I have to stop reading radical feminist writing. I consider myself a feminist, but with two caveats:
1) Some of my best friends are men. The vast majority of the men I see every day are kind, hard-working, intelligent people who respect women. In my world at least, hooting fratboys or growling wifebeaters or crazy fundies are outnumbered 10 to 1 by ordinary Joes doing the best they can to be decent people.
2) Call me a rich white het cis privilegebunny, but I don't feel very oppressed. Sometimes insulted, sometimes worried, sometimes concerned for the oppression of people in other places, but in my own life I just don't feel the boot on my neck. At work, at school, socially, nobody acts like I'm less than human or tries to enforce the Patriarchy on me directly. For me, in my daily life, I don't feel like being female is difficult or painful.
So... my reactions to a lot of radical feminism tend to fall into the following narrow-minded horrible categories:
"Men aren't like that!"
"But I like sex! For me. Not because I've been brainwashed to be a pleasurebot for men, because it feels good in my vagina where I have nerves. And, yes, also emotionally, and there's nothing wrong with that."
"Oh grow some skin. Yes, that was offensive, but it didn't instantly remove all your human rights. Get some freakin' perspective."
And I go nuts when I read stuff like this:
"In a patriarchy, the cornerstone of which is a paradigm of male dominance and female submission, women do not enjoy the same degree of personal sovereignty that men do. This oppressed condition obtains a priori to all other conditions, and nullifies any presumption of fully human status on the part of women. A woman, therefore, cannot freely “consent,” because her will is obviated by her status as a subhuman."
I don't know what kind of women-in-chains Gor crazyworld this author is coming from, but I'm pretty damn sure that no means no, yes means yes, and throwing up your hands and screaming "we're so oppressed we can't even make decisions!" is not actually advancing the cause of female strength and independence.
In fact, it's an example of something I've seen a few times in radfem thought--going so far that they actually come full circle. You see statements like "women aren't able to give consent" and "women just want love, but men exploit it for sex," and you might as well be on the Abstinence Warriors forum--it's the same stereotyping of both men and women and unreasonable fear of sex.
I'm a feminist. I really am, dammit. Our culture is permeated with weird ideas about femininity (and masculinity!) and it desperately does need to change. But if you don't take a realistic worldview and respect the people you're trying to change, you're not getting anywhere. And if you don't have sex until we reach perfect equality, well, buddy, you're never gonna get laid.
EDIT--REQUEST FOR OPPOSING COMMENTERS: Please don't say "Strawman!" or "Radfems don't believe that!" without giving a brief skim of what you do believe on the subject. And don't say "well, we respect women and think inequality is bad," because you get a whole lot more contentious than that when you're on your own turf, and it would behoove you to defend it rather than deny it.
What drives me batshit about the whole "women are so oppressed they can't give consent" thing is that it's THE EXACT SAME FUCKING LOGIC behind "women are too gentle and emotional to (insert: vote, be in the workplace with men, do anything that's not being sheltered in the home, protected by men)".
ReplyDeleteReally, it's just another way for a group to say "When we want your opinion, we'll tell you what it is."
I don't know how welcome or relevant the thoughts of a moderately wealthy straight white male might be on the subject, but here goes:
ReplyDeleteI've always thought of feminism as the philosophy that women are people, too. But there's a lot of so-called feminism that says that women are people, but morally superior to men. I.e., men might not be people. Phallocentrism is evil; hysterocentrism (or whatever) is amazing.
That's in addition to the self-described feminists that are only too happy to accept the sexism they'd rail against in other contexts so long as it advantages them.
Labrat - Exactly. When feminism starts telling women what they can't do... I can't call it feminism.
ReplyDeleteBruno - I don't know how welcome or relevant the thoughts of a moderately wealthy straight white male might be on the subject
Very welcome, and that's my point. Your hereditary membership in traditional oppressor classes doesn't make you personally a bad person unless you choose to be, and it shouldn't exclude you from dialogue.
And I agree; feminism doesn't mean just turning sexism around. I was reading on a radfem blog that the author doesn't want to date men because they're "Giant Babies" and she doesn't want to have to "take care of them"... and what goddamn planet do you meet your men on, lady? And more importantly, on that planet, is it ever okay to talk about an entire gender that way?
Just because a group is the advantaged one doesn't make them fair game.
I don't feel oppressed, either; how I'd characterize my most common response to sexism is "annoyed".
ReplyDeleteI have the privilege of being annoyed (basically, at failed attempts to push me back into that box) rather than oppressed; the feminists of an earlier generation fought hard to win that for me.
Sunflower
[...][T]hrowing up your hands and screaming 'we're so oppressed we can't even make decisions!'is not actually advancing the cause of female strength and independence."
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, Holly, which is why no sane radical feminist advocates this absurd viewpoint. Radical feminism does not throw up its hands. It is not hysterical. It is not prude. It merely states that women and men are not imbued equally with agency in our culture, and that this power differential needs to get fixed. It isn't telling you to hate men or that you shouldn't "get laid".
If you are, as you suggest, a rich white heterosexual, lucky you. This means that, since you're so interested in advancing the cause of female strength and independence, you have the resources to volunteer at your local overcrowded women's shelter, which is populated by refugees from the real-life women-in-chains Gor crazyworld.
Twisty - I agree with everything in your comment except the statement that "no sane radical feminist" says these things, because your commenters do, and sometimes you do. I'm looking back at the new comments on that post, and the most recent one (Lara) is accusing another commenter of being a pawn of the menz and not a feminist at all, because she thinks women shouldn't go to jail for selling sex.
ReplyDeleteI'm not accusing you specifically of endorsing that but I do think a lot of people who identify as radical feminists act like that. They take very anti-sex viewpoints that actually restrict women's freedom and then say you're a manpuppet if you disagree.
No, feminism isn't "whatever you say it is," not completely, but it seems like radical feminism can create an atmosphere of dogmatic strictness and hostility.
And I actually have done work for a women's shelter but right now I'm busy seven days most weeks with school and an unpredictable work schedule (I'm an aide at a nursing home, so when I say I'm privileged, it's not exactly polo-pony privilege) so no, I can't take up the "why are you arguing on the Internet instead of saving the world?" challenge.
(Annoying, off-topic sidenote: When people talk about prostitution as the most demeaning job in the world, it makes me think that they've never had feces thrown at them at their work. At least if I were a hooker I could charge extra for that shit...)
1. Holly, as a former prostitute, I found that little joke in your last post horribly offensive. People threw feces at me/similar all the time, and I couldn't charge for that shit because if I diverged from the price they agreed on with my agency's owner, then I'd be beat up and fired.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I've had a lot of jobs, and being a prostitute was the most demeaning one. Your assertion that it is not flies in the face of the direct experience of the vast fucking majority of women in prostitution.
