More on feminism
Oh oh... I must apologize, I don't know how I published this post with some many typos, wrong punctuation and all other sorts of grammar mistakes. It is so confusing that in more than one passage I seem to be saying exactly the opposite of what I intended. Unfortunately I'm too busy right now to rewrite it. I think I need to completely rephrase several paragraphs and that is going to need more time than I have now.
I was reading this very interesting essay by Eva Illouz which I'd mentioned in my previous post about Grey and it suggested to me a point that is not mentioned in the essay but that I think is very important when discussing the modern/feminist approach to women's sexuality and sexual role.
When discussing the contradictions that are obvious in the aforementioned books between the apparent anti-feminist dichotomy of woman as submissive-man as dominant, woman as dependent-man as provider, and the many aspects of the novel that are indeed feminist, that I won't repeat here because they are very well explained in the article, there is something that I find is missing in the picture. Particularly when she mentions how it is precisely in the sexual role of women that the least consensus has been obtained in the feminist revolution (in contrast to the fact that 'everyone' agrees in principle with the ideals, still far from achieved, of equal payment and equal job opportunities).
What I'm about to say goes in the direction of my comment that often it is men that have been heading some of the changes brought to our society by feminism. The best example of this, for good and for bad, is women's sexual liberation. It is more than obvious that the main ingredient of the sexual revolution at the second half of the 20th century was the sexual liberation of women. It is also obvious that this was led by men (or maybe we could say more cautiously that men were happy to join women in the pursuit of this goal) because it was in their own interest, as much as it was in the interest of the women themselves. This is not to neglect that the main source of this phenomenon was the easy availability of effective birth control methods.
In my opinion, it is the role played by men that explains the enormous success achieved in this matter, even more so than equality in the workplace (which is of less interest to them) in apparent contradiction to Illouz comments. I say apparent because I fully agree with her that when one takes in consideration the over-sexualization, and objectification of women in modern society (page 3 of the Sun again!) as well as the important place that the traditional male role plays in the fantasies of modern women as proved by romance novels and studies in psychology, it becomes obvious that this is anything but a settled subject. On the contrary it seems, I fully agree with Illouz, the most controversial subject of all.
The origin of this "contradiction" is, I believe, in the way men and their own self-interest have led this particular revolution. This has created an ambiguity in the sexual identity of women that is one of the most difficult conundrums the modern woman has to face, together with the too well advertised family-career balance. We have left the apparent security found in the role of the virtuous woman, and became the liberated woman, only to find ourselves in a completely ambiguous position. We are criticized as anti-feminist if we say no and sluts if we say yes. It is not only women but also men that preserve this ambiguity because it serves them in ways that by depending on the context are not always clear. The contradictions and ambiguities however do not end here, I mean do not end with the liberated vs. slut ambiguity. In a world dominated by men, many women have cleverly noted that they'll get nowhere without the use of their main and most powerful weapon, men's desire for them. It is this easy route that explains why so many modern self-entitled feminist (like Madonna, to give a well-known example in popular culture) have obtained considerable power through precisely the hyper-sexualization and objectification of themselves. To the point that this approach has gone as far as to become one of the main currents of modern feminism [It is also, of course, the origin of the cliché of women getting promoted in their careers in the "horizontal position", which is obviously an inescapable result of men's control over the workplace]. I suspect that the reason that this approach to feminism is so dominant is again because it serves men's interests. Just like the talk about family-career balance does: Why do men never have to care about the damn balance to be perfectly happy in their private lives and successful in their careers? Because the weight of family is solely imposed on women's shoulders. Isn't that convenient? And the result is that we have hordes of women happily writing, reading, and discussing, the damn balance, and they will never be bullied or trolled for that, just like they'll never be bullied for showing off their flat stomach just after giving birth, even if the feat may require intensive use of photo manipulation software. But going back to the main point, my argument is that modern feminism suffers from big distortions due to the role men's self-interest as played in its history. From the reductive fallacy of feminist equals angry lesbian who hates men (it's amazing how we have entered the 21st century and still so many women deny being feminists), to the much more subtle problems that I'm discussing in this post.
