No link to the Thought Catalog piece?

Oh crap.  I’ll fix it.

I’m The Only Smart Girl In The Room Non-Feminists were particularly busy in denouncing Rebeca Watson, who kinda sorta maybe used to be one of them?

Ah yes, I caught that piece on Twitter yesterday. It was so terrible. And to the author of the piece, I’d like to say: I do think less of you for liking Legally Blonde, and the reasons have nothing to do with feminism.

I kind of think Tina Fey belonged to that category, anyway.

Meh, there’s a reason the article put her in the “regular people” (ie, women who don’t speak up too much ‘cause they know their place) category, which is that you don’t have to be remotely feminist to like Tina Fey. Which makes sense, given that what feminist critique is present in her work is pretty shallow.

I hate these inane lists that so many writers do, especially when they are wrong/inaccurate.  All of her examples of feminists are just crude caricature, and are so uncommon that I have never actually met anyone that fit them.  While that’s not to say no one is like that, it’s certainly far less common than they imagine.

God what the fuck. To be honest that didn’t bother me much (aside from the fact the best people she could think of to include in “Angry Feminist” were musicians. Where’s the requisite “Andrea Dworkin is the devil” from someone who never read her?) until she got to “Slutty Feminist” and seemed to imply that the only way to be a sex-positive feminist is to support buyer and seller maxims like “men are horny and women are hot”.

Kudos to you for managing to respond with humour.

Also, the weird assumption that 100% of feminist men are just Nice Guys who spend all their time with feminists so they can bitch about pretty girls together?? Because guys like that would survive a typical discussion on Nice Guys without being booted from any self-respecting feminist circle?

until she got to “Slutty Feminist” and seemed to imply that the only way to be a sex-positive feminist is to support buyer and seller maxims like “men are horny and women are hot”.

That’s a good point, and then she implies that “slutty” feminists “know what’s up with men” as if the rest of the feminists are in denial or something. By and large I meet a lot more sex-positive feminists than sex-negative ones, so singling out the “slutty” ones as being the only ones who are frank about sex is pretty disingenuous.

And like you said, buying into bullshit gender politics about men being horny and women just catering to that ‘cause it makes them feel hot is even worse.

Also, I found it hard to believe she really thinks that being horny or not being hot somehow excludes you from the category of “woman”.

I think you could substitute ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ for ‘feminist’ and apply about half of this critique to both sexes.

I really think the vast majority of ‘Republicans’ are just flowing into it like water finding the easiest path down the mountain. People with wealth and power tell ordinary people to do and think whatever the hell they say, and a lot of people go along because it’s easier not to fight back.

My boss used to come out to pontificate with me - really he was trying to coerce me - into agreeing that Clinton actually *raped* Monica, universal health insurance is impossible and government workers are the devil (this was a tough sell, since my dad spent 35 years in the Wyoming Highway Department - the last few years fighting with contractors to, you know, honor their bids. These glorious ‘entrepreneurs’ had a pattern of low-balling bids then asking for a ton of shortcuts - in this way, he was the greatest defender of the taxpayer and the ‘private sector’ was bilking taxpayers, but I digress).

The imperious jerks of the world are all Republican (‘conservative’), and it takes to guts to defend yourself and think for yourself.

That’s a dilemma for the left - how do approach people and say, “Hey, ummm…could you be a better person? Like, y’know, be more courageous, open your eyes and see the world as it is.”

Delusion and illusion are, to coin a cliche, ‘a feature, not a bug’ of modern life. It’s tough for me to countenance the world created by yes, patriarchy with its casual nihilism, resentment masquerading as morality and straight up tyranny. That’s tough for me to face, and I spent my lunch hour protesting at my Congressman’s office yesterday.

What about I Got Mine Resentful Libertarian Non-Feminists? It’s a type I come across all the time: women who have “made it” in a patriarchal world, who see themselves as tough and determined, and who fall into the libertarian fallacy of just deserts: if I can do it, so should you, and if you can’t, then you’re lazy and shouldn’t expect things like basic human rights just “handed to you”.

An almost verbatim quote from an ex-friend on the topic of equality in education that illustrates the point: “when I was at school, there was home economics for girls and shop for boys, but I fought and argued and protested until they let me do shop. If I can do that, so can my daughter, so what’s the problem?”.

