split discussion from non-political about feminism

[Rosa Partizan]

you know when something is almost too easy of a target for jokes, but you still keep joking about it and vice versa crack up about such jokes coming from other people because this thing (and its fans) are a source of never ending hilarious joy? That's my relationship with liberal "sex-positive" feminism.

[Lily Briscoe]

I don't really get your fixation with it, honestly. I mean, yeah, the idea of 'female-friendly porn as feminist praxis' or that pole dancing is 'empowering' (and, for that matter, the whole approach to 'empowerment' as a question of individual choices/behaviors), or that Nicki Minaj's latest song is 'feminist' or whatever is pretty silly. But it's silly; that's about it. It's trendy pop culture feminism, and it's middle class politics, and it's silly. In terms of its real life consequences, though, it's pretty innocuous (which isn't something that can really be said about radical feminists, who have a history of lining up alongside conservatives and the state/police).

I guess it just seems like there are a lot more important things to get up in arms about than some idiots on Tumblr who think emulating Miley Cyrus will 'empower' women or whatever the fuck. Who really cares.

[Rosa Partizan]

Basically no, because in Germany, such opinions have a strong voice in legislation of prostitution, for example. Liberal feminism has a much stronger impact in Germany than radical feminism. It is easier in terms of "availibility" and easier to digest, because you can basically do anything and call it feminist. That's how feminist media works here, apart from one radfem magazine. So I will jump down libfem's throats all day long, because #fuckyeahmychoiceempowerment

[Lily Briscoe]

Next thing you know, women will be twerking in the streets and calling it 'feminism'. It's a sick world we live in.

[Rosa Partizan]

Next thing you know, women will be twerking in the streets and calling it 'feminism'. It's a sick world we live in.

I'm totally fine with women doing "problematic" stuff, goddamn, I do plenty of stuff for the male gaze. Who am I to be a moralist instance. But I don't call that stuu feminist and distort what feminism stands for. You know these women that jump in your face like, see me poledancing, so liberating, empowering, fuck yeah I do what I want!! Uhm okay. Who told you not to do it? :rolleyes:

[human strike]

I'm totally fine with women doing "problematic" stuff, goddamn, I do plenty of stuff for the male gaze. Who am I to be a moralist instance. But I don't call that stuu feminist and distort what feminism stands for. You know these women that jump in your face like, see me poledancing, so liberating, empowering, fuck yeah I do what I want!! Uhm okay. Who told you not to do it? :rolleyes:

To be fair, there are plenty of people telling women not to pole-dance. My sisters were told they should never dress in such a way that their shoulders are visible. Pole-dancing can definitely appear to be a rebellion.

[Rosa Partizan]

To be fair, there are plenty of people telling women not to pole-dance. My sisters were told they should never dress in such a way that their shoulders are visible. Pole-dancing can definitely appear to be a rebellion.

I like that you say "appear", cause this is exactly the right usage here. It's all about the fixation on the male gaze, right? Either being obsessed with attracting it or avoiding it. I understand pretty well how making porn can feel liberating when escaping from an ultra religious family. I used to do some male-centered stuff when I was young, too (cause I'm not young anymore, you know :crying:), just because my father chewed up my ear with talks about staying away from guys. Which of course meant that guys became the most fascinating thing to me when I was 17-18. I don't like how sometimes, especially older radfems seem to take some rather conservative stance, even allying with the church and stuff (strix already mentioned that?). This is not feminism to me. I don't wanna hear about "morals" or "decency" and all of this bullshit.

[PhoenixAsh]

You are ancient


Anyways feminism is the idea of equAlity between the sexes. And that means women can behave however they feel without them being judged on their behavior because they are women.

[Rosa Partizan]

You are ancient


Anyways feminism is the idea of equAlity between the sexes. And that means women can behave however they feel without them being judged on their behavior because they are women.

yawn. This is really boring. Typical libfem-speech. Cause I'm judging women all the time on the base of their gender and tell them how to behave. My criticism has nothing to do with societal structures and patriarchy. And I'm anti-sex, not anti-sex industry. Srsly, stfu.

[PhoenixAsh]

Actually it is the essence of feminism and has nothing to do with liberalism. And as soon as a woman is judged not on the basis of behavior itself but on the behavior of her as a woman that principle and essence is violated and we are crossing over in the realm of gender roles and genderized behavior

[Rosa Partizan]

I criticize the underlying norms, structures and expectations within patriarchy that make women do stuff for the male gaze and objectify and sexualize them. And you know that, so stop acting stupid on purpose, you're more clever than that.

[PhoenixAsh]

But you are not doing that. Your criticism doesn't focus on the structures but on the behavior of the women. The right criticism is: a woman should be able to tweak and pole dance and still not be reduced to meat.

Feminism is not about avoiding or not avoiding men's gazes but about NOT being judged on the basis of your sex.

[Rosa Partizan]

But you are not doing that. Your criticism doesn't focus on the structures but on the behavior of the women. The right criticism is: a woman should be able to tweak and pole dance and still not be reduced to meat.

Feminism is not about avoiding or not avoiding men's gazes but about NOT being judged on the basis of your sex.

Then ask yourself: Why is she doing that? Why is she buying into the lie of "empowerment" and "choice" when these choices are fitting into male satisfaction and desire? All of this is part of a system and I assure you, without males on this planet, women would stop doing 839283 different things, including twerking, pole dancing and porn. This stuff was INVENTED to reduce women to meat, goddamn. This is also valid for my own life and behavior, I'm not excluding myself from that and claiming that my own choices are free from patriarchal viewpoints or whatsoever. And when women do this, I don't blame THEM, I blame these fucked up structures that make you think that male approval and male satisfaction is the most important thing to make you valueable and powerful as a person.

[Rosa Partizan]

have fun reading this, and don't you annoy the fuck out of me anymore when all you got to offer is libfem bullshit.

http://feministcurrent.com/1898/the-trouble-with-choosing-your-choice/

[PhoenixAsh]

You are pretending this is about individual choice...it is not. It is the idea of not being judged on behavior because you are a woman. And that is what both you and Meghan are conveniently ignoring. You are not addressing the structures but the behavior of women because they are women. And posting that article is deflecting that issue.

[Illegalitarian]

Then ask yourself: Why is she doing that? Why is she buying into the lie of "empowerment" and "choice" when these choices are fitting into male satisfaction and desire? All of this is part of a system and I assure you, without males on this planet, women would stop doing 839283 different things, including twerking, pole dancing and porn. This stuff was INVENTED to reduce women to meat, goddamn. This is also valid for my own life and behavior, I'm not excluding myself from that and claiming that my own choices are free from patriarchal viewpoints or whatsoever. And when women do this, I don't blame THEM, I blame these fucked up structures that make you think that male approval and male satisfaction is the most important thing to make you valueable and powerful as a person.

You're missing the point: You're talking about focusing on the structural issues while simultaneously doing the opposite and saying what is and is not ok for women to do. That is second-wave paternalistic nonsense, and PA is right: a woman should be able to do anything she wants, whether that be make a porn or do a weird dance to try and attract a man, without being degraded. If you think that trying to attract a man or doing porn or whatever is inherently degrading, that's your personal opinion, but don't try and push it off as the "real feminism" opposed to the "liberal" feminism, because it's your second-wave tendencies that are touted by the liberals, not ours.

[Rosa Partizan]

You are pretending this is about individual choice...it is not. It is the idea of not being judged on behavior because you are a woman. And that is what both you and Meghan are conveniently ignoring. You are not addressing the structures but the behavior of women because they are women. And posting that article is deflecting that issue.


You're missing the point: You're talking about focusing on the structural issues while simultaneously doing the opposite and saying what is and is not ok for women to do. That is second-wave paternalistic nonsense, and PA is right: a woman should be able to do anything she wants, whether that be make a porn or do a weird dance to try and attract a man, without being degraded. If you think that trying to attract a man or doing porn or whatever is inherently degrading, that's your personal opinion, but don't try and push it off as the "real feminism" opposed to the "liberal" feminism, because it's your second-wave tendencies that are touted by the liberals, not ours.

I am NOT judging the women. I am not saying they are bad, stupid, degrading themselves or whatsoever. They are following structures they grew up with. We all know that many female decisions would look differently in a non-patriarchal context. This does NOT mean that females have to change anything they currently do. It means that I'm annoyed by women poledancing while jumping in my face like "this is a feminist act, sooo empowering!" when it's not. Do whatever you wanna do, but you can't label anything feminist, goddamn. You don't even need to. Nobody's a bad feminist because they do stuff deeply engrained in patriarchy. Should I label me putting on eyeliner a feminist act? Or me shaving my legs? I wouldn't do this if it somehow wasn't supposed to enhance my "beauty". Would I wear high heels? Would I do anything else that I find time-consuming, uncomfortable etc? Probably not. So why are some women developing the desire to legitimize everything they do by calling it feminist when nobody's even asking them to do so? Would I ever ask a female stripper or pole dancer to justify? No, why the fuck should I care? But if she calls this feminist empowerment, I'm gonna call her out for that bullshit, goddamn. Doesn't change anything about the fact that females do a lot to please men, this is purely naming things how they are, from a descriptive point of view. I think it's almost impossible to live in this society without caring about patriarchal standards.

[Sinister Intents]

What exactly is sex negative abd sex positive?

[Quail]

I don't think that playing into patriarchal gender roles for personal gain furthers the goals of feminism, but it can be one way to survive in a patriarchal capitalist society. The point is though, that while acting in porn isn't furthering the cause of women's liberation in our current society, that in itself doesn't mean that it is an inherently bad thing, rather it is tainted by the social conditions of capitalism and patriarchy. In a free society I think porn would probably look quite different; the actors wouldn't be working in questionable conditions (i.e., they would be doing it because they wanted to rather than because they needed the money) and it wouldn't treat women as objects for men to consume. It is entirely possible to create an erotic and arousing film without objectifying anyone and without pressure on the actors to do things they're uncomfortable with, and I might go as far as arguing that creating that alternative to mainstream porn would be empowering for the people involved because it could be a way of promoting sexy consent and respect.

[Illegalitarian]

I am NOT judging the women. I am not saying they are bad, stupid, degrading themselves or whatsoever. They are following structures they grew up with. We all know that many female decisions would look differently in a non-patriarchal context. This does NOT mean that females have to change anything they currently do. It means that I'm annoyed by women poledancing while jumping in my face like "this is a feminist act, sooo empowering!" when it's not. Do whatever you wanna do, but you can't label anything feminist, goddamn. You don't even need to. Nobody's a bad feminist because they do stuff deeply engrained in patriarchy. Should I label me putting on eyeliner a feminist act? Or me shaving my legs? I wouldn't do this if it somehow wasn't supposed to enhance my "beauty". Would I wear high heels? Would I do anything else that I find time-consuming, uncomfortable etc? Probably not. So why are some women developing the desire to legitimize everything they do by calling it feminist when nobody's even asking them to do so? Would I ever ask a female stripper or pole dancer to justify? No, why the fuck should I care? But if she calls this feminist empowerment, I'm gonna call her out for that bullshit, goddamn. Doesn't change anything about the fact that females do a lot to please men, this is purely naming things how they are, from a descriptive point of view. I think it's almost impossible to live in this society without caring about patriarchal standards.

