What are your thoughts on this Andrea Dworkin quote?

No prostitute provides any model for freedom or action in a world of freedom that can be used with intelligence and integrity by a woman; the [happy hooker] model exists to entice counterfeit female sexual revolutionaries, gullible liberated girls, and to serve the men who enjoy them"

Definitely true, and the answer to all those who defend our increasingly pornified culture as 'empowering' women. There is nothing powerful or conferring of power in women selling themselves to men: the fact that a woman is relatively successful (in superficial ways) at negotiating the sexual roles patriarchy allows her just means she is good at commodifying herself.

Yes exactly.

Although Dworkin uses the word 'wife' on purpose I think - I mean rather than using the word 'madonna'. It isn't about madonna/whore complex - rather about 'whore' and 'wife' as being similar states of sexual, economic and intellectual oppression.

I just re-read the chapter the quotes are from and it is a searing piece of feminist analysis. It is called 'The Politics of Intelligence' - brilliant reading for anyone who thinks that feminists' use of the term 'the sex class' is somehow extreme or exaggerated.

That sounds accurate. So you have women as madonna or whore but both just in their relationship to man and you have much admired batchelors and much maligned spinters and a suggestion women cannot be happy unless in relations to men and are totally defined by their relationships to men who in a sense own them and their children.

It was important in 1978. The issue is still important across most of the planet now and still relevant to many people and relationships in the UK.

Xenia, I think Dworkin's analysis is that the 'wife' and the 'whore' are both in roles of female oppression.

I have dug out my copy of the book and this quote comes just a few sentences after;

Wife or whore: both are denied a human life, forced to live a female one. Wife or whore: intelligence denied, annihilated, ridiculed, obliterated, primes her to surrender?to her female fate. Wife or whore: the two kinds of women whom men recognize, whom men let live. Wife or whore: battered, raped, prostituted; men desire her. Wife or whore: the whore comes in from the cold to become the wife if she can; the wife thrown out into the cold becomes the whore if she must. Is there a way out of the home that does not lead, inevitably and horribly, to the street corner? This is the question right-wing women face. This is the question all women face, but right-wing women know it. And in the transit?home to street, street to home?is there any place, reason, or chance for female intelligence that is not simply looking for the best buyer?

Remember this is being written in 1978.

No, I see that, I was just thinking about the legal aspect of it. Outlaw to me implies a lot more than just not being adequately protected by law, too.

But yes, I see what you mean about outcast/outlaw, and I like her choice of wording.

I think Dworkin is not just talking about 'outlaw' in the sense of being out-with the law in a legal sense.

It's been a while since I read Right-Wing Women, but I think she is talking about how women are identified within patriarchy either as 'whores' or 'wives' - in other words, in relation to their relationship with men. And that the role of the 'wife' and the role of the 'whore' are two sides of the same coin.

She is saying (IIRC) that the woman who has ownership and control of her own body (and I think this is about childbearing and labour, not just sex) is an outlaw in the sense of being out of the system/power structures of patriarchy. Yes, these systems are bolstered by the actual law, in a legal sense, but I think she is looking at a bigger picture than that.

IMO she is using outlaw in a revolutionary sense. For example a lesbian separatist is an outlaw in the sense that they are as least accepting of The System as possible, but they are not doing anything illegal (although you would think they are, the way society/people react to this lifestyle - it is a fine line between outcast/outlaw IYSWIM).

If it's arguable, I'd love to see someone do it, but I find it hard to believe! I've read a lot of your posts on the subject and never found it to be 'arguable' in the slightest.

Arguably prostitutes who keep their own monmey and work for themselves have more power and better feminist credentials than housewives providing sex and housekeeping and servile services in return for an allowance from their husband.

However I don't think her suggestion that women should not be able to use the one weapon they have which men don't (the abilility to sell sex because there is a male sexual deficit and men often have to pay and women don't) is particularly helpful.

(What a shame if in 2012 teenage girls are not reading or at least know of Mary Wollsteoncraft [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft]] in the way we used to. We must make sure our daughters do.)

I didn't know that about Engels.

But yes, I think the way she's saying that integrity, of whatever kind, only comes from being outside the law, is fascinating and disturbing. I wonder if it's less true, or getting less true, now? For example, she wrote that before marital rape was criminalized in England, so when she wrote it a woman's right to her bodily integrity in that situation was legally not protected, whereas now there is a law, which doesn't always provide protection in practice but does in theory.

What I'm coming round to asking is, do you think that we have to expect to keep consciously being 'outlaws' to the legal system? Or can we expect gradually to get more legal protections extended to us, so that eventually we're inside the law?

I was thinking how the legal system works on precedent, and whether it can ever continue to do that and become completely inclusive of women, or not?

Or Wollstonecraft even. Don't know who Wollenscraft is!

Thanks for the manspalin about Marx, Wollenscraft and class LeithLurker.

Women exist as a political class. Period.

Any man blustering that they don't, needs to have a word with himself.

Women are a globally oppressed class who actually get their own bill of rights. Amazeballs!!

Morgan and Engels described women as the world's first oppressed class (think about division of labour, ownership of means of production, control of capital/resources). In fact they (and Marx) observed the social and economic hierarchy that existed between men and women as a framework for analysing socio-economic class. They saw the family system as a precursor to the property system.