You realize that most of them are literally slaves, right?
2. Twisty constantly states that she thinks women shouldn't go to jail for selling sex in her blog which you obviously don't read very closely. She actually favors decriminalization, as do I. In fact, when I openly advocate for decriminalization on her blog, nobody calls me names because most of her posters agree with me.
It's a really vile tactic to try and slander someone you disagree with by lying about what they believe. Just sayin'
3) http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2008/03/23/its-all-about-me/
Shorter Holly:
ReplyDelete"Being white, rich, and het, I don't notice patriarchy and oppression; radfems are crazy; and patriarchy doesn't exist! And Gor crazyworld fems just don't want me to fuck!"
Yep. That's radical feminism, all right.
Hi Holly,
ReplyDeleteI came here from I Blame The Patriarchy and I have to say I partially agree with you.
To me, the major, major, major problem Twisty and some other radfems make when discussing sex work is that they don't use the right terminology.
For example, I wouldn't even call Lizzie an ex-prostitute. I'd call her a former sex slave. If it's slavery, then it's slavery. The women who do not consent at all, regardless of their ability to consent within the patriarchy, should be called slaves. We should NOT call them prostitutes.
Prostitutes sell sex and intimacy. Sex slaves are used for sex and intimacy, but they have not chosen to sell their bodies or services.
Radfems assume women cannot freely consent because there is too much of a power differential. That may be true, but if it's true, it's also true of many other industries. We cannot say that trafficked women, some of whom become sex workers and some of whom (the older and the less pretty ones) who become housekeepers and farm workers, are not all slaves. They most certainly are all slaves. And we wouldn't say that no farm workers could be said to consent to their work. No, we'd differentiate between the ones who do it out of choice, regardless of how contrived the choice was, and those who are forced to do it. And we'd listen to the ones who say they like the job.
I want to follow that up:
ReplyDeleteThe terminology difference is as important as the difference between sex and rape.
Within radical feminism, one could argue that no woman completely consents to heterosex, but that is not to say that we should call all hetsex "rape."
(Personally, I think women CAN consent to sex, but that's different. For now, all I care about is making sure we use terminology that makes sense and that accurately represents reality. There's no point in discussing the issue if we can't agree on basic word meanings.)
elaine says: "Radfems assume women cannot freely consent because there is too much of a power differential. That may be true, but if it's true, it's also true of many other industries."
ReplyDeleteYou're right that power differentials apply to other industries, which is why many radfems have Marxist sympathies (I'm a pro-Socialist Feminist male) and argue that the economic and social bases of our society need to be altered completely. That's why they care less about specific instances of individual men being nice, or individual women having more privilege, and more about institutional change. The radfem ideology is an ideology of the oppressed: it wants to eliminate privilege completely, and so wants equality in all changeable aspects of life for everyone. Prostitution is discussed more than other jobs mostly because of its intensely gendered nature--it works as a model of large-scale institutional bias, sexism, classism, and racism. This isn't to say that other jobs don't have their own oppressions, but that prostitution shows explicitly the violence of the patriarchy, and the dialogue surrounding prostitution shows the embeddedness of gendered power assumptions.
I don't think it's particularly admirable to be so very open-minded when a man shows up and tells you the women are getting too uppity. Has Bruno actually read any radical feminist writings? I'm going to guess that, like the majority of male posters who feel qualified to comment on this subject, he hasn't.
ReplyDeleteUnderstand, Holly, I'm straight. I'm young. There are a lot of men I like and love (even if many of them do sexist things from time to time, or even frequently). I don't agree with radical feminists about everything. But I don't write "Screw radfems; I love men!" posts because the minute I do that, I'll get a bunch of cheerleaders (more or fewer depending on where I post) showing up telling me how brave I am for telling off those ugly meanie dictatorial radfems (you know, the ones who run the government and the schools and the advertising industry and control almost all the wealth in our society). How empowered and mature I am not to feel oppressed by them. How much they respect a woman who's liberated enough to admit she loves the lipstick and the cock, who just happens to do of her own accord the things that they just happen to want her to do.
And I find that utterly goddamn repulsive.
Maybe you don't. Maybe you enjoy the ego-stroking you start to get from society at large the second you start trashing radical feminists and their ideas. But I think it should at least raise some questions in your mind about what you're doing here.
Lizzie - What happened to you sounds horrifying, traumatic, and not directly caused by selling sex but by selling sex under abusive and coercive conditions. I'm sorry to say this to someone with your kind of personal experience, but I still believe that sex work is like making clothing--you can be a kid sewing Nikes for 16 hours a day, or (with legalization and regulation) you can open your own tailoring business. There's bad and good sex work, but the bad sex work isn't bad because it's sex.
ReplyDeleteDisgusted - Uh yeah whatever.
Elaine - Yeah. It may be a word problem but to me it's just horribly offensive to state that women are unable to consent to anything that they think they want to do. I don't think oppression erases the meaning of consent, and for people to say so seems almost like they're joining in the oppression. To me, "women can't (fully) consent to sex" seems to be a slur against women's judgement and intelligence.
Sean - Then the radfem ideology is completely unrealistic. If humans can't be liberated without abolishing capitalism, and if having to work is oppression (and those statements may be true in a sense), then we're doomed. Call me complacent (I probably am), but I'd rather fix the existing system than pine hopelessly for a massive revolution that's never gonna happen.
Elinor - Oh come on. If you want to disagree with my opinion that's one thing, but don't go telling me that it's not my opinion. "No woman could really think differently from me so she must just be trying to impress the menz!" Christ.
Yeah, Holly, reading your blog I've always been impressed with how rich, white, and privileged you are. Because I've seen a lot of those Eastside nursing homes like the one you work in and, yeah, all those Rolls Royces and Bentleys in the staff parking lots always made me wish I could afford to get a job in one of those places too. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat's kind of hard for me is I like you and I like Twisty too, enough that if I had to trim my blogroll down to ten I'm pretty sure you'd both still be in there. Sure, sometimes I disagree with her, but sometimes I disagree with you too. Doesn't mean I don't learn a lot, especially a lot of cool, hard truths about personal power inside of relationships, from both of you.
Anyway, with all that vitriol spraying all over the place, especially from her Limbaugh-listerner-like ditto-head commenters, I wanted to let you know I appreciate you.
figleaf
Figleaf - Aww thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm basically a sex blogger who sometimes writes about feminism, and furthermore I have a little problem with being sarcastic rather than analytic when something bothers me, so maybe I got myself in a little over my head here.