That's fine, the problem is bemoaning these actions in general as actions themselves rather than their exact relation to structural sexism.



I don't think that playing into patriarchal gender roles for personal gain furthers the goals of feminism, but it can be one way to survive in a patriarchal capitalist society. The point is though, that while acting in porn isn't furthering the cause of women's liberation in our current society, that in itself doesn't mean that it is an inherently bad thing, rather it is tainted by the social conditions of capitalism and patriarchy. In a free society I think porn would probably look quite different; the actors wouldn't be working in questionable conditions (i.e., they would be doing it because they wanted to rather than because they needed the money) and it wouldn't treat women as objects for men to consume. It is entirely possible to create an erotic and arousing film without objectifying anyone and without pressure on the actors to do things they're uncomfortable with, and I might go as far as arguing that creating that alternative to mainstream porn would be empowering for the people involved because it could be a way of promoting sexy consent and respect.



That's the beauty of the internet, it's almost entirely killed the porn industry as it once was, great decentralizing it and putting it in the hands of individuals, which takes away a lot of the inherently sexist/racist etc vestiges of the industry.

Homemade porn, for example, is more popular with most people than industry produced garbage.

[consuming negativity]

That's fine, the problem is bemoaning these actions in general as actions themselves rather than their exact relation to structural sexism.



You can't separate the actions from their context. The actions are defined by their context. They are social actions. She isn't "bemoaning" the actions in and of themselves, either, but she is looking at the context surrounding them. For example, we can sit here and say "oh well don't judge women for pole dancing" but there's a reason that pole dancing classes are for women and there's a reason why shit like GGW exists and the rest. And to be clear, she said like five times that she's not judging the women (and neither am I, for the record), but that she's looking at them in context and that acting within patriarchal norms for the benefit of men is not feminist. It doesn't matter how we go about looking at it, at the end of the day, the porn industry is not pro-women, GGW and the rest are not pro-women, poledancing and the entire industry of prostitution and adult entertainment and the rest are not pro-women. They are degrading industries whose product is literally female sexuality. It is the epitome of everything that is wrong about capitalism, and just like when we talk about "suck it" as being shit like we did in that one thread, you CANNOT divorce things from their context and you can't just pretend that something is not what it is when it is clearly and obviously what it is.


That's the beauty of the internet, it's almost entirely killed the porn industry as it once was, great decentralizing it and putting it in the hands of individuals, which takes away a lot of the inherently sexist/racist etc vestiges of the industry.

Homemade porn, for example, is more popular with most people than industry produced garbage.no it didn't lol

they have annual awards and shit in las vegas

[PhoenixAsh]

IF you have read that article with the attention it should deserve you can see that the entire core of the article is judging womens behaviour because they are women. NOT because, as the article pretends it does by attacking the social structures. What it actually does is attack the choices women make within these structures and evaluating their behaviour as women in the categories: stupid and smart and good and bad way to act...for women. It even drags privilege theory into the debate and faulting white women to actually diminish the position of non white women when they make choices available to them.

And it is doing so by confusing two things: Feminism and feminist activism.

And apparently women can't behave how they want unless we completely deconstructed patriarchy because when they do they are simply duped, stupid, mistaken or disempowering other women...

[Illegalitarian]

You can't separate the actions from their context. The actions are defined by their context. They are social actions. She isn't "bemoaning" the actions in and of themselves, either, but she is looking at the context surrounding them. For example, we can sit here and say "oh well don't judge women for pole dancing" but there's a reason that pole dancing classes are for women and there's a reason why shit like GGW exists and the rest. And to be clear, she said like five times that she's not trying to degrade the women or the actions but that she's looking at them in context and that acting within patriarchal norms for the benefit of men is not feminist. It doesn't matter how we go about looking at it, at the end of the day, the porn industry is not pro-women, GGW and the rest are not pro-women, poledancing and the entire industry of prostitution and adult entertainment and the rest are not pro-women. They are degrading industries whose product is literally female sexuality. It is the epitome of everything that is wrong about capitalism, and just like when we talk about "suck it" as being shit like we did in that one thread, you CANNOT divorce things from their context and you can't just pretend that something is not what it is when it is clearly and obviously what it is.

That's the issue, the criticisms made are not simply criticisms of the sex industry, they're criticisms of sex-positivism as understood as some sort of "pole dancing = empowerment" model of thinking which simply isn't true. If one wants to criticize the porn industry or prostitution as an institution, fine, but this is not what is being said here, there are explicit attacks being made of the idea of women engaging in non-sexist porn, of women being "sexy" outside of the context of these misogynistic institutions, attacking women for engaging in certain activities such as these on a sexually equal ground as not being "real feminists", as if trying to challenge gender norms on an alternative ground is somehow giving into the patriarchy just because it doesn't take a holistic approach to feminism. Second wave negativists are like the left-communists of old, largely irrelevant within the left due to their conservative idealism.




no it didn't lol

they have annual awards and shit in las vegas

That's true, but the industry still has no where near the power it once did, nor the relevance, thanks to the internet

[consuming negativity]

IF you have read that article with the attention it should deserve you can see that the entire core of the article is judging womens behaviour because they are women. NOT because, as the article pretends it does by attacking the social structures. What it actually does is attack the choices women make within these structures and evaluating their behaviour as women in the categories: stupid and smart and good and bad way to act...for women. It even drags privilege theory into the debate and faulting white women to actually diminish the position of non white women when they make choices available to them.

And it is doing so by confusing two things: Feminism and feminist activism.

And apparently women can't behave how they want unless we completely deconstructed patriarchy because when they do they are simply duped, stupid, mistaken or disempowering other women...

No it doesn't. It says literally nothing about judging anyone; feel free to point out where it does. It is just, like I am, tired of hearing "oh well she wants to do it" as some end-all be-all to feminist discussion as though the choices we make are not done within the context of our society and that simply "do whatever you want!" is the end-all, be-all of the feminist movement. It's attacking the liberal third wave garbage that justifies all of this bullshit that you're trying to justify. Sure, they can do what they want, and nobody of the feminist are judging them, but the rest of society is judging them, and what they're doing is not at all feminist, empowering, or anything else. It's the exact opposite. They are being turned into commodities, willing or not; it doesn't matter if a slave wants to be a slave, slavery as an institution is still wrong. Likewise, the industry surrounding all of this is still immoral. Not the women who get sucked up into it, but the overarching structure that they end up as participants in.


That's the issue, the criticisms made are not simply criticisms of the sex industry, they're criticisms of sex-positivism as understood as some sort of "pole dancing = empowerment" model of thinking which simply isn't true. If one wants to criticize the porn industry or prostitution as an institution, fine, but this is not what is being said here, there are explicit attacks being made of the idea of women engaging in non-sexist porn, of women being "sexy" outside of the context of these misogynistic institutions, attacking women for engaging in certain activities such as these on a sexually equal ground as not being "real feminists", as if trying to challenge gender norms on an alternative ground is somehow giving into the patriarchy just because it doesn't take a holistic approach to feminism. Second wave negativists are like the left-communists of old, largely irrelevant within the left due to their conservative idealism.

Because our sexual preferences are shaped by our environment as well. Everything is. We are social beings who find our identities in relation to the generalized other and the positions in society that people hold. Yes, even the way we fuck has been completely warped by the capitalist mode of production and the dehumanization of women. So just doing what you want to do within that system of patriarchy cannot be feminist. No, there's nothing wrong with doing it anyway and being a part of society, but they and you need to understand that there is more to feminism than just "oh hey look she's doing what she wants it's totally okay" as if her choice is being made completely out of context. No woman would choose to wear ridiculous high heels if it wasn't for the fact that high heels, for example, have a certain social identity in our society as being "sexy". Doing all of the ridiculous shit women are required to do in our society is not suddenly divorced from the context of it being required just because the woman wants to participate and doesn't want to be an outsider.

[Illegalitarian]

No it doesn't. It says literally nothing about judging anyone; feel free to point out where it does. It is just, like I am, tired of hearing "oh well she wants to do it" as some end-all be-all to feminist discussion as though the choices we make are not done within the context of our society and that simply "do whatever you want!" is the end-all, be-all of the feminist movement. It's attacking the liberal third wave garbage that justifies all of this bullshit that you're trying to justify. Sure, they can do what they want, and nobody of the feminist are judging them, but the rest of society is judging them, and what they're doing is not at all feminist, empowering, or anything else. It's the exact opposite. They are being turned into commodities, willing or not; it doesn't matter if a slave wants to be a slave, slavery as an institution is still wrong. Likewise, the industry surrounding all of this is still immoral. Not the women who get sucked up into it, but the overarching structure that they end up as participants in.


No one is saying these institutions are fine just because women want to participate in them, and clearly these institutions would not exist without capitalism. What's being pointed out is the feminister-than-thou paternalistic garbage of trying to paint these decisions as unempowring on an individual level. Who are we to say what is empowering and what isn't, on that most basic level? It might be fucked as an institution, but if it gives a woman who otherwise feels dispossessed a positive outlook, if it is truly what they want, it's no ones place to yell at them about what exploited sheep they are. You're dancing awfully close to "all-sex-is-rape" logic that tries to atomize every aspect of society in the context of its relation to capitalism or patriarchy, saying that all things touched by these institutions are illegitimate and thus any attempts to co-exist with them on an individual level cannot be seen as anything but degrading and harmful is reclusive nonsense that focuses on the women themselves and their actions as women, rather than the industries and institutions that make these relations as tragic as they are in the grand scheme of things.

It is inherently focusing on the women themselves and their decisions, because it's is, actually, the liberal tripe that's indefensible. It's garbage, and it has no place in a comprehensive look at gender relations within society from a revolutionary perspective.





Because our sexual preferences are shaped by our environment as well. Everything is. We are social beings who find our identities in relation to the generalized other and the positions in society that people hold. Yes, even the way we fuck has been completely warped by the capitalist mode of production and the dehumanization of women. So just doing what you want to do within that system of patriarchy cannot be feminist. No, there's nothing wrong with doing it anyway and being a part of society, but they and you need to understand that there is more to feminism than just "oh hey look she's doing what she wants it's totally okay" as if her choice is being made completely out of context. No woman would choose to wear ridiculous high heels if it wasn't for the fact that high heels, for example, have a certain social identity in our society as being "sexy". Doing all of the ridiculous shit women are required to do in our society is not suddenly divorced from the context of it being required just because the woman wants to participate and doesn't want to be an outsider.

It's the opposite, it's the negativist crowd that needs to look at the bigger picture and stop focusing specifically on the actions of women and the choices they decide to make inside a system that is of course shaped by the capitalist mode of production. All of our relations, as men, as women, as human beings, are inherently tainted by the existence of a capitalist base, so why do these people focus specifically on sex, then? Why focus specifically on these industries, since there are many more industries far more harmful to women? I'll tell you why: Because this criticism specifically stems from second wave, social Luddites who would have us all lock ourselves in doors and hide from the world, rather than understanding it from both an individual and collective perspective, and applying those perspectives on both of those levels so as to not reach asinine conclusions such as the ones ITT so far.

