I am beyond appalled that a university Women’s Studies department would take a public position on this issue, never mind such an anti-feminist one. The purpose of academia is to learn, to critique, to further discourse. You are in a position to influence many young women who are perhaps only beginning their foray into feminist theory and it is your job to support them in developing the skills and foundations to come to their own conclusions about issues such as these. It is not your job to tell them what position to take. As academics I would assume you realize this. Releasing a statement such as this is beyond inappropriate and is entirely unethical.Not only that but you are perpetuating misconceptions about how these laws will actually impact women. Moving prostituted women indoors does not make prostitution any safer. This argument has been refuted over and over again.

You are right that this is not a question of morality. It is a question of equality and of human rights. Prostitution exists as a result of patriarchy not despite of it. The notion that, somehow, it is “moral norms” that are responsible for violence that happens against prostituted women is confused, to say the least. It is because of individual men and because of patriarchy that this violence happens. It is because of the objectification and dehumanization of women. It is because men think they will get away with it. How you would come to the conclusion that a solution to this is to further entrench male access to female bodies is beyond me. You have framed prostitution as though it is somehow the route to women’s liberation, just like “pants” and the freedom to have children outside of marriage. What a twisted, manipulated vision of women’s liberation you have presented.

Opposition to full decriminalization comes from feminists and from progressive men who believe in true equality, liberation, and respect for women. We are not moralists, we are not the church, we are not the religious right.

This case is not about morality. This is about women’s equality.You state that “The decision protects the Charter rights of individuals marginalized and stigmatized through their work in the sex trade.”This decision has, in effect, thrown the most marginalized women to the wolves. Nothing has been done to protect or support women working the streets. NOTHING has been done to address the violence or the perpetrators of the violence.It is not the responsibility of women to protect themselves from rape, murder, and abuse. This is victim blaming at its best.You state: “The decision means that women working in the sex trade will be able to protect themselves against violence in their work. The ruling means that women can work together to increase their safety. As such, this decision encourages women’s collective efforts and their solidarity. We celebrate legal rulings that remove juridical barriers to women’s collective organizing.”

The way that women will be protected from violence is by putting systems into place that ensure men are not able, encouraged, and protected when they commit violence against women. Where in your statement do you address the perpetrators? The idea that, perhaps, what we might do in order to address violence against women is to criminalize those who commit violence?

If you truly support “legal rulings that remove juridical barriers to women’s collective organizing,” then why have you so readily abandoned women and abandoned the founding principles and goals of the feminist movement? Feminism is about ending patriarchy. Not normalizing misogyny. Not perpetuating the idea that women exist to provide sexual fulfillment for men.

Beyond the extremely problematic statement you have made here, it is your responsibility, as academics and as a Women’s Studies department to open, not close the debate.

 

Sincerely,

Meghan Murphy
MA Candidate, Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Simon Fraser University

 

 

You can find some other responses to the Bedford decision from some Canadian women’s/feminist organizations here:

From The Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution: http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/learn/news/equality-seeking-women%E2%80%99s-groups-will-continue-demand-change-laws-prostitution

From Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW): http://tinyurl.com/ctcrgjn

From the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC): http://www.nwac.ca/media/release/29-03-12

I have a confession to make.  I was once obsessed with the television show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Originally a casual viewer in my teens, I became increasingly addicted to the show when I transitioned into dorm-living at university, a place where fellow first-years far more tech-savvy than I introduced me to the wonders of closed file-transfer systems.  Entire seasons of pretty much any TV show you liked where but a click and short download away.  SVU extravaganza!

I watched all the episodes I could get.  And when I moved off-campus, I wasn’t going to let the fact that I could no longer safely pirate for free stop me from getting more.

So I began buying entire seasons on DVD (at anywhere between 60 and 70 bucks a pop) and holing up in my room for mini SVU marathons.  I had to watch them in my room because my roommate and dear friend could only handle so much rape and battery in our shared communal spaces.

You see, SVU is a crime-drama explicitly about, as the introduction to the show describes, “sexually based offenses,” which are “especially heinous.”  Unlike your regular, run of the mill murder at the centre of most episodes of the original Law and Order, SVU plots are about serial rapists, international child-porn rings, incest and the like.  You know, the stuff of warm and fuzzy primetime.

I honestly cannot explain my initial attraction to the show, other than to say that it was exciting and suspenseful, well-acted and full of the twists and turns for which the Law and Order franchise, and its creator Dick Wolf, have become famous.  I was also really into the dynamic between the two main characters – what I saw as truly plutonic respect and admiration between a male and female detective, which is a refreshing departure from your typical she-loves-him/he-breaks-her-heart soap opera storyline.  I wasn’t a criminology student, interested in exploring the psyches of abusers.  At that time I didn’t even identify as a feminist – it wasn’t a conscious effort to examine the portrayal of violence against women in the media.  I just liked the show, so I watched it.  Every episode ever made over the course of its 10+ seasons, in a matter of months.

As the show became more predictable and the quality of writing diminished, I became less interested.  I would still catch new episodes from time to time, but I didn’t plan my life around it.  The glory days were over.  But I still considered myself a fan.

Fast forward to last year, when, in the common area of the UBC Women’s Studies department, I casually mention to a professor of mine that I watched the show the night before.   An inexact dramatization:

Me: “So I was watching Law and Order: SVU last night and I think the storyline was inspired by a local case.  You know how Law and Order episodes are inspired by real stories?  Well last night it wa – “

Prof: “You watch that?”

Me: “Yah, I dunno, uh, er, [incoherent increasing panicked mumbling].”

Prof: “Wow. I make a conscious effort not consume gratuitous depictions of violence against women.”

Me: “Yah, me too, you know, it’s just such an interesting show… it’s, it’s uh, it’s not all bad.”

Prof: “Regardless. It is what it is. Which is something I would never watch. Ever.”

I had been outed.  Here I was, a feminist, in the feminist epicenter of the university no less, admitting first that I watched TV at all (gasp!), and worse, that I watched misogynist trash.  In a matter of seconds my proud L&O fandom became a source of incredible embarrassment.  Why did I watch that show?

