Female sexuality

[Monkeytrousers]

hello and welcome

OK kittock I get what you mean

If I could just re-mount my Catherine McKinnon hobby horse in response to SugarandHoney's 'what is to be done?' question: have a look at this link: 'MacKinnon thinks consent in rape cases should be irrelevant. Women are so unfree that even if a woman is shown to have given consent to sex, that should never be enough to secure an acquittal. Why? "My view is that when there is force or substantially coercive circumstances between the parties, individual consent is beside the point; that if someone is forced into sex, that ought to be enough. The British common law approach has tended to be that you need both force and absence of consent. If we didn't have so much pornography in society and people actually believed women when they said they didn't consent, that would be one thing. But that isn't what we've got."

Which leads us back to the discussions we were having on the porn thread I suppose.

So, Elizabetth, when a rape case comes to court and the jury go out and they think: well, women want sex in the way men do and are only afraid of their reputation so have to pretend they don't want sex so the man was right knowing that she really wanted it.

Do you think if we changed our attitude to women's reputation re. sex eg women would be the female mirror of studs, women would become like men and we would then not have rape - or at least a lot less - because men and women would be stopping off at public toilets etc on the way home from work for a quickie?

I think women are far more naturally sexual than, say, the Victorian attitude. But they are still not repressed 'men'. I'm sure women would have more sex for sex's sake, but not as much as men would.

Or perhaps you are thinking that both sexes would change and we'd meet at some middle-ground between the two extremes?
Species where the two sexes bahave in the same way sexually also look the same physically and are monogamous. As MT said earlier, there is a direct correlation between the size of testes and the mating system of the species. Men's testes size correlates with some difference between the sexes. I believe human societies have exaggerated the difference beyond our genetic inheritance but to create 'androgynous' humans will be fighting against the tide to some degree.

If, as humans, we do manage to socially engineer ourselves to be totally unaffected by our genes that will be some achievement.

I do appreciate the problem of saying that naturally women are sexually reserved creatures etc etc and all the crap that brings. But I think saying that we are in fact just like men if only freed from society's oppression is not the answer. What is this thing that needs to be freed? our 'nature'? But that is saying there is a natural ie genetic female that is being repressed. But if we're not influenced by genes and have no 'nature', how can any behaviour be natural whether wanting loads of sex with different partners or no sex at all? How do we know who we are? And who gets to decide how everyone should be?

I think what MacKinnon is talking about there is actually acquiescence rather than consent - agreement given because there isn't really any other choice.

Yes. I know several women who have told me that they have done that. None of them regarded themselves as having been 'raped', but they certainly felt coerced (not direct physical coercion, but it was implied that that would follow if necessary).

However, I am diverting the thread from pesky evolutionary biology that I do not comprehend. I am the thread dunce.

Juries don't believe that about women. They just think that the men in rape cases are more important than the women they rape, thus they rarely convict them. They find a whole lot of rationalisations to justify it but that's what is happening.

I didn't say that women's sexuality would mirror men's if we were free from male control, I just said it was a possibility. The point is we don't know. Evo-psych is pure speculation. In fact I think if men didn't have control over women the way they do now, their sexuality would probably look quite different too.

"What is this thing that needs to be freed? our 'nature'?"

Do you think women are free in our society, Etin? The "thing" that needs to be freed is women ourselves. We live in a male supremacist society run by and for men at the moment. I think that needs to change and until it does women will continue to be raped and subject to violence in order to keep us in our second class position.

"How do we know who we are? And who gets to decide how everyone should be?"

I think I may be losing the thread of your argument but I was under the impression that the evo-psychs (like those idiots who wrote that rape book) were arguing that they definitely could say who humans are and should be.

PolicyWonk, evolutionary psychology doesn't have the last word on female sexuality (the title of this thread) whatever they may claim.

"I think I may be losing the thread of your argument but I was under the impression that the evo-psychs (like those idiots who wrote that rape book) were arguing that they definitely could say who humans are and should be."

No, Elizabetth, though there are is no doubt as much variation there as anywhere else.
For me its about learning what we are up against.