[consuming negativity]

No one is saying these institutions are fine just because women want to participate in them, and clearly these institutions would not exist without capitalism. What's being pointed out is the feminister-than-thou paternalistic garbage of trying to paint these decisions as unempowring on an individual level. Who are we to say what is empowering and what isn't, on that most basic level? It might be fucked as an institution, but if it gives a woman who otherwise feels dispossessed a positive outlook, if it is truly what they want, it's no ones place to yell at them about what exploited sheep they are. You're dancing awfully close to "all-sex-is-rape" logic that tries to atomize every aspect of society in the context of its relation to capitalism or patriarchy, saying that all things touched by these institutions are illegitimate and thus any attempts to co-exist with them on an individual level cannot be seen as anything but degrading and harmful is reclusive nonsense that focuses on the women themselves and their actions as women, rather than the industries and institutions that make these relations as tragic as they are in the grand scheme of things.

It is inherently focusing on the women themselves and their decisions, because it's is, actually, the liberal tripe that's indefensible. It's garbage, and it has no place in a comprehensive look at gender relations within society from a revolutionary perspective.

It is not at all focusing on the women: you're the one focusing on the individual women. They're making a generalized argument at an industry and section of society which has co-opted the word feminism to mean the exact opposite of feminism. Nobody is yelling at anyone or calling them names. Like literally how many times and how many people have to say this before you understand that this isn't about shaming women? It's just about looking at actions in context. It doesn't make someone less of a feminist if she participates in these structures. It doesn't make her less of a person, either. But we can look at these actions and make a judgement that they are not feminist actions but rather they are actions in support of the system of patriarchy. It's like with capitalism - you can't NOT participate in capitalism to some degree without removing yourself from society. So why would we treat the victims of the sex industry any different than we treat the victims of capitalism that created the industry in the first place? It wouldn't make sense to do that and we aren't doing that. We just don't want to pretend that poledancing and pornography is the path to women's equality.


It's the opposite, it's the negativist crowd that needs to look at the bigger picture and stop focusing specifically on the actions of women and the choices they decide to make inside a system that is of course shaped by the capitalist mode of production. All of our relations, as men, as women, as human beings, are inherently tainted by the existence of a capitalist base, so why do these people focus specifically on sex, then? Why focus specifically on these industries, since there are many more industries far more harmful to women? I'll tell you why: Because this criticism specifically stems from second wave, social Luddites who would have us all lock ourselves in doors and hide from the world, rather than understanding it from both an individual and collective perspective, and applying those perspectives on both of those levels so as to not reach asinine conclusions such as the ones ITT so far.That's just ridiculous. You know I'm not like that so you should reconsider your caricature.

[Illegalitarian]

It is not at all focusing on the women: you're the one focusing on the individual women. They're making a generalized argument at an industry and section of society which has co-opted the word feminism to mean the exact opposite of feminism. Nobody is yelling at anyone or calling them names. Like literally how many times and how many people have to say this before you understand that this isn't about shaming women? It's just about looking at actions in context. It doesn't make someone less of a feminist if she participates in these structures. It doesn't make her less of a person, either. But we can look at these actions and make a judgement that they are not feminist actions but rather they are actions in support of the system of patriarchy. It's like with capitalism - you can't NOT participate in capitalism to some degree without removing yourself from society. So why would we treat the victims of the sex industry any different than we treat the victims of capitalism that created the industry in the first place? It wouldn't make sense to do that and we aren't doing that. We just don't want to pretend that poledancing and pornography is the path to women's equality.

Yes.. looking at the actions of women, painting them a picture of what is and is not "empowering" on an individual level focusing specifically on them, giving it a new context all of its own, a new context where the actions of people are viewed only in their relation to the base and forgetting about the individual themselves.

The problem here is no one is making the argument that pole dancing and porn is somehow feminists, we're simply saying that these actions are largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of smashing capitalism and patriarchy, and that bemoaning these actions as acts of self-degradation and trying to make women feel bad about their participation in these industries - which is inherently what is being done here - is nonsense.

I'm glad you mentioned that thing about capitalism being a global economic system that we cannot opt out of without withdrawing from society entirely, because imagine if this logic was applied here. Imagine i someone were trying to make people feel bad about being anything but a starving prole, saying that buying things, paying taxes, etc was simply perpetuating capitalism and that buying things should be shunned, that participating in the capitalist market economy at all should be shunned and that we should not be advocating that people try and do well for themselves on an individual level are not communists, that they're not really helping themselves because the only way to truly help oneself is to dedicate ones life to starting a marxist community organizing program, building a working class movement of some kind, spreading the idea of communism etc.

We would laugh at that person and say that they're privileged nobs criticizing the actions of others from a very liberal place. This is no difference.


That's just ridiculous. You know I'm not like that so you should reconsider your caricature.

I know *you're* not like that.. but for the sex-negative types I can't say the same.

[Lily Briscoe]

Once 'communer' starts participating in a thread a lot, I pretty much stop reading.

Sorry to be an asshole, but it's true.

[consuming negativity]

Yes.. looking at the actions of women, painting them a picture of what is and is not "empowering" on an individual level focusing specifically on them, giving it a new context all of its own, a new context where the actions of people are viewed only in their relation to the base and forgetting about the individual themselves.

The problem here is no one is making the argument that pole dancing and porn is somehow feminists, we're simply saying that these actions are largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of smashing capitalism and patriarchy, and that bemoaning these actions as acts of self-degradation and trying to make women feel bad about their participation in these industries - which is inherently what is being done here - is nonsense.

I'm glad you mentioned that thing about capitalism being a global economic system that we cannot opt out of without withdrawing from society entirely, because imagine if this logic was applied here. Imagine i someone were trying to make people feel bad about being anything but a starving prole, saying that buying things, paying taxes, etc was simply perpetuating capitalism and that buying things should be shunned, that participating in the capitalist market economy at all should be shunned and that we should not be advocating that people try and do well for themselves on an individual level are not communists, that they're not really helping themselves because the only way to truly help oneself is to dedicate ones life to starting a marxist community organizing program, building a working class movement of some kind, spreading the idea of communism etc.

We would laugh at that person and say that they're privileged nobs criticizing the actions of others from a very liberal place. This is no difference.

I know *you're* not like that.. but for the sex-negative types I can't say the same.

I'm pretty okay with being described as "sex-negative". I mean, I love having sex and I still watch porn when I want to, but at the end of the day I just don't want to make excuses for it or pretend that what I'm watching isn't disgusting or that the behaviors I participate in are not directly influenced by the society in which I live. It's really not about being "prude" or anti-sex or shaming people for their actions. Nobody wants anybody to feel bad for being a human in our society. I don't feel bad about what I do to participate in it - but I wish that I didn't have to participate in it, or perhaps that I was a different person who did not desire to participate in it. It's just about recognizing what we do and putting it into context, and not deluding ourselves otherwise. It sounds to me like you're just making excuses for it or trying to pretend it doesn't matter so you don't have to think about it so much. But it does matter, and it is important.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that women are the real proletarians in our society. Without women's unpaid housework and second-class status, European men would not have been able to do the things they did. It's a system of expropriated labor - the same type that we see all over the world. That's capitalism. The struggle of women's equality is quintessential to the struggle for worker's equality. They are the service workers. They are the prostitutes. They are the housewives. They get paid minimum wage; less for their work, when they do more of it. It's fucking awful, man.

But to get back on topic, and I can't back this up with my own experience mind you, but I bet a lot of the women who actually do porn and who are prostitutes would probably be in agreement with me here. Even if they don't have the academic ability to write it out or say it in the words I use. It is not at all uncommon for women to speak out about their experiences, if they have the strength and ability to do so, and come out against the industry and to tell about how awful it was to them and how they were treated. They know. They live it; it's their lives. For us, it is an academic exercise, or something to think about.

i'm not sure where i'm going with this but i've made myself sad rofl

[Rosa Partizan]

stop saying sex-negative, goddamn. This suggests that radfems are anti-sex when they're actually sex industry-negative. You are welcome to tell me about the plenty of industries that are more dangerous to women. Are there more so heavily gendered industries that involve trafficking, STDs, traumata etc on such a high structural level? Are there so many other industries where you couldn't exchange the woman with a man? Why are you derailing this discussion with stuff like "all sex is rape" and "would have us all lock ourselves" when no one ever said that? You're giving in to all of this pseudo liberating bullshit that would try to shut down discussions about women's objectification.

you're welcome to continue this discussion with communer, he posted some awesome stuff. This discussion was dishonestly led by Phoenix right from the start. You may fool the others here, you're not fooling me, but nice try anyway to put things in my mouth I never said or even slightly hinted at. Not gonna write for the 7th time that I don't blame any woman on an individual level and that I'm not exception to patriarchal mechanisms. Your intellectual dishonesty is amazing, Phoenix, I've seen that before and I should've been warned when you entered this discussion. I know you're typing one of your super long twisted posts without actually being able to express only one honest argument against my structural point of view.

[Illegalitarian]

Well they certainly have a funny way of showing that they're not anti-sex, like, you know, not focusing on the sex industry at all to focus specifically on the women who choose to engage in these activities because they feel it liberates them, or fuck, simply because they want to.

Sex-based industries might be gender specific, but they're not the most harmful industries to women. Women make up a very large portion of work-related deaths around the world, capitalism in general hurts women far more, due to its very nature and due to gender specifics, than the sex industry does on its own.


Women are objectified and we definitely need to talk about that, I agree.. so when will radfems shut up about the act of women engaging in these activities and start actually focusing on structural programs?

[PhoenixAsh]

No it doesn't. It says literally nothing about judging anyone; feel free to point out where it does.

Yes, it actually does. Now I could quote the entire article but it helps if you just read it carefully.

The entire line of discourse is summed up in the start of the article and its end:

And, as though ‘HER CHOICE’ can somehow negate any justifiable criticism or questioning of said choice or the context within which said choice was made.

The entire rest of the article is basically stating women who make a choice are duped in believing they have a choice and evaluating the behavior some women consciously choose as being the wrong choice and not actually a conscious decision.

It ends by saying this exactly:

I would argue that, rather, this ‘choice’ framework placed around anything and everything simply normalizes sexism, erases feminism and works to remove the still dire need for radical activism. So I choose my choice. But will choose it consciously. And with my pants on.

That is litterally a moral judgement on behaviour.

It also shows nicely what I said about the confusion of feminism and feminist activism....where the obligation to conform to certain subjective behavioral standards is pushed on women as a group.



It is just, like I am, tired of hearing "oh well she wants to do it" as some end-all be-all to feminist discussion as though the choices we make are not done within the context of our society and that simply "do whatever you want!" is the end-all, be-all of the feminist movement.


Well yes. It is her choice and by making that choice consciously and in opposition of regulating womens behavioural gender roles (whether it is or isn't) makes it feminist. And THAT ends the discussion on the behaviour of that woman. The fact that it ends the feminist debate in the opinion of some feminists shows exactly that they are focussing on the behaviour of women and not the system. Where feminism begins and ends is with the sexes being equal and women being able to behave without being chastized for their behaviour because they are women.

Where the focus of the discourse should be is directing the ire to society where certain behaviour patterns for women are exploited and those who profit from the continued exploitation.