I still don’t entirely know.  But the process of self-reflection in this regard was re-ignited last month when, at Vancouver Rape Relief’s public forum on violence against women, one audience member argued that the culture of sexist violence we all live in will never change as long as torturing women is considered entertainment, and as long as various programs all relying on graphic violence against women constitute our ‘choices’ on television. Later that night, my partner turned on his new favourite show, Criminal Minds. The episode chronicled the FBI’s response when a woman was kidnapped, gagged and rigged up to a bomb in the  middle of the desert by a deranged sociopath.  The people the anonymous commenter was condemning were people like us.  I felt like a phony, like a big, sleazy hypocrite.  In attempt to delve deeper into this part of my life (or perhaps, to assuage my guilt), I’ve reached a few conclusions.

I think it’s fair to say there are two very different categories of violence against women in popular media (primarily on TV and in movies).  The depiction of women being sadistically brutalized in the name of entertainment – or “torture porn” as it is now being called – is epitomized in the modern horror film genre (think the Hostel series).  It is gory, graphic, cruel, and revolting.  A very small (mostly male) minority constitute the group most willing to stomach it, even enjoy it.  It is a very dark and very twisted way of ‘escaping’ from the realities of everyday life, which is what I think of as the reason most people go to the movies.

As far as I am concerned, it is the farthest thing from entertaining.  While men and women are both decapitated, carved up and gutted in this genre, Kira Cochrane says “it’s the violence against women that’s most troubling, because it is here that sex and extreme violence collide.”  The psychopath protagonists in these films always reserve the most twisted of sexual torture for their female victims, and female victims’ sexuality is almost always front and centre to their character’s identity – she is either a stripper (or some variation thereof) or a virgin (or virgin-esque). She is sexy alive, but sexier dead.  Here we see the troubling resonance of the label “torture porn.” It may be a thriller, but it plays off of the all-too-familiar signposts of porn, something supposedly meant to spur arousal and feelings of sexual satisfaction.  According to a media professor at Temple University, the increasing representation of sexual characters in horror films tells us that the media “seem to be giving women permission to take control of their own sexuality.”  Now that’s scary.

The second category is less sensational but more widespread: violence against women that occurs as part of some (semi) believable plot, as part of a TV legal drama (think Prime Suspect, Law and Order, etc.) or feature film (The General’s Daughter, A Time to Kill, Thelma and Louise, just to name a few).  While it is certainly still disturbing, this kind of violence is presented as part of, if not central to, the show’s key conflict: it is a crime perpetrated against victims who deserve justice, if not healing, rather than a foregone conclusion resulting from some psychopath’s twisted agenda.  The audience is supposed to be angry that this thing happened to the victim and join in on the pursuit for justice (not sit back and enjoy it as they bleed out or are gang-raped).  It can be no less triggering than torture porn – actually often more so, given that it is more ‘real’ (we’ll come back to this).  That said it can still be sensationalist and bizarre – see the Criminal Minds example above – but it can also be very true-to-life, a semi-accurate depiction of what a woman might go through.  This kind of violence encompasses a wide spectrum of stories.

So why do people watch it?  Some people are really freaking privileged (honestly, I was probably this type of viewer originally).  They’ve never gone through heavy sh*t, or truly had to deal with real violence in their lives. So for them, it’s a glimpse into the Other – a totally different set of experiences that are different from theirs and thus, strangely entertaining (all with the caveat that this is all of course, fictional). There’s also a voyeuristic element to this kind of media. Violence against women is a taboo subject – not very many people talk about it on a day-to-day basis, let alone broadcast stories about it to the masses. So these shows have a ‘come and see what no other program will show you’ element to them.  It’s unusual and mysterious. And as much as it pains me to say it, there is probably a small minority of misogynists who take pleasure in watching women get hurt.

I think, though, there is a large contingent of fans that are after something altogether different: reassurance.  You see, crime dramas, by definition, position players in the justice system as central characters.  You are meant to like these people. Root for them. And by and large, they don’t disappoint.  They are very, very good and catching the bad guys (usually at record speeds, with incredible DNA-inspired certainty, no less) and are almost always on the victims’ side.  They are honourable, respectable and righteous, and their sole purpose is to make the world a better place. On SVU, Detective Olivia Benson is a strong woman, out to get justice for every victim she meets as a way to avenge the rape of her mother. Her partner, Detective Elliot Stabler, hates men who hurt women: he is big and strong and beats up ‘perps.’  They want to make criminals pay, and most of the time, they do.

In a world where police officers are sexually assaulting and harassing one another, failing to respond when women go missing en masse, and ignoring repeated tips about who is probably killing them, we are desperate for good-cop characters.  In a world where judges hand out probation to rapists, court-appointed psychiatrists refuse to label priests who collect child-porn as pedophiles, and lawyers re-traumatize women during sexual assault and abuse trials by attacking their character and humiliating them on the stand, we are begging for a sign that at least someone in the justice system actually cares about the victims, and that they’re not all out to keep protecting and excusing men’s sexist violence. When it comes to dealing with violence against women, the real world often fails us. So we turn to Law and Order to reassure ourselves that maybe it’s not all bad.  Maybe sometimes the system works.

Of course, we know these stories can be bad for us.  That the latter category of violence is seen as ‘true-to-life’ is obviously incredibly problematic.  First of all, most shows that address violence against women operate on the stranger attack storyline – the myth that most gendered violence is perpetrated by a stranger.  It’s not.

Moreover, because of racist and sexist structures in Hollywood (white, traditionally beautiful women are almost the only women who make it onto television), the victims in these programs are therefore mostly white and beautiful – the typical ‘good girl’ we are supposed to sympathize with, and not the ‘bad girl’ who we blame for her own attack and whose motives we question (victims of colour, poor women, immigrant women, women who’ve ever broken the law or women in the sex industry). Needless to say this is an incredibly narrow profile of the victim that reinforces stereotypes and re-produces social hierarchies.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, most cases on these kinds of shows are solved by the end of an hour-long episode.  Detectives catch the killer, a jury convicts the rapist, or some kind of satisfying vigilante justice is carried out against a molester. In the real world, a tiny fraction of domestic violence and sexual assault cases are deemed credible and investigated, and an even smaller fraction of these actually result in charges and convictions.

