That's not feminism

Thank you Jezebel, again, for articulating to the masses one of my most fervent arguments about selling your body/feminism/capitalism.

Jezebel writer Jessica, wrote to clarify her thoughts about a previous post regarding a woman auctioning off her virginity on Ebay, that I blogged about here. Jessica disagreed with many of the commenters on that article who seemed offended that Jezebel seemed to be attacking the women's free expression of her sex. Again, most people seem to be missing the point, as Jessica illustrates below (emphasis mine):

It was about pointing out the absurdity of the situation: a woman is hijacking the language of feminism to justify selling her body. I'm not saying it should be illegal, nor am I saying that she should be burned at the stake or something. My point is more that by buying into a system that values women exclusively for their sexual attractiveness does women as a whole no favors. Even if a woman makes boatloads of money exploiting that system, that doesn't make it an intrinsically feminist act, nor is it subverting that system. It's just making money.

Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does

This Onion article , excerpted below, pokes fun at the idea that suddenly, everything is "empowering" to women. Shoes, granola, tshirts, gaining weight and "woo-ing" are all considered. I think "selling your body for sex" and "pretending that Sarah Palin is a feminist" should also be a part of this article. Also, since when do the ends always justify the means?

Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does

Barbara Klein, professor of women's studies at Oberlin College weighs in:

"Unlike traditional, phallocentric energy bars, whose chocolate, soy protein, nuts, and granola ignored the special health and nutritional needs of women, their new, female-oriented counterparts like Luna are ideally balanced with a more suitable amount of chocolate, soy protein, nuts, and granola,"Klein said.

Whereas early feminists campaigned tirelessly for improved health care and safe, legal access to abortion, often against a backdrop of public indifference or hostility, today's feminist asserts control over her biological destiny by wearing a baby-doll T-shirt with the word "Hoochie" spelled in glitter.

"Not every woman can become a physicist or lobby to stop a foundry from dumping dangerous metals into the creek her children swim in," Klein said. "Although these actions are incredible, they marginalize the majority of women who are unable to, or just don't particularly care to, achieve such things. Fortunately for the less impressive among us, a new strain of feminism has emerged..."

A Sex Positive Radical Feminist?

Cablegai, this article is for you. Better than I could have said it.

And for the anonymous female poster who commented on the right for women to choose porn, I wasn't necessarily arguing that there was one right choice and choosing porn was the wrong one. I'm at the moment, mostly not anti-porn. But the problem is everyone looks at it as if it's only about individual choice. There are larger and complicated interweaving institutions at play here. Those who have not extensively studied institutions have a tendency to jump in with the "but it's a free country" and "free will" arguments. Anonymous girl (you have to leave some sort of pen name or else I can't keep track of who's who), you esp need to read this part (emphasis mine):

"It starts with the idea that people, even people who as a group are poor and powerless, do what they do voluntarily, so that women who pose for Playboy are there by their own free will. Forget the realities of women's sexual/economic situation. When women express our free will, we spread our legs for a camera.
Implicit here, too, is the idea that a natural physical body exists, prior to its social construction through being viewed, which can be captured and photographed, even or especially, when "attractively posed" -- that's a quote from the Playboy Philosophy. Then we are told that to criticize this is to criticize "ideas," not what is being done either to the women in the magazine or to women in society as a whole. Any critique of what is done is then cast as a moral critique, which, as liberals know, can involve only opinions or ideas, not facts about life. This entire defensive edifice, illogical as it may seem, relies utterly coherently on the five cardinal dimensions of liberalism; individualism, naturalism, voluntarism, idealism, and moralism. I mean: members of groups who have no choice but to live life as members of groups are taken as if they are unique individuals; the social characteristics are then reduced to natural characteristics; preclusion of choices becomes free will; material reality is turned into "ideas about" reality; and concrete positions of power and powerlessness are transformed into relative value judgements, as to which reasonable people can form different but equally valid preferences."

Art as Social Commentary

I've been feeling very pensive lately, thinking lots of existential thoughts, for lack of a better word. In fact, I don't really have a word for how I've been feeling lately because I can't quite put a finger on it. It's quite frustrating.

As an art lover, I did enjoy the description of this piece, which was analyzed from an art and feminist perspective by Revolution is Not a Dinner Party (great name).

I wish the author had sourced it. She has to have studied art on some level to do that kind of analysis. It might be a bit long for everyone to want to read.

The bottom part of her analysis is what I liked--how it fits with her feminist blog. Her writing:

So, why write this tremendously verbose explanation for this picture? Dear Readers, it personifies the horrendous conditions under which women were bartered in a marriage system designed to benefit a patriarchal society. Collectively, these attitudes still remain entrenched in our society.

We need to be responsible for our own survival. As women, we cannot, in good faith, hinge all of our hope for the future upon another person’s care of us. And this needs to be addressed on all levels in our lives, financially, emotionally, physically, we must be learn to care for ourselves with the same dedication we were taught, as women, to care for others.

The woman in the picture didn’t have choice. In the old system, women were property (and still remain so in other parts of the world today!) and distributed to their masters accordingly. Now, we do have choice, and choice is an amazing thing, it provides for the freedom we’ve been craving.