It's attacking the liberal third wave garbage that justifies all of this bullshit that you're trying to justify. Sure, they can do what they want, and nobody of the feminist are judging them,

Except those who actually do while pretending they don't.



but the rest of society is judging them, and what they're doing is not at all feminist, empowering, or anything else.

^ and that is judging them on their behaviour because they are women. It is also prescribing wanted behaviour to them.


It's the exact opposite. They are being turned into commodities, willing or not; it doesn't matter if a slave wants to be a slave, slavery as an institution is still wrong. Likewise, the industry surrounding all of this is still immoral. Not the women who get sucked up into it, but the overarching structure that they end up as participants in.

Right. Because the author's feminism is totally not being exploited by the ow so non profit organizations and bullwarks for radical feminism such as Al JAzeera and BBC.

And that makes your type of feminism so disengenous. Whatever women do, however they do it...they are doing it in the confines of patriarchy and capitalism. Everything women will do...will be judged based on the fact that they are women.

And your kind of feminism...does exactly the same thing. You can't be sexy, you can't be a porn star, you can't twerk. If you do...well you are objectifying yourself and that is bad behaviour.


Because our sexual preferences are shaped by our environment as well. Everything is. We are social beings who find our identities in relation to the generalized other and the positions in society that people hold. Yes, even the way we fuck has been completely warped by the capitalist mode of production and the dehumanization of women. So just doing what you want to do within that system of patriarchy cannot be feminist. No, there's nothing wrong with doing it anyway and being a part of society, but they and you need to understand that there is more to feminism than just "oh hey look she's doing what she wants it's totally okay" as if her choice is being made completely out of context. No woman would choose to wear ridiculous high heels if it wasn't for the fact that high heels, for example, have a certain social identity in our society as being "sexy". Doing all of the ridiculous shit women are required to do in our society is not suddenly divorced from the context of it being required just because the woman wants to participate and doesn't want to be an outsider.

And this isn't moralizing. This is the exact same shit as saying that a woman who decides to stay at home and take care of the kids is perpetuating patriarchy. The incessant moralization of telling and prophesizing what women want and should want is exactly the reason why this kind of feminism is anti-feminist to the core.

[Rosa Partizan]

yeah I mean, you can totally separate sex industry and capitalism, makes perfect sense. Those two are deeply entangled, so what are you even talking about? Tell me about other industries where so much money is made off of women (on a gendered base) with so much harm on their bodies and psyche, with all this degradation and dehumanization. You know how many billions they make only in Germany with porn and prostitution? Human trafficking and prostitution have become inseparable here because the demand rises each day, the prices become lower and the women have to allow more to be able to compete. but yeah, capitalism and sex industry can be viewed separately. Totally.

[Rosa Partizan]

Well yes. It is her choice and by making that choice consciously and in opposition of regulating womens behavioural gender roles (whether it is or isn't) makes it feminist.

and you say you're not a libfem. This is incredibly ridiculous. Everything a woman does can be feminist, yeah, heard that like a 10000 times...from libfems.

[Illegalitarian]

You're the one saying they are by specifically criticizing one while ignoring the other, as if women are not terribly exploited and oppressed by capitalism in general, as if a specific industry should be focused on just because it happens to specifically deal with sex, as if these industries are the only ones capable of exploitation against women just because they are gender-based.


and you say you're not a libfem. This is incredibly ridiculous. Everything a woman does can be feminist, yeah, heard that like a 10000 times...from libfems.

A woman making a choice for herself in opposition to antiquated gender roles isn't empowering on an individual level because radfems say so.

This is why there are no more radfems

[consuming negativity]

LOL REVLEFT WHY IS YOUR QUOTE BUTTON NOT WORKING!??!?!?!

This reply is entirely to PA's post. Just to save you the time, Illegalitarian.


It ends by saying this exactly:

I would argue that, rather, this ‘choice’ framework placed around anything and everything simply normalizes sexism, erases feminism and works to remove the still dire need for radical activism. So I choose my choice. But will choose it consciously. And with my pants on.

That is litterally a moral judgement on behaviour.

I can see where you're coming from with this, but I don't think it's like that. I can't articulate why, and a Quail post (even in disagreement) would be lovely right about now, but I guess I interpret this as her saying she wants people to be aware of what their actions are. It's dubious, I agree, but even if you're right about it being judgemental I don't think it discredits the rest of the article. Not least because I genuinely don't judge the women here. You might not believe that but it is the honest truth.


Well yes. It is her choice and by making that choice consciously and in opposition of regulating womens behavioural gender roles (whether it is or isn't) makes it feminist. And THAT ends the discussion on the behaviour of that woman. The fact that it ends the feminist debate in the opinion of some feminists shows exactly that they are focussing on the behaviour of women and not the system. Where feminism begins and ends is with the sexes being equal and women being able to behave without being chastized for their behaviour because they are women.


Right. Because the author's feminism is totally not being exploited by the ow so non profit organizations and bullwarks for radical feminism such as Al JAzeera and BBC.

And that makes your type of feminism so disengenous. Whatever women do, however they do it...they are doing it in the confines of patriarchy and capitalism. Everything women will do...will be judged based on the fact that they are women.

And your kind of feminism...does exactly the same thing. You can't be sexy, you can't be a porn star, you can't twerk. If you do...well you are objectifying yourself and that is bad behaviour.

No no no. It is quite the opposite. You are saying that she cannot make any choices that can be criticized because she is a woman. I am not being disengenuous; I think every choice that everyone makes is being done within the context of capitalism and patriarchy. Because IT IS! It doesn't matter about genitalia or gender preferences or sexual preferences or the rest. We cannot escape society.


And this isn't moralizing. This is the exact same shit as saying that a woman who decides to stay at home and take care of the kids is perpetuating patriarchy. The incessant moralization of telling and prophesizing what women want and should want is exactly the reason why this kind of feminism is anti-feminist to the core.

No man, I have a friend who is a Christian housewife because she wants to be and that's just what she wants. She's also a feminist. Kind of a bad one at times, in my opinion, but she's intelligent and I like her a lot. But just because she made the choice consciously doesn't mean that what she wanted was not at least partially influenced by gender roles in society. I don't judge her for that. She could do what she wanted and she chose to be a housewife. That's fine! Really! She can choose what she wants! She could go be a prostitute tomorrow and if that's what she thought was best for her, who am I to say anything to her about it? But I'm not going to pretend as though her actions take place outside of society. That's just ridiculous.

[Illegalitarian]

You know you're at an impasse when people start fallaciously throwing around the word liberal. I think it's time to surrender this thread back to its original purpose :v

[PhoenixAsh]

You're welcome to continue this discussion with communer, he posted some awesome stuff. This discussion was dishonestly led by Phoenix right from the start. You may fool the others here, you're not fooling me, but nice try anyway to put things in my mouth I never said or even slightly hinted at. Not gonna write for the 7th time that I don't blame any woman on an individual level and that I'm not exception to patriarchal mechanisms. Your intellectual dishonesty is amazing, Phoenix, I've seen that before and I should've been warned when you entered this discussion. I know you're typing one of your super long twisted posts without actually being able to express only one honest argument against my structural point of view.

Right. Thats it.

For all your protestations...the actual first time you mention power structures is in your reply to my post. Before that you commented solely and purely on womens behaviour. Now I will quote these posts below.

But I have kind of had it with you. The 5 whatsapp messages immediately after my post with little else than abuse directed at me because you didn't like my post...and now this shit. I remained calm. Chose to ignore that shit...but this crosses a line.

The irony is that I wasn't really addressing you specifically. But here we are. You dealt the cards. I played with them.

So no. I have had it with you and I don't accept, nor deserve this kind of shit from you.

The selfrighteous position you hold that you were actually critizising power structures doesn't actually hold water at all.

So here are your posts for your convenience:


you know when something is almost too easy of a target for jokes, but you still keep joking about it and vice versa crack up about such jokes coming from other people because this thing (and its fans) are a source of never ending hilarious joy? That's my relationship with liberal "sex-positive" feminism.


Basically no, because in Germany, such opinions have a strong voice in legislation of prostitution, for example. Liberal feminism has a much stronger impact in Germany than radical feminism. It is easier in terms of "availibility" and easier to digest, because you can basically do anything and call it feminist. That's how feminist media works here, apart from one radfem magazine. So I will jump down libfem's throats all day long, because #fuckyeahmychoiceempowerment


I'm totally fine with women doing "problematic" stuff, goddamn, I do plenty of stuff for the male gaze. Who am I to be a moralist instance. But I don't call that stuu feminist and distort what feminism stands for. You know these women that jump in your face like, see me poledancing, so liberating, empowering, fuck yeah I do what I want!! Uhm okay. Who told you not to do it? :rolleyes:


I like that you say "appear", cause this is exactly the right usage here. It's all about the fixation on the male gaze, right? Either being obsessed with attracting it or avoiding it. I understand pretty well how making porn can feel liberating when escaping from an ultra religious family. I used to do some male-centered stuff when I was young, too (cause I'm not young anymore, you know :crying:), just because my father chewed up my ear with talks about staying away from guys. Which of course meant that guys became the most fascinating thing to me when I was 17-18. I don't like how sometimes, especially older radfems seem to take some rather conservative stance, even allying with the church and stuff (strix already mentioned that?). This is not feminism to me. I don't wanna hear about "morals" or "decency" and all of this bullshit.

Now where in these posts do you mention the underlying power structures?

You say you don't fault women women for making choices and then continue making judgmental observations about these choices and about behaviour judging it on a subjective scale of what is and what isn't feminism.

You are here quite litterally saying that these women ware only interested in the male gaze....and directly implying that that makes them non-feminist.

And you continue that line of approach even when after my posts indicating that untill then you weren't actually questioning underlying structures.

Now...this discussion could have taken a whole different turn. YOU however chose to aggravate this by using external communication sources away from the forum. I know this plays nice into your narrative of how I twisted your words and kind of portrays you as the victim here...except...I didn't twist your words and you are not some kind of victim.

All I was doing was pointing out you weren't actually addressing the power sturctures at all but were addressing the behaviour of the women. And YOU chose to shout abuse at me and spin this out of control.

[PhoenixAsh]

LOL REVLEFT WHY IS YOUR QUOTE BUTTON NOT WORKING!??!?!?!

This reply is entirely to PA's post. Just to save you the time, Illegalitarian.

I can see where you're coming from with this, but I don't think it's like that. I can't articulate why, and a Quail post (even in disagreement) would be lovely right about now, but I guess I interpret this as her saying she wants people to be aware of what their actions are. It's dubious, I agree, but even if you're right about it being judgemental I don't think it discredits the rest of the article. Not least because I genuinely don't judge the women here. You might not believe that but it is the honest truth.

I am not saying the article isn't right on a general level or at least not at the level of the analysis of society. I am saying it is wrong on the level where it moralizes about womens behavior by equating feminism with feminist activism and quite implicitly talking about categorizing choices based on the ones making them being women.

I will quote some passages of a tekst the article specifically links to in faor of a selected passage. It ignores these two:


The second wave worked to pass, enforce, and restore legislation to prohibit sex discrimination on the job and in schools. They worked fiercely so that we women could have free control over our bodies and access to full reproductive care.