As much as I’ve hated on SVU for perpetuating harmful stereotypes and rape myths, I have to credit where credit is due.  One of the most stirring episodes for me was about a trans woman who killed someone in self-defense. She was convicted, but because she was pre-op (she still had male genitalia and thus, in the eyes of the state, was still a man) she was sent to a male prison. She was brutally gang-raped. The episode begged the question, how does the justice system fail and endanger transgender people? What should be done to make it safer?

Other episodes have been more documentary-like – your average battered wife story or rape tale, depicted close-up, in painstaking detail. Unlike melodramatic storylines, these episodes were a genuine depiction of what it’s like. What it’s like to try and leave your abusive husband, only to have to cut off communication with your loved ones, check in to a shelter (with a curfew, and without privacy), and lose all your resources and try to get by without a cent because he insisted you  be a ‘kept’ woman, reliant on his income. Or what it’s like to report a rape to police – what it’s like to have your home turned upside down, your body inspected and photographed, your choices questioned, your experience being recorded over and over again, your boyfriend not understand. These two examples in particular are a direct response to the all-too-common questions, why didn’t she leave? and, why didn’t she report it?

Other episodes make explicit reference the incredible rates of sexual abuse amongst women with disabilities. Others tell stories of abusers within the institution itself – prison guards who rape and abuse female prisoners, judges who sexually exploit and blackmail, and yes, even cops who rape and coerce women in prostitution.

The bottom line is violence against women in the media can be gratuitous and disgusting, but it can also be compelling.  It can be ridiculously sensational, but it can also be accurate – ripped from the headlines, based on real cases, rooted in some kind of reality that we all would benefit from acknowledging. There is no one answer in how to deal with it, and even if there was, it wouldn’t necessarily be to swear it off altogether. Instead, as we watch our favourite TV shows or go to the movies, we need to ask ourselves (and the ones we are with): why was violence included in this storyline?  What is realistic about it, and what isn’t? How do these characters reflect the ‘real world’? And most importantly, what am I feeling as I consume it?  Why am I consuming it?

SVU returns with a new episode on January 18th.  I guess that gives me a few weeks to figure that out for myself.

Today I plan to go where many have gone before.

Answering the question: ‘What is radical feminism?’ is as easy as reading an enormous amount of radical feminist theory or as challenging as googling ‘radical feminism’. Regardless of the magnitude of work other radical feminists have done defining and writing and talking and acting and building radical feminism, as well as the convenience of Wikipedia, there continues to be a rather consistent confusion around the fact that a) radical feminism is a real thing and b) it actually means something. Radical feminism is a thing. It’s true. We didn’t just make it up. Or did we?

Radical feminism is not extremism, as many believe, nor is it simply ‘employing radical methods of everyday resistance‘, though I certainly support that kind of action. Radical feminism is, of course, focused on addressing the roots of oppression and for women, that root often is patriarchy. While there are most certainly other forms of oppression that work to prevent women from gaining freedom and equality, such as race and class, patriarchy is very much there. Always. At the root.

So the difference between radical feminists and, say, liberal feminists is that we don’t believe that we can just work with what we’ve got. This means that, for example, to argue that some women profit financially off of making pornography does not mean that all women are empowered. Nor does it, actually, mean that even they, as individuals are empowered. It means they will be able to pay the rent that month. Which is wonderful. But not the same thing as freedom from patriarchal oppression.

Now, misunderstandings of radical feminism are expansive. Mostly they consist of angry, hateful folks calling radical feminists nazi man/sex haters. These misunderstandings are, yes, dangerous and frustrating but I want to look at today is somewhat of an opposite problem. Just as  Sarah Palin is not a feminist, regardless of how many times she claims to be, “because if anti-feminists get to be feminists too, then the word has no real meaning and we’ll have to come up with a new one.” One does not get to simply change the definition of radical feminist to one that suits their behaviour or beliefs simply because they like the sound of it. I am going to use one particular example in this post, in order to discuss and, hopefully, stave off further cloudiness around radical feminism that might well perpetuate misunderstandings and misrepresentations of this particular nature.

Now I do think that this (re)definition, by Lori Adorable, is actually due to confusion rather than a malicious attempt to confuse the pants off anyone who doesn’t already have a solid understanding of feminism and its various strands, so I’m going to explain what exactly is wrong with her confused definition of radical feminism while simultaneously giving her the benefit of the doubt. Lori identifies as a radical feminist based on the following definition:

“I’m a radical feminist because I’m a woman who came to recognize the structural inequality amongst people and the specific injustices in the world through the feminist analysis of my personal experiences with abuse.  Also, I believe that the only way to eradicate these problems on both a small and large scale is by employing radical methods of everyday resistance.  I use ‘radical’ here in both the original sense of ‘addressing the root’ and the newer, no doubt related sense of being ‘extreme.’ In other words, I’m a radical feminist in the purest sense, not in the sense of belonging to the radical feminist movement, which has been thoroughly co-opted by the most privileged women, women who also happen to be anti-kink and anti-sex work and, all too often, transphobic and racist.  I have this desire to take the term ‘radical’ back from them, because, well, it’s my term too.”

Source: magazine.goodvibes.com (http://s.tt/12SDv)

'Male Privilege: A Portrait'

So. A couple of problems here. First of all, you simply can’t have a definition of radical feminism that doesn’t include the word patriarchy. Recognizing ‘the structural inequality amongst people and the specific injustices in the world’ is super, but it isn’t radical feminism. These ‘people’ you speak of are women and men. And the specific injustice you speak of is patriarchal oppression. Patriarchy provides men with what is commonly referred to as ‘male privilege’, which exists at the expense of women and has a direct impact on the experiences of women. There are many people in the world who believe that there is no such thing as gendered oppression and that women are not oppressed any differently than men are. But those people aren’t radical feminists. What Lori believes is that her own personal way of resisting oppression empowers her in a way that identifies her as feminist. Which is fine. But that is both not political, nor is it radical feminism. Rather it firmly plants her within a tradition of liberal feminism in that she sees her own personal choices and actions as empowering for her as an individual. And I don’t necessarily doubt that she does indeed feel personally empowered by her choices, but the lack of connection to a larger context, to a larger politics of feminism, to an analysis of the systems of power which have impacted her experience and her ‘choice’ to become a sex worker, as well as her superficial understanding of what will, in fact, create radical change, is what clearly aligns her feminism with the liberal feminist tradition.

