Libertarianism

[Montmorency1]

From your perspective or experience, have many streams of feminism been predicated on libertarianism?

I refer to both political and metaphysical libertarianism, between which it is important to distinguish, though they are obviously closely related.

I broach this apropos of no single source, but from a general impression that libertarianism is central to most feminisms.

I'm glad you found it interesting too, DonkeySkin. I'm a few years older than you, and I found the backlash just as disheartening. It now feels as though a great torrent of sexist media was chucked at young women all at once, from lad's mags and OK! to the revival of televised beauty pageants, presented ironically in a laddish tone and with a kind of style-centric nostalgia. And young women were invited to join in, to prove they could hold their own with the lads, by "getting it". But the terms of "it" were not set by women.

I think women of my generation did a better job of managing this wave of shit, and resisting the worst of it, than we are given credit for. The language of the second wave, so indebted to marxism, was alien and somewhat discredited by the time it reached us; it wasn't much help in making sense of 1990s sexism (which was complex and covert, as Angela McRobbie describes), nor did it facilitate alliances with anti-racist, queer and green campaigners. And although feminism as a political project lost momentum, young feminist-minded women helped to transform other progressive movements. We weren't just shopping all the time.

I agree with McRobbie about the fragmentation of feminism. My first activism was in the gay rights movement, where lesbians and gay men would quite often argue completely the opposite from one another. But solidarity was made possible by our awareness of the acute crisis we were living through, and our ability to mobilise around issues (rather than values): Aids, section 28, the age of consent, discrimination, and much more. I think the post-90s brand of sexism has made it difficult for feminism to do the latter, precisely because it has mashed together the kind of consumer nonsense you highlight (heels) with important human-rights issues (sex work) as "women's issues", and presented them in the same way, ie by stressing the point of disagreement and leaving us to fight each other over it.

ezinma I really have enjoyed reading your last post. It resonates a lot with my own personal history and reading it ... there is something very sanity-bestowing about reading it. Somehow, sometimes, I feel something really major in my life, in my past has been "vanished" - i even wonder if it ever existed at all.
It was good to read that.

I quite liked the Angela McRobbie article. I like much of what she said, and how she described things. A little bit of me was disappointed and I'm trying to work out why. I think it's because it has made me want a larger, more heavy-duty, and perhaps even angrier analysis of the backlash. None of that is Anglea McRobbie's fault! Perhaps I'm not feeling "disappointment" but rather a stirring of curiousity and even anger .

I thought her spotting of and analysis of the rise of the women's income as a thing worth highlighting and exploring was very good. I sometimes wonder if the backlash is tied to this entry of women into the workplace in large numbers, and I like the way she tied together the irony of that success (in that area) actually being linked to the form of the backlash.

I wonder how much of the backlash was to do with the loss of actual feminist businesses,infrastructure and actual, physical spaces. Ironically, those were lost as feminism was absorbed (in some forms) into the mainstream and with the changing economic situation (a lot of radical businesses and spaces disappeared). I don't think the internet is enough of a filip to the loss of those spaces and businesses. So how much of the backlash was due to the changing face of capitalism? Obviously, I don't know.

I also wonder about the loss of feminist businesses and the consequent loss of the possibility of possible jobs and careers within feminism. That may sound a bit crazy but ... I really do think that that is a problem. If you compare feminists with lefties, for example, lefties of the 80s an 90s (and, yes, I do mean left-wing men) tended to manage to create jobs and contacts through their activism and work - often moving sideways from the radical to the more mainstream. I strongly suspect this was not the case for a similar number of feminists.

Anyway, thank you for the article. It was very interesting.

Really really interesting few posts, thank you.

I went to school in the 80s, uni in the 90s. This really resonates with my experience too.

I think the point about the loss of female spaces is interesting and bears further reflection. I think the concomitant point is that public space may be also more hostile now too. Or maybe that is just me. For various personal reasons due to things which have happened, I am not comfortable in male dominated space. But there is very little 'female' space.

To the OP, the vision you set out in your last post sounds completely awful. Not because I feel scared or alienated but because I don't believe one more developed race would help the other, I think they would take power over the other. There is enough evidence in history to show that groups who feel they are better in some way do not tend to altuism. Your post-humanism sound like a nightmare.

Your post-humanism sound like a nightmare.

Yes it does.

Post-humanism sounds like something from a bad science fiction novel.

Anyway, women and girls haven't achieved full human status yet, so we would be suicidal unwise to root for eugenics post-humanism.