Anyhoo, interesting though all this basic feminism may be, it might be nice to actually discuss the 'meat' of the quote.

I think this first bit is a brilliant analysis;

It is not in becoming a whore that a woman becomes an outlaw in this man's world; it is in the possession of herself, the ownership and effective control of her own body, her seperateness and distinctness, the integrity of her body as hers, not his

This is consciousness raising lightbulb moment stuff.

Can we have the dig about 'real life' not 'cutting it' gone too, Olivia? I thought that was rather offensive.

'Come, foolish woman, and answer my manly questions, how dare you not be here when I demand!

Wowser, when anyone wants to know what "derailment" or "whataboutthemenz" means, we can just point them to this thread!

In response to the original quote, I think it can be applied not just to prostitution but to the pornified culture in general. I can remember thinking I was being pretty cool and subversive when I was younger, tottering about in my high heels and hotpants, feeling sure about myself, "empowered" some might say, but really I was just playing into the hands of the men/boys leching at me.

Fortunately that phase didn't last very long!! My poor mum, what she had to endure.....

Btw, I am absolutely sure that using 'class to cover an entire sex' is exactly what Wollstonecraft means. She uses the phrase 'the class of women'. If unnamedfemaleprotagonist is lurking she'll say more, she's well up on this.

Am I being thick? But why are we talking about Marx?

He didn't originate this use of the word. Sure, it has strong political connotations now, but I think it is clear Dworkin is using in in the older sense, and in a sense well established in earlier feminist writings, so why is it a problem?

Far from being "fixated" beachcomber the word class is loaded to the gills with meaning and emotion. People ask for comment and thats what happens they get cooment.

I said I did not want to become anal about discussing class as I think the thread as a whole offers much more to explore in the quote than just class. So I will make my point and leave it alone so that this thread can progress to looking at other ideas and thoughts about the quote. In fact it might be worthy of a thread in it's own right to think about Class and feminism.

I would suggest that Wollstonecraft and Marx were using the word Class in entirely different ways, with some crossover to be sure but essentially to talk about different things. We all know that Marx's main interest was economic and politicle change. So in describing class he constructed the working class or the proletariat. In his goal was to allow easy accesability to the idea that only those who controlled the means of production or who had wealth were the enemy. Everyone else either directly or indirectly worked to make the rich richer. Now this as a politicle and socio economic comment was fair enough. He would have struggled to include many of the modern day politicle and economic theories in his own general theory. Indeed feminism as well as green issues pose issues. So a theory for a specific goal and of it's time.

I would argue much the same with MW and her use of the word class is much the same. Interestingly enough though she is an even more direct link to Marxs as she also wrote the same kind of vindication for men as she did for women. Her use of class though was to particularly signify that women as a sex were diffrent from their oppressors which yes were men but were also lack of education and choosing a life untroubled by critic le thought. She like Marx was writing in a particular time, and in a particular environment. Incidently her ideas about education were slightly mixed and not clear if she was advocating state education for all children or only children that come from a certain economic background.

All this is somewhat diffrent to the way class is used today, and that using class to cover an entire sex is not what either Mary or Karl intended. The use by feminists like Marx is politicle and suffers from the same deterministic, black or white faults. Men and women today have much more personal, politicle, and economic freedom than they did even 50 years ago. Social norms have changed almost to the point of being unrecognisable. We do need in all social causes to talk about who has power and who does not. However if we said that all women did not have power, then we would be ignoring the small but important minority that have the power through economic, or politicle, or social means to construct their own worlds and not be a 2nd class. However even then we would recognise that at the very top level of the world society, a small bunch of mostly men have such huge wealth and control that even a wealthy independent woman like Madonna, or Stella McCartney, or Mrs Clinton who may even one day be president of the usa, are controlled. However that would just make them the same as the vast majority of men.

What Beach said.

CailinDana, you asked this question; But are there those who claim prostitution is a way of defying "the prerogatives or power of men as a class"?

I would say, yes, absolutely.

Anyone who witters on about empowerment for the women in porn or prostitution or who talks about prostitutes exploiting men/making easy money/being in control/getting one up/working as an indie/being paid to do what women are for anyway.

Or anyone who talks about 'high class call girls'/Belle de Jour/the tart with a heart/happy hookers/yadda yadda'.

i.e. lots of people - see 'illegal' thread for multi examples.

Oh FFS!

Somebody posts a really interesting quote, a incisive piece of feminist analysis - the sort of thing you could have a really explorational discussion about.

But what do we get? A bunch of men fixating on the word 'class' and claiming that women and men do not exist as distinct political classes.

Give Me A Fucking Break.

Is it a total lack of political awareness that comes from being in the privileged of the two classes, or just a desire to disrupt women from talking about their status, that this sort of entitled crap stems from? (Please don't feel the need to answer - that was a rhetorical question.)

Quote is bang on. With bells on.

"True, brains, we're using sex as a category. I think we are also using gender, though, because we are discussing the social constructs? "

"It is fairly clear, no? "

You can tell me once you've answered your own question! Lol.

What are you confused by, uppercut?

It is fairly clear, no?