‘Addressing the root’ is, indeed, key to radical feminist politics, so she got that part right. But it is certainly not ‘new’ to view radical feminism as extreme. Radical feminists have been painted as extremists from the get go. It would appear as though criticizing the very systems of power that make those in power so very happy is unpopular. People who do that sort of thing are often viewed as ‘extremists’.

The ‘purest sense‘ of the term ‘radical feminism’ is….radical feminism. It’s not plugging together the words radical and feminism and assigning a new meaning to an already defined ideology. Anyone else out there want to redefine Marxism while we’re at it? Maybe instead it could mean capitalism. Or anarchism. Radical feminism recognizes patriarchy as a primary source of women’s oppression and sees women’s experiences as women in a patriarchal culture as a primary factor in their lived experiences and in their experiences of subordination. In order to alter this experience, we must end patriarchal oppression. So while everyday acts of resistance are, indeed, valid, in terms of, potentially, challenging dominant norms and dominant ideology, they don’t necessarily constitute radical feminism. Particularly not when those acts buy into, support, perpetuate and profit (or facilitate and encourage others to [further] profit) off of those norms/systems/ideologies. While Lori may well desire and deserve to make her own personal choices about her life, this is not, in and of itself, what constitutes radical feminist politics. Me me me me me / my life my life my life my life is not radical feminism.

The reason we have definitions and ideology that are universally understood to imply a certain set of beliefs and/or politics is so that we are able to actually have coherent conversations. Calling yourself a radical feminist implies certain beliefs and politics. And let’s be clear – politics are absolutely key here, this isn’t just about me making choices that make me feel good. It is about addressing very serious inequity, abuse, exploitation, and oppression that impact women, in particular, within a patriarchal culture.

Redefining radical feminism based on absolute ignorance and disregard for the history, activism, arguments, ideology, and theory that found and define radical feminism, alongside nonsensical attacks on radical feminists which aim to shut down conversation (such as accusing them of being ‘whorephobic’ or ‘sexworkphobic’; meaningless terms which demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of radical feminist arguments and, in fact, of the word ‘phobic’) and invalidate feminist arguments, places one about as far away from radical feminism as you can get without actually going the ‘y’all are just a bunch of misandrists’ route.

Hugo Schwyzer is a gender studies professor at a college in Southern California, a writer, and was an organizer of Slutwalk LA. Though our opinions and positions diverge significantly in some areas, in an effort to engage in civil debate and have an honest conversation, Hugo and I have asked one another 5 questions, posting our respective responses here and at hugoschwyzer.net

Hugo’s responses to my questions were posted on Monday. I look forward to hearing readers thoughts and comments on these conversations. Hugo and I will respond to one another late next week and I would like to be able to include some reader comments in my response.

Thanks to Hugo for his interest in and willingness to engage in these conversations and thank you to commenters for engaging.

The following are my answers to the questions posed by Hugo:

Hugo: 1)    How do you feel about men teaching feminism or taking on other leadership roles in the fight for gender justice?  More bluntly, how do you feel about the role I’ve carved out for myself within the movement, as best you understand it?  Would another model (Katz, Kimmel, Jensen) be better? Should I quit my job, as some radfems have asked, so that a woman can be hired?

Meghan: You know, I have mixed feelings about this. I wouldn’t argue that a man can’t teach gender studies, but to have a man teaching feminism to women? I don’t know. Certainly a man can have expertise in gender theory, that I would not dispute. But I have to admit it feels a little strange to have a man in the position of Women’s Studies teacher, though I’m not so sure I would go so far as to tell you to quit your job. I find it a little strange that a college wouldn’t hire a woman to teach Women’s Studies. Perhaps they’re in the wrong here (if there is someone in the ‘wrong’) – why haven’t they hired a woman to teach Women’s Studies? What’s behind that decision? Why wouldn’t they choose to hire a woman to teach the one Women’s Studies class offered in a college that doesn’t even have a Women’s Studies department? I wonder how you feel about this?

So in terms of you, as an individual, teaching feminism, or taking on leadership roles in the fight for gender justice, well, there are a couple of issues here. I agree with Stephen Heath’s argument in his piece Male Feminism, wherein he points out“that this is a matter for women, that it is their voices and actions that must determine the change and redefinition. Their voices and actions, not ours.” So while I do think it is ok for men to take leadership roles in the fight for gender justice and certainly I know many feminist men who have done this and do this in a way that is respectful and has challenged male domination, rather than reinforcing it I do think it depends on the approach. It is imperitive that the voices of women are not stepped on or silenced in this process and, of course, the problem is that many men already feel a sense of entitlement around their voices and their opinions so for men to speak as experts on a subject is nothing new. While men can be strong allies  and even take the lead in certain areas of the feminist movement, I’m not sure they can be ‘experts’ in feminism nor do I wish to be explained, for example, by a man, how feminism works.

Jensen, of course, speaks from a radical feminist perspective and, as you know teaches feminism within his discipline of Journalism, not as a professor of Women’s Studies.  A man who approaches feminism from a foundation of radical feminism is simply more legit, as far as I’m concerned. Liberal feminism does too many favours for men, it allows too much in terms of maintaining the status quo and the systems already in place. It’s hard to hear a man defend pornography or ‘sex work’ as you call it. Or to argue that women are simply making an autonomous choice and that it is no one’s business what ‘consenting adults’ do.