Oh well. For the record I actually think Twisty herself is a brilliant writer even if I don't always agree with (and sometimes don't understand) what she says; her commenters and some of the underlying radfem ideology, however... in my opinion, not so brilliant.
holly writes: "Sean - Then the radfem ideology is completely unrealistic. If humans can't be liberated without abolishing capitalism, and if having to work is oppression (and those statements may be true in a sense), then we're doomed. Call me complacent (I probably am), but I'd rather fix the existing system than pine hopelessly for a massive revolution that's never gonna happen."
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me how humans can be "liberated" with capitalism in place? The capitalist state is not the de facto state of all humans, or of all history, nor is capitalism itself a stable state. More equal societies than ours have existed before and exist now. Some of these societies are relatively similar to ours, some are radically different. Early American history might be considered a more free period (that is, for all citizens) than for citizens now. But we do not live in a historic vacuum--the industrial revolution, and now the American shift to a service economy, have severely limited the freedom (again, for citizens) that early American capitalism offered. Capitalism only makes (certain) people free for a short time, until land has become completely a commodity and labor has become forced (there is a difference between work and labor, labor being work for someone else in exchange for subsistence). At which point, capitalist labor becomes slavery.
A Socialist, and inevitably Communist, society also requires labor, but for the mass needs of a society, not for the stockpiling of capital. In a Capitalist society, labor is kept steady (or increased) and production must necessarily increase, so labor hours stay the same, but the quantity of commodities increases. In a Socialist society, labor (hours) is (are) decreased, and production stays the same or decreases to fit communal need. That kind of a change is not "unrealistic," and we should always remember that "massive revolutions" frequently occur throughout history and that our country, along with most modern states, was started by one.
I agree that a revolution is seemingly inconceivable in America, but for numerous reasons, not the least of which is what you call "complacency" and wanting to "fix an existing system," one that is hopelessly broken precisely because it is not a system, like plumbing might be, but a history, a history that is collapsing. Houses burn slowly, you know, and the smoke wakes us up only when the roof is collapsing.
Sean - Yeah, well, I guess in a way labor is slavery, but as long as there are crappy jobs that need doing (there's always butts to be wiped, grease traps to be cleaned, etc.), people will have to be motivated into them--forced into them, in a certain unpleasant sense. A society of total freedom would be a society with a lot of uncollected garbage.
ReplyDeleteBasically, until we get really good at robots, liberating everyone is impossible.
Also, without competition and market forces, there's no motivation for products to be innovative or high-quality. If there weren't a price and demand difference between a Geo and a Lexus, no one would bother to make Lexuses. (Or, y'know, effective medications or advanced computers or... basically anything that's way too much work to do for free but you'll do it if you get rich.)
Also frankly I don't see what any of this has to do with the status of women. Seems to me someone could be liberated from coerced labor and still hate women. I don't see the connection.
1) Communism is not a "society of total freedom." "Society" and "total freedom" are two words that do not go together. Socialism is a system that provides the basic necessities of living (housing, food, clothing, etc.) to everyone through public control of certain industries (the ones guided by capital), and Communism provides equal living conditions through 100% income redistribution (although a post-Communist society would probably do away with money). Within American Capitalism, we have the majority of people doing 40-60 hour work weeks doing all the crappy jobs (office work is crappy too, not just janitorial services, not to even mention production-line industrial work), when if we cut back on our consumption, and thus production, we'd only need, say, 15-20.
ReplyDelete2) Well, there is a whole line of "cyborg" and "techno" feminist theory, but I'm not well enough versed in it to critique it much. However, a society that could produce such advanced A.I. still wouldn't necessarily be egalitarian.
3) I don't believe we need "diverse markets" for better products (you really think I care that some people won't get to drive Lexuses, that that is some universal and pressing need?), what we need is free and universal education. We "do things only if it gets us rich" exists because people who have gone through certain degree programs (med school, law school) feel entitled to be paid back over and over again for their investment. With an open education system, people might be motivated to produce better medications (which if you consider the state of pharmaceuticals currently, we aren't really doing well on that front) simply because they want to cure diseases and let people live a little bit less painful lives. Capitalism hasn't made us the pillar of education and innovation you claim it has.
4) Yes someone could be liberated from coerced labor, and it wouldn't be women! That's why I'm pro-Socialist Feminism--I think that a class-free society cannot exist without a gender-free society. The whole point of Twisty's anti-prostitution argument is that it is a gendered- and class- (and race-) based institution! By and large, prostitutes are women, and johns are men. By and large, these women are poor and doing it because they believe they have no other choice. By and large, the men are violent and use these women in degrading ways. A small amount of women do get into the business because they want to, and a small amount of johns don't "abuse" them. But the point is that in an egalitarian society, the thought of paying for sex wouldn't even cross anyone's mind. At the very least, in a sexism-free society, you'd expect equal numbers of male and female prostitutes, but because of the way power relationships function in a capitalist society, the "johns," whether male or female, wouldn't necessarily be kinder. In short, the nature of prostitution is violent, using money as a (forceful) means of obtaining consent in an otherwise non-consensual relationship. That monetary exchange tips the balance of power in favor of the john, who feels like he (or she) can use the prostitute as a commodity. Decriminalization and maybe even regulation might be temporary solutions, but the end result should be abolition.
Elaine- No, actually, I worked "consensually" for a reputable company that only hired women over a certain age who sought this work out. The problem here is that I was obviously too extremely mentally unstable to make that sort of decision and nobody cared. Not to mention that even "consensual" prostitution is subject to the conditions I just described. Women working for any agency at all who try to charge extra for any act except sometimes anal sex get fired, and women who are perceived by clients as having "changed the rules" post-hire are beaten.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I also claimed to love my job, despite the fact that I hated it and wanted to kill myself and didn't see myself as having any other options. Which means that when people in that situation claim to love their jobs, I'm extremely skeptical.
Basically, since I appeared to be doing sex work consensually and was working for what is generally agreed to be one of two half-decent agencies in my area, I really hate it when people try to tell me that I was involved in the "bad kind" but that there's a "good kind" of sex work. If there was such a thing, I would have been doing it.
Also, your argument that we shouldn't try to free those who are forced by economic factors into shameful and degrading jobs because garbage would go uncollected is just icky. I mean, not only are you massively privileged, but it's like you just don't give a shit about helping those less privileged if you think that it has the slightest chance of resulting in unsightly garbage.
I also don't agree with every single word Twisty says, but I disagree with you on this one. If you don't feel particularly oppressed, great! But many, many women are oppressed, because of the intersection of sexism, classism, and racism, among other factors. Simply because you, personally, feel totally free despite being a woman, does not mean that all other women share your experience. I find your defensive reaction to Twisty's suggestion that you take your happy self out to volunteer and help less fortunate women interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think a big point involved in catalyzing a socio-communist revolution is a cessation in monetary motivation. I'm unconvinced that necessary jobs and services would go undone without a proverbial carrot dangled in front of us. Garbage collecting already seems rather socialist in many cities, as it is controlled by the government. In this post-capitalist scenario, people would innovate because they want a better world for themselves and their fellow humans, not because there's a small chance they could someday have more money than anyone could possibly need. I remain optimistic about humanity.