It’s possible that this actually a sub-type of the “I’m The Only Smart Girl In The Room Non-Feminists”, Pulling Up the Ladder Behind Them edition. Examples: Margaret Thatcher.

By and large I meet a lot more sex-positive feminists than sex-negative ones

That’s definitely true of me also, but a more important and stereotype-busting distinction is that I meet more sex positive feminists than sex positive anybody else. It’s easy to close your eyes and pretend like religion and patriarchy and whatever are all A Okay with the idea of orgasmic sexytimes; or easy enough if one’s priority is to make an anti-feminist argument.

But of course it’s bullshit: “women have a right to safe, non-punishable, pleasurable sex” is a key feminist tenet, for all that those of us who like to point out that “pleasurable” and even “safe” are conspicuously absent from the prevailing pornified paradigm are caricatured as prudes.

I was thinking that the Self-Hating and Only Smart Girl categories might really be the same thing, just with slightly different emphases. Both of them are based on the notion that the non-feminist in question is really One of the Guys, just with a vagina by accident instead of a penis.

And on top of all that, her choice of pseudonym is a rather lame attempt at imitating Kierkegaard.

Just Plain Ignorant Non-Feminist:  Wouldn’t Sarah Palin qualify?

Good one, Marina—-you’re right, it’s a subcategory, but a good one.  Megan McArdle comes to mind.

The big difference, paul, is that Self-Haters are way more invested in being childlike and sexy.  Only Smart Girls don’t get mad that feminists actually open their mouths and speak; they just accuse them of being naive about how most women don’t want equality because they’re not good enough for it.

</blockquote>Self-Hating Women Who Want Applause From Misogynists To Quiet The Emotional Storm Inside Anti-Feminists</blockquote>

Dana Loech, hands down.

@14:
And on top of all that, her choice of pseudonym is a rather lame attempt at imitating Kierkegaard.

I just checked out their website philolzophy.com (not worth a hyperlink). There’s nothing okay about it. Nothing.

I mean, in fairness, there’s nothing inherently wrong with latching onto the most obvious, surface-level realms of philosophy. We can’t all be scholars. But for the love of god, don’t pretend it makes you any smarter than it does. But more importantly, what the hell is this?

@12:
That’s definitely true of me also, but a more important and stereotype-busting distinction is that I meet more sex positive feminists than sex positive anybody else.

Yes, abso-fucking-lutely. We live in a prudish culture, but anti-feminists really need to cut it out with leveling the “prude” accusation at feminists who criticize rape culture. There’s nothing sex-positive about letting creepy dudes feel entitled.

The prudery at the core of our culture is designed to encourage rape culture. The insistence on not talking about sex in polite society is just a way of shoving rape victims, unwilling mothers, and others under the rug.

It basically all comes down to “the only way to be a cool feminist is to like, not make a big deal about it, like omigod! except like maybe if you’re doing a mommy blog, even they get like all defensive even when they’re usually all chill!’
Plus I like that there is no category of actually intellectual feminist, there are only pseudo-intellectuals.. Feminism doesn’t involve any real thought, psh!

Ann Coulter’s schtick revolves around being really unfeminine (for lack of a better word). She’s always on Red Eye yukking it up like a frat boy, she tells dirty jokes, and she’s aggressive. She writes a lot about how women are hysterical, neurotic, emotion-driven, etc (Google her article “For Womb the Bell Tolls” about mothers who support gun control). She can be really funny, but some of the stuff she says is viciously misogynistic. I’d put her in a “I want to be one of the boys” category.

I’ve been watching Real Time a lot and Bill Maher has had Ann Coulter and a whole slew of anti-feminist women on—and they’re just so lazy. They don’t have actual points to make, whenever he makes a crack about republicans/conservative policy being a bad idea, they just roll their eyes and go “come on” or “Really?” like that’s a scathing rebuttal. I mean, I could have come up with better right-wing talking points than those lazy posterwomen.

How about Seen the Light anti-feminists—they’re close to the pandering to sexist pigs anti-feminists, but these are women who for whatever reason found themselves in a lonely or otherwise unsatisfying way during their brief experimentation with feminism. Maybe the guys at the death metal bar didn’t buy them drinks anymore, maybe they really wanted kids but were in a younger demographic and the pro-feminist men weren’t ready to go there yet. At any rate, once they abandoned feminism, settled down with the first idiot they could find, and took on their natural role, they have realized just how fulfilling and meaningful life can be and want desperately to cram this revelation down every other woman’s throats. Because they’re happy. Really.