Just to be clear, I don’t believe that prostitution is work, I believe it is exploitative and abusive and I believe it is a legitimized form of rape. It’s not the same as providing a service like physiotherapy, nor is it the same as cleaning a toilet, as certain decriminalization advocates have implied. What other ‘job’ is so gendered? What other ‘work’ involves being called abusive words, rape or depictions of rape, the giving over of your body to another for them to do with it what they wish? This ‘work’ is very much dependant on race, class, and gender and reinforces a perception of women (not just some women, all women) as objects, not humans. Men don’t watch pornography and see full human beings, they see things, they see something which exists to provide them with pleasure, it’s all for their eyes. Prostituted women are viewed by most in our society as less than human. It is something you do when you have no other choice. What about this is autonomous or consensual? Who is able to provide consent when they have no other choice? While there are women who do ‘choose’ this work in some sense of the word, I don’t think this is representative of most women and within a culture that teaches women that their value lies in the bodies and their sexualities and their ability to please men, well, arguing this is simply an autonomous choice or a job like any other feels insulting to me.

Calling it ‘work’ makes everyone, but especially men, especially pimps and johns, feel at ease about what they are doing. Because pornography, prostitution and strip clubs are things that exist to benefit men, at the expense of women, I find it difficult take seriously a man who claims to be feminist but does not actively fight to end these clearly sexist and oppressive industries. I mean, OF COURSE, men support strip clubs. That’s nothing new. It’s obviously not radical. For a man to actually tell the truth about male power, lose the privilege,  reject the status quo – THAT’S radical. So I tend not to entirely trust men who aren’t willing to lose the privilege, to stand with women to end sexist exploitation, and to actually challenge that which is accepted in patriarchal society (i.e. the objectification of female bodies). It doesn’t mean hating on women in the industry, it means hating on the industry. Critiquing the innate sexism in the porn industry doesn’t mean attacking the women in it. I mean, in the end, it is men who profit the most.

2)  What would you say to my friend Alana Evans, a porn star and self-described feminist who does claim to enjoy her work?  If you were debating her, what would you say about her experience?  Would you negate it entirely, or simply claim that she’s a strange exception to a general rule?  How do you respond to self-described sex-positive feminist sex workers when they talk about their experiences?

I would say, great. I am happy that she’s had such a positive experience. Unfortunately for many women this is not the case. The exception is not the rule. It does not mean that we should not acknowledge those exceptional experiences, but it also does not mean that we privilege them above all others and erase all those who have been degraded and humiliated and abused and raped either as prostituted women or simply because they are women. Simply because a woman is enjoying herself it doesn’t mean that the men watching don’t see her, and as a result, all women, as things.

Regardless of the individual experiences that some women have as ‘sex workers’ that may be construed as positive or non-violent, there are many, many women who are hurt in pornography or because of pornography. And no, I don’t believe that pornography invented misogyny or rape, but rather it is the manifestation of a sexist society, but I do believe that the perpetuation of these images plays into rape culture. How many times can a person jack off to a woman being humiliated and degraded without actually believing that women being humiliated and degraded is not only ‘ok’, but is sexy? And not only that, but that women like to be humiliated and degraded, they are turned on by violence and humiliation and degradation? Tell me that isn’t dangerous. Tell me that doesn’t hurt women.

All this focus on individual choice and empowerment that has infiltrated the feminist movement is dangerous, in my opinion. Simply because one individual feels good about their personal choice does  not mean that women, collectively or globally, are any more free, any less in danger, any less oppressed. Often those women who do feel individually empowered by their own personal choice are also women who hold a certain level of privilege. The (horrible) truth is that many women around the world do not get to choose. This kind of discourse ignores all of those women, and it ignores the larger context of pornography, how it impacts women at large, how it impacts men even.

So I could care less, to be blunt, whether or not one person enjoys their work in the porn industry. I’m sure there are many men out there who ‘enjoy’ their work as heads of companies that destroy the planet or that (essentially) enslave the poor in developing countries just so they can get rich making Nikes or drilling for oil (and I am not comparing professions here, I am comparing arguments) – does this negate the larger impact of these actions? Does the fact that this makes them feel empowered on a personal level mean that we cannot critique? Or demand change? This isn’t an argument that makes sense in other contexts, particularly when it comes to social justice. The personal empowerment of a few does not equal political or social change.

So whether or not she enjoys her work is, in my opinion, irrelevant in the context of the feminist movement. I ‘choose’ to wear lipstick some days. Do I define this as a feminist act because it makes me feel good on a superficial level? No.  In fact I think it’s kind of lame. But hey, I’m an imperfect being. I would never tell Alana that she cannot or does not or should not enjoy her work. But that experience does not represent all experiences, nor does it make sex work, as a whole, something that is empowering to women. In the end, sex work is about male pleasure. It has always been primarily about male pleasure. Women are, for the most part, the objects in pornography and that is dangerous. It is sexist. No bones about it.

Individual empowerment does not necessarily equal feminism. It certainly doesn’t radically challenge the roots of oppression. That’s neo-liberalism. It’s pretending that there’s no such thing as systematic oppression and injustice. It’s pretending that we can change our situations by reading self-help books, by thinking positive, by working harder, whatever. It’s the American Dream. And it’s a lie. What we need to pay attention to is context and the larger implications of the sex industry. The big picture. I just don’t think it’s relevant to say ‘I like my job’. Good for you. So what.

3) What do you like best about SlutWalks?  What do you like least?

I like that this many people are talking about feminism. For me the positives pretty much end there. This so-called ‘movement’ is embarrassing. There is no cohesive message, no collective demands, and there is an unwillingness to name the problem, to address the root of violence against women. What will we gain from Slutwalk? The freedom to call ourselves sluts? The freedom to have sex with whomever we want, whenever we want? Well, we already have that. The fact that a movement which I had originally assumed to be, in the end, a protest against sexual assault and violence against women has somehow been conflated with sexual liberation is, well, confusing. Rape is not sex, it has nothing to do with sex. Rape is about power and domination, control and humiliation. The idea that we need a word to describe ‘a person who enjoys consensual sex’ is ridiculous. I don’t need to invent a word (or, in this case, redefine a misogynist word) to describe the fact that, as a woman, I deserve to be respected, that I deserve to be heard. I deserve that because I am a human being. Sex is consensual, like, by definition (unless, of course you are watching pornography, in which case there is no talk of consent because women are represented as constantly accessible and available, sexually, to  men), so this should just be a given. If sex is not consensual then it’s not sex. It’s rape. Plain and simple. Ergo, if you are a person who likes sex that is consensual (which is how ‘slut’ has been redefined by several satellites) you are a human being who respects other human beings. Not a ‘slut’.If you like sex that is not consensual, then you like rape. End of story.

