighters rather than gang members. but it was also in colombia. no word on how that worked out, but the violence is still going on, so..
also, there is a book by christopher buckley (same guy who wrote thank you for smoking, v. cool writer in general) called “florence of arabia” in which a similar thing happens. it’s funny and worth reading i think.
and, to be serious for a moment, while in general i am totally against witholding sex in order to get things, i think that for political reasons and in a wide boycott type of context it might be righteous — like maybe if it were a sex-strike against domestic violence (though the implementation of that could get really fraught, so maybe not). and it might even be effective, depending. for example if these gang members really are motivated by sex and status, then it might really get results.
on the other hand, is it feminist? not necessarily, in my mind. in general it seems like it’s a bartering of sexual availability in itself — that’s objectifying, right? — and in this specific example it obviously doesn’t do anything to change the sexual terms of machismo, although it does challenge the violence part. (i mean that essentially the men are being asked to trade in their old patriarchal verson of masculinity, which includes violence and banging chicks, for a different, but still patriarchal, one, which doesn’t include violence but still includes banging chicks.)
ok well, i’m not jill, that’s just my individual, unsolicited opinion.
Hedonistic:
The short answer is very simple. One of the best ways to ensure that women’s rights will fall into place is showing that, when women are equal, society doesn’t just crumble and die. Since we’re closer to achieving equality than, say, Iran, it’s better for us to work on it here and show that saying “women can’t be given power or control over their own lives, it would tear the very fabric of society” is stupid and provably inaccurate.
The same sorts of things could be said for the beginnings of the abolition of black slavery in western europe, followed by the united states. Once it was shown that no, people wouldn’t starve if you freed the slaves, it was a lot harder to justify keeping them. There’d been an upswing in U.S. anti-slavery thought and laws considerably before the Civil War, once England banned the slave trade. It becomes much more difficult to pretend there’s a reason for oppression when non-oppressive societies are actually doing better.
ooh, that’s a really good one, molly! i
generally came up with “because it’s what we are in the middle of and can more directly change,” but your explanation takes it to a very satisfying, long-term level.
As someone who leans towards “sex-negative”* but sees good arguments made by some sex-positive folk, well, all sorts of things.
Sex-positive folk have a wide range of beliefs: succintly, I’d say they range from “this patriarchal sex stuff isn’t going away, so let’s live with it the best we can” to “embrace the patriarchal sex stuff and get over the idea that it’s patriarchal and/or try to warp it in order to express your own desires.” So you have some feminists who don’t think prostitution is a great thing but believe that women are better off with it decriminalized than not, and some who think that it could be a great thing as much as any job could be and the only negative aspects of sex work come from people saying that sex worker=bad person.
Many want to celebrate sexuality in ways they feel are non-traditional: written collections of lesbian erotica, pro-woman porn, etc. Being able to express what you want sexually is very important for being a fully realized person.
My personal problem with sex-positive feminists is that I think they often ignore the many economic issues that lead most women to sex work: if you’re not physically forced, it doesn’t count. And when they do pay attention to those issues they either compare sex work as-it-is-in-patriarchal-societies to other undesirable jobs like working at fast food restaurants, which I don’t believe is even remotely a fair analogy, given the reality of sex work.
I also dislike the “anything goes” attitude among most sex-positive feminists, where all sexual practices, even those that involve beating or pretending to rape women, must be celebrated considered feminist. Anyone who disapproves of anything sexual is an intolerant prude. This is more largely related to my problems with “choice” feminism – anything I do is okay because I’m a feminist – but there seems to be a peculiar lack of analysis around sexual activities. See Twisty’s blog for the BDSM wars, the blowjob wars, and more!
What I like about the viewpoint is that I do think prostitution should be legalized because everything I’ve seen indicates that illegalization punishes prostitutes more than johns. I don’t believe in censorship. I do enjoy certain forms of sexual activity that could be (and have been!) construed as patriarchy-pleasin’, and I don’t enjoy being told that I only like those because I’m brainwashed.
—
Sex-critical/negative feminists believe that this patriarchal sex stuff can and must go away for women to be truly free of oppression. Viewpoints range from “all material intended to arouse is pornographic and exploitive” to “most pornographic material is patriarchal in nature RIGHT NOW but some isn’t so bad, let’s get rid of most of the vile stuff.”
Most do not believe in censorship (though most do believe in keeping prostitution illegal), but in encouraging people not to consume porn, not to pick up prostitutes, not to go to strip clubs, etc. They point out that in most porn, you can’t tell if a woman is genuinely enjoying the situation and there of her own free will, or if she was physically or financially coerced. Same for prostitution, same for stripping to a lesser extent. You might also see them use the term “pornstitution.”
My personal problem with sex-critical feminists is that many of them do deny women agency, making it seem like every woman doing sex work is being exploited; that no woman could possibly prefer sex work to other work; that all porn is bad – as if there’s no difference between violent bestiality porn and a picture of a naked woman. And as above: I don’t think prostitution should be illegal, and I don’t like the idea that participating in any patriarchy-approved act means you’re rah-rahing the patriarchy.
Many also seem to stretch the definition of rape in a way I’m uncomfortable with, making women into absolutely helpless creatures.
What I like about the viewpoint is that it seems pretty well-researched whereas sex-positive feminism seems to rely far more strongly on anecdotes. It’s hard to deny research showing that most prostitutes do not want to be prostitutes. It’s hard to deny the negative effects of “being the sex class” on women. It’s hard to deny the poisonous effects of mainstream porn on male-female sexual relationships. It’s hard for me to care about the 5% of women who say they like being prostitutes and don’t want to give it up to the 95% who are there because they have no other opportunities, because they were forced, because they’re addicted to drugs, whatever.
*I prefer the euphemism “sex-critical” because I am not sex-negative, nor is any other sex-critical feminist I know, but that’s totally like “omg, sex-positive people do not think about stuff,” so I generally say sex-negative/sex-critical so that I can be insulting to both sides.
You know, that was way too long to be a brief overview and too short to be an in-depth analysis. Sorry. Hope that helps anyway.
Thanks for the overview/analysis, nerdlet! I love Twisty’s blog and R. Mildred at punkass (she posts here sometimes too).
How can feminists make any headway in a society that expects women to smile and nod at anything that’s said and spend their time pleasing people? How can we make progress when every calling out of something misogynist is met with “well, be nice dear?”
What role should men play in feminism– should they be a cheerleader, an active supporter, a leader, just a listener, completely uninvolved?
What’s the most persuasive “gateway” to feminism you’ve found– the most persuasive argument, book, link, whatever– that has created new feminists and pro-feminists?
What can be done to get people to enroll in at least one feminist class during their college years? To be exposed to feminist thought while in high school or earlier?
What traits should a woman/man emphasize to be attractive to you? (A general “you” is also OK.)