Ashley #21:

To be honest I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to Coulter, so I mostly just associate her with screaming batshit hatefulness. Phrased that way, though, it almost sounds like it’s an act to scare women into being domestic and “ladylike”, like some kind of implication that Coulter’s hedonistic and occasionally boorish behavior is a sure route to being a raving nutjob. (Which in and of itself is antifeminist because, well, slut-shaming.)

Ashley - I consider the common attack on Coulter’s looks, “Man Coulter”, “Adam’s Apple Coulter”, as an outgrowth of Coulter’s aggression and public profile.

MarinaS - <quote>What about I Got Mine Resentful Libertarian Non-Feminists? It’s a type I come across all the time: women who have “made it” in a patriarchal world, who see themselves as tough and determined, and who fall into the libertarian fallacy of just deserts: if I can do it, so should you, and if you can’t, then you’re lazy and shouldn’t expect things like basic human rights just “handed to you”.</quote>

Oh Bog, Yes!  I just moved to Fairfield, IA, home of the Maharishis, and I have a huge amount of disdain for the people here absolutely committed to Ron Paul.  They’re obscenely blind to their entitlements and what Paul’s notions on drastically slashing the government down would actually do to them or the truly poor, while absolutely enraptured that the man *says* he’ll legalize anything that’ll give you a high.

I think Phyllis Schlafly also belongs in the first category of anti-feminists. Or perhaps Schlafly is an all-around smorgasborg of anti-feminists except for the latter one?

Tenya @21:

Plus I like that there is no category of actually intellectual feminist, there are only pseudo-intellectuals.. Feminism doesn’t involve any real thought, psh!

Exhibit A: Simone de Beauvoir
Exhibit B: John Stuart Mill

Another category:
After indulging every benefit & advantage feminism ever made possible, you never let the door hit your ass on the way out Anti-Feminists.

What about these:
“No, Really, I’m Not” non-feminists (ie. Furrygirl):
Strongly believe that women should be afforded all the same rights and respect as men, tend to be politically liberal and pro-choice, but due to bad experiences with sex-negative or radical feminism, refuse to call themselves feminists.

9 times out of ten those “bad experiences” are with strawfeminist caricatures they saw on TV or in the movies, and not with a living, breathing feminist.

Still, they’re an interesting case, because the dislike of the word “feminist” is pretty much the ONLY anti-feminist position they have.

I generally find it’s a “I just want the boys to like me” variety of anti-feminist—deep down they know feminism is in their best interests, but they’re afraid that they’ll get shit from boys if they actually describe themselves as feminists.

c

I find that most people who claim to have been scarred by feminists, can’t name one. Everytime I hear “But the feminists are trying to ban sex! leg shaving! children!” I calmly ask which feminists or which feminist group. Most can’t come up with a name, unless they’ve heard of Andrea Dworkin or say NOW. I ask which feminist meetings they’ve gone to, which books they’ve read, etc. Silence. Unless they mention a women’s studies class or “crazy feminists” they personally know.

They’re just trying to pass off stereotypes as first-hand experience, like all ignorant people.

How about the infantilized anti-feminists? The women all bitter and pouty because thanks to the big bad feminists men aren’t all chivalrous and don’t open doors and pay for every dinner. The ones who long for the good old days when women didn’t have to do boring responsible things like get a job or learn to drive because their man would take such good care of them they could just relax at home all day and get their nails done.

I’ve met a few women like this, with some absurd notion of how women were better off back in the day when their men took care of them as if they were children. I still remember the exchange I had with one such nimrod in a college class when we were discussing The Second Sex. She went on and on about how in her mother’s day women could either be a teacher or a nurse until they got married and then they were a homemaker. And how that just seemed so much easier. Because it was so hard to have, like, expectations put upon you to get an education and have a career and be responsible for your own life. All stated in a perfect-pitch baby doll voice while her boyfriend sat next to her in this class, smirking away.

You really have to read Ann Coulter to get a feel for what kind of person she is. Most people haven’t, they just hear a couple sound bites from her more outrageous columns or TV appearances. She seems to feel very negative about stereotypical feminine traits—being emotional, worrying too much, etc—and constantly mocks them as a sign of weakness. I don’t know what type of anti-feminist that makes her, but she seems to rebel against femininity.