It is my belief in and fight for women's full participation in society, our equal access to the same rights, privileges, pay and status that men have historically enjoyed. There is much more. But anything less is just not acceptable to me.


Yet when they express this free control over their bodies and sexuality...this is then diminished by other women, feminists...stating that that wasn't actually a choice but them being duped and exploited and moralizing about their behaviour in the context of feminism.



No no no. It is quite the opposite. You are saying that she cannot make any choices that can be criticized because she is a woman. I am not being disengenuous; I think every choice that everyone makes is being done within the context of capitalism and patriarchy. Because IT IS! It doesn't matter about genitalia or gender preferences or sexual preferences or the rest. We cannot escape society.

I am actually saying that the choice should not be criticized because
she is a woman and, in extention of that line, that women should not be told what to do or how to behave because they are women.

That means that regardless of whether or not patriarchy and capitalism are the over arching power structures actual feminism begins with women acting like they want to act instead of how they should and are supposed to act. And that is quite litterally including behaving in ways which do not align themselves with some feminists standards of what feminist behaviour should be all about because that is how they want to act and not how they are taught to act.

The diminishing nature of the argument is that women deciding to work in porn or deciding to pole dance or deciding that they really want to be sexual beings wearing high heels are simply succumbing to gender socialization rather than them making the conscious choice that that is what they want to do.

So what we get is on one side patriarchy judging female behaviour and on the other some feminist currents judging female behaviour. There is no qualitative difference...both engage in gender socialization.


No man, I have a friend who is a Christian housewife because she wants to be and that's just what she wants. She's also a feminist. Kind of a bad one at times, in my opinion, but she's intelligent and I like her a lot. But just because she made the choice consciously doesn't mean that what she wanted was not at least partially influenced by gender roles in society. I don't judge her for that. She could do what she wanted and she chose to be a housewife. That's fine! Really! She can choose what she wants! She could go be a prostitute tomorrow and if that's what she thought was best for her, who am I to say anything to her about it? But I'm not going to pretend as though her actions take place outside of society. That's just ridiculous.

No actions take place outside society, but to state that the actions are a result of societal socialization unless they conform to some subjective notions of what doesn't is actually diminishing and disempowering.

[Rosa Partizan]

look, another dishonesty. look at this highly sarcastic post of mine in the beginning


yawn. This is really boring. Typical libfem-speech. Cause I'm judging women all the time on the base of their gender and tell them how to behave. My criticism has nothing to do with societal structures and patriarchy. And I'm anti-sex, not anti-sex industry. Srsly, stfu.

and later on:


They are following structures they grew up with

and later:


I criticize the underlying norms, structures and expectations within patriarchy

who are you trying to fool anyway? Jumping over the posts you didn't like because I mentioned what I wasn't supposed to, yeah, fuck you :)

[Rosa Partizan]

and directly implying that that makes them non-feminist

Goddamn! I never said you can't be a feminist, just that BEHAVIOR is not explicitely feminist.I already wrote I do a ton of stuff for the male gaze, I don't say that's feminist, but I AS A PERSON am still a feminist! These are two different things, and you know that, so when will you stop acting stupid on purpose?

[consuming negativity]

Just to be clear to all posters ITT, but directed at Rosa & Phoenix... dudes, I really don't give a shit about your dirty laundry. And I sort of feel dirty even replying to this post. Please keep it in private and just talk about the damn issue at hand here. I really, really, really don't think it's a good idea to let it all spill onto RevLeft.

No response necessary from either of you. Just my 2¢.


I am not saying the article isn't right on a general level or at least not at the level of the analysis of society. I am saying it is wrong on the level where it moralizes about womens behavior by equating feminism with feminist activism and quite implicitly talking about categorizing choices based on the ones making them being women.

I will quote some passages of a tekst the article specifically links to in faor of a selected passage. It ignores these two:


The second wave worked to pass, enforce, and restore legislation to prohibit sex discrimination on the job and in schools. They worked fiercely so that we women could have free control over our bodies and access to full reproductive care.
It is my belief in and fight for women's full participation in society, our equal access to the same rights, privileges, pay and status that men have historically enjoyed. There is much more. But anything less is just not acceptable to me.


Yet when they express this free control over their bodies and sexuality...this is then diminished by other women, feminists...stating that that wasn't actually a choice but them being duped and exploited and moralizing about their behaviour in the context of feminism.

They are not expressing free control over their bodies and sexuality. Such a thing, can it even exist in our society? It's like you guys think that feminism won. That women have free reproductive rights and everything, like in the bullet points you're quoting.

Nope.

That shit would be nice, but we're very, very far from it. Girls Gone Wild and poledancing is not freely expressing their sexuality. It IS exploitative, dehumanizing, and awful. Being a capitalist (in ideology, not in relations to means of production) doesn't make capitalism less exploitative to that person or anyone else. Them simply thinking it's all great and that feminism won and isn't necessary anymore, or that they're doing the ~feminist dream~ that everybody fought for, is just ignorant and, frankly, sort of stupid. Like, open your eyes and see what people are saying and doing and the society we live in. It's obvious to all of us that this shit is exploitative. So stop saying it isn't.


I am actually saying that the choice should not be criticized because
she is a woman and, in extention of that line, that women should not be told what to do or how to behave because they are women.

That means that regardless of whether or not patriarchy and capitalism are the over arching power structures actual feminism begins with women acting like they want to act instead of how they should and are supposed to act. And that is quite litterally including behaving in ways which do not align themselves with some feminists standards of what feminist behaviour should be all about because that is how they want to act and not how they are taught to act.

The diminishing nature of the argument is that women deciding to work in porn or deciding to pole dance or deciding that they really want to be sexual beings wearing high heels are simply succumbing to gender socialization rather than them making the conscious choice that that is what they want to do.

So what we get is on one side patriarchy judging female behaviour and on the other some feminist currents judging female behaviour. There is no qualitative difference...both engage in gender socialization.

No actions take place outside society, but to state that the actions are a result of societal socialization unless they conform to some subjective notions of what doesn't is actually diminishing and disempowering.

Nobody is trying to tell anybody what to do, though. Simply pointing out what an action actually is is not a demand or request. It's just an observation.

They are making a conscious choice... within the context of their situations and their society. It's not a completely free choice, but it's not completely forced on them either.

But none of us are judging anybody. Observation is not judgement. And, for the record, you sort of ignored the fact that I hold all persons to the same sort of standards (or lack thereof) with regard to judging them. This really has nothing to do with anything other than saying "hey, you know, this shit really isn't what you think it is...."

What's wrong with that? A woman talking to other women about feminist issues, and pointing out the overarching societal shit that's surrounding their supposed "choice"? I mean, you just quoted Rosa blah blah structure blah blah this and that, but... if you look at everything in context, we've been saying the same shit the entire time lmao. I really just... I mean, I get where you and Illegalitarian are coming from. Really, I do. But it's just wrong. You're denying the context and everything surrounding these choices. Simply making a choice is not feminist. No, telling them what to do is not feminist either, but damn, we should be allowed to have our opinions and analyses shouldn't we? How is it judgemental to recognize reality?

[PhoenixAsh]

Right....so you basically admit that you ONLY started talking about power structures AFTER my post...like I said.

Hence my post 8 and then your post 9....9 usually comes AFTER 8.

And that may have been "sarcastic"...not so much considering your whatsapp contents immediately after my post 8 and before my post 10.

So no. There is no dishonesty here...at least not from my part.

[Rosa Partizan]

...

[Rosa Partizan]

but yeah, my post wasn't sarcastic at all, I was going to say I really hate sex lulz. Stop acting stupid on purpose, really, it's becoming boring as fuck.


yawn. This is really boring. Typical libfem-speech. Cause I'm judging women all the time on the base of their gender and tell them how to behave. My criticism has nothing to do with societal structures and patriarchy. And I'm anti-sex, not anti-sex industry. Srsly, stfu.

if anyone here's not seeing the sarcasm, go and shoot yourself pls.

[PhoenixAsh]

They are not expressing free control over their bodies and sexuality. Such a thing, can it even exist in our society? It's like you guys think that feminism won. That women have free reproductive rights and everything, like in the bullet points you're quoting.


No quite obviously it didn't win....as is evident from the fact that women still can't behave how they want without patriarchs and now some feminists telling them they act in the wrong way.


Nope.

That shit would be nice, but we're very, very far from it. Girls Gone Wild and poledancing is not freely expressing their sexuality. It IS exploitative, dehumanizing, and awful. Being a capitalist (in ideology, not in relations to means of production) doesn't make capitalism less exploitative to that person or anyone else. Them simply thinking it's all great and that feminism won and isn't necessary anymore, or that they're doing the ~feminist dream~ that everybody fought for, is just ignorant and, frankly, sort of stupid. Like, open your eyes and see what people are saying and doing and the society we live in. It's obvious to all of us that this shit is exploitative. So stop saying it isn't.

Really? So now what you are basically saying is because you find pole dancing not to your liking it is therefore dehumanizing.

The fact is that just because certain acts are exploited doesn't make the act itself dehumanizing and or awful. And that is where you go wrong entirely.

And "them simply thinking that feminism won" is a subjective interjection which is never actually made or implied.


Nobody is trying to tell anybody what to do, though. Simply pointing out what an action actually is is not a demand or request. It's just an observation.

Aha. So when a man tells a girl who sleeps with a lot of guys that she is loose and engages in dehumanizing behaviour this is not at all enforcing gender based rol patterns?

Or...if I say to somebody that they behave in a dehumanizing and awful way...that is not enforcing patterns of behaviour?



They are making a conscious choice... within the context of their situations and their society. It's not a completely free choice, but it's not completely forced on them either.

But none of us are judging anybody. Observation is not judgement. And, for the record, you sort of ignored the fact that I hold all persons to the same sort of standards (or lack thereof) with regard to judging them. This really has nothing to do with anything other than saying "hey, you know, this shit really isn't what you think it is...."

That is actually quite litterally judgement. Not to mention subjective interpretation of a persons motivations.


What's wrong with that? A woman talking to other women about feminist issues, and pointing out the overarching societal shit that's surrounding their supposed "choice"? I mean, you just quoted Rosa blah blah structure blah blah this and that, but... if you look at everything in context, we've been saying the same shit the entire time lmao. I really just... I mean, I get where you and Illegalitarian are coming from. Really, I do. But it's just wrong. You're denying the context and everything surrounding these choices. Simply making a choice is not feminist. No, telling them what to do is not feminist either, but damn, we should be allowed to have our opinions and analyses shouldn't we? How is it judgemental to recognize reality?

Actually....yes...feminism is THAT simple. Making a choice and NOT be judged on that choice because of your gender/sex.

And so far all you have been doing is judging the choice based on the gender of the person making it. And that makes the position anti-feminist

Because I am NOT hearing you say this shit about these people:

https://www.google.nl/search?q=men+poledancing&espv=2&biw=1600&bih=799&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=sutOVMq-CMyVar-ygagL&ved=0CC4QsAQ

So yes. Women chosing to pole dance because they feel like it is exactly the same as men chosing to pole dance. Yet one is considered fine becausse it transgresses gender roles and the other one isn't because it supposedly confirms gender roles? Eh no. Women deciding not to pole dance because it is somehow sexualizing them as women is just the same thing...women making choices. And one isn't more feminist than the other.