I don't mean by my argument to criticize or blame men. I've mentioned in my previous post that I find that feminism often makes the mistake of antagonizing them. I also want to make clear that I think both women and men have led this process, for good and bad. On the other hand, this does not mean either that to avoid antagonizing men, we should ignore facts. My argument is not "never blame men", but "do not take the easy and complacent path of blaming men only". An example of this is the "feminist" idea that if women ruled the world, there would be peace and harmony, which is, quite simply put, as sexist and stupid as the belief that all evils were/are caused by the naughtiness of Eve and that women are therefore to be blamed and punished for the original sin. On the other hand, I do agree that if there weren't too many young man with too much energy to spare and too little good sense, there would be no wars, because you can easily make a general out of a woman, think Joan of Arc, but you cannot make an army of generals, but I'm digressing again…
It is shocking and disappointing to find that young women are today more than ever getting the message that the only way to power, enrichment and the respect of society is precisely through their sexual allure. Women who achieved it in a different way, such as Angela Merkel, are so clearly the exception to the rule that most us would be insane to try to emulate them or to aspire to become like them. Women who do not make it their utmost priority to look as good as their natural attributes allow are often horribly criticized.
The ambiguities in "feminism" also explain why so many young women end up feeling used and abused sexually when naively attempting to prove themselves liberated according to the ideals proposed to them precisely by "feminism" (a good example of this is given in Caitlin Moran memoirs). This explains why so many women have some bizarre fantasies involving virginity, or to be precise its loss, that constantly surface in romance novels. The origin and explanation of this type of fantasy is the dreadful experience many women have had in their introduction to sex as young women, leading to them later in life wishing they had "waited" (which results in the stupid mistake mothers, specifically American ones, repeat when educating their daughters) or fantasizing about the experienced and all-knowledgeable older man who'd have made it right by them, a la Christian Grey. Note here that Anastasia being already 21 has done the "right" thing and "waited". How many modern/liberated women (which Anastasia clearly is, as well argued in Illouz's essay) have kept their virginity through high-school and college? Wouldn't you agree that this is actually one of the many extremely unrealistic, and I'd would add bizarre, ingredients of this novel? From this perspective, this apparently old-fashioned approach to sexual relations is not retrograde as perceived initially, but a simple consequence of trauma. In other words, women who read these stories are not necessarily wishing for a return to the old ways, but simply having fantasies that are well understood by them as such. They fantasize of a positive experience of sexual discovery, not of the return of the sex-only-in-marriage paradigm, even if it is true that this type of stories always implies that the heroine will end up only knowing a single man in the biblical sense, which is a shame. This is well compensated by the fact that this man is such a sex god that sex with any other man would be necessarily disappointing.
Another interesting point raised by Illouz article is that so many women still favour the role of submissive and more shockingly still fantasize about rape! A lot of nonsense has been said about rape fantasies and quite sincerely I think there is only one thing to say about it. Rape, submission, being forced to it by some imaginatively twisted plot like the irresistible sexual allure of vampires, is simply explained by guilt and evidence of sexual oppression. Women, like men, bees, cockroaches, rabbits, you get the picture, are living-beings who reproduce. This implies a strong sexual drive that needs to be controlled (like men's sexuality does) and has been and still is very much oppressed by society (much more than men's is). It is a simple equation, if I was forced to it, I'm not responsible and hence not guilty. Take the slut variable out of this equation and I'm 100% sure that no woman would be having this kind of bizarre fantasies. It is as simple as that, let's move on.