In answer to the original question as to what degree feminism(s) have been founded on Libertarianism, I would say very little.

I think the OP is conflating 'agency' as used in Libertarianism with 'bodily integrity' as used in feminism. With agency being used in Libertarianism as a concept based on the exercise of 'full self-ownership' and bodily integrity being used in feminism to mean women and girls being free from male violence against women (sexual or otherwise).

Most of the feminists I know find 'agency' to be a flawed abstract concept which fails to address hegemony and its very concrete consequence; socialization. In particular feminists criticize the concept of agency (and indeed Libertarianism) as being a male centric perspective, born from the comfort of male dominated society, which fails to integrate the female perspective. Full self-ownership is a very male centric notion and it neglects the unavoidable concrete biological fact that human females carry and birth babies.

(I am using hegemony to denote the Marxist (and feminist) analysis of the phenomenon particularly that of cultural hegemony.)

In Marxist philosophy, however, the term describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of the society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm; as the universally valid dominant ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

I am really appreciating the sincere posts on thus thread.

Ezinma, I also really liked that article. There are two issues connected to it that I have been trying to think through and don't really have a conclusion to.

The first is the issue of why feminism has changed so much. I am interested in the idea she mentioned that media and consumerism has become such a dominant force in moulding women's lives, and that coupled with the rise of the Internet means younger women in Western societies have a new set of problems to deal with, which would explain why so much of their focus is on those areas. Given how new those areas are it is going to take a while for younger feminists to formulate a really strong response.

Secondly, the extent to which the second wave could overlap and build links to other forms of activism. Perhaps this is my misunderstanding of when or what the second wave is. I started in feminism in the late eighties and I would consider that second wave. There were still people living as radical feminist lesbian separatists for example, which I would consider very much second wave. my experience was that all the groups of left wing activism overlapped both in terms of the actual activism and in socialising and friendship groups. People living even in separatist communities still engaged both socially and politically with the other activist groups. I think that what we're both talking about is people's actual behaviour (although we may disagree on what that was), rather than on things like which feminist thinkers were supposed to be influential at the time (which rather gives the impression feminists are like evangelical Christians, with Betty Friedan rather than the bible. For that reason I also like that the article pointed out the UK second wave was socialist rather than liberal).

I do think that in the UK the rise of consumerism led to a drop in activism. Essentially activism was co-opted into being a consumerist activity, so much of the culture associated with it became part of Blair's 'Cool Britannia' brand, laws like the criminal justice and public order act closed down a lot of buildings, gatherings and communities that activist groups, shops, publishing and so on were organised from and the sense of there being a counter cultural political movement collapsed, aided by lack of trade union power, job insecurity and so on. That kind of culture became an expensive lifestyle choice people bought into, through clothing, living in certain trendy areas, going to certain clubs etc, no different from other lifestyle choices.

Beachcomber, thanks for your post. Explaining the distinction between bodily integrity and agency is really helpful.

You're welcome

In my mind it goes likes this;

supporting the notions of agency and or full self-ownership = believing in the concept of free will and unconstrained choice with availability of valid alternative options (and with all those options being equally accessible to all agents).

supporting the notion of bodily integrity = supporting the liberation of women from male dominance in all its manifestations.

WRT the backlash/current society/consumerism/etc/ I think male supremacist society is pulling a fast one on women in almost exactly the same way it did in the 60s with the so called 'sexual revolution'.

The sexual revolution was packaged and sold to women, by (left wing and libertarian) men, as being about liberation . But it was only pseudo liberation for women and it was firmly awarded under male centric terms. Men continued to exploit women sexually, domestically and now, in addition, they also harnessed and used female energy to forward male causes. The 'form' of the exploitation had shifted slightly but it remained male exploitation and domination of women with virtually all cultural hegemony, institutional power and accompanying socio-economic power structures remaining utterly unrevolutionized.

What is happening currently and since around the late 70s/early 80s has many parallels with the above.

Now what we (women) are getting is neo-liberal capitalist exploitation and dominance of women - which is being sold to us as yet another 'sexual revolution' where we are supposed to believe that 'we're all equal now' and we can all take part in post-feminist pole dancing and man pleasing because we choose to and it empowers us. The hope is that we might not notice that virtually all cultural hegemony, institutional power and accompanying socio-economic power structures remain utterly unrevolutionized because we are so busy being empowerfulized and making 'choices'. This neo-liberal capitalist society not only exploits women but it also makes a consumer product/object out of us. Yet again, our energy is being harnesses to advance a male cause (this time it is consumerism).