ReplyDeleteI think young women hope that they will be able to beat the odds and not end up like their mothers. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to disagree with my opinion that's one thing, but don't go telling me that it's not my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI never said it wasn't your real opinion. I said you should think about what you were likely to accomplish with a post like this. You are trashing other women (and yes, the word is "trashing" when you're attacking a strawfeminist the way you did in the post). Why?
"Simply because you, personally, feel totally free despite being a woman, does not mean that all other women share your experience."
ReplyDeleteExactly.
Sean - I think you just described a fantasyland. The basic problem is that people need to be motivated to do things, and if everything's free, I'm not going to work. ("I" meaning "most everybody really"--I believe humans are good but not quite good enough to stand 8 hours on an assembly line without getting something they wouldn't otherwise.) At which point your options to keep society working are to get violent or to pay me.
ReplyDeleteLizzie - A situation in which you were physically beaten cannot resemble legalized, regulated sex work; your situation was abusive but I still really believe that non-abusive sex work is possible.
And as for degrading jobs, I've worked at McDonald's and on an assembly line and right now I'm a night-shift nursing aide, so it's not like I'm up on my polo pony telling the lower classes to get ta work, I'm acknowledging that messy and boring and dangerous work sometimes needs to be done.
JadeWolf - I guess I've just been on the Internet long enough to have heard "Why are you arguing on the Internet instead of saving puppies?" more than a few times.
Jix1125 - Garbage collection is controlled by the government, which pays people do to it. Fuzzy commie goodwill might get people to do some kinds of research and it might get the fun jobs filled, but for someone to work at a slaughterhouse or a sewage treatment plant, the loving goodwill of mankind ain't gonna do it.
Hattie - Huh? My mom's doing fine!
Elinor - I think it's so I can impress all the boys so they'll tell me I'm pretty and let me give them blowjobs!
No, really, I'm not trashing "other women," I'm trashing people who think and speak in a narrow-minded and hostile way under the name of feminism. And I'm doing it because I disagree with them.
And I'm not trying to deny that sexism, classism, racism etc. exist, I'm trying to deny that they are so pervasive that women are universally miserable and powerless just because they are women.
"Also, your argument that we shouldn't try to free those who are forced by economic factors into shameful and degrading jobs because garbage would go uncollected is just icky."
ReplyDelete"doing all the crappy jobs (office work is crappy too, not just janitorial services, not to even mention production-line industrial work),"
Love that ivory tower logic. "I think this job is icky, so *obviously* no one would take it willingly!" Seriously, kiddies, sooner or later *someone* has to leave mommy's basement and actually, y'know, contribute something. There is not, nor ever will be, anything icky, shameful, or degrading about honest labor fairly compensated. The only shameful part is that hard working people such as Holly and some of the other good folks around here lose some of the fruits of their labors to support those who would rather rail against the horrible evil of having to actually *do* something to get what they want rather than go do it, via welfare and other entitlement programs.
Also, I really love this one:
"American history might be considered a more free period (that is, for all citizens) than for citizens now."
Fortunately for your argument, blacks, other minorities, and women were not considered citizens so *technically* yes, "citizens" were more free. Otherwise, that is the most epic failure to grasp history I have seen so far this year. Congratulations!
Y'know, I really do love it when you folks with all the economic understanding of a clock radio (i.e. set to start squaking at certain intervals) who just love to espouse how any work is just teh EEEEEEVIL man keeping everybody down, especially when there is absolutely no grasp of the immense unjustice comitted willingly, repeatedly, and eagerly by every instance of the systems you want in place, come out to play. It's an ego boost for pretty much everyone with even the slightest work ethic and will to succeed, because it reaffirms that people calling for nonsense such as you folks so often do are just too fuckin' lazy and dumb to ever get their policies enacted.
(Pardon the anonymity, Holly, but my massive penis of malecorporate oppressingness and evil can only be used to delete comments for so long should these cute little grues show up at my place)
"Radical feminists think all women are miserable and powerless": strawfeminist.
ReplyDeleteAnd, fine, at least you admit that what you're doing is trashing rather than anything that could get you accused of intellectual honesty. That's about the best I could reasonably expect.
I believe that saying "women are unable to give consent" is thrashing women, and as a woman, I take offence. I wonder why some people here are thrashing women.
ReplyDeleteI realise that Holly is (and I am) privileged in that she (and I) not only have the ability to make our own decisions, but we are also allowed to do so. Not everybody has those, and more should be done to give them as much choice as we have. However, they are not helped in *any* way by claiming that a "white privilegebunny" such as myself is oppressed and dehumanised and unable to consent.
(By the way, hi, Holly. I found your blog via Figleaf and have been lurking for quite a while.)
I'm glad you wrote this. It's a good summation of critical points that are also, strangely, similar to the exact kinds of points men stumble over when they learn about feminism. Men also enjoy the added pains of feeling personally accused of being subhuman because of the cruelty and hatred we are informed that we feel. Many men don't want to be accused of being a misogynist, even if it is just unconscious presumptions of superiority.
ReplyDeleteYou define radical feminism and then reject what you defined. But you are a feminist. I don't see what use it is to make distinctions to divide what could be considered, from the outside, as a mutual interest. Why not just disagree rather than divide?
You didn't make any allowances for the possibility, more easy to see in hindsight than to foresee, that one fine day you might actually start feeling differently about being a woman, because men will start treating you differently. I was wondering if you'd thought about your feelings about radical feminists from that perspective.
I think there's a lot of room for feminism to explore sex, especially since feminism is the only philosophy that tackles human sexuality from a non-male viewpoint, which is inclusive of the male perspective by default, and therefore more comprehensive. When you are young, you should be as sexual as your young body demands, and how to deal with it as a feminist is important.
Anonymous - I completely agree (and suspect I know who you are...). Although I do think that some welfare is necessary, for people who are disabled and otherwise stuck, and for poor children who can't bootstrap their way out on account of being ten years old.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah; when someone says to me that people would stand on assembly lines even if it provided no benefit over unemployment, all I can think is that that person sure has never worked an assembly line!
And if work is slavery because you can't opt out of it, then life is slavery for not causing balanced diets and clothing and medication to drop unbidden from the heavens. Stuff's gotta be done, people gotta do stuff, the only proven way to get people to do stuff is to force 'em or pay 'em, seems nicer to pay 'em.
Elinor - Go away.