4)  What legal remedies would you like to see to combat pornography? How do you propose (if you propose it) to empower the state to pursue pornographers without also empowering the state to crack down on feminist literature?  How will a judicial system not famous for its sympathy to feminism use the powers that anti-pornography legislation might give it?

I’m undecided about this. On one hand, I worry, as I imagine you also do, that censorship of pornography will leak into censoring positive or subversive images or writing that actually depict real, non-sexist, non-heteronormative, non-abusive female sexuality. On the other hand, pornography is abuse. And abuse is illegal.

I feel like there is a lot of confusion coming from this supposedly ‘sex-positive’ faction of ‘feminism’. Pornography has very little to do with sex. Rather, it exists to debase, degrade, and humiliate women. We can all acknowledge, as feminists, that rape is about power, not sex. Why can’t we acknowledge this to also be true of pornography? Would anyone in their right mind argue that rape should not be illegal because it limits individual freedom or an individual’s sexuality? Of course not. Censoring pornography is not about constraining a person’s sexuality but rather is about ending misogyny, ending rape culture, and allowing space for real liberation and real, human sexuality that is not based on domination and objectification. Being ‘anti-porn’ is not about being against sex. Rather, it is the opposite. An anti-porn stance is ‘pro-sex’, if you want to call it that. Why shouldn’t we limit the commodification of women and women’s bodies?

I think what we need, and what Dworkin and MacKinnon did, was to have a definition of pornography that allows for the judicial system to impose anti-pornography legislation that does not impede, for example, feminist erotica. Interestingly, some of Catherine Breillat’s work has been censored or banned in the past, though it would certainly fit under the banner of feminist erotica rather than pornography. When so much work that simply challenges the status quo is censored, what is the big fear around censoring sexist pornography?

Professor of media studies at New York University, Chyng Sun’s analysis of mainstream porn found that “physical and verbal aggression is present in 90 percent of mainstream porn scenes”. And mainstream hetero porn is growing, not shrinking, it’s becoming ever more violent and degrading, and ever more normalized and we’re derailing the conversation into one about ‘choice’ and freedom of speech? Give me a break. Hate speech isn’t freedom of speech and misogyny isn’t a ‘choice’. It’s something that happens to women, to paraphrase Andrea Dworkin. It happens to women and to hear men argue that anti-pornography legislation impedes their freedom is just insulting. What are we protecting? Pornography isn’t about variety or choice, it’s about limiting variety and choice, it’s about limiting sexuality and freedom. Not only that but porn reinforces the idea that women are perpetually available to men, perpetually available to be penetrated in any and every orifice, that they exist purely for male pleasure. Tell me this doesn’t play into rape culture? So, while I don’t feel that I am equipped to provide an answer for you in terms of specific legal remedies at this time (precisely because of these concerns about what censorship entails) I do think that this is the context within which we should be having these conversation. Not from some kind of fake ‘this impedes my individual freedom to objectify and abuse women’. It disingenuous right from the get go. Never mind insulting and hurtful. This is the opposite of liberation. If one person’s ‘freedom’ means the oppression of others it is not real freedom.

5)  Some radical feminists reject all penis-in-vagina intercourse as fundamentally oppressive (factcheckme, etc). Others like Dworkin were more nuanced.  Can there be a genuinely feminist heterosexual relationship that involves PIV?  That involves reproductivity?

Oh I like to think so. I’ve only recently learned about those arguments, so I can’t speak to them with any kind of expertise. What I can get behind is the critique of this assumption that PIV equals sex. It’s heteronormative crap. Many women don’t experience pleasure from penetrative sex, and to actually define ‘sex’ in those terms is, of course, oppressive and sexist. It is a male-centered definition of sex.

So I respect those arguments, for sure, but hey, I enjoy penetrative sex with men so I have no particular interest in arguing against PIV in it’s entirety. I think that Dworkin’s argument around heterosexual, penetrative sex is pretty right on. The fact that we do, as a culture, view men as the ‘actors’ and the penetrators and women as the passive receivers of penetration does speak to the way in which male power and domination plays out in the bedroom. And the fact that we have defined sex on that basis speaks to the way in which the world around us has been largely defined by men and patriarchal ideals.

I would like to think that it does not need to be this way and really like what one of my F Word co-hosts, Nicole Deagan, had to say about this matter in our sex show; that is: switch it up! Changing the roles of who is the penetrator and who is the penetratee (if you are, indeed, interested in including penetration as part of your sex life) can really change the dynamics of a relationship, same goes for, as she suggests, putting men in lingerie instead of women. Personally I am not interested in dressing up for sex and, of course, women do this because they are taught that they are pretty things to be looked at, that they are supposed to be on display and because, often, their male partners will ask them to. But what happens if a man puts on a sexy little dress and is penetrated by a woman instead? I think there are ways of disrupting these binaries in hetero relationships in order to create a more egalitarian, feminist one. Men taking on vulnerable roles could be a way of doing this. Or you could just lose the penetration entirely. Particularly if it’s not something that a woman enjoys.

There is much to overcome and there are no simple solutions but I think that yes, the fact that ‘real sex’ is assumed to be tied to a man penetrating a woman is very much a part of oppressive patriarchal culture. The fact that we even assume that a ‘real’ relationship must involve sex is oppressive and sexist. What about the radical act of loving? What about friendship? What about real trust? Does love not ‘count’ unless there is ‘sex’ or penetration? Just as the legitimacy of my relationship is marginalized because I don’t believe in marriage, the legitimacy of any relationship that does not involve penetrative sex is marginalized. My relationship, my version of ‘family’ (which, yes, does include my puppy dog) is marginalized also because I don’t want children. I mean, when we are realistic and honest about all these things, our society starts to look pretty conservative no? Love + penetrative sex + marriage + children. Yeesh. Let’s challenge this. That’s not to say that there are not feminists who have sex with men, reproduce, and even marry, but I think we need to work harder at challenging these norms and saying, yes! Your love/relationship/family/life is just as meaningful and legitimate as anyone’s, regardless of whether or not you and your partner have sex (in whatever form that manisfests itself), regardless of whether or not you marry (and yes, I do think that, as feminists we should be challenging the institution of marriage), regardless of whether or not you are monogamous, and regardless of whether or not you reproduce.

