If That's Feminism, F*ck Feminism

So, love-to-position-ourselves-as-the-pragmatic-liberals-which-often-means-fundamentally-conservative Slate.com has launched its official women's website DoubleX this week, and boy, oh boy, did they know how to set things off, by inviting enemy of the third-wave, Linda Hirshman to contribute regularly. She kicked her contribution off by ripping down a pro-feminist blog. Ah, sisterhood.

If the women of Jezebel had at any point said they hoped to define feminism for the 21st century and hoped all their readers would follow their actions and adopt their implied ideologies, there would be plenty to criticize them for. I don't read the comments often, but when I do, I'm usually struck by how damn smart Jezebel commenters are. They're grown women, mostly feminist, with opinions of their very own. The Jezebel writers are not their role models and not their models for feminism.

Does Hirshman (and Wolf, Bindel, Leveque, Winstead) really have nothing better to do with her pulpit than accuse other women of being self-indulgent? That's the idea of the blog. It's a blog about indulgence (sex, fashion, drinking, etc.). That's why I don't go there for serious social critique when what I seek is serious social critique. But Jezebel still manages to convey every day that the ideals of feminism are desirable and being worked at, even if readers might sometimes point out when they contradict themselves. There are plenty of indulgent blogs directed at women without any hint of a social conscience, so I really have to know why Hirshman is so upset about the ones who do show their feminist stripes on a regular basis.

What are her biggest examples of their failings? Well, two of them were date raped and didn't report it. Oh, you mean they're like more than 90% of rape victims in this country? You mean, you're actually going to call these women indulgent because they didn't report their attacks? You mean, you actually said this?

Given the high level of risk the Jezebel life involves, it is surprising that the offense that arouses the liberated Jezebels to real political fury is the suggestion that women like them might be made responsible for the consequences of their own acts, or that there might be general standards that define basic feminist behavior. Suggest that women report the men who rape them for the sake of future victims, say, or that women should be asked why they stay with the men who abuse them, or urged to leave them, and the Jezebels go ballistic. Judgmental, judgmental!

Doing what feels good to you is the only standard that is allowed. The problem is that no one really wants to admit that some things feel bad, because that admission would threaten the whole system of unlimited individual action.

(...)

How can writers who justify not reporting rape criticize the military for not controlling…rape? It’s incoherent.

Right. Because I'm sure the only reason these women didn't report their rapes (when they were teenagers mind you(!)), was because doing so would threaten their ability to live in a system of unlimited individualism. Feminists can't criticize rape culture unless they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and did what The Movement needed them to do after they were raped? WHAT?!

Hirshman's idea of sexual politics and liberation is sort of frightening. Part of what she hates about Jezebel is clearly that they show that being sexually free is not safe for women. They talk a lot of about fucking and they've been abused in the past. Why is this so problematic? It's reality.

As a generation of young women is discovering, and as polemicists from Camille Paglia to Ariel Levy have pointed out, there’s something missing in both points of view. Women can pretend they’re female chauvinist pigs, but it’s still women who are more sexually vulnerable to stronger men, due to the possibilities of physical abuse and pregnancy. These Jezebel writers are a symptom of the weaknesses in the model of perfect egalitarian sexual freedom; in fact, it’s the supposed concern with feminism that makes the site so problematic.

So what's the alternative for her? We never have sex the way we want to have sex because it puts us at risk for rape? Shouldn't it be up to individual women to decide whether they want to be sexually expressive in spite of their vulnerability?

I really never wanted to be the type of feminist who told other feminists they needed to chill out and worry about more important things, but in this case, I can't help it. If your greatest concern about a feminist fashion blog is it promotes indulgence and individualism (and her only example of this is that they didn't report date rapes), please find something else to work on protecting our daughters from. We aren't your daughters, Linda, and you really don't need to be lecturing us about indulgence. Feminism is not a contest in flagellation, and women should not have to be super heroes to be considered good feminists.

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Socialist feminism vs. Marxist feminism

I'm in the process of writing statements of purpose for graduate school applications, and in so doing, found it necessary to reference the book Feminist Thought (sort of a primer on different spheres of feminist thought, by Rosemarie Tong), for some help in trying to define my own academic interests. I came across this interesting chapter on "Marxist and Socialist Feminism." It's interesting, because I'd probably loosely identify myself as either one of these types of feminists on any given day if asked to define my feminism in a couple words, but I still learned a lot about the history and context of the discourses I'd never really heard about before, in just this 20-page chapter.

Here's Tong in the intro:

"Although it is possible to distinguish between Marxist and socialist feminist thought, it is quite difficult to do so. Over the years I have become convinced that the differences between these two schools of thought are more a matter of emphasis than of subatance. Marxist feminists tend to pay their respects directly to Marx, Engels, and other nineteenth-century thinkers; they also tend to identify classism rather than sexism as the ultimate cause of women's oppression. In contrast, socialist feminists seem more influenced by twentieth-century thinkers such as Louis Althusser and Jurgen Habermas. Moreover, they insist the fundamental cause of women's oppression is neither "classism" nor "sexism" but an intricate interplay between capitalism and patriarchy. In the final analysis, however, the differences between Marxist and socialist feminists are not nearly as important as their common conviction. Marxist and socilist feminists alike believe women's oppression is not the result of individuals' intentional actions but is th eproduct of the political, social, and ecnomic structures within which individuals live."

While I've never heard the differences between socialist and Marxist feminists described in quite these terms, I've always sensed there must be some assumed or implied differences between calling one's self a Marxist feminist and calling one's self a socialist feminist (like there's a difference I can't wholly articulate between being a Marxist and a socialist). And since I was uninterested in learning about what must be trivial differences, I've tried to avoid taking sides by calling myself a more neutral, "leftist feminist."

And yet, though I don't really know what the difference is, Tong's characterization of it as a difference between being nineteenth century and thinking "classism" is the root of women's oppression and being twentieth century seems a little misguided to me. For one thing, I don't think even Marxists necessarily think "classism" or even more accurately, class , is the root of all human oppression, so I especially doubt Marxist feminists think so. That sort of essentialist thinking seems to be more an accusation made against Marxists than anything I've ever heard or read a Marxist say.

The distinction between primary interest in nineteenth and twentieth century thinkers is more plausible to me, and yet, I have a hard time thinking feminists can really easily distinguish between which ones they're more interested in, since the twentieth century thinkers are obviously the disciples of the nineteenth century thinkers and any academic today would have a hard time justifying neglect of the century of development of socialist thought since Marx and Engels were writing.

Instead, I think it may be more accurate to say socialist feminists are interested in the basics of Marx's conception of capitalism and justice, but think that theory is more relevant when examined in the lights twentieth century thinkers bring (cultural theory, for example). On the contrary, Marxists feminists may share Marx's interests. I'm thinking, for example, interests in Hegelian discourses and the more metaphysical arguments Marx made.

For my part, I probably lean more toward socialist feminism if those are the criteria, and have very little interest in much of what Marx wrote, with the exception of the way he outlines history and capital (which, granted, is a very large chunk of his writing).

Well, in fact, let me take that back. I do think Marx's more metaphysical arguments are incredibly interesting in an academic sense, and make for especially interesting literary analyses, but in a political-activist sense, I can't really say I think they're incredibly important. Hmm...Now I've just suggested I think academics are somehow not completely politically relevant, or that academic interests and political interests should be separated, and that's not exactly an idea I support...See why I might be having trouble with this statement of purpose?

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