Larus - Exactly. (Although with all the people yelling "We never said that!", and most of the resources on it written in impenetrable socialist-academic-speak, I'm no longer sure what radical feminism even is. It seems to have something to do with communism, something with declaring everybody either oppressed or an oppressor, and something to do with not liking me.)
Tonpatti - We may both be pro-lady but I find that my goals and way of thinking differ so deeply from the rad-fems that it's worth expressing my disagreement.
If I find my personal experience or way of thinking changes, I may change my mind. But I'm not pre-changing it right now.
Anonymous wrote: ""American history might be considered a more free period (that is, for all citizens) than for citizens now."
ReplyDeleteFortunately for your argument, blacks, other minorities, and women were not considered citizens so *technically* yes, "citizens" were more free. Otherwise, that is the most epic failure to grasp history I have seen so far this year. Congratulations!"
Which is why I said "for all citizens." There is no otherwise, I wouldn't have put the phrase in if I didn't understand that only white land-owning males were considered citizens. I was just saying that "freedom" is a variable quality, and that capitalism opened up more freedoms for certain classes in its early history, freedoms that in later-capitalism become closed even if more people might have access to them.
And where do I say I'm anti-work? I'm anti-long hours so that people can be more productive in learning and advancing science and the arts rather than worrying about selling useless products, working on mindless production lines, and basically wasting life away. Boring jobs are certainly necessary, but I think we can cut back on the amount of time any individual would have to devote to doing it. Instead of 8 hours a day at a job earning minimum wage, which is less than subsistence, you could instead work 4 hours and earn a livable wage, leaving plenty of time over for doing what you'd rather want. How is that an ignoble goal?
Sean - A society with fewer "useless products" is a poorer one; when you pare products down to just the "necessary for society," everybody drives a Trabant. Maybe that's equality but it looks to me like mediocrity and stagnation.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't know about you, but I ain't wiping up human shit for even four hours unless I get something out of it that I wouldn't get by staying home playing Hackey Sack.
holly wrote: "And I don't know about you, but I ain't wiping up human shit for even four hours unless I get something out of it that I wouldn't get by staying home playing Hackey Sack."
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm glad you wouldn't, but there are many people who do such a job now for longer hours, then head to a second job after that, and still can't hardly afford a home. So receiving a livable wage with fewer hours is not "getting nothing out of it." You're just really good at the strawmen arguments, aren't you?
Sean - You keep changing your position. Are you for a post-monetary communist revolution or are you for... some sort of thing where money still exists but it's all distributed with great generosity and fairness? (The latter seems to ignore the way economics works; if you make the minimum wage $80K a year, all that does is make $80K worth less. You can give people more money on paper, but unless they can get valuable things for that money you can't give them more actual wealth.)
ReplyDeleteEither way I don't think "work four hours a day, live in comfort and prosperity!" is a bad thing so much as I believe it's an impossible thing.
"there are many people who do such a job now for longer hours, then head to a second job after that, and still can't hardly afford a home."
ReplyDeleteAnd? Housing is not a right. Housing is something that must be earned, and the better the housing the harder you have to work. I don't see anything, anywhere in the US promising every baby to pop out of a vagina a gold plated education, a home, and the ticket to work-free success, etc. The last place to try doing just that on a large scale tended to be a rather uniform grey concrete and suffer shortages of toilet paper, food, medicine, etc.
"I'm anti-long hours so that people can be more productive in learning and advancing science and the arts rather than worrying about selling useless products"
That would be anti-work. You do not want to work so you can pursue your own interests. Much like everybody else. *Most* everbody else, fortunately, is comfortable with the notion that increased effort yields increased rewards, even if those rewards are too low on *your* pampered scale to qualify. In some cases, those rewards are not instant. This is called "delayed gratification." See, if you work harder now and save up your money smartly, you can *not* work later. Funny how that one works. Is the effort to reward ratio equal all across the spectrum? Of course not, and only an idiot with no grasp of reality would suggest it should be. *Life itself*, for all species, is fundamentally inequal, and I shudder to think of how miserable and dreary a world with no inequality would be.
Holly: I agree with you in principle on welfare. There does need to be some bootstrap help in place for those who truly cannot help themselves. Where I disagree is that it should be compulsory - this should be a community effort, not a state mandated one. Charity is no longer charity if it isn't voluntary. (And the smart money is you're right about who I am)
Anyway, since this is turning into just a session of pointing out for the 9000th time that commies are about as dumb as fucking a tree stump with a termite colony in it rather than why you uppity bitches won't iron my shirt, I'll bow out. ;)
Ok, last one I swear: Countdown until Sean uses a totally incorrect definition of what a right is in 5...4...3...2..
ReplyDeleteI admire you and I admire Twisty, but I agree with what you've written here. (Well, one exception to (2)--when I was in college I felt extremely threatened by the street harassment I dealt with when I caught the bus home. But compared to what a lot of the women in the world experience, that's still peanuts.) I know a lot of this stuff was present in radical feminist writing before the Internet, but I can't help thinking that online dynamics further polarize people's views. On the Internet, it's easy to mock people who disagree rather than engage them in some kind of dialogue, because you don't have to look them in the face. Plus, if you have a blog where all the readers share basically the same viewpoint and see themselves as insiders united against a hostile world, you get some bizarre mob-like dynamics. (Thanks for not letting this happen on your blog; I appreciate the lack of personal attacks on Twisty. That sounds a little weird, like I thanked you for not peeing all over the floor, but it needed saying.)
ReplyDeleteWell, like bruno said. People are people. I have the audacity and ignorance to think people that don't look like me, don't have the same body parts, and maybe even have different thoughts (gasp!) are people, too. I'll judge them by their actions, not by their appearance.
ReplyDeleteI highly object to deliberately choosing victim status. Feminism should be about equality, not removing empowerment.
Anonymous - I'm not 100% confident in private charity for the same reason I don't trust people to work on the commie assembly lines for free--I'm not sure people would always give a sufficient amount, directed to the right places, to keep vulnerable people from suffering or dying unnecessarily. I think our current system has way too much money going to pointless or greedy causes, but some compulsory charity is probably necessary to ensure that nobody loses their insulin money when a major philanthropist suddenly stops giving.
ReplyDeleteBurke - I don't hate Twisty, I think she's brilliant, provocative, and frequently off her rocker but in an intelligent and self-aware way. Some of her commenters, however, seem all too happy to post blithely about how all men hate all women.
J.R. - Feminism should be about equality, not removing empowerment.
EXACTLY. Every time I hear that as a result of the patriarchy, non-radfem women don't know what's best for them, I go a little more insane. "The patriarchy has made women deluded and powerless!" seems to me to say "Women are deluded and powerless!" Which isn't true, isn't helpful, and sounds almost... patriarchal.