Originally posted at Hugo Schwyzer’s blog.

Hugo Schwyzer is a gender studies professor at a college in Southern California, a writer, and was an organizer of Slutwalk LA. Though our opinions and positions diverge significantly in some areas, in an effort to engage in civil debate and have an honest conversation, Hugo and I have asked one another 5 questions, posting our respective responses here and at hugoschwyzer.net

My responses to Hugo’s questions will be posted on Wednesday. I look forward to hearing readers thoughts and comments on these conversations. Hugo and I will respond to one another the following week and I would like to be able to include some of your comments in this response.

Thanks to Hugo for his interest in and willingness to engage in these conversations and thank you to commenters for engaging.

The following is a series of questions, asked by myself, and Hugo’s responses:

Meghan: 1) The role of men in feminism:

Stephen Heath wrote, in Male Feminism: “Men’s relation to feminism is an impossible one,” going on to say that “Men have a necessary relation to feminism” but “that this is a matter for women, that it is their voices and actions that must determine the change and redefinition. Their voices and actions, not ours: no matter how “sincere,” “sympathetic” or whatever, we are always also in a male position which brings with it all the implications of domination and appropriation, everything precisely that is being challenged, that has to be altered. Women are the subjects of feminism, its initiators, its makers, its force; the move and the join from being a woman to being a feminist is the grasp of that subjecthood. Men are the objects, part of the analysis, agents of the structure to be transformed, representatives in, carriers of the patriarchal mode; and my desire to be a subject there too in feminism—to be a feminist—is then only also the last feint in the long history of their colonization.”

So while men can and should, of course, be actors in the feminist movement, and need not be passive or voiceless, I feel that feminism is grounded in the experience, insights and perspectives of women. Do you agree? What role can men play in feminism? How can you speak about and to feminists without dominating the conversation? Where do you see yourself in this movement?

Hugo: Respectfully, I think Heath is wrong. Look, men have been part of the feminist movement since its inception (look at the many male signers of the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848.) When NOW was founded in the Sixties, it was designed to be the National Organization for Women, not the National Organization of Women. Gender identity happens on a spectrum; it’s not a binary which can be neatly divided into “subject” and “object.”

That said, men do have to be very careful to avoid taking dominant roles in feminism. I wrote a post last year called “Step Up and Step Back” in which I said the following:

“Step up” means that men who choose to identify as feminists (or, if you prefer, as “feminist allies” or “pro-feminists”) are called to take an active role in the anti-sexist movement. Building a genuinely egalitarian and non-violent society requires everyone’s involvement. Empowering women to defend themselves from rapists and harassers is important; raising a generation of young men to whom the idea of rape or harassment is anathema is also vital. We need men of all ages in the feminist movement to “step up” and commit themselves to embodying egalitarian principles in their private and public lives.

Stepping up means being willing to listen to women’s righteous anger. That doesn’t mean groveling on the ground in abject apology merely for having a penis — contrary to stereotype, that’s not what feminists (at least not any I’ve ever met) want. That means really hearing women, without giving into the temptation to become petulant, defensive, or hurt. It means realizing that each and every one of us is tangled in the Gordian knot of sexism, but that men and women are entangled in different ways that almost invariably cause greater suffering to the latter. Stepping up doesn’t mean denying that, as the old saying goes, The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too (TPHMT). It means understanding that in feminist spaces, to focus on male suffering both suggests a false equivalence and derails the most vital anti-sexist work.

Stepping up means, of course, being willing to confront other men. I’ve said over and over again that the acid test of a man’s commitment to feminism often comes not only in terms of how he treats women, but also how he speaks about women when he’s in all-male spaces. Many young men are earnest about living out feminist principles when around women. But get them around their “bros” and their words change. Or, as is more often the case, they may not join in on sexist banter — but they fail to raise vocal objection to it. Stepping up means challenging the jokes and complaints and objectifying remarks that are so much a part of the conversation in all-male spaces. This is, as far as I’m concerned, a sine qua non of being a feminist ally.

Stepping back means acknowledging that in almost every instance, feminist organizations ought to be led by women. It means that men in feminist spaces need to check themselves before they pursue leadership roles. While that might seem unfair, arguing that biological sex should have no bearing on who wields authority in a feminist organization fails to take into account the myriad ways in which the wider world discriminates against women. Even now, we still socialize young men to be assertive and young women to be deferential. (Yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but not enough to disprove that rule.) Part of undoing that socialization for women means pushing themselves to take on leadership positions even if they feel awkward about doing so; part of undoing that socialization for young men means holding themselves back from those same offices.

Stepping back doesn’t mean men should never speak up in feminist spaces. Stepping back is not about silently serving in the background. Stepping back is about the willingness to engage in self-reflection, to defer, and remembering that the most important job feminist men have within the movement is not to lead women but to serve as role models to other men. Stepping back is a way of renouncing the “knight in shining armor” tendency that afflicts many young men who first come to anti-sexist work. Women need colleagues and partners on this journey, not rescuers or substitute father figures.

2) One of the primary places of debate within feminist discourse lies in sex work; prostitution, pornography stripping, etc. How can a man retain credibility as a feminist and speak about these issues? Within a context of patriarchy and within a context wherein men are the primary buyers of sex and the primary audience for mainstream pornography (and the subjects of this pornography are, primarily, women and the sex that is being bought is, primarily, from women), is it even possible for a man, as an ally to feminists, to take a position that does not actively reject these industries? Do you actively reject these industries as part of your feminism?