#22 Oh my, yes. I think Seen The Light is my favorite category! Especially since we’re all concerned about our emotional health, and we’re still way too susceptible to lapping up the words of anyone who promises they’ll make us happier. Danielle Crittenden, Caitlin Flanagan and Lori Gottlieb come to mind here. Oh-so worried about our happiness and capacity to find love. Gender essentialism is best for your psyche, and fighting for equality just isn’t worth it if it causes you undue stress, frowns, and lack of romance. Uh-huh.

I think of them as Concern Troll Anti-Feminists, myself.

The ones who long for the good old days when women didn’t have to do boring responsible things like get a job or learn to drive

No, they just had to do boring responsible things like cook and clean and raise kids. All nine of them.

Lucy—you’re right—Concern Troll Antifeminists would be a better descriptor. But a lot of them rely on the “Seen the Light” narrative.

Lori Gottlieb

She’s so sad I’m tempted to say, don’t mock the afflicted. But she’s trying to take us all down with her, so….go on ahead.

By and large I meet a lot more sex-positive feminists than sex-negative ones…

Comment #8: Triplanetary

There’s no such thing as a “sex-negative” feminist, just feminists who honestly critique buyer/seller-predator/prey gender binary models and objectification for the BS it all truly is.

How about the infantilized anti-feminists? The women all bitter and pouty because thanks to the big bad feminists men aren’t all chivalrous and don’t open doors and pay for every dinner. The ones who long for the good old days when women didn’t have to do boring responsible things like get a job or learn to drive because their man would take such good care of them they could just relax at home all day and get their nails done.

Oh, yes!  There definitely has to be a category for the Lady of the Manor Anti-Feminist, who imagines that without equal rights screwing things up she’d be Scarlett O’Hara with a passel of devoted gentlemen waiting on her hand and foot.

You see a lot of anti-feminist men saying the same stuff: “You girls had it easy in the old days!  You’ll come crawling back as soon as you realize how heavy those doors are!  Doors!”

There’s no such thing as a “sex-negative” feminist, just feminists who honestly critique buyer/seller-predator/prey gender binary models and objectification for the BS it all truly is.

False distinction. You can honestly critique all of those things and still be sex-positive. And you can be sex-negative without putting a whit of thought into it and just applying a feminist veneer to society’s rampant shaming of sex and sexual freedom.

Either way, I was never under the impression that critiquing the buyer/seller, predator/prey, or conqueror/conquered models of sexuality are inherently sex-negative, because they’re not. Those feminists who enjoy sex generally prefer to have sex without the dehumanization, which those models don’t allow for.

There definitely has to be a category for the Lady of the Manor Anti-Feminist, who imagines that without equal rights screwing things up she’d be Scarlett O’Hara with a passel of devoted gentlemen waiting on her hand and foot.

Comment #41: Shaenon on 07/27

I like to call that one the Princess on the Pedastal, but Lady of the Manor works too. Male antifeminists really love that fantasy.

Know what I hate? The self-proclaimed feminist antifeminist. Sarah Palin would be a good example. Or women who argue how empowering it is to get your asshole waxed and take a pole dancing class.

“Sarah Palin” and “get your asshole waxed” in the same paragraph is…. distressing.

@42 Triplanetary - So the term “sex-nagative” is absolutely meaningless then.

Any room for the “You Already Have All The Rights You Need What Are You Complaining About” anti-feminist?

Hmm, now that I think about it, that’s probably a subcategory of the “I Got Mine” anti-feminist blind to her privilege.

So the term “sex-nagative” is absolutely meaningless then.

No, it’s not. It refers, as I said, to the shaming of sex and sexual freedom. It’s not like it’s a feminist thing. It’s far, far more an anti-feminist thing, in fact.

@48 - Feminists don’t shame sex and sexual freedom. Feminists critique social models and norms around sex. When one is steeped in some of society’s more harmful ideas about sexuality, those critiques can be difficult to hear. That’s where the term “anti-sex feminist” comes from.

@47 - Examples: Jodie Foster, Susan Sarandon.

Wait, huh? Jodie Foster and Susan Sarandon are anti-feminist?

Look, not every feminist on the planet is enlightened enough to move past society’s default sex-shaming position. Far more of them are than the general population, needless to say. But you can’t just make statements like “feminists don’t do x,” because feminists are individual people.