Holly,
ReplyDeleteI definitely wasn't trying to insinuate that you hate Twisty! I was just musing vaguely on the prevalence of unhelpful blogwars and wondering about what causes them. The main example I had in mind was actually the bizarre anti-trans thing that happened on Heart's blog a while back. I dunno; maybe the connection only made sense in my own head.
I don't know what kind of women-in-chains Gor crazyworld this author is coming from, but I'm pretty damn sure that no means no, yes means yes, and throwing up your hands and screaming "we're so oppressed we can't even make decisions!" is not actually advancing the cause of female strength and independence.
ReplyDeleteClearly, no doesn't always mean no, even in your world, even when you say yes, even while you're actively owning and using your sexuality the way you want. And that's not other women's fault either. It's the fucking patriarchy's fault. Please stop blaming women for something that they obviously have no control over and then getting angry because we point out that we have no control over it.
L - I don't believe it's black and white. There's a difference between sometimes having some miscommunication with a partner, and being raped. I don't have 100% control but it's not 0% either. And I feel like claims that women have no control are untrue and deny all the agency that I do have.
ReplyDeleteNo one anywhere, including Twisty or any other radfem, is saying that you have 0% control. As Twisty claims in the post you've linked to here, you have limited control over your destiny because patriarchal constructs (and the people who work to uphold them because they benefit from them) have limited what you can control. The problem, then, is that you don't have 100% control over your body, your life, your work, etc., even when you haven't consented to having whatever control you have taken away from you. I'm not telling you what to want or anything. I, personally, want 100% over my life. I want my "no" respected, all the time, even when it's just "miscommunication." I want to go into a job and be paid what the dudes are paid because I'm doing the same job. And so on. Radical feminism looks to expand women's choices, not just accept that this is all there is.
ReplyDeleteL - I guess my fundamental disagreement with radical feminism then is that I think 100% control is impossible. It would require literally controlling the minds of others.
ReplyDeleteI want to expand my freedom too, but I do it with the understanding that life will never be perfect and shouldn't be, and I'd rather deal with the real world than strive for utopia.
I and most other radfems I know both "deal with the real world" and strive for utopia. You're not the first nor will you be the last to imply -- even unconsciously -- that radical feminism is without basis in reality. Who do you think you're talking to? Robots? Aliens? Of course we deal with the real world. We have to, because we live in it. Indeed, the real world is what inspires us to be radical feminists and to act for changing the real world. Dealing with reality and seeking to change it are not mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteWhy bother calling yourself a feminist if you accept the real world as it is and aren't interested in acting to change it, if not for yourself than for others?
"and strive for utopia."
ReplyDeleteSo your goals are by definition, and by your acknowledgement right there that the 100% control necessary for "utopia" is impossible, unattainable. You've very neatly set yourself up so that there is no chance (or more accurately, danger of) success, so you can continue this masturbatory cult of victimhood indefinitely.
A neat little trick, and it makes sure you can move the goalposts of "equality" every time so you can get just that much closer to fantasy land rather than realize and work with an otherwise pretty good situation. Of course, the further out you move the goal posts, the higher the attrition rate among your movement's membership, hence the tiny sliver of a fringe faction we see shrieking like banshees over admittedly unattainable goals, rather than the huge support the movement enjoyed in the 60s when the goals were more reasonable.
Also, "Why bother calling yourself a feminist if you accept the real world as it is and aren't interested in acting to change it, if not for yourself than for others?" assumes that she is entirely uninterested in any sort of change, rather than simply not being interested in unattainable crap. You've redefined her actual position ("Some change might help. Your goal is unattainable") into something easier to attack ("I don't want any change"). I think you folks have a term for that. Scarecrow? Wait, tin man? No... ah well, it'll come to me.
Holly: On the welfare thing: I definitely don't think a 100% community based system will work all the way, but I think it has a lesser degree of inherant failure than the current system. When it comes directly out of my paycheck for the Greater Good as decided on high, rather than going to a needy cause of my choosing, how is that different from standing on the line producing widgets all day for the moral satisfaction of doing so instead of a paycheck? If I keep the money and help a friend or family member with it, I get the direct feel-better payoff. When it comes off the top of the pay, I could've just stayed home and played hackey sack for all the feel-better I get for the effort. As soon as I come up with a silver bullet that will be perfectly fair, and perfectly flawless, I'll start working on that perfect feminism thing. ;)
Wait, no I won't. I still won't give a shit about that nugget of unobtainium. Then I'll start working on a perpetual motion machine!
life will never be perfect and shouldn't be, and I'd rather deal with the real world than strive for utopia.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're reading this differently, anonymous, but it sure sounds to me like "the world sucks and I'm accepting and dealing with that because that's how it should be." There is no interest in change in this statement. And when you're not really interested in change and seem to think that change isn't really possible, how can you also "want to expand [your] freedoms"?
So your goals are by definition, and by your acknowledgement right there that the 100% control necessary for "utopia" is impossible, unattainable. You've very neatly set yourself up so that there is no chance (or more accurately, danger of) success, so you can continue this masturbatory cult of victimhood indefinitely.
Talk about strawman fallacies.
I also don't think that 100% is necessarily possible, and I probably should have said so. My apologies. My point is that I want as much control over my entire life (not just my sexuality and my oh-so-stamped-on "rights" to say yes to giving blowjobs) and my body as is humanly possible. That, to me, is utopia. And I'm striving toward that, while dealing with the real world.
Count me in with the Twisty is a brilliant writer, but her thoughts about radical feminism are completely off.
ReplyDeleteSo much that I read at IBTP and other radfem sites and Pandagon are very very close to Victorian attitudes.
Women are oppressed, they are fragile, they have no agency, all men are abusers, sex can never be consensual. It's up to men, ALL men, and only men to stop rape. Women have no responsibility to take control over where they walk, or what they wear. Rape is only about power, not about sex. Prostitution is also only about power and not about sex.
The only cure I see is to keep women at home where the men in their family can protect them. And to allow them outside of home only if they are escorted by a man and wearing a burka.
What's worse is that like Sean, Twisty talks about this completely revolutionized world we will get to, but never spends anytime describing in detail what that world looks like and how it differs from our world, and how sex and other things work there.
Yes, women will have agency. Yes, women will finally be able to consent to sex.
But what will an interaction in the bedroom ACTUALLY look like? And what will interactions at work, or pleasure, or in a restaurant, or shopping, actually look like? And how will that comport with what we now recognize as human and animal biology, physiology, and psychology.
I have considered myself a feminist since the early 70s when an English Teacher "turned us on" to it. But I'm a guy who has been very screwed in a family court by the women as victim, women as only person who could possibly parent, women would never abuse a court by lying, bias.
