1) If you think "my body, my choice" is sacrosanct and must not be interrogated when it comes to reproductive rights? But when it comes to having sex in various unorthodox ways, wearing heels, working in the sex industry, or (for some people, apparently) having sexual reassignment surgery: now "choice" and "consent" actually aren't all they're cracked up to be? Explain to me how that works, again?
2) What exactly is the difference between "sexbot" and "bimbo?" or, for that matter, "slut?"
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I find with feminism, as with all areas of moral philosophy, my brain turns off when anyone talks in terms of black and white. The world is not that way. There is truth; there is right and wrong. But we are talking about darker and lighter shades of grey, always. I wrote about this on a somewhat different topic.
The whole "choice is illusory" one really pisses me off. It is true to some extent, but it is usually used by people who are really saying, "your choice is illusory; I know exactly what I'm doing."
An argument rarely heard outside fundamentalist religion. But it does arise on occasion...
ding.
well and the response to that is usually something along the lines of,
of COURSE i'm not saying i'm perfect. look, i still (pluck my eyebrows, read fashion rags, dig for nose goblins with a Hello Kitty pen, whatthefuckever); we all struggle.
i.e. the "we're all sinners" argument.
trouble is i never accepted that framework in the first place. i'm not complaining (just) because you're playing holier-than-thou; i am pointing out, for the umpteenth time, that i *don't accept your standards.* therefore, it means exactly jack to me to what degree i or you do or don't live up to them. therefore: kindly piss off.
Even if we are all sinners, I cannot assume that you're any less conscientious a sinner as I am; that you have thought about the consequences of any given choice and wrestled with it any less as I did - even if you came to a completely different decision.
You might have had more or less information, you might have considered a perspective that didn't occur to me (or vice versa). We can talk about that, but that's just about it; I can't dismiss your decision and tell you what you really think or desire.
Which is the case when it comes to wide-reaching issues, but even more so when it comes to issues which effect our intimate lives and our bodies. We need to talk about it, but we have to assume the other gal is every bit as smart and passionate as we are.
@Bitch|Lab: Seems a bit like "It's for your own good" to me. Am I betraying feminism for being suspicious when strangers try to tell me that what I do is wrong, and that I must do it their way in order to do it right? Funny, it feels more like preserving the autonomy of women, one willful soul at a time. But maybe that's my bourgeois individualism speaking, not being properly educated in orthodoxy and being so woefully ignorant of my oppression that I plucked an eyebrow hair earlier today.
oh, no. I don't think that way Lileth. I'm just saying what I think they say.
Yes, I think it's a contradiction in their thought, but I think they really would think it's not the same thing. Their argument doesn't persuade me at all. Coz yeah, it does sound like that, "for your own good little girl"
Which is exactly what Withcy Woo Said. R Mildred even made the analogy with addiction, saying that her obligation would be to perform an intervention.
Well! Can't say it any clearer. They think their job is to be scolds and schoolmarms to set us straight, because lordy know there ain't no official save Male ID'd Patriarchy Fuckers service out there. So what else can they do? They can only bag on about it endlessly hopiing that everyone will snap into place.
Well, to those who think that, please, go with jesus. get back to me in awhile and let me know how it's working out for you.
That's a great point, piny (your first paragraph I mean) but I think you're wrong about why feminists support abortion rights. I don't think it's as arbitrary as you suggest. Having kids disempowers women in numerous ways: they lose their autonomy, they're expected to subordinate their interests to those of their kids, they take on pregnancy's health risks, they have to work harder. That's why feminism supports women's right to remain childless. It's not just a random fuck-you to the mainstream.
I was going to read this thread and comment but I got distracted by my own toes - sadly this is what happens in the summer when my nether digits are so wantonly exposed...
that said, thanks for the link. I look forward to reading more of your work and hope that you look forward to my occasional, idiotic comments.
I hear what you are saying, Tuffy, and I don't disagree w/ your fundamental point; however, if feminism is REALLY about choice, shouldn't feminists support a woman's choice to have children just as fervently as supporting her choice not to have children?
Not saying all feminists aren't equal-opportunity supporters. In my experiences, most are, actually. But there are always those few... and they usally ID as radfems...
I remember two of 'em from the Women's Studies Group in college... I was married in those days, and they would always look at me through slanted eyes. They didn't get it when I asked them how discriminating against me because I was married, and not believing it when I told them that actually, my husband did NOT oppress me and I got married for my OWN reasons, was any different from discriminating against, say, unmarried women, lesbians, etc. They would just repeat, "Well, marriage is an institution to oppress women!!" I'd respond with, "O RLY? Well, my marriage isn't."
They didn't- or wouldn't - accept that.
Piny, some women are in fact pressured to abort. Historically, low SES women were frequently forcibly sterilized, or pressured not to have children. On the other hand, in today's US sexual pressure goes the other way, that is women are pressured not to enjoy sex, not to have sex outside marriage, and not to think or talk about sex. So although there's some pressure to be sexual in more liberal subcultures, it's no different from the pressure to abort in minority subcultures.
piny: You weren't? Your second paragraph seems to say that pretty clearly. I read it as saying that feminists support/tolerate abortion because the patriarchy opposes it.
I read it the same way Tuffy did. I thought you were saying that in general the patriarchy pressured women to have plenty of degrading sex and not to abort, but still for other reasons it didn't make sense to support choice on abortion but not sex.
Sorry for that.
amber, RE what you said:
if feminism is REALLY about choice, shouldn't feminists support a woman's choice to have children just as fervently as supporting her choice not to have children?