Well, I think it might well be possible to do so, though I don’t. I don’t use pornography as part of my sexual life, and I don’t employ sex workers. Sex work is deeply problematic. At the same time, I’m confronted with the reality that a growing number of young women use pornography, and that there has been a concerted effort to create a genuinely feminist pornography – though the degree to which that’s a viable project remains a subject of contention. I reject porn use personally because it is incompatible with how I want to live my sexual life. I want my sexuality to be radically relational, where my arousal is inextricably linked to intimacy and partnership. I also want my sexuality to be congruent with my feminism, and for me personally, that means rejecting porn.

But I work with allies, overwhelmingly female, who are sex workers or advocates for sex workers. Some are the stereotypically privileged few who are outside the norm, but some who claim enthusiasm about sex work are from working-class backgrounds where financial necessity was the driving reason behind why they entered the industry. Nothing could be less feminist than for me to tell them “No, you don’t like what you’re doing. Actually,you hate it and you’re being exploited.” The sine qua non of male feminism is the capacity to hear women’s lived experiences. And when it comes to porn (both in terms of production and consumption) and other forms of sex works, women don’t speak with one voice.

I am committed to being an advocate for sex worker rights, committed to avoiding participating in sex work as a consumer, and committed to listening.

3) If I say to you: “Pornography hurts me, it hurts me deeply, and it hurts women”, how do you respond?

I hear you. I acknowledge it’s hurtful to you personally, and I acknowledge that porn has done tremendous harm to women. But not all porn is the same, and not everyone who works in porn experiences the same set of circumstances. We need to do more than say “porn bad”. We need to say, what is the long-term feminist response? Is it saying that women’s bodies on a screen or in a magazine can never be gazed at with desire because that action is inherently hurtful? I’m not ready to go that far.

I’ve had literally dozens of current and former sex workers as my students over the years. (The ones who have come out to me.) I teach at a community college a few miles from the heart of the commercial porn industry here in L.A. And I’ve heard stories of rape and abuse and exploitation, and also heard stories of empowerment (a term that for all its fluffiness we do well not to dismiss lightly) and pleasure. There just isn’t one narrative. That’s the mistake Bob Jensen made in his brilliant but ultimately one-sided “Getting Off”. Just as there’s more to the movie industry than what comes out of Disney or Warner Brothers, there’s more to porn than what comes out of Vivid Video or Max Hardcore.

Part of the problem is NO ONE seems to acknowledge nuance here. One side says “porn is harmless fun and really causes no problems at all”, while the other seems to say “all porn is bad, feminist porn is and always will be an oxymoron, and visual depictions of sexuality are inherently exploitative and can’t be redeemed.” That’s a hell of a false dichotomy.

4) You have said “Women are not commodities whose value is based on their own fluctuating sense of self-worth.” From my perspective, escort agencies, and really, the prostitution of women in any form, legitimizes the idea the women’s bodies and lives are for sale. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? As an ally to feminists, and to women, what action do you / have you taken in order to end this commodification of women, women’s bodies, and female sexuality? Do you see the commodification and objectification of women as tied to violence against women?

I too am deeply troubled by escorts. I cannot imagine paying for sex the same way I pay for, say, a back massage. My own instinct is to be drawn to the Nordic model, in which selling sex is not a crime (as long as it’s your own body you sell and not another’s) but buying it is. But I hear from many responsible sex worker advocacy groups I respect (SWOP, for example) who are critical of the Swedish model and who claim it has made things worse.

All rape and sexual violence is linked to a profound sense of male entitlement. Men rape and hit and abuse women because they’ve been led to believe that women’s bodies are male property. But the sense that men have that their desire gives them rights over women’s bodies is older than the porn industry. Indeed, as porn and other forms of sex work have become more ubiquitous, there has been no concomitant increase in rape. Countries that make porn illegal do not have demonstrably better conditions for women than those that permit it. Sex work can be a manifestation of the problem, but it isn’t the root.

5) You have been one of the primary organizers and spokespeople for Slutwalk LA and you have been very supportive of Slutwalks as a whole. While, generally, Slutwalks have claimed not to take a position on sex work, other than to stand as allies with sex workers, recently, Slutwalk Las Vegas presented this statement on their Facebook page: “Slut isn’t a look, it’s an attitude. And whether you enjoy sex for pleasure or work, it’s never an invitation to violence” Can you comment on this statement?

I feel that this statement narrows the conversation in a dangerous way. Framing prostitution as work, as a job just like any other job and as something that women enjoy, benefits men. Even framing prostitution as ‘sex work’ seems, to me, to take a position – would you say that Slutwalk LA does, in fact, take a position on ‘sex work’?

Well, as you probably know, the Toronto organizers “released” all the satellite SlutWalks to follow their own paths based on the local “facts on the ground.” So there is no official SlutWalk position on sex work. (Parenthetically, I’ll say I do what my friends in the sex worker community have asked, and that is use the term sex work to refer to the whole spectrum of sexual commerce from stripping to massage parlors to porn to prostitution.)

Are there women who enjoy doing sex work? I’ve known women, students and friends, who insist that they do. I’ve known other women, often former sex workers, who insist that it’s impossible for a sex worker genuinely to enjoy sex with a john. Again, I think we have to stay away from sweeping statements. But I’m perfectly prepared to say that the number of sex workers who do it for pleasure is dwarfed by the number who do it for survival.

SlutWalk LA, in its very explicit inclusion of the sex worker community, wasn’t only standing up for those women who “like what they do.” Sex work is with us, and will continue to be with us – it’s called the world’s oldest profession for a reason. So while we figure out what the best strategy is (legalization, decriminalization, Swedish model, New Zealand model, intensified criminalization) we need to meet the needs of real sex workers. Even a sex worker who doesn’t enjoy sex with johns distinguishes between a forcible rape by a client (or, as is frequently the case, a cop) and sex that has been negotiated and compensated. The difference is not insignificant. We can’t let a future best-case scenario (a world in which sex isn’t commodified at all) stop us from meeting the real needs of real women right now.

If SlutWalk LA has a position on sex work, it is that sex workers deserve the same legal and cultural protections against rape as everyone else. And getting them those protections requires bringing their work out of the shadows without stigma.