I still do consider myself a feminist in many ways, but yeah, many of the scales have fallen from my eyes.
Thanks for taking the time to blog.
AMEN!
ReplyDeleteRadfems are living in a fantasy world that simply does not sync up to the actual reality out there.
Actual men are, for the most part, the diametric opposite of all this self-serving feminist propaganda. And who have actually become unwitting casualties of their unbridled attacks now. Meanwhile, women today have become just the opposite of sugar & spice...
These are the 100% true facts as verified through current studies, collective and personal experience now. It is just impossible to deny anymore and slowly becoming obvious to even the thickest-skulled flat-Earthers.
"Feminism should be about equality, not removing empowerment."
ReplyDeleteActually, it should be about equality in both rights AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
But, feminists have NEVER fought for the latter.
In fact, the feminist ideal of empowerment is maximizing power while minimizing responsibility. While fighting for the opposite for men.
Which is about as unfair as it gets...
Nevermind the fact that men and women are also naturally different and striving for a Marxist utopia with precisely equal representation in everything will never happen. And forcing it only denies peoples' true talents, creating greater inequities. Hence the failure of Communism around the world. That type of self-destructive ideology is nothing but classical Jewish meme warfare.
Byrdeye - classical Jewish meme warfare.
ReplyDeleteShalom, asshole.
I don't want you on my side.
Holly - are you denying the fact that Marx was a Jew, Communism was spread primarily through Jewish influence and liberal ideology has been predominated by Jews?
ReplyDeleteI mean, certainly, this giant mental octopus is not Zimbabwean or Australian in origin. Nope, most other ethnicities mind their own business and don't impose their beliefs on others with such veiled chutzpah. The primary source of this global thoughtform has been the Jewish groupmind.
Anyhow, other women have come to the same conclusions about men - even diehard feminist dykes like Norah Vincent.
Holly:
ReplyDeleteI love this post, and your comments.
Man, I'm gonna have to see if there's a setting on my multimeter for "gigacrazy". The regular measurement scale just ain't cutting it around here anymore.
ReplyDeleteByrdeye - Holy shit, man, just because I'm not a radical feminist doesn't mean I want to hear from a fucking Nazi. I usually don't censor but I'm probably going to delete any future comments from you.
ReplyDeleteThat's great. But NAZIs have nothing to do with this discussion.
ReplyDeleteI asked you a very simple yes or no question, and you chose to:
1) Avoid honestly answering the question
2) Respond with an overused pre-programmed red herring buzzword instead
3) Threaten to censor me (thought-policing)
This is classic brainwashed behavior, you know? Just how many hours of TV do you watch a day?
Dammit, does this mean I need an EIGHTH layer of tinfoil on my beanie?
ReplyDeleteIOW, you're incredibly personally biased on this issue. Thought so.
ReplyDeleteMarx can deny his own Jewishness, but that doesn't mean he can erase his own innate epigenetic and ingrained cultural heritage. A dog can pretend it's a cat, but that doesn't mean it won't still instinctively chase it's tail and eat it's own shit.
Anyhow, he is only one of many Jews in the Communist movement, anyhow.
And I think you need to re-examine your groupmind denial. If you really look at the stats, you will see some very common mentalities amongst various groups. For example, just look at all the feminists posting here and how many of them have Heeb heritage? Look at most of the leading public feminists today. Certainly well over their population %. Now, how do you explain that?
Look, I get it, you have paranoid schizophrenia. You don't have to keep telling me about it.
ReplyDeleteHolly--
ReplyDeleteYou are a crazy genius-woman and one of the things I always admire about you even when I don't agree with your opinions is that you actually think about things instead of falling for the nearest ideology hook, line, and sinker.
Byrdeye--
Let me get this straight. Holly, as a Jewish woman, is too personally biased to know anything useful about Jews either individually or as a group whereas your insane bigotry is a perfectly reasonable base to argue from. You do know that Joseph McCarthy died more than fifty years ago, right?
As another blogger pointed out, they (MRAs and radfems)should get a room somewhere!
ReplyDeleteAnd receive incredulous looks from the receptionist as they sign the register as "Mr & Mrs Smith".
See? Hitler was really an ok guy. He just got sort of caught up in things and one morning woke up and said "Wow, that many? Well, um, shit. I guess it's been working so far? Ah well, I'm going to go pet kittens now!"
ReplyDelete^ Here we go again with Godwin's Law. Like robotic clockwork...
ReplyDeleteBut, WTH does Hitler have to do with Jewish oppression of Palestinians or their racist, sexist, manipulative media?
Palestinian boy: Why have you taken our land and forced us to live in this racist apartheid? Why do you hate us so???
Jew: Hitler! Now shut up you anti-Semitic NAZI! Free Tibet!
According to Jewish thought:
ReplyDeleteTibetans attacking and rioting against Chinese in the streets = freedom fighters.
Palestinians martyring themselves in suicide missions against Israelis = terrorists.
We having fun, yet?
Byrdeye--
ReplyDeleteOkay, first of all, how the fuck did we get from radical feminism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Do you have some kind of useful connection to make, or are you just trying to dig yourself deeper in shit?
Second of all, if you're posting anti-semitic sexist nonsense on the blog of a Jewish feminist, for fuck's sake why are you surprised when she's not interested in what you have to say?
Jews are individuals, kind of like men, women, blacks, whites, hispanics...you get the picture? They don't have a hive mind. Have some Jewish people done bad things? Sure. Does this justify blanket anti-semitism? Not so much, no. I could just as easily say that you, as a man, have nothing useful to say about sexism, because you're blinded by your masculinity.
And finally, Holly is not a representative of the US Government, and she is not obligated by any law to give you a forum for your hate speech.
Not really. The Tibetians aren't attacking for Hitler.
ReplyDeleteUnless... wait! I've got it! The Tibetians are the Secret BuddhaHitler Monks of Haliburton!
Am I doing this right, or was I not supposed to bring Haliburton in for another three rounds?
^ Again, the H-bomb...
ReplyDeleteBut, Palestinians aren't attacking for Hitler either - or did I somehow miss the red swastika armbands they've all been wearing?
As far as your Hitler-Tibet connection, there actually was one. Hitler was very intrigued by the occult and Pagan/Aryan mythology. As well as wanting to stop the spread of Jewish Communism. This led him to Eastern Mystery schools and Tibet.
Many high-ranking members of the Nazi regime, including Hitler, held convoluted occult beliefs. Prompted by those beliefs, the Germans sent an official expedition to Tibet between 1938 and 1939 at the invitation of the Tibetan Government to attend the Losar (New Year) celebrations.