Yet for the entire line of argument...we are making observations about women...BECAUSE they are women...and women are supposed to act in a certain way.

So for women to make a choice because THEY make a choice IS a feminist act. Whether that act contributes to the deconstruction of patriarchy belongs to the realm of feminist activism and is a different matter entirely.

[consuming negativity]

You're not actually addressing what I'm saying.

Your response to "but they are not actually doing what you say they are" was to agree with me and then make an ad hominem attack.

Your response to "going on GGW or learning to pole dance is a social act which is influenced by cultural patriarchy" was to say that I don't like pole dancing and so I think women who do it are bad.

Your response to "I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do" was to give me some unrelated story about some asshole who judges women based on how many people they have sex with.

Your response to "I'm not judging anyone, I just don't think that what they're doing qualifies as feminism" was to say that I'm being judgmental.

The fuck? :rolleyes:

Stop putting words in my mouth and address my actual points. Stop splitting up my posts line by line and address my main argument. I honestly thought that Rosa was being a bit overzealous when she first said you guys were arguing along the lines of liberal feminism, but you've went and proven her completely right. "So for women to make a choice because THEY make a choice IS a feminist act." What the fuck? Have you lost your mind? Do you not see how this is a complete carte blanche to consider even acts that deliberately and directly contribute to the oppression, exploitation, and/or disenfranchisement of other women as "feminist"? Calling this liberal feminism wasn't too harsh - it was too nice. This is a load of garbage and I can't believe I wasted so much time sifting through it.

[Rosa Partizan]

don't you feel guilty, communer, discussing with libfems has happened to the best of us (in this case: me :wub:) plenty of times, because we share the misbelief that every human being has something like common sense. This whole "everything is a feminist act when chosen by a female" is something that Hugh Hefner or any porn producer could say and HH already said that he considered his magazine "a female liberation". Yes, the liberation from prudery into objectification. Great deal. Also a typical libfem attack: You're hating women for doing "sexual" stuff. I can't describe with words how incredibly boring this derailing has become and after having outed Phoenix as a libfem, there's nothing more to do in this thread. Phoenix and his little lap doggy Illeblabla don't need to quote me, I will ignore their "choice - blaming females - empowering - poledancing" bullshit anyway, for the sake of my own sanity. Why bother discussing with people who haven't even remotely understood what sexual objectification and dehumanization within patriarchy mean and who don't understand the difference between descriptive observations and normative rulemaking (no one even attempted the latter, whatever, lulz, fuck this shit).

[PhoenixAsh]

You're not actually addressing what I'm saying.

Your response to "but they are not actually doing what you say they are" was to agree with me and then make an ad hominem attack.

Your response to "going on GGW or learning to pole dance is a social act which is influenced by cultural patriarchy" was to say that I don't like pole dancing and so I think women who do it are bad.

Your response to "I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do" was to give me some unrelated story about some asshole who judges women based on how many people they have sex with.

Your response to "I'm not judging anyone, I just don't think that what they're doing qualifies as feminism" was to say that I'm being judgmental.

The fuck? :rolleyes:

Stop putting words in my mouth and address my actual points. Stop splitting up my posts line by line and address my main argument. I honestly thought that Rosa was being a bit overzealous when she first said you guys were arguing along the lines of liberal feminism, but you've went and proven her completely right. "So for women to make a choice because THEY make a choice IS a feminist act." What the fuck? Have you lost your mind? Do you not see how this is a complete carte blanche to consider even acts that deliberately and directly contribute to the oppression, exploitation, and/or disenfranchisement of other women as "feminist"? Calling this liberal feminism wasn't too harsh - it was too nice. This is a load of garbage and I can't believe I wasted so much time sifting through it.

Editted because I had less time to actually finish my post than I thought I had available. Edits are made in orange.

Ok let me clarify:

* My response to you saying what they are doing by patriarchy was:

Because when we are looking at what is and isn't influenced by patriarchy it turns out that you have a singularly one sided view on the subject...one which is more akin to subjective moralizing based on sexual acts which are in turn exploited.

* My response to you saying you are not tellinganybody what to do was:

Yes you are...don't pretend you are not. And giving you examples of WHY you were doing exactly that in different situations


* My response to you claiming you weren't judging anybody was:

Yes, yes you are and what you are saying is not true...and you are quite litterally doing just that.



What I am saying is...in a nice way...that you and Rosa's argument are sexist to the core while you are pretending to not be sexist. That you enforce gender roles on women and are quite litterally judging them on their behaviour and that both of you have no fucking clue what feminism actually is because you both consistently confuse feminism with feminist activism. I was trying to be nice.


Now take your head out of your ass and smell the bullshit you both are peddling.

And the reason why I can confidently say that you both have a fuck all clue of what feminism is is because you say that...right here:

Do you not see how this is a complete carte blanche to consider even acts that deliberately and directly contribute to the oppression, exploitation, and/or disenfranchisement of other women as "feminist"?

That entire line...intended to somehow diminish me...is exactly what I am saying.

Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman running for office are feminist acts. That they do so on an anti-feminist and gender role enforcing platform does not actually diminish this fact.



That means that if a woman decides to become CEO of the largest porn corporation in the world...that is an act of feminism.


So yes. If a woman makes a conscious choice to do something which she wants to do...not because it is prescribed to her, not because society told her to do something...that is an act of feminism. And this includes pole dancing because there are huge tracts of society which doesn't want women to do that. And showing her tits on television. Or making a fucking porno because she feels like it. This includes accepting a job outside the house....or staying at home. Or going to college. Yes. That is then a feminist act.

This does not mean that every girl in porno si doing so as a feminist act and it does not mean those acts can't still be exploited in some way, directly or indirectly...but women acting against prescribed behaviour for women is always under any circumstance a feminist act...even if it then conforms with other modes of oppression or even gender oppression.


That is exactly what I am saying.

Where the problem lies is society....and in your sentence.... Nothing you actually said is directed primarilly at society. So far ALL of your arguments have grounded down to telling women how to behave and judging their behaviour. What is even more you so far have reduced and diminished women to mindlessly being unable to make choices of their own UNLESS they follow some subjective rules.

Now even when considering the constraints of patriarchal society and whether or not choices are really free that does not mean women making choices isn't feminism.

And now...listen careful to what I am saying:

Whether that act contributes to the destruction of patriarchy in your opinion is quite litterally completely and utterly irrelevant for that act being a feminist act.

Why? Because feminism is quite litterally sex and gender equality. This means women being socially, economically, culturally and legally equal and having the exact same opportunitiues as men and vice versa and this involves the abolition of the idea that women should be criticized and prescribed behaviour because they are women regardless of the economic mode of production and regardless of what others try to make of it. That is what feminism is. In fact...what OTHERS try to make of it is the field where feminists SHOULD be most active. This means that Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman should be opposed because of their ideas and platform...they should NOT be opposed because they are women or calling them out for that platform because they are women. And feminism means quite litterally having to defend those anti-feminist from anti-feminist attacks.

What you are doing is confusing this with the way to reach a gender equal society. Or what I refer to as feminist activism.

What feminism is NOT is women having to behave in certain ways because that advances feminism. Feminism is NOT women having to chose for certain roles over others. Feminism is NOT concerned with changing the mode of production. Feminism is concerned with changing the position and role of women in society, in the economy, within the legal system, within culture. All the rest is feminist activism.

Now aside from the fact that this is highly subjective of what actually does further the rights of women this is a matter of tactics. And we do not disagree on the concept of social structures needing to be dismantled for there to be actual gender equality. But this is both theory on tactics and how society functions and tactics themselves. Those are however a result of feminist activities and struggle and not the definition of feminism. This is why I am consistently criticising you, and what you fail to address...the divide between what feminism is and how we should reach a gender equal society. You are confusing the two and using them as synonimous...and they are really not.

[PhoenixAsh]

And do note that you went from wearing high heels to GGW...

[Illegalitarian]

You're not actually addressing what I'm saying.

Your response to "but they are not actually doing what you say they are" was to agree with me and then make an ad hominem attack.

Your response to "going on GGW or learning to pole dance is a social act which is influenced by cultural patriarchy" was to say that I don't like pole dancing and so I think women who do it are bad.

Your response to "I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do" was to give me some unrelated story about some asshole who judges women based on how many people they have sex with.

Your response to "I'm not judging anyone, I just don't think that what they're doing qualifies as feminism" was to say that I'm being judgmental.

The fuck? :rolleyes:

Stop putting words in my mouth and address my actual points. Stop splitting up my posts line by line and address my main argument. I honestly thought that Rosa was being a bit overzealous when she first said you guys were arguing along the lines of liberal feminism, but you've went and proven her completely right. "So for women to make a choice because THEY make a choice IS a feminist act." What the fuck? Have you lost your mind? Do you not see how this is a complete carte blanche to consider even acts that deliberately and directly contribute to the oppression, exploitation, and/or disenfranchisement of other women as "feminist"? Calling this liberal feminism wasn't too harsh - it was too nice. This is a load of garbage and I can't believe I wasted so much time sifting through it.


Say it. I want to hear you say "if a woman happens to feel empowered by making the choice to pole dance or be in porn, while the institutions themselves may be oppressive, there is nothing wrong with it in an individual level".


Do you agree with this statement? If so: good, you understand that context just doesn't apply to how people act on a societal level. Do you not?: Then you have a problem the way women are acting specifically out side of the context of any sort of institutional oppression, and that is liberal bullshit.

This is not a talking point of liberal feminism (I don't think some people ITT know what the word liberal means. It's not just a stick you can wield at people you disagree with, i promise), it is a third wave revfem position that can differentiate between women as individuals and women as they relate to the rest of society.

[PhoenixAsh]

Liberal feminism is, basically and simplistically speaking, the idea that gender inequality is rooted in social practice and legal prohibitions and that challenging primarilly the legal constraints in combination with womens choices can create a gender equal society.

Radical feminism in contrast places huge emphasizes on the social structures and dynamics and on male supremacy and domination over women.

Both are forms of feminist tactics. And that is where the problem lies. Unless you realize that Libfem and Radfem are both merely perspectives within feminism and basically theoretical and tactical means to reach the same end...you don't understand feminism.

Radical feminism criticises Liberal Feminism and vice versa...NOT because they consider the other to not be feminism...because they do...but because they consider the other not to be the correct analysis and the correct way to lead to gender equality.

Neither of these tactical arguments are made here however. The argument is not that individual women twerking will bring down patriarchy. What is however being argued here is that individual women choosing to twerk because they want to and because nobody tells a woman how she should act and behave because she is a woman...is actually a feminist act and position. And that feminism is defined by women acting how they want without these acts being judged because they are women. Somehow this simple concept seems highly problematic to accept.


Ironically...and as a hugely simplified summary (feel free to add or correct), liberal feminism is considered an extention of the first wave feminism carried over in the second. Radical feminism is second wave feminist carried over in the third. And third wave feminism rejects the term feminism or the notion of waves and focusses on broadening the scope of the term gender to include non binary genders as well as the distinction between ethnic feminist struggles. Post feminism is the rejection of idea that there is still gender inequality...and ironically that movement sprang up right about the end of what we consider second wave feminism.

