[fandom] feminism

[escritoireazul]

There has been a lot of talk lately about fandom and feminism.

(To sum up the major links I've seen: "In the Tradition of the Wickedary, Part Two by Dissenter [basically, slash is not a radical feminist rewriting of the text, and though there are lots of things I don't agree with in this, there are lots of things I do - however, it looks like only comments agreeing with the poster are being allowed, because otherwise I can't fathom there being no contradictory responses]; "To Feminist(s) Criticizing Slash as a Tool of the Patriarchy" [slash is problematic but what isn't, also mentions BDSM]; "If It Happened to Me and My Two White Girlfriends, It's For Reals!" [a direct response to the first link]; "A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly" [Joss Whedon is a rapist and all the problems in Firefly]; "Credo, ergo Sum: What I Call Radical Feminism" [also has great discussions in the comments]; "I Haz Comment!" [short post talking about the disconnect between disliking Firefly and slash and liking The Little Mermaid - again, the comments are interesting, and brings up the whole intercourse as rape from Dworkin's "Intercourse"]; "comment discussion of the whole sex = rape argument".)

I just have a few small comments to add to the above discussions. (If they can actually be called discussions. What with all the comment deleting some of the posters are doing, I'm not sure they can.)

First is that across the board, many people seemed shocked by the idea of people saying heterosexual sex = rape and there is no ability for a woman to consent in a patriarchal society. I was surprised that people hadn't heard about this line of thought. (I'm actually debating on taking a class with a professor who believes that. It will make for interesting [and frustrating] discussions.)

Second, I've seen lots of throwaway comments about how the people who are anti slash or Firefly or Joss or whatever just aren't feminists. This really bothers me, because whether you agree with them or not, they have the right to call themselves feminists. It's like the anti-porn people saying the pro-porn people (or the at least not anti-porn, if not pro-porn) aren't feminists just because they don't hate on porn. Or like saying women who choose to stay at home to take care of the house/the family/themselves, whatever, aren't feminists just because they choose to stay at home. Feminism is broad, and covers a lot of ideas which don't agree. That doesn't mean you or I have the right to say anyone isn't a feminist.

Third, I can't wait for Wiscon.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

many people seemed shocked by the idea of people saying heterosexual sex = rape and there is no ability for a woman to consent in a patriarchal society.

I wasn't surprised by the people disagreeing, but I was surprised by the number of people who were encountering this idea for the first time and/or thinking it was the original poster's personal creation.

And feminists (including me) are always at their worst when they're trying to be exclusive, like you have to get points on a badge before you can join the feminism club. Next thing we'll all be talking about "gold star lesbians" again.

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

I wasn't surprised by the people disagreeing, but I was surprised by the number of people who were encountering this idea for the first time and/or thinking it was the original poster's personal creation.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant, if I wasn't clear on that in the post itself. I'm not surprised by disagreement (I mean, I disagree, so I can't really be shocked) but so many people seemed to think it was something new. I can't decide if this is a good thing or not. I mean, since I don't agree with it, I could think it's a good thing because it's falling out of favor -- except I'm not sure it is, just maybe in favor in different circles. Also, I'm not sure it's a good thing to not know the history of arguments with which you don't agree.

And feminists (including me) are always at their worst when they're trying to be exclusive, like you have to get points on a badge before you can join the feminism club. Next thing we'll all be talking about "gold star lesbians" again.

Yeah. It's such a difficult thing to watch, too. I know I'll knee-jerk react to something and want to be exclusive. It's so frustrating, just the whole mess.

[missambs.livejournal.com]

First is that across the board, many people seemed shocked by the idea of people saying heterosexual sex = rape and there is no ability for a woman to consent in a patriarchal society. I was surprised that people hadn't heard about this line of thought.

Hee. I hadn't, as I haven't been exposed to much in the way of radical feminism. But I could totally jive with it. Reading up on it, I understand totally what Andrea Dworkin was trying to say and I think it's a lot different than what a few people (namely, the anti-Firefly/Joss girl) was saying.

From wiki: Such descriptions are often cited by Dworkin's critics, interpreting (sometimes even falsely quoting) the book as claiming that "All heterosexual intercourse is rape," or more generally that the anatomical machinations of sexual intercourse make it intrinsically harmful to women's equality. Dworkin rejected that interpretation of her argument,[41] stating in a later interview[42]that "I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality," and suggesting that the misunderstanding came about because of the very sexual ideology she was criticizing: "Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I do not think they need it."