It is not only the submission aspect of Fifty Shades of Grey that gives evidence of how oppressed women still feel about expressing sexual desire or living their sexuality freely, even when alone with themselves. Many (and more obvious) evidences of this is given by the fantasy sub-genre of romance in general and the (very sexually charged) vampire novels in particular. Examples of this type of literature are the Twilight trilogy that originally inspired EL James to write her novel (this is hardly a coincidence) and Anne Rice's books that have defined this genre. What serves has evidence of oppression in this literature is that this kind of free sexuality is only tolerated by its readers in a fantastic world of creatures that even though anthropomorphic are not human. And their nature, "unlike ours", is hypersexual and hence their immorality tolerated, again unlike ours.
The other side of the coin of this phenomenon is TV series and computer games (mostly directed at men) that depict fantastic worlds (Game of Thrones is an example), which again are hyper-sexualized and hyper-sexist and a lot of their more shocking plots are tolerated because they depict a fantasy world or a (fantastic) primitive past. And, to give an example of what I call hyper-sexism: in the primitive past, everyone knows, women were raped all the time, unlike today. Really? Americans must be reading very different history books to the ones I have.
Going back to the subject of the evidence of sexual oppression in romance novels. Anne Rice is a much more explicit example of this for the simple reason that she was born in 1941 and hence grew up in the very old-fashioned and very respectable 50s and lived through the years of the sexual revolution. Much of her writing was done during and after this period. "Interview with the vampire", her first novel, was written in the 70s. From this point of view, the work of Rice is in retrospective anything but surprising in the sense that it is natural that her generation, and that of her contemporary female readers, would still be uncomfortable with the kind of free sexuality depicted in her books. Note that Rice also wrote BDSM novels that were influential in the genre, like the Sleeping Beauty series, which again depict a fantastic world. From this perspective, Fifty Shades is a small step forward, in the sense that it is the first "dirty" book of this kind that finds huge success with characters and a story that, even if unrealistic, are at least not fantastic. Even if I would prefer a much larger step further, one where women were truly free to live their sexuality and would not need to resort to the "excuse" of submission to enjoy its pleasures, even in their private fantasies.
When I think about it, this is what I find truly shocking in this whole phenomenon: that women are still so oppressed even in the realm of their fantasies, away from the eyes and judgement of others. The rest, explicit and detailed descriptions, sex toys, references to extreme sex practices, and the like, are only details. Fodder for the easily shocked.
I was reading this very interesting essay by Eva Illouz which I'd mentioned in my previous post about Grey and it suggested to me a point that is not mentioned in the essay but that I think is very important when discussing the modern/feminist approach to women's sexuality and sexual role.
When discussing the contradictions that are obvious in the aforementioned books between the apparent anti-feminist dichotomy of woman as submissive-man as dominant, woman as dependent-man as provider, and the many aspects of the novel that are indeed feminist, that I won't repeat here because they are very well explained in the article, there is something that I find is missing in the picture. Particularly when she mentions how it is precisely in the sexual role of women that the least consensus has been obtained in the feminist revolution (in contrast to the fact that 'everyone' agrees in principle with the ideals, still far from achieved, of equal payment and equal job opportunities).
What I'm about to say goes in the direction of my comment that often it is men that have been heading some of the changes brought to our society by feminism. The best example of this, for good and for bad, is women's sexual liberation. It is more than obvious that the main ingredient of the sexual revolution at the second half of the 20th century was the sexual liberation of women. It is also obvious that this was led by men (or maybe we could say more cautiously that men were happy to join women in the pursuit of this goal) because it was in their own interest, as much as it was in the interest of the women themselves. This is not to neglect that the main source of this phenomenon was the easy availability of effective birth control methods.
In my opinion, it is the role played by men that explains the enormous success achieved in this matter, even more so than equality in the workplace (which is of less interest to them) in apparent contradiction to Illouz comments. I say apparent because I fully agree with her that when one takes in consideration the over-sexualization, and objectification of women in modern society (page 3 of the Sun again!) as well as the important place that the traditional male role plays in the fantasies of modern women as proved by romance novels and studies in psychology, it becomes obvious that this is anything but a settled subject. On the contrary it seems, I fully agree with Illouz, the most controversial subject of all.