Or in other words, is feminism inherently anti-motherhood? On a practical level, obviously, it can't be if it's going to succeed. On a theoretical level...? I'm not sure. On the one hand, yeah, lots of pro-child issues are integral to feminism: equal parenting, child support in divorce, anti-forced sterilization (thanks to the person who mentioned that one), govt assistance to needy families.
On the other hand, virtually every culture oppresses women with the idea that they're nothing but baby-making machines. It's fundamental. So I'm not sure pro-motherhood issues will ever have the centrality that anti-motherhood ideas do.
Oh, fuck a bunch of "theoretical level." Any philosophy of liberation that cannot stand the light of meeting the needs of real people, right here and taking their concerns seriously rightfully deserves its place on the scrapheap of ideas right next to the Platonic republic and Theosophy.
On the other hand, virtually every culture oppresses women with the idea that they're nothing but baby-making machines.
In China forced sterilizations occur frequently in areas with overzealous communist cadres, whereas forced childbirth is virtually nonexistent.
Theosophy on the scrapheap of history? say it ain't so!
Mme Blavatsky is spinning in her...well, wherever she is, she's spinning you bet...
per fembot/sexbot--I don't know who else originally was using it besides T, but it seems like other people have been picking it up, certainly at least there on the IBTP boards; and I have seen it elsewhere, certainly.
and now i would like to know who coined the odious portmanteau "pornstitution," so that i may smack them repeatedly in the face with a halibut.
Antip, it's my understanding (and I'm willing to be corrected if anyone knows differently) that Theosophy, at least as Mme B. established it, has a nasty strain of racism of the "white people are descended from special Atlantean godlings, unlike you filthy monkey-men" variety.
if feminism is REALLY about choice, shouldn't feminists support a woman's choice to have children just as fervently as supporting her choice not to have children?
Or in other words, is feminism inherently anti-motherhood
Um.
Those are other words, but they aren't MY words.
WTF?
Please, PLEASE tell me WHERE I stated or even implied ANYTHING of the sort.
*banging head on keyboard*
Amber: Uh, yeah, I guess I sort of imagined you were getting at something else in order to have an excuse to talk about my motherhood theory. Sorry!
You've exposed some big contradictions in some of the "rad-fem" rhetoric. The condemnations of sex-ploited (sorry, if they can pen bad neologisms, so can I!)often seem oddly familiar, old formulas about "good" and "bad" women wrapped up in new terminology.
And frankly, I *aspire* to be a sexbot (after all, my electropop group is called Bisexual Cyborg), the kind of strict machine Alison Goldfrapp is in love with...
B | L, in what way was the woman you talk about a liberal feminist? For example, did she think that the main focus of feminist effort should be legal and economic equality?
I understand the critique of "choice" w/in a consumer/capitalistic/yadda culture.
I just think that particularly when it comes to *one's own body,* hell ya the notion that it belongs to oneself to do as one chooses is an essential part of feminism.
It's not *all* of feminism, but it's certainly key as far as I'm concerned.
The "bourgeois individualism" schtick is really bugging me, especially since I read MacKinnon's essay on Roe v. Wade.
I'm working on a theory that the individual is defined by desire, that such an idea of the individual is central to Marxism, and that the entire point of socialism is to create a society in which individuals can freely pursue their desires.
The idea that individuals are incapable of understanding their own desires without being schooled by some external authority seems to me to be antithetical to the very idea of human liberation.
Twisty is actually pretty clear that she's opposed to human liberation.
"But when it comes to having sex in various unorthodox ways, wearing heels, working in the sex industry..."
My point exactly. And when one mentions this, they get leapt upon. Out come the accussations that NO ONE could ever do this by choice, or they have severe mental problems, or are in denial, or, actually, in truth actually have a dick and are PRETENDING to be female...because after all, no REAL woman, with choices and other opportunities, could ever REALLY choose to work in the sex industry, so surely NO WOMAN is "fit" enough in the head or socially to MAKE that choice.
Bullshit.
Not every woman in the sex industry is an abused victim turning tricks on the corner, and that is the only example they ever want anyone to look at, because it is the one that best fuels their stance.
If I ever needed an abortion, these people would defend my right with venom and passion. Instead I have implants, so obviously I have NO IDEA what the right choice for my own body is...
well, and if you get to the point where it's too obvious that you're neither brainwashed or lying to ignore any longer, you're now the exception that doesn't prove anything, and selfish selfish selfish to boot.
>Twisty is actually pretty clear that she's opposed to human liberation.
I thought so. but what exactly does this revolution that she claims to yearn for consist of? did we ever find out? do we spare the four-star restaurants? Or is this somehow a revolution that has nothing whatsoever to do with class? That could be interesting.
Something's nagging at me, and I finally realized what it is--piny, per your devil's advocate post.
so okay, the patriarchy is by and large against abortion. that would tend to be your reactionary/nuclear family-supporting people. tend to be.
on the other hand, the patriarchy (monolithic as it is) is FOR porn, pole-dancing, loveless blowjobs, threesomes, u-name-it.
to the point where, to read some people, this is actually a bigger threat today than is the (patriarchal) dictate to "keep your legs shut" if you're not married and procreating.
which, not saying that both trends don't exist at once. they do, and obviously this is part of the weirdness of the era that lead people from all across the boards to declare that we're living in the end times, or at least a corrupt decadent age, more or less.
but.
all those men who want their girlfriends to give head like the porn stars, make out with the hott chick in the bar, wear the stilettos and the fishnets, get the nose job and the Botox and the vaginal rejuvenation surgery.
do none of them ever try to (or succeed in) pressure their girlfriend/wife into aborting, on accounta it might cramp their lifestyle? even if GF/wife wants the kid?
do we not talk about this, simply because this is boilerplate for the pro-life crowd? does this not happen? is it not important?
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