Anyway, you’re attacking a strawman here, because I’m not conflating sex-shaming with the critique of social norms about sex. They’re two different things, but that doesn’t mean they can’t exist side-by-side in one person’s mind. When I say sex-negative people, people who critique social sexual norms aren’t even entering my mind, because I’m not talking about them.

@51 ‘fraid so

http://www.accesshollywood.com/cmas/jodie-foster-on-women-in-hollywood-being-honored-its-kinda-quaint_video_1254950

http://www.celebitchy.com/13951/susan_sarandon_calls_hillary_clinton_a_blamer_and_whiner/

52 - Normally when people say things like “sex positive” vs “sex negative” the next thing out of their mouths is Andrea Dworkin, who did have some very legitimate points, particularly in the period she was working, it’s just that her name gets trotted out as a warning not to get all “extreme” and “anti-sex.” It’s the third wave “bra burner.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say neither of those things were anti-feminist ... Foster may not fully appreciate the struggles that women in the industry have, but I don’t think she’s actively putting women down—what she said was actually important: when she started off acting as a kid, she didn’t see female faces in Hollywood, and now she does. And it looks like Sarandon was critiquing what she saw was specific behavior in a specific candidate that turned her off, I don’t agree with what she said, but it’s just a wrong opinion, not a scathing rebuke of women in power.

I think that, when you look at the pornification of our culture, Dworkin is more, not less relevant, which is probably why she’s such an effective boogeyfemme for people. She wouldn’t push the buttons she does in a culture where the norms of pornography as adopted as norms for the female gender.

@54:

Oh, you’re absolutely right about that. And I know anti-feminists have a strong tendency to accuse feminists of being anti-sex, but that’s not where I’m coming from. Like you said a few comments ago, the reason anti-feminists lob those accusation is because they’re defending the socially normative kind of sex, the kind that’s wrapped up in rape culture and male entitlement.

So for myself, I don’t even consider Dworkin sex-negative. She was all for sexual pleasure in itself, just as long as patriarchy and rape culture were taken out of the equation. She just considered that to be, for the time being, impossible, and as you said, she wasn’t entirely wrong.

@55 - both statements struck me as being steeped in the kind of “sexism is over”/“You Already Have All The Rights You Need What Are You Complaining About” attitudes that Old Feminist was talking about.

I think Amanda forgot about the redefiners (the basically conservative Christian pro-life traditionalist women who nonetheless define themselves as “feminist” either because they take some token position in favor of something like equal pay in the workplace or because they say that all the patriarchal traditions were really “better” for women anyway) and the I’m-not-a-feminist-buts (the converse, women who basically agree with the feminist agenda but who think that some sort of a galactic black hole will envelop them and snuff them out if they describe themselves as “feminist”).

There’s no such thing as a “sex-negative” feminist,

You haven’t heard Gail Dines hyperventilate about young girls and their hot pants, or you might rethink this.

BTW, snob, the fallacy you’re trotting out is the “No True Scotsman”.  Plenty of feminists use critiques of objectification, etc. to peddle obvious anti-sex hysterics.  That’s because feminists are human.  Denying it and claiming someone who doesn’t isn’t really a feminist isn’t going to help you, but make people who can read and listen wonder if you’ve just not been exposed to this.

“Humorless, undersexed women”

There is no “normal” amount of sexual desire that should be used as a standard to judge women.  Using undersexed as an insult is just as misogynistic as using slut as in insult.

Man, you are really trying to pick fights here.  Why don’t you take up boxing or insulting Hells Angels to get an adrenalin rush, you junkie?

Where does your favourite born-again virgin, Dawn Eden, fit in?

Normally when people say things like “sex positive” vs “sex negative” the next thing out of their mouths is Andrea Dworkin, who did have some very legitimate points, particularly in the period she was working, it’s just that her name gets trotted out as a warning not to get all “extreme” and “anti-sex.” It’s the third wave “bra burner.”

Snob may find this weird, given our disagreements on the last thread, but I happen to be a charter member of the “Amanda Dworkin got a bad rap” club. Obviously she took some positions that were quite far out there—she was a radical feminist and embraced that term, after all—but I remember reading her critiques of how the patriarchy uses sexuality to oppress women and thought there was a ton of insight there. And on pornography, basically everything she predicted about it (i.e., that once you started having mass-marketed objectified images of women, there would be a race to the bottom as pornographers offered more and more degrading images) has come true.