A parallel with the sexual revolution of the 60s and the post-feminism of the 80s/90s is that of increased sexualization of women, by men and for men, being sold to us as liberty, when of course, it is anything but.

beachcomber, there is an awful lot of food for thought in your posts, so I am just going to ask about a couple of points.

I always understood the concept of agency, as regards feminism, to be the idea that women were not just passive victims of patriarchy or oppression, but that they employ strategies, resistance and challenges within a context of male domination. It is a concept which developed with third wave feminism. It may have been exploited by neoliberalism, but it has feminist roots, it wasn't foisted on female writers and commentators.

The issue with agency is as you suggest whether internal strategising and resistance is empowering or whether power comes from being able to change external factors. For these reasons, it is flawed, but the impetus to not simply see women as victims of oppression was not, imo.

That the notion of choice has been co-opted by neoliberalism is another point I agree with, but one which bears further exploring. Neoliberalism descends from liberalism. Liberal feminism was never about changing gendered roles, it was about giving women the legal and educational tools to have the same opportunities as men. Within this framework, women were free to choose what to do with those opportunities. Thus, I would need to unpick the ideological differences between classical liberalism and neoliberalism to see how that has framed women's 'choices'. The difference a hundred years ago was that multinational corporations did not exist. But the roots of 'choice' were also in liberal feminism.

The challenge to capitalism came from second wave feminism, and women's liberation in this context was not the same as sexual liberation, it was much, much broader, about liberation from male-dominated hierarchies, space etc. And second wave feminism was also a reaction to leftist men who themselves continued to buy into gendered stereotypes and roles. It grew out of the 1960s protest movements.

I am not sure what you mean by sexual liberation. Access to contraception was a feminist demand because of the demands of multiple pregnancies. Access to abortion was because of illegal abortion. The argument that this suited men - do you mean because the primacy of PIV sex was never challenged? This is kind of like saying that women took men on male terms as regards employment.

I think your point about full bodily autonomy being a male-centric notion is an interesting one because it ignores the fact that women carry and birth babies. The implication would be that artificial contraception used by a woman and abortion makes women's bodies like men's again because it removes the threat and reality of pregnancy. I have actually thought this, for all abortion is a feminist touchstone, it makes women more like men, and therefore removes some of the need to treat them as women. (I don't wish to turn this into a pro-life argument, it is not).

Sorry if that is a bit disjointed, am on phone.

Sorry, not sure what the last part was asking, I need to think about it a bit more.

summerflower:

"I don't believe one more developed race would help the other, I think they would take power over the other."

That's the idea!

Now, as for making women more like men (abstracting away from sexual politics), the problem is that if 'improvement' for women's situations must be in reference for men, then that fact in itself will undermine all improvement from within. That's why I've mentioned in threads other than this one that both men and women in human society must transform to achieve the more profound conceptions of equality.

Or, you know, as I've advanced in this thread, just die and be replaced by something different.

beachcomber:

Are sexual "choices" for women inherently exploitative, or is it only that they must ultimately or primarily contribute to male pleasure despite simultaneously being a tool or reason for men to demean and disregard women?

montmorency, okay, struggling with this one: I thought feminism was about valuing people equally, etc., so how is your post-humanist perspective feminist?

That said, I agree about all women's 'improvement' being in relation to men. I once went to a paper by Olwen Huftonn where she suggested that one of the mistakes feminism had arguably made was to buy into the idea of male time, whereas women's lives followed different time patterns. I say, arguably, because I am not sure how you change anything if you are outside the systems of power. And I think if women had not had political voices, access to the universities etc, things would not really have changed. So I am not sure it was a mistake, but there are still huge issues. I personally don't like the pressure to conform to male time, which I have to do to an extent, as I work in a male environment as a single parent.

Thinking about it in terms of both women and men must transform, yes, I think that offers new possibilities (although I am too tired to imagine these). But why is it so hard to just treat women as equal and valued people, without having to imagine a new future? (Though I agree with getting beyond gender - I am writing this beside little DS who is watching kids TV, argh, gender roles are ingrained here.)

As to sexual politics, that is an interesting question. I would like to imagine a world where sexual participation, let's put it that way, is affirmative, and not exploitative, demeaning or even violating; but that is not what we have at a population level or culturally; although some people may find it at a personal level. I have not (yet).

If you must: I do violence to feminism, and take what I need from it in order to affirm my lack of self-worth.

More