The origin of this "contradiction" is, I believe, in the way men and their own self-interest have led this particular revolution. This has created an ambiguity in the sexual identity of women that is one of the most difficult conundrums the modern woman has to face, together with the too well advertised family-career balance. We have left the apparent security found in the role of the virtuous woman, and became the liberated woman, only to find ourselves in a completely ambiguous position. We are criticized as anti-feminist if we say no and sluts if we say yes. It is not only women but also men that preserve this ambiguity because it serves them in ways that by depending on the context are not always clear. The contradictions and ambiguities however do not end here, I mean do not end with the liberated vs. slut ambiguity. In a world dominated by men, many women have cleverly noted that they'll get nowhere without the use of their main and most powerful weapon, men's desire for them. It is this easy route that explains why so many modern self-entitled feminist (like Madonna, to give a well-known example in popular culture) have obtained considerable power through precisely the hyper-sexualization and objectification of themselves. To the point that this approach has gone as far as to become one of the main currents of modern feminism [It is also, of course, the origin of the cliché of women getting promoted in their careers in the "horizontal position", which is obviously an inescapable result of men's control over the workplace]. I suspect that the reason that this approach to feminism is so dominant is again because it serves men's interests. Just like the talk about family-career balance does: Why do men never have to care about the damn balance to be perfectly happy in their private lives and successful in their careers? Because the weight of family is solely imposed on women's shoulders. Isn't that convenient? And the result is that we have hordes of women happily writing, reading, and discussing, the damn balance, and they will never be bullied or trolled for that, just like they'll never be bullied for showing off their flat stomach just after giving birth, even if the feat may require intensive use of photo manipulation software. But going back to the main point, my argument is that modern feminism suffers from big distortions due to the role men's self-interest as played in its history. From the reductive fallacy of feminist equals angry lesbian who hates men (it's amazing how we have entered the 21st century and still so many women deny being feminists), to the much more subtle problems that I'm discussing in this post.
I don't mean by my argument to criticize or blame men. I've mentioned in my previous post that I find that feminism often makes the mistake of antagonizing them. I also want to make clear that I think both women and men have led this process, for good and bad. On the other hand, this does not mean either that to avoid antagonizing men, we should ignore facts. My argument is not "never blame men", but "do not take the easy and complacent path of blaming men only". An example of this is the "feminist" idea that if women ruled the world, there would be peace and harmony, which is, quite simply put, as sexist and stupid as the belief that all evils were/are caused by the naughtiness of Eve and that women are therefore to be blamed and punished for the original sin. On the other hand, I do agree that if there weren't too many young man with too much energy to spare and too little good sense, there would be no wars, because you can easily make a general out of a woman, think Joan of Arc, but you cannot make an army of generals, but I'm digressing again…
It is shocking and disappointing to find that young women are today more than ever getting the message that the only way to power, enrichment and the respect of society is precisely through their sexual allure. Women who achieved it in a different way, such as Angela Merkel, are so clearly the exception to the rule that most us would be insane to try to emulate them or to aspire to become like them. Women who do not make it their utmost priority to look as good as their natural attributes allow are often horribly criticized.
The ambiguities in "feminism" also explain why so many young women end up feeling used and abused sexually when naively attempting to prove themselves liberated according to the ideals proposed to them precisely by "feminism" (a good example of this is given in Caitlin Moran memoirs). This explains why so many women have some bizarre fantasies involving virginity, or to be precise its loss, that constantly surface in romance novels. The origin and explanation of this type of fantasy is the dreadful experience many women have had in their introduction to sex as young women, leading to them later in life wishing they had "waited" (which results in the stupid mistake mothers, specifically American ones, repeat when educating their daughters) or fantasizing about the experienced and all-knowledgeable older man who'd have made it right by them, a la Christian Grey. Note here that Anastasia being already 21 has done the "right" thing and "waited". How many modern/liberated women (which Anastasia clearly is, as well argued in Illouz's essay) have kept their virginity through high-school and college? Wouldn't you agree that this is actually one of the many extremely unrealistic, and I'd would add bizarre, ingredients of this novel? From this perspective, this apparently old-fashioned approach to sexual relations is not retrograde as perceived initially, but a simple consequence of trauma. In other words, women who read these stories are not necessarily wishing for a return to the old ways, but simply having fantasies that are well understood by them as such. They fantasize of a positive experience of sexual discovery, not of the return of the sex-only-in-marriage paradigm, even if it is true that this type of stories always implies that the heroine will end up only knowing a single man in the biblical sense, which is a shame. This is well compensated by the fact that this man is such a sex god that sex with any other man would be necessarily disappointing.