@61 - I have been exposed to a lot more pro-porn, pro-prostitution feminists* who go into hysterics whenever anybody mentions that being commodified isn’t empowering than feminists* hyperventilating about hot pants.

*self-proclaimed

Thought 1: I’m agreed with #62.

Thought 2: There are a lot of the “Only Smart Girl"s among “gamer grrrlz”. Drives me fucking nuts every time I read a blog post from some self-proclaimed “gamer girl” who is just SO worried that critiques of the gaming industry’s misogyny will somehow get in the way of the poor menz access to video game depictions of misogyny.

And she always, ALWAYS identifies herself as a “gamer girl”. No matter what her age.

@65: Yeah, me too, which was my entire original point.

Well, minus the bit about hysterics. That’s some sexist garbage.

I was really disturbed by this denunciation of feminists and wonder where it fits into Amanda’s taxonomy.

@67 - Well cool then.
@68 - See #61

Be that as it may, snob, denying outright how often anti-sex hysterics hide behind feminist discourse happen isn’t useful.  I would also point out the recent Newsweek fiasco where all men ever were basically called johns—-any behavior from looking at erotic material to actually paying prostitutes—-is the sort of thing that doesn’t help. If you’re rolling up dudes who just like to masturbate (all men) with a little visual aid with men who cheerfully tell a pollster they don’t care if the prostitute they’re having sex with is a trafficked 12-year-old, expect people to wonder if there’s not some kind of prudery causing such a massive brain fart.

There are, in fact, sex-negative feminists, and there have been since at least the 1980s, which is when I started paying attention.  There were feminists arguing that all heterosexual sex was rape, etc.  There are definitely anti-porn and anti-prostitution and anti-strip club feminists.  There are absolutely feminists who think that promiscuity is bad for women and not empowering.  There really were feminists who claimed that masculinity was inherently destructive and men were bad and wearing sexy underwear made you a sellout and getting married was betraying the sisterhood.  There were feminist thinkers who were really trying out radical ideas and pushing the envelope and possibly even overreacting sometimes because they were fighting against ideas that had never been fought against before.  The problem with many of the stereotypes of feminism is that they latch on to one version of feminism from thirty years ago and insist that those are representative of an entire movement. 

My husband went to an extremely liberal college in the 1980s and he saw a lot of this stuff, too.  Feminism has covered a lot of ground since Mary Wollstonecraft, not all of it pretty but probably all of it necessary.  That said, I think it’s true that a lot of people professing these stereotypes do not have any direct experience with them, but merely have some diluted, distorted pop-culture version of feminism in their heads.  The fact is that feminism is a big tent kind of label, and there are a lot of women who legitimately call themselves feminists who disagree about some pretty fundamental things.

The problem with many of the stereotypes of feminism is that they latch on to one version of feminism from thirty years ago and insist that those are representative of an entire movement. 

This gets it exactly.

There’s a bunch of debate within feminism. There always has been. I would certainly argue that everyone would benefit from familiarizing themselves with Catherine MacKinnon’s and Andrea Dworkin’s arguments from the 1970’s and 1980’s—they were forcefully argued positions and they made a lot of good points. But one of the ways the media and the patriarchy marginalize feminism is to take the most extremist positions taken by some feminists, strip them of their context, and pretend that everyone who calls themselves a feminist must agree with that position so caricatured.

69: Josh - I believe that’s the “I pander to sexist pigs” anti-feminist. With some “you’ve already got rights now shut up.”

For those who don’t want to click Josh’s link, it’s one of those “No duh women should have equal rights, but if you dress like a slut…” type-rants.

There are, in fact, sex-negative feminists, and there have been since at least the 1980s, which is when I started paying attention.  There were feminists arguing that all heterosexual sex was rape, etc.  There are definitely anti-porn and anti-prostitution and anti-strip club feminists.  There are absolutely feminists who think that promiscuity is bad for women and not empowering.  There really were feminists who claimed that masculinity was inherently destructive and men were bad and wearing sexy underwear made you a sellout and getting married was betraying the sisterhood.

“All heterosexual sex was rape”—This would be Andrea Dworkin, whose position was far more nuanced than that, and whom we have been discussing in this very thread.