Now...sex negativism is 2nd wave. Sex positivism is a reaction to sex negativism as well as patriarchal and feminist exploitation and/or regulation of womens sexuality. Sex negativism is often found in radical feminists...while a minority are sex positive. Sex negativism doesn't reject necessarilly the notion of sex...it states that sex in modern society is always an objectification of women by men.

These arguments run intersecting through each other in this thread.

[Lily Briscoe]

I'm totally fine with women doing "problematic" stuff, goddamn, I do plenty of stuff for the male gaze. Who am I to be a moralist instance. But I don't call that stuu feminist and distort what feminism stands for. You know these women that jump in your face like, see me poledancing, so liberating, empowering, fuck yeah I do what I want!! Uhm okay. Who told you not to do it? :rolleyes:
No, I don't know any women like this. I do know people who work/have worked at strip clubs and similar places, however, and far from getting in people's faces about it, they tend to only tell a very small circle of close friends about what they do for a living because of the stigma that comes with it. Which I think is a far more common phenomenon than 'women who do pole-dancing getting in everyone's faces about it'.

Political empowerment through individual choice is pretty much liberal politics, and I think it's completely legitimate to take issue with that. But I'm not sure that's what you're actually doing. I mean, I'm sure subjectively people can find all sorts of things 'empowering'. If some woman says she finds twerking empowering, the issue shouldn't be that 'twerking isn't empowering!!1 you're performing for the male gaze!!1' and I think when you respond that way, it's pretty understandable that people perceive that as moralism. The issue, instead, should be with the entire conception of 'empowerment' as a question of personal, individual choices.

[Illegalitarian]

No, I don't know any women like this. I do know people who work/have worked at strip clubs and similar places, however, and far from getting in people's faces about it, they tend to only tell a very small circle of close friends about what they do for a living because of the stigma that comes with it. Which I think is a far more common phenomenon than 'women who do pole-dancing getting in everyone's faces about it'.

Political empowerment through individual choice is pretty much liberal politics, and I think it's completely legitimate to take issue with that. But I'm not sure that's what you're actually doing. I mean, I'm sure subjectively people can find all sorts of things 'empowering'. If some woman says she finds twerking empowering, the issue shouldn't be that 'twerking isn't empowering!!1 you're performing for the male gaze!!1' and I think when you respond that way, it's pretty understandable that people perceive that as moralism. The issue, instead, should be with the entire conception of 'empowerment' as a question of personal, individual choices.


I think this sort of individual choice can be empowering, but should not be held up as some kind of model for combating patriarchy and needs to be praised along side looking at structural issues.

Kind of like how lifestylism is fine as long as you're not practicing it as some form of inherent direct action and recognize that it needs to be practiced along side direct action itself to not take a liberal character

[BIXX]

Out of curiosity, do you folks think we should be going for empowerment or liberation? Are they the same? What entails one and not the other?

In my opinion, things like pole dancing, rising in politics, fucking on camera, or whatever, can be empowering, but as they fall into the logic of our patriarchal society they cannot be liberating. This is not to say empowerment is bad (as it allows people to survive in our society) but I personally prefer liberation.

Seeing as feminism seems to have historically (though I admit I have limited knowledge) been about empowering women, it would seem to me that perhaps we ought to be going beyond feminism, attacking gender itself. This sounds like what PA said is "third wave feminism". Idk. Random thoughts.

[Rosa Partizan]

actually, no. I'm not talking about women that have to make a living from it. They wouldn't go around talking to everyone about it. I mean women that do this for fun. Poledancing is on the rise here, many fitness centres offer courses and I know some of these women personally, and I read about it. They would tend to legitimize it from this feminist-empowering point of view when no one even asked them to justify for it. They're acting like some higher instance is trying to keep them away from doing it when basically really no one gives a flying fuck how you would spend your spare time.

To me, moralism means shoving restricting sexual attitudes in one's face. Like saying "this is not ladylike/this is slutty/a women with taste and class wouldn't behave that way". I don't know what's moralist about naming societal structures as they are, namely that pole dancing was invented for male pleasure within a patriarchal framework. When I talk about empowerment, I understand this concept as a...let's say, collective one. Like, no one's free until not all of us are free. This means that empowerment that is felt on an individual level is useless. As I said today in another thread, I feel empowered when I notice that guys find me attractive. But I know it's bullshit because in patriarchy, I won't gain societal power or standing by being desired. At the same time, I won't throw back feminism 100 years because I shave my legs and apply make up. This applies to other individualist actions, too. I just don't see the point in calling all of this stuff that's centered around the male gaze feminist.

[Illegalitarian]

Out of curiosity, do you folks think we should be going for empowerment or liberation? Are they the same? What entails one and not the other?

In my opinion, things like pole dancing, rising in politics, fucking on camera, or whatever, can be empowering, but as they fall into the logic of our patriarchal society they cannot be liberating. This is not to say empowerment is bad (as it allows people to survive in our society) but I personally prefer liberation.

Seeing as feminism seems to have historically (though I admit I have limited knowledge) been about empowering women, it would seem to me that perhaps we ought to be going beyond feminism, attacking gender itself. This sounds like what PA said is "third wave feminism". Idk. Random thoughts.

Both practiced side by side I'd reckon.

[PhoenixAsh]

Because you define womens choices and feminism in the context of men. Womens choices because they make those choices in direct opposition against how they are socialized to be (and being sex objects is merely a fraction of that hugely complex and contradicting intersections of socialization...which means YOUR socialization is not the exact same socialization like...for instance a girl/woman in Idaho has) and free of the judgement of how women should behave is what is actual feminism is. And you chose to define your position from a radical and bordering on sex negative position. Which is fine. But you will get flack for it when you decide to go and call behavior into categories of feminist and unfeminist.

But what you are forgetting that no woman ever, regardless of behavior is free from objectification. So a radfem pasisonately arguing against patriarchy is still...for all intents and purposes...a woman and therefore reduced automatically to talking tits which should not be taken to serious...because men...has she got issues (and yes...this phrasing was intentional simplification, but sadly also directlyt paraphrasing, of some of the shit men say about women to illustrate the point). The fact that women will always be under a "male gaze" is simply a fact of life which will never change.


Now...you act contradictory. You say that objectifying women is the means of exploitation and subjugation of women by men. And this is horribly simplifying the concept of sexism and gender socialization. Why womens bodies are being exploited in the porn industry...you are forgetting that at the exact same time women are told to be chaste, sexually restricted, and exually inactive as much as possible untill marriage or untill they are in a relationship (prefereably with a man). The idea that women are NOT told not to poledance is basically rubbish.

Yet..I agree. Women will always be exploited by men. Regardless what they do. This is the underlying power structure of society which needs to change. We had a debate about this earlier....so you will know what my eventual argument will be. And you know that my position is as far removed from liberal feminism as can be.

That does not negate the fact that individual choices and freedom and women acting against how they should behave as women...are still feminism. EVEN if this means women will be exploited by making that choice. The exploitation is inevitable.

The rest is tactics.

That social empowerment is part of feminism...whether you agree with it or not.

[PhoenixAsh]

Out of curiosity, do you folks think we should be going for empowerment or liberation? Are they the same? What entails one and not the other?

In my opinion, things like pole dancing, rising in politics, fucking on camera, or whatever, can be empowering, but as they fall into the logic of our patriarchal society they cannot be liberating. This is not to say empowerment is bad (as it allows people to survive in our society) but I personally prefer liberation.

Seeing as feminism seems to have historically (though I admit I have limited knowledge) been about empowering women, it would seem to me that perhaps we ought to be going beyond feminism, attacking gender itself. This sounds like what PA said is "third wave feminism". Idk. Random thoughts.

And that is the distinction I am trying to make. There is a substantial difference between what feminism is and what tactics result from feminism in order to reach gender equality.

The distinctions...liberal feminism, radical feminism, sex negative feminism, sex positive feminism, socialist feminism, anarcho feminism, cultural feminism, eco feminism, individualist feminism etc. are all tactics and theories centered around how the overarching powerstructures are formed and how they should be defeated. They are however...all feminism.

So whether you dance around naked worshipping some Goddess, advocate the changing of legislation for equal pay, or advocate the radical change of society...or simply decide that nobody but you will decide how you behave not defined because you are a woman but because you want to....or simply move towards a new field previously limited in allowing women...that is all feminism.

Whether or not it is effective in actually creating a gender equal society in an entirely different matter.


****
Make a mental note here...

Marxist feminism reject all other kinds of feminism as identity politics and sees womens exploitation as part of the class struggle.

Socialist feminism is a synthesis between Marxism and Radical feminism with emphasize on the previous.

Anarcho-feminism sees patriarchy as the logical outcome of class struggle and state oppression and of the male subjugation of women with the exponent in the judicial family

Radical feminism sees the feminist strugggle as transhistorical meaning that it predates capitalism and is based on the institutionalization of male supremacy.

****


Now there is no choice here. Liberation is the end goal of all feminist movements. Empowerment is essential for any form of consciousness to form.

The role of ANY group of feminists should be to strife towards liberation in the mean time should be to oppose any form of restrictions places on women; oppose any form of criticism of behaviour because of sex/gender for all sexes and genders; and oppose any form of gender and sex socialization.

And it should place the onus where it should be. Social structures and those perpetuating exploitation. Mostly this will be men.

[consuming negativity]

Say it. I want to hear you say "if a woman happens to feel empowered by making the choice to pole dance or be in porn, while the institutions themselves may be oppressive, there is nothing wrong with it in an individual level".

Do you agree with this statement? If so: good, you understand that context just doesn't apply to how people act on a societal level. Do you not?: Then you have a problem the way women are acting specifically out side of the context of any sort of institutional oppression, and that is liberal bullshit.

This is not a talking point of liberal feminism (I don't think some people ITT know what the word liberal means. It's not just a stick you can wield at people you disagree with, i promise), it is a third wave revfem position that can differentiate between women as individuals and women as they relate to the rest of society.

I sent you a message this morning asking if you wanted me to still reply to this, but clearly you assholes aren't going to give this thread up, so I'll go ahead and reply because fuck it.

When we say "liberal feminism", we're talking about the arguments being made ITT. What PhoenixAsh said about feminism being choice is like the fucking anthem, theme song, and official motto of wishy-washy liberal feel-good "we did it!" "feminism". It exists, it's very real, and I encounter it far more often than people like myself in the world. Just how I never get to meet any real communists, or really, anybody who is actually real. Because it's all fake. It's all stupid. It's all bullshit. And I come here to get away from that shit an argue with people who know what they're talking about.

And of course I agree with that statement. First and foremost, a fucking feeling cannot be incorrect. It's a feeling. It might be based on incorrect information (ie. if you cry because you think someone is dead and they aren't), but it can't be WRONG. That's not even fucking logically possible. But furthermore, WE HAVE BEEN SAYING THE ENTIRE TIME THAT THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM DOING IT. I WILL LITERALLY GO GET YOU QUOTES. You fuckers are the ones who keep putting the words in our mouth otherwise. God fucking damn, man. You've known me for how many years and you think I'm so stupid as to sit and judge someone for that shit? As if I have a fucking leg to stand on criticizing anyone's behavior. I'm just going to call a spade a spade regardless of what you think.