Another interesting point raised by Illouz article is that so many women still favour the role of submissive and more shockingly still fantasize about rape! A lot of nonsense has been said about rape fantasies and quite sincerely I think there is only one thing to say about it. Rape, submission, being forced to it by some imaginatively twisted plot like the irresistible sexual allure of vampires, is simply explained by guilt and evidence of sexual oppression. Women, like men, bees, cockroaches, rabbits, you get the picture, are living-beings who reproduce. This implies a strong sexual drive that needs to be controlled (like men's sexuality does) and has been and still is very much oppressed by society (much more than men's is). It is a simple equation, if I was forced to it, I'm not responsible and hence not guilty. Take the slut variable out of this equation and I'm 100% sure that no woman would be having this kind of bizarre fantasies. It is as simple as that, let's move on.
It is not only the submission aspect of Fifty Shades of Grey that gives evidence of how oppressed women still feel about expressing sexual desire or living their sexuality freely, even when alone with themselves. Many (and more obvious) evidences of this is given by the fantasy sub-genre of romance in general and the (very sexually charged) vampire novels in particular. Examples of this type of literature are the Twilight trilogy that originally inspired EL James to write her novel (this is hardly a coincidence) and Anne Rice's books that have defined this genre. What serves has evidence of oppression in this literature is that this kind of free sexuality is only tolerated by its readers in a fantastic world of creatures that even though anthropomorphic are not human. And their nature, "unlike ours", is hypersexual and hence their immorality tolerated, again unlike ours.
The other side of the coin of this phenomenon is TV series and computer games (mostly directed at men) that depict fantastic worlds (Game of Thrones is an example), which again are hyper-sexualized and hyper-sexist and a lot of their more shocking plots are tolerated because they depict a fantasy world or a (fantastic) primitive past. And, to give an example of what I call hyper-sexism: in the primitive past, everyone knows, women were raped all the time, unlike today. Really? Americans must be reading very different history books to the ones I have.
Going back to the subject of the evidence of sexual oppression in romance novels. Anne Rice is a much more explicit example of this for the simple reason that she was born in 1941 and hence grew up in the very old-fashioned and very respectable 50s and lived through the years of the sexual revolution. Much of her writing was done during and after this period. "Interview with the vampire", her first novel, was written in the 70s. From this point of view, the work of Rice is in retrospective anything but surprising in the sense that it is natural that her generation, and that of her contemporary female readers, would still be uncomfortable with the kind of free sexuality depicted in her books. Note that Rice also wrote BDSM novels that were influential in the genre, like the Sleeping Beauty series, which again depict a fantastic world. From this perspective, Fifty Shades is a small step forward, in the sense that it is the first "dirty" book of this kind that finds huge success with characters and a story that, even if unrealistic, are at least not fantastic. Even if I would prefer a much larger step further, one where women were truly free to live their sexuality and would not need to resort to the "excuse" of submission to enjoy its pleasures, even in their private fantasies.
When I think about it, this is what I find truly shocking in this whole phenomenon: that women are still so oppressed even in the realm of their fantasies, away from the eyes and judgement of others. The rest, explicit and detailed descriptions, sex toys, references to extreme sex practices, and the like, are only details. Fodder for the easily shocked.
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