“anti-porn, anti-prostitution, and anti-strip club feminists”—Given the fact that most women in these fields are trafficked or coerced, and given that all of these things currently promote the men-as-buyer, women-as-seller narrative, is it really fair to call feminists who criticize these “anti-sex”? 

“Masculinity is inherently destructive”—How is this anti-sex?  Don’t most serious feminists argue that forced adherence to gender roles is destructive?  I think femininity is destructive as well, because I think that femininity and masculinity are boxes that people are shoved in to, and that they by nature limit your full range of expression.  In the feminist utopia, men and women wouldn’t be masculine and feminine, they’d be human.

My husband went to an extremely liberal college in the 1980s and he saw a lot of this stuff, too.

I went to an extremely liberal college in the aughts and saw a lot of that stuff. I think that’s another thing that kind of undermines the feminist image is that many people’s first exposure to the radical second-wavers is through the mouths of nineteen year-olds who often can afford, and often flat out enjoy, pushing boundaries.

@75 - I know right? Are we dismantling this shit or not?

Snobographer, thanks — that perspective helps. For those who don’t know the blog I linked to, it belongs the daughter of a very pro-feminist blogger, hence my distress. I hope she changes her mind as she observes more about the world and U.S. society: I see a chunk of “But what makes those people so angry?” in her piece.

#69:

What bothers me about that is that’s PZ Myers’ daughter. PZ definitely seems to see things differently.

78 & 79 - Either she lives some miraculous life where she’s never been so much as sexually harassed or discriminated against, or she’s swimming in it so deep she doesn’t even realize. And there’s plenty to be angry about once you start taking a serious look at sexual assault stats and cases.
IDK how wealthy and influential PZ

oops

IDK how wealthy and influential PZ Myers is, but if being his daughter buys her a lot of clout she may not be experiencing much sexism.
Or, if she’s like I used to be, it’s so inescapable you start to think it’s normal after a while.

Whenever I hear a woman say “I am not a feminist”, I always ask if she is “not a feminist” or “not a feminist but”.

As in, “I’m not a feminist but of course if you’re doing the same job you should get the same pay,” or, “I’m not a feminist but of course your husband doesn’t have the right to force you to have sex”, or “I’m not a feminist but of course if your daughter is a hard worker and has good grades while your son is a slacker who barely graduates from high school, she should be the one you send to college”.

I have a certain degree of respect for women who are genuinely not-a-feminist, but none whatsoever for the not-a-feminist-buttheads.

PZ is a professor at a state university, which would make him upper middle class and a respected member of a (small) community. But unless you’re an atheist who goes to conventions/is active online he’s no more powerful than the professor who taught your Chaucer class in 3rd year.

Maybe Skatje is rebelling. It must suck to be 20 and have your dad be a liberal and a feminist. How do you get to tell him he’s wrong about everything and doesn’t understand the youth of today?

(Never had that problem myself, my dad’s an ex-Catholic priest.)

#81, #83:

So far as I know, Myers is not particularly wealthy, at least no more than you’d expect a professor at a small state university to be. He’s pretty close to god-tier in the atheist blogosphere though, and stridently feminist.

I think it’s bad branding for feminists to describe themselves as sex-positive. That implies that sex-negative is the dominant paradigm that some subspecies of feminists needs to define itself against. That cedes too much to anti-feminist critics who caricature all feminism as anti-sex.

Even the most sex-suspicious feminists aren’t literally anti-sex, at least not in theory. They’re just really rigid and judgey about the kinds of sex they approve of. They’re not ascetics.

Lindsay:

I’d agree if there didn’t seem to be a need for the term from a PR standpoint. Branding is a very lizard-brain activity.

The first time I read that thing from Thought Catalog I actually thought it was kind of funny, but maybe that’s because I’m just getting so sick of the tumblr brand of feminism and she was so accurate in what she said about them in the “Joyless Pseudo-Intellectual Feminists” section.

But now I’m re-reading it and it bugs me just as it does you. It especially frustrates me that she sees the only “good” feminists as those who don’t ever talk about it. So basically, we all lose.

83, 84 - influence is another thing though. I don’t follow the skeptic/atheist movement and I’ve heard of him. It doesn’t sound like he’s so high-falutin his kid would be floating around in her own little privilege bubble though. Probably more the case of the fish who’s asked what she thinks of water. She knows she has to take all these “precautions” if she goes out or she’ll be blamed if somebody attacks her, but she’s never really sat and thought about how that got into her thinking and where might the attacker be in all this. Just for instance.