Which, maybe I'm wrong? But seems to be Dworkin herself is rejecting the POV that is depicted in the Firefly essay.

part 1 historical contexts

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I was a major radical feminist back in my first days of feminism, including buying/reading Dworkin and others of that generation of feminist writers. I still own all the books, adn later went on to do feminist scholarship in academia.

I wasn't surprised that many people had not heard this argument (heterosexual sex=rape) before (though it was a major component of the 1980s 'feminist sex wars') because I've noted how little attention is paid to past feminist publications or feminist history by feminists today, let alone people who don't define as feminists (the majority).

Arguments always get over-simplified in summaries (and a lot of people summarizing Dworkin and MacKinnon ignore lots of their arguments), but something else that gets lost is historical context.

The seventies feminists (roughly speaking) grew up in the United States during the 1950s-1960s; remember the huge push to get women out of war jobs in the aftermath of WWII, the absolute fetishization of white middle class women in the home (completely ignoring the historical fact that working class women of all ethnic group and most ethnic minority women worked 'outside the home' always) as shown in the television of the 1950s (meaning the media fetishized a fantasy, not that's how people lived back then!), the gender segregated work situation, and a whole host of other social constructs that pretty much tried to limit women to marriage: I was born in 1955 btw and grew up in rural Idaho. I read one essay about how one explanation for a lot of the second wave feminist rhetoric is you had a lot of women who benefitted from getting to college in ways their mothers hadn't, and then were shocked when they got out of nifty colleges and were told they had to be "secretaries" because that's the type of job allowed for white m-c women (I don't know how true that is, but it certainly was true for many of us.)

The feminist argument from Dworkin and others that resonated with me was just that element of social coercion: if a woman had no other ways of supporting herself other than marrying a man (and let's not forget that it took major change for women to be able to have their own bank accounts and credit cards, even if they could get any sort of a job), then "consent" does become problematic, as does "marriage."

If women have the legal status of children, which in many ways they did right up into my lifetime (quotas for getting into college, not called to serve on juries, etc., systems built in to operate even after women got the vote which, let's not forget, took about 80 years to achieve), then "consent" is problematic.

I'm not saying that the period during the 1950s-1970s was as oppressive as earlier historical periods, but people born after the 1970s are not going to understand the limits on women--despite the relative privilege of skin color and class many white women had, there were major limits on agency and choice for women--in all classes and ethnic groups.

Part 2 historical contexts

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Sexual harassment was "life" (as Gloria Steinem said); the first time a male faculty member made a pass at me was when I was 14 at a party in my father's house (and my father was a Dean), and everybody laughed at how cute it was, and my brother (2 years younger) was told to protect me. My mother has said how the women (secretaries, and wives of graduate students, no women faculty or graduate students) banded together to warn each other about the men who preyed on women because there were no policies against men demanding sex of women who were all, by definition, in subordinate positions.

The flaws in some of the radical feminist's arguments include the fact that nobody, especially in the U.S., wants to be told they are not totally capable of making their own decisions, by golly! OTOH, internalized sexiam and racism do exist, and are hard to work through.

And the fact that one of my classmates refused to attend our 20th high school reunion because she knew she'd be the only one not married (it wasn't true btw) is just one little point about how much marriage was shoved down women's throats (oddly enough, although men had to marry as well, my brother's experience and that of men I know, was totally different: they could spend all their time runnig around yelling about being trapped by evol women) as the ONLY destiny for a woman. If education was denied one (and the quotes on admission of women to universities were real in the 1970s, as well as being racist since minority women weren't even considered at white institutions), and jobs were pretty crappy (and one was expected to put out for the boss as well), well, then is "marriage" really that much of a choice?

I never married. But remembering the 1970s (I graduated high school in 1973), I can say that marriage as a social institution was incredibly coercive (and as soon as divorce became easier to get, look at what happened!).

So the problem is assuming that any argument is somehow universal or a-historical, and not taking context into account, but the other problem is the lack of knowledge about the past, meaning anything before one was born!

Erm, sorry! But I've been rolling my eyes a lot these days seeing all the same debates occur, and I just want to give everybody a reading list. And I really wanted to ask diss-senter if she'd read Joanna Russ on slash fic (but I figured she'd delete that post, as she was deleting others).

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Oh, and totally agree with you over the exclusive thing: I call it the purity test. In any movement or system, you have people who want to set up rigid booundaries of purity/authenticity/loyalty oaths, and exclude all others.

It's very frustrating to see that happen among feminists, but it always has been that way, even in the 19th century women's groups where white women excluded black women, all the way through to lesbian purges in the 1970s (NOW), etc.