Nice responses. I wonder if this woman ever did any teaching at my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz?
For that matter, I wonder if anybody's done any studies on the sex lives of Women's Studies TAs? I mean, what the hell... if they insist on including us in their fantasies, we should be allowed to include them in ours.
(And for the record, I'm not related to this woman!)
Feminist thinking is really a mixed bag. The extremism is sad, because feminist projects really are worthwhile projects. Good feminist theory is thought-provoking and calls attention to blind spots and biases we ought not have. Bad feminist theory makes us see bogeyrapists everywhere.
I feel this a lot too. I'm not a feminist primarily for this reason - it's such a bag of mixed messages that I keep prowling around at the edges, to confused to join but too concerned to forget it. Just when I read something really good and I'm about to sign up, I read something else and back off again. Feminism is the most conflicted and bizarre movement I have ever seen.
I'm no less feminist than any of them. In fact, sometimes I think I'm more of one -- people like that take a good cause, permute it beyond recognition, and lose sight of the point of what they are doing.
[nods] Yup, definately. Man, you speak my mind! :D
I came to consider myself a feminist after feeling much like you ("I can't call myself a feminist if being a feminist means agreeing with MacKinnon on sex," etc) after meeting some feminists who weren't so extreme, and talking for a long time with them about what feminism was really about and where different sorts of feminists really stood on different things. Before that happened, I thought I "couldn't be a feminist" either.
Oh. Dammit, I thought you were complimenting my arguments! *g*
If you really wanna read this shite... get hold of a copy of Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis, edited by Robin Ruth Linden et al. It's out of print (thank heavens), but it's got tons of this kind of argument.
The main premises of most anti-SM arguments in this vein, as far as I can tell:
Sadomasochism is not transgressive. It is a making explicit of patriarchal power roles. It's considered perverse and threatening because the pernicious system/pervasive power inequality is usually hidden in the way society works as a whole. Sadomasochists embrace it rather than maintain the polite fiction that it doesn't exist. Thus we're the enemy of radical feminism, which seeks to abolish these unequal relationships. (It doesn't matter if the bottom is not a woman or the top is not a man -- in any case, this view thinks we derive our erotic thrills from the institution of dominance over an oppressed group.)
Consent is no defense. Given the absolute pervasiveness of
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dude i want this sentence on a t-shirtfreakscoutDecember 8 2003, 01:42:48 UTC
Besides which, how can a feminist sexuality unfettered by patriarchal oppression ever come to exist if we've presupposed that women's consent isn't real?
Man, I want to print this on a T-shirt and wear it to a Catharine MacKinnon lecture. She is my favorite philosopher ...TO POOP ON!!
I should drag Katie-the-reluctant-half-assed-MacKinnon-defender into this thread. Heh.
Wow... you really slammed the door there! Great. Confidently written. Would offer more but me tired maintenant. Would like to add you to my Friends' list, if tis ok..?
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For that matter, I wonder if anybody's done any studies on the sex lives of Women's Studies TAs? I mean, what the hell... if they insist on including us in their fantasies, we should be allowed to include them in ours.
(And for the record, I'm not related to this woman!)
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Feminist thinking is really a mixed bag. The extremism is sad, because feminist projects really are worthwhile projects. Good feminist theory is thought-provoking and calls attention to blind spots and biases we ought not have. Bad feminist theory makes us see bogeyrapists everywhere.
I feel this a lot too. I'm not a feminist primarily for this reason - it's such a bag of mixed messages that I keep prowling around at the edges, to confused to join but too concerned to forget it. Just when I read something really good and I'm about to sign up, I read something else and back off again. Feminism is the most conflicted and bizarre movement I have ever seen.
I'm no less feminist than any of them. In fact, sometimes I think I'm more of one -- people like that take a good cause, permute it beyond recognition, and lose sight of the point of what they are doing.
[nods] Yup, definately. Man, you speak my mind! :D
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If you really wanna read this shite... get hold of a copy of Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis, edited by Robin Ruth Linden et al. It's out of print (thank heavens), but it's got tons of this kind of argument.
The main premises of most anti-SM arguments in this vein, as far as I can tell:
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Man, I want to print this on a T-shirt and wear it to a Catharine MacKinnon lecture. She is my favorite philosopher ...TO POOP ON!!
I should drag Katie-the-reluctant-half-assed-MacKinnon-defender into this thread. Heh.
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*g*
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May I friend you? Your comments here and in feminist make tons of sense to me, and I peeked at your journal and it seems cool.
Feel free to friend me also, if you like.
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I'm warning you though - I'm ranty ;)
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:)
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