84 - “[Myers is] stridently feminist.”

Let’s not get carried away.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/a_simple_suggestion_for_improv.php

Um… kinda read like deadpan sarcasm to me… which PZ uses quite a lot.

I feel bad that we’re analyzing Skatje’s views in light of what her dad thinks. She’s an adult who can think for herself. I disagree with her about feminism, but she’s the one I’m disagreeing with. It’s not fair to judge her based on what we’d hope PZ Myers daughter would think.

Lindsay:

Although it might not be the case any more, I think that 20-odd years ago it was not unheard of for some sex-suspicious feminists to take the position that there might be nonproblematic sex in some idealized universe, but that actually-existing sex was all so pervaded by patriarchy (directly or in reaction) as to have more harm associated with it than good.

It’s important, I think (perhaps wrongly) is to distinguish between the kind of sex-negativity that comes from genuine concerns about how sex is inescapably perverted under a patriarchy, and the kind that comes from unresolved guilt and other feelings from growing up in same.

Paul, I agree. There’s a big difference between saying that heterosexual sex in a patriarchy is always going to be complicated and being anti-sex.

There was a historical moment when academic feminism was obsessed with those problems. Personally, I’m inclined to think that some of these critiques are valid on paper, but that the problems don’t necessarily make that much of a practical difference when you try to live a feminist life.

If you’re a feminist with a feminist partner, you can agree to pretend you live in an egalitarian society and create something close to that alternative non-patriarchal, enthusiastically consensual universe in your own bedroom.

If you’re not a feminist and/or don’t have a feminist partner, the “sex-positive feminists” and the “sex-negative feminists” have pretty much the same advice for you.

I’m just getting so sick of the tumblr brand of feminism and she was so accurate in what she said about them in the “Joyless Pseudo-Intellectual Feminists” section.

I follow a lot of awesome feminists on Tumblr. Maybe we’re following different crowds? I dunno.

Anyway, as I was saying in an earlier comment, the author’s own web site is pretty much the epitome of pseudo-intellectual, so I don’t really feel like she’s in a position to be quite so smug.

Paul:

That’s true, but I have to add that most feminists who hold that position are extremely suspicious of everything. As in, more than other types of feminist, they see patriarchy as tainting everything, and won’t give anything a free pass (see: Twisty).

In addition, as sort of one of those people myself, there often has to be a line between theory and practice. In theory, almost everything is awful and needs an overhaul, but in practice, you have to accomodate the reality of the situation, which is that there isn’t going to be a radical global revolution tomorrow morning (and even if there was, it would probably fail to get rid of everything that contributes to oppression, either because of residual ideas or the limits of human biology/the environment). In light of that, you support moderately liberal reform, contribute to programs and movements that make a difference, and accept that people (including yourself) are going to continue to do shit that enables the system you hate, and not get on their case about it unless it’s fairly egregious (a crime, a stupid opinion, bigoted remarks, abusing privilege, etc). You do what you can and accept that humans are flawed.

Of course there are holier-than-thou assholes and people who write shaming articles about anyone who puts a toe out of line, but I think most of us on the more radical end of the spectrum try to keep this kind of perspective. Most would agree that there’s a line between a theoretical analysis of the problems with sex and telling people they should stop having sex and they’re a bad person for participating in some act you disapprove of for whatever reason. There’s what you believe would survive the coming of a utopia, and there’s what you can reasonably expect decent human beings to do.

75, 77
Yeah, anti-porn and anti-prostitution is not “sex-negative,” it’s “woman as sex object-negative.”  Maybe if the paradigm for heterosexual sex was less toxic, it would be harder to confuse the two.  I’m down with dismantling that shit!

“Given the fact that most women in these fields are trafficked or coerced”
[citation needed]

“He’s pretty close to god-tier in the atheist blogosphere though”
Wouldn’t that mean most of his colleagues deny his existence?

“sarah palin” and “get your asshole waxed” in the same paragraph. thanks so much for that very disturbing mental image. the counseling was actually helping, now i’ll have to start all over again…..

with regards to michele bachman. seriously, if you were married to “dr.” marcus bachman, you’d go batshit insane too. if he isn’t a closet queen, he should damn well be playing one on tv. i’d see an emmy in his future.