And no, that doesn't mean I go around telling people how to live their lives. It means I see the actions of the individual in context, because there IS NOT A DIFFERENCE between "activism" and "feminism", as if our lives are not part of the fucking society that we're supposedly studying. Jesus Christ, what the fuck do you think society is? Some amorphous blob that sociologists created to rule us from the sky? No. It's us. Our actions take place in societal context. You can't escape it. There is no way out of it. PhoenixAsh seemingly understands that in his last post, and so it's a goddamn shame he doesn't seem to understand where I'm coming from here.

e: just to be clear, don't take the cursing and shit in this personally. pissed off about something else atm. you didn't do anything wrong other than, well, be wrong. :lol:

[PhoenixAsh]

I sent you a message this morning asking if you wanted me to still reply to this, but clearly you assholes aren't going to give this thread up, so I'll go ahead and reply because fuck it.

When we say "liberal feminism", we're talking about the arguments being made ITT. What PhoenixAsh said about feminism being choice is like the fucking anthem, theme song, and official motto of wishy-washy liberal feel-good "we did it!" "feminism". It exists, it's very real, and I encounter it far more often than people like myself in the world. Just how I never get to meet any real communists, or really, anybody who is actually real. Because it's all fake. It's all stupid. It's all bullshit. And I come here to get away from that shit an argue with people who know what they're talking about.

And of course I agree with that statement. First and foremost, a fucking feeling cannot be incorrect. It's a feeling. It might be based on incorrect information (ie. if you cry because you think someone is dead and they aren't), but it can't be WRONG. That's not even fucking logically possible. But furthermore, WE HAVE BEEN SAYING THE ENTIRE TIME THAT THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM DOING IT. I WILL LITERALLY GO GET YOU QUOTES. You fuckers are the ones who keep putting the words in our mouth otherwise. God fucking damn, man. You've known me for how many years and you think I'm so petty and pathetic as to sit and judge someone for that shit? As if I have a fucking leg to stand on criticizing anyone's behavior. I'm just going to call a spade a spade regardless of what you think.

And no, that doesn't mean I go around telling people how to live their lives. It means I see the actions of the individual in context, because there IS NOT A DIFFERENCE between "activism" and "feminism", as if our lives are not part of the fucking society that we're supposedly studying. Jesus Christ, what the fuck do you think society is? Some amorphous blob that sociologists created to rule us from the sky? No. It's us. Our actions take place in societal context. You can't escape it. There is no way out of it. PhoenixAsh seemingly understands that in his last post, and so it's a goddamn shame he doesn't seem to understand where I'm coming from here.

There is a difference and you saying that there isn't is exactly why I am saying that you do not understand feminism. Because for all the words you spend trying to argue the simple, pure and undeniable fact is that feminism is nothing more that the movement that wants equality between the sexes on social, economic, legal and cultural grounds which entails but is not limited to women not being judged on their behaviour because they are women....within ANY given mode of production...and breaching sex and gender roles.

The distinction of how a gender equal society is reached is tactics and theory. Libfems, radfems....the distinction is not that one is feminism and one is not. They are BOTH feminism...regardless if you disagree with one or not. The distinction is in what is necessary to reach a gender equal society.

What you so far have been doing is simpply saying: well.,..there is one kind of feminism and all the rest is not feminism and whatever happened before radical feminism....was simply not feminism.

And yes...that is absolute and total bullshit. It is however pretty fucking textbook to understand the distinction and understanding what feminism is.

And what you are also doing is indeed judging women on their behaviour. Rather than saying: "women should twerk...and men should stop objectifying them" you are actually arguing (while pretending you are not) "well...those women are misguided in thinking that what they do is feminism (which is a judgement...and what is more you included such a range of behaviours of wearing high heels, GGW, pole dancing) and actually they are objectifying themselves (which is reducing their choice) because men exploit them (notice that MEN are doing that here) and ...(what you also added in one of your posts)...that means they are perpetuating patriarchy (no...they are really not).

So you may think you are not judging them....but you are.

Now you state over and over again...that there is nothing wrong with it. But quite clearly there is. Saying that women don't act, can't act in a feminist way based on a subjective misunderstanding of feminism.

[consuming negativity]

There is a difference and you saying that there isn't is exactly why I am saying that you do not understand feminism. Because for all the words you spend trying to argue the simple, pure and undeniable fact is that feminism is nothing more that the movement that wants equality between the sexes on social, economic, legal and cultural grounds which entails but is not limited to women not being judged on their behaviour because they are women....within ANY given mode of production...and breaching sex and gender roles.

The distinction of how a gender equal society is reached is tactics and theory. Libfems, radfems....the distinction is not that one is feminism and one is not. They are BOTH feminism...regardless if you disagree with one or not. The distinction is in what is necessary to reach a gender equal society.

What you so far have been doing is simpply saying: well.,..there is one kind of feminism and all the rest is not feminism and whatever happened before radical feminism....was simply not feminism.

And yes...that is absolute and total bullshit. It is however pretty fucking textbook to understand the distinction and understanding what feminism is.

And what you are also doing is indeed judging women on their behaviour. Rather than saying: "women should twerk...and men should stop objectifying them" you are actually arguing (while pretending you are not) "well...those women are misguided in thinking that what they do is feminism (which is a judgement...and what is more you included such a range of behaviours of wearing high heels, GGW, pole dancing) and actually they are objectifying themselves (which is reducing their choice) because men exploit them (notice that MEN are doing that here) and ...(what you also added in one of your posts)...that means they are perpetuating patriarchy (no...they are really not).

So you may think you are not judging them....but you are.

Now you state over and over again...that there is nothing wrong with it. But quite clearly there is. Saying that women don't act, can't act in a feminist way based on a subjective misunderstanding of feminism.

I didn't say they were perpetuating patriarchy. I didn't say they shouldn't do what they want. And I didn't say men shouldn't stop objectifying women.

Stop arguing with yourself. It's old and I'm over it.

[PhoenixAsh]

I didn't say they were perpetuating patriarchy. I didn't say they shouldn't do what they want. And I didn't say men shouldn't stop objectifying women.

Stop arguing with yourself. It's old and I'm over it.

Aside from the fact that you ignore most of the arguments we are making and are simply rehashing and continue down the line of: "there is only one kind of feminism"

Here you go.



Do you not see how this is a complete carte blanche to consider even acts that deliberately and directly contribute to the oppression, exploitation, and/or disenfranchisement of other women as "feminist"?

Yes. Ten thousand times yes. How much more clearer do I have to state this? Yes...that is EXACTLY what feminism also entails. Denying this reality...simply means you do not understand feminism. I gave you the perfect examples.

Michelle Bachman is an anti-feminist running on an anti feminist political platform and directly contributing to the perpetuation of sexist gender roles and the limitation of womens rights. Yet her running for office on that platform is a feminist act...whether she likes to acknowledge that or not...simply because running for office as a woman is breaching the norms of society.

Marya Barra as CEO of GM is directly contributing to the exploitation of workers and perpetuating the suffering of people who were affected by unsafe car sales which were consciously sold to people. Her becomming CEO is a feminist act and the result of feminism...simply because women becomming CEO's of multinational companies is breaching standard gender roles.

And "whatever her name is" down the street from me...deciding that she wants to wear whatever she choses to wear and expecting NOT to be objectified for it or attacked or slut shamed for it...is a feminist act.

And Stephanie Swift becoming a porn producer back when...because: "fuck you I can do what I want and nobody is going to fault me for that becaue I am a woman" (which is paraphrasing but gives you an impression)....is a feminist act.


But you indeed didn't say they shouldn't do what they want. You said what they did wasn't feminism, was objectifying themselves because that is what society does...and therefore the acts can not be feminist. You reduced their choice based on what they do in opposition to what they are told to do as women...as simply giving into patriarchy and becomming willful participants....and suggested they are duped....and that acts which seemingly play into a form of exploitation (which conversely you also claim is inescapable) can't be feminism.

And you did all this because of sexualization and how men objectify women.

What I have been telling you is that men will always objectify women regardless of what they do.

I am now also reminding you that poledancing, GGW and sexuality are merely fractions of socialization of women...ALL of which have to do with male entitlement over womens sexuality. Because of this entitlement you state that women can't make free choices. I dispute that and think that is a very stupid line of logic.

[consuming negativity]

Aside from the fact that you ignore most of the arguments we are making and are simply rehashing and continue down the line of: "there is only one kind of feminism"


the fact that you ignore most of the arguments we are making and are simply rehashing

http://i.imgur.com/Mb0O4.gif

[PhoenixAsh]

...

Just because most of your arguments completely miss the point and are downright irrelevant...and are contradictory to each other....kindly point to the arguments I did not address.

[Lily Briscoe]

actually, no. I'm not talking about women that have to make a living from it. They wouldn't go around talking to everyone about it. I mean women that do this for fun. Poledancing is on the rise here, many fitness centres offer courses and I know some of these women personally, and I read about it. They would tend to legitimize it from this feminist-empowering point of view when no one even asked them to justify for it. They're acting like some higher instance is trying to keep them away from doing it when basically really no one gives a flying fuck how you would spend your spare time.I know you weren't talking about people who do it for a living; I was trying to make a point about your chosen focus. I think a lot of feminism that exists today is incredibly inward-looking and is more interested in criticizing pop culture fads, and phenomena that's basically restricted to university students and similar demographics, than in discussing issues that actually impact women's lives concretely. Of course, in the vast overwhelming majority of the world there is still a tremendous stigma placed on women who engage in 'sexual behavior' that falls outside of conservative norms, whether it's erotic dancing or whatever.

When I talk about empowerment, I understand this concept as a...let's say, collective one. Like, no one's free until not all of us are free. This means that empowerment that is felt on an individual level is useless. As I said today in another thread, I feel empowered when I notice that guys find me attractive. But I know it's bullshit because in patriarchy, I won't gain societal power or standing by being desired. At the same time, I won't throw back feminism 100 years because I shave my legs and apply make up. This applies to other individualist actions, too.
I pretty much agree with this.

Edited to add:
I just don't see the point in calling all this stuff that's centered around the male gaze feminist I would imagine, again when it comes to stuff like erotic dancing, it's because it goes against traditional/conservative expectations about how women are supposed to behave. Does that make it 'feminist'? I don't know, but I don't really see what difference it makes; I think 'feminism' is, in itself, a pretty meaningless term anyway.

[Lily Briscoe]

I guess my point (the tl;dr version - sorry, I have a bunch of stuff going on atm and can't complete a thought without getting interrupted) is that that kind of politics should be criticized for the fact that it's completely compatible with capitalism and for it's emphasis on 'empowerment' through individual lifestyle choices (whether those choices consist of taking pole-dancing classes or refusing to wear make-up/shave, I don't think it matters, and I don't think one is any more or less "problematic" than the other), not on the basis that the individual choices it advocates supposedly 'support The Male Gaze' or whatever (which I think, despite your insistence to the contrary, ends up implicitly conceding the point that you can support or oppose structural oppression through your individual lifestyle choices).