Karl Haushofer was convinced that the key to the harnessing of the power of vril lay in Tibet. He was supported by the Swedish explorer and Nazi sympathiser Sven Hedin, who had led several expeditions to Tibet.
During the expedition, he examined the skulls of more than 300 inhabitants of Tibet and Sikkim, and logged their other physical features in minute detail.
He concluded that, in anthropological terms, the Tibetans represented a staging post between the Mongol and European races, with the European racial element manifesting itself most strongly among the Tibetan aristocracy. He believed that, after the final victory of the Third Reich, the Tibetans could play an important role in the region, serving as an allied race in a world dominated by Germany and Japan.
Trevor Ravenscroft argued that the Germans mounted a series of expeditions between 1926 and 1943. These were, says Ravenscroft, intended to allow the Nazis to maintain contact with their Aryan ancestors, guardians of the occult powers of vril, who were hidden in underground cities beneath the Himalayas.
Seven Years in Tibet, the tale of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer's trek through Tibet and his relationship with the Dalai Lama, was nearly released with an embarrassing omission. It failed to mention that Harrer had been a sergeant in Hitler's SS.
This is a sex blog. Perhaps it's time to pack it in and go find a better place to take your beautiful political enlightenment?
ReplyDelete^ I'm sorry, I guess I mistook the mixed content here due to the politically-loaded title:
ReplyDeletea vulgar right-wing libertarian in feminist clothing
That's 3 political stances in one line. I guess you fooled me, then.
Byrdeye, making up for APD through lack of reading since as long as I've known him.
ReplyDeleteAnd while the nazis were in Tibet with Dr. Ravenscroft, a man with a fedora and a bullwhip arrived. I think we all know how it goes from here.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the H-bomb...
ReplyDeleteYou mean Halliburton?
But anyways, I love the post. You've got a few other fans of it over here
I just don't see why they don't have the (ovaries?) to come over and say this to your face.
(sorry if this posts twice, my html is a bit rusty)
Fae - I think the H-bomb is Hitler. "Gosh, guys, just because I hate Jews doesn't mean I'm a Nazi!"
ReplyDeleteAnd I saw that forum! I'm weirded to hell that they've diagnosed me as a troll. Because no one could ever believe that sex was a matter of personal choice, no one's really that batty, sheesh.
Yeah, I knew he meant Hitler (oops, there's that word again!) I was just pulling his leg. ;)
ReplyDeleteBut clearly, determining that sex is a personal choice that isn't completely steeped in patriarchy makes you a troll apparently.
Apparently, with enough tea and biscuits, all of us poor, deluded sexbots will come around.
ReplyDeleteHow condescending.
I love how everyone here resorts to name-calling and mocking when they've just been factually disproven.
ReplyDeleteStingray attempts to make some "ludicrous" tie between NAZIs and Tibet - only to find out that there really was one. Of course, instead of admit his spoonfed ignorance, he again attempts to repeat the joke, even when it was already proven to be a fact.
Holly claimed this was only a sex blog...even when her own subtitle said it was by "a vulgar right-wing libertarian in feminist clothing."
And I'M the one with the "PD" here?
Pathetic, but warms my funny bone. You guys are sooo American - as arrogant as you are ignorant.
Byrdeye, perhaps if you pulled your head out of your ass and took a look around you'd realize that:
ReplyDelete1. Repeating yourself over and over again doesn't magically make your opinions less stupid
and
2. Nobody here gives a shit.
I see you've got a million comments already, but can I add my two cents?
ReplyDeleteIn my own life, from a certain faction of feminism I've gotten a strong vibe that a true feminist (1) sees every single individual man as the oppressor and (2) the correct solution is to become the castrating avenger. Presenting a positive example of empowered feminism is much less okay if it means you don't feel frightened and threatened by every man who crosses your path.
So the rad fems liked me when I posted my personal experience of being stalked by a violent ex, but less so after I talked about the importance and value of female sexual autonomy: yes means yes.
Holly, I've been thinking about this post for a week or so. I came over here from "I blame the patriarchy", and at first I thought: "Oh, no, how can you think that feminists think that way about sex?"
ReplyDeleteThen slowly I started to think about my parents, who were repulsed by anything to do with their daughters' puberty. You know, menstruation, leg hair and so on. And when they caught me sitting on a boy's knee their lip curling and cutting remarks were something to behold. But they really, really wanted us to be engineers and not get married until we had a career, so they must have been feminists, right?
Semi feminists? Faux feminists?
I don't know if they'd describe themselves as feminists, but they were virulently anti-sex, at least for their daughters.
Later came all the female friends who dressed up jealousy and spite in feminist clothing when they made cutting remarks about me wearing short skirts or sleeping with so and so.
I can see why someone could easily get the idea that feminists hate anyone else enjoying sex. It took a lot of experience to realise that Twisty and friends are dead right about the patriarchy.
I disagree with her about fellatio, though.
Anonymous: Anyway, since this is turning into just a session of pointing out for the 9000th time that commies are about as dumb as fucking a tree stump with a termite colony in it rather than why you uppity bitches won't iron my shirt, I'll bow out. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think you're giving commies too much credit. Collectively (ha!) a colony of termites not only exhibits a certain volume of brain function, but actual productivity.
I would certainly say "radical feminists don't believe that." In fact, I would say no feminists believe that. As I understand it, one of (if not THE) fundamental tenets of feminism is that men and women are (generally speaking) morally and intellectually equal. Given this, any perosn making claims that assume all men to be conniving psychopaths, and all women except for herself and those who unreservedly agree with her to be gullible morons, is disqualified even if she misapplies the label "feminist" to herself. Fortunately these are a tiny minority of those who actually use the label.
ReplyDelete"Given this, any perosn making claims that assume all men to be conniving psychopaths, and all women except for herself and those who unreservedly agree with her to be gullible morons, is disqualified even if she misapplies the label "feminist" to herself."
ReplyDeletelol.
Oh god modern left wing Communists! All of the questionable confusing language and unrealistic goals with none of the space-program-making actually-effectiveness!
ReplyDeleteThe big problem with left wingers is that they see systems as physical enemies to fight, without different embodiments.
Compared to the right wing, that's pretty nice. Meaning that it is fairly horrible.
I used to not see a problem with capitalism. Then I thought we should go to some kind of command economy with a huge government. Soviet Union without the mistakes and brutality. Then I realized how much that would not work. Capitalism needs to be reformed.
Unlike most people, I'm proudly anti- assumption of freedom as a generally good thing, and do not believe in rights (I believe that it is moral that all humans be considered in the accounting of the Greater Good). I get extremely frustrated when people conflate having your behavior controlled in ways that hurt you personally (part of life in non-Utopia), being controlled by a single privileged group (which on it's own is OK but almost always results in oppression) and being actually freaking oppressed.