I have McKinnon's 'Are Women Human" which I've only flicked through so far.
I guess I must appear a bit of an oddity combining something like Mckinnon and Dworkins' perspective with evo. psych. (Or evolutionary feminism to be more precise as there is male bias in EP that needs to be corrected and plenty of other arguments that need to be challenged.) To me they support each other. Explaining why is clearly where I'm failing miserably

I can only repeat MT's recommendation of Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin?: Debating Feminism and Evolutionary Theory by Griet Vandermassen

Probably part of the problem you've got Etin is that Dworkin and MacKinnon are social constructionists, not biological determinists.

I've found an article by Griet Vandermassen and she does seem very concerned about rescuing feminism from its lack of scientific grounding, as if political movements needed such a thing.

ejw.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/11/1/9.pdf

It does read more like scientism than science however.

Thanks for posting that Griet Vandermassen link - I thought it was great.

I do think that feminism needs a basis in science. Actually I think all political movements do. I don't think you can separate out what is right from what is true. And as she says in her conclusion "we have to know what we are fighting if we want to fight it successfully"

Precisely, kittock

And I only mean that it must seem odd to others that I can so easily marry other feminisms with darwinism and even evolutionary psychology by and large.

EP, in the face of those who say women are lying about rape, harrassment, discrimination or those who say women have the real power and men are their pawns, dying younger, dying in war etc etc while the women live easier lives, EP says feminists are right.
To me it's the scientific validation of women's anger.
And to be involved in it, reading and looking at the evidence itself, is about fighting women's corner, and fighting for change just the same, but with a better understanding of the deep-rooted obstacles we face.

"So is rape something you think we just have to tolerate because we're women, MT?

You appear to be arguing that men just can't help themselves."

That is not what I am arguing at all.

To explain is not to condone or accept

Oh, and I do think women are socially constructed, but that infers there is a female nature that came before or lies somewhere underneath all the layers of construction and constraint. It might be better to understand this nature, its roots and potential etc before we deconstruct/reconstruct ourselves.

Perhaps a reading of another sociobiologist/EP/feminist - Sarah Hrdy's 'The Woman That Never Evolved' would help here.

And comparisons with other animals are valid when they have faced similar selection pressures, but only then.

Evolutionary theory is a science, and science has always been harnessed for political ends, both left and right. The left needs to equip itself with the knowledge to counter the right, not ignore it or dismiss it.

Evolutionary theory can help restructure rape prosecution policy from a female perspective ? not as you fear, reinforce the current male perspective bias.

Competition, oppression are all ?natural? as is rape, but so is cooperation, altruism and empathy. Cultures can encourage one or the other ? the right the former, the left the latter.

Will catch up with other posts later.

No one is claiming that evolutuonary psychology has "the last word on female sexuality" but it does help us create a very useful picture that can be of use to feminism

Well off the top of my head the last two political movements that considered their ideas to be based in science (which of course they weren't) were Marxism and Fascism. I don't think we need to emulate either of them. Human relations are far too complicated to be able to be explained by science as it currently stands because the tools of science are limited, powerful though they may be in the areas that they are effective. E will always equal mc squared whether you are a sexist, a fascist or a physicist whereas what Griet Vandermassen is arguing will be contradicted by the next evo-psych who pops up with a different set of biases.

I mean are we singling feminism out here? I didn't need to hear scientific arguments to know that what was done to black people in apartheid South Africa was wrong and neither did most other people. Funnily enough though, the racists did like to use all sorts of cod-science to justify their bigotry (they still do - think James Watson most recently). Are feminism's arguments uniquely weak that they need to be bolstered by something that looks like science but is really speculation? Or is it just that sexist people find it almost impossible to take women's words as they stand particularly when we are fighting on our own behalf thus they must always find some way to dismiss them? This time that feminism isn't based in science.

"Evolutionary theory can help restructure rape prosecution policy from a female perspective"

Or you know the female (or rather victim's perspective) can help restructure rape prosecution. Like I said this is the problem I'm having here. Apparently women's words, arguments and experience just aren't good enough, we still need some higher "authority" this time Science with a capital S, to step in and help us little ladies who simply don't know enough about our own situations to be able to argue on our own behalf effectively. That is sexism. Etin did the same thing, she said that EvoPsych could show that rape really is rape. Does that mean that what was done to me wasn't rape until the scientists said so? I don't think so. Greta's the same, she seems to think that feminism isn't quite good enough as it stands. Apparently we don't know what we're fighting against (I always thought it was male oppression but there you go) and need her and her colleagues' unscientific speculations to help us. I mean she's kind of ungrateful because it's probably only because of feminism that she's sitting in an academic department somewhere writing books and publishing papers. Quite an achievement for people who "didn't know what we are fighting against".

MT, was it "Rape, a Natural History"?" that you were referring to with regards to rape? Because it's been taken to pieces by real scientists. It's pop-science, not the real thing.

Can you name these scientists Elizabeth? It's been taken to pieces by feminists who misunderstand and have misread it. Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer are th eleader in their field, and not "pop" scientists

Thorhnill

palmer

A short edit of their thesis

You'd be better to read it than jump on a misinformed band wagon

That last one isn't the right one. I'll fiond it when dp gets in, no time at the mo

Oh Elizabetth, evolutionary psychology and biology is not pure speculation at all, it is in fact much more robust a science than your common or garden psychology. It is eminently testable! Those type of criticisms just don?t hold sway anymore, and feminism needs to stop mouthing them, putting those words into the mouths of very intelligent women as it disempowers women, feminists and feminism in fact.

I don?t know what you mean when you ask are women free in our society? Is anyone free, male or female? Is it only the very rich that are free? Is it only the very intelligent? What is very clear, is that on a global scale women in the west really have never had it so good. I am liable to think things will never get any better, that we have reached the pinnacle of progress ? what with the shadow of environmental upheaval, war, lack of oil all to come ? things will probably get much worse. I hope I am wrong.

Thornhill and Palmer are not ??idiots?. If you look at the reviews on Amazon you will get the reactionary, misunderstood one and just below, the open minded one. I don?t think feminism is served well by reactionsim, but it seems to be an entrenched aspect of it. It?s always ?time to get angry again?, when I think feminism should drop angry and get serious. There is too much at stake for histrionics.

No one in EP dictates anything, this is a common misconception; it is descriptive not prescriptive, do you know what I mean?

I personally, and it is part of my thesis, think that the inability of feminism to look at contemporary evolutionary science without the baggage and prejudice of decades past, will have profound moral implications for women around the world. If feminism is there to help women, then it should be able to look at all the evidence about human nature, not simply dismiss one approach because it doesn?t fit with feminist dogma. Why is dogma more important that real progress for women?

Contrary to many expectations however, evolutionary theory very often scientifically backs up what feminists have instinctively suspected for centuries, such as the tendency for patriarchal oppression when it comes to men coveting a woman's fertility, anxieties over paternity surety, and the tendency of these insecurities to become manifest in social policy. Evolutionary theory then provides ultimate explanations for these phenomena, helping us understand and introduce corrective measures. What it does not do, as is often claimed, is condone immoral or amoral behaviour. Humans are highly evolved and profoundly moral animals and this fact is central to evolutionary theory.

I think it is very dangerous and, even more, unconscionable for feminism to take the irrational stand it does with evolutionary theory. To close your eyes to the truth is to turn your back on millions of women who need the help of a biologically and psychologically robust and intellectually sound feminism.

I think you said that women could never be safe until rape was wiped out. For rape to be wiped out is highly unlikely and to realistically expect such an outcome quite a dangerous delusion I think. It is akin to the abstinence movement to stop teenage pregnancies, more based on wishful thinking than pragmatism ? and it doesn?t help. You can no more expect to wipe out rape than you could murder. Society can implement policy and sanctions to lessen its extent, and it does. Crucially, evolutionary theory can make these policies and sanctions more robust when it comes to rape, not less so, not maintaining the status quo but rebuilding it!! That is what I am trying to do with my thesis now.

Sugarandhoney, we can do something - I am trying to write somehting now that will do something - but paradoxically, it is feminism that is holding this progress back!

and that science with a capital S is still being written by women.

And againm you are wrong about evolutioanry theory not looking onto other ares of oppression, it does; racism, everything.

policywonk - I haven't had time to read your stuff by Catherine Mckinnon but I will do as soon as I get 5 minutes (fat chance at the moment).

Monkeytrousers - tell us more

Cna't tonight. Will drop in tomorrow

So where is Elizabeth tonight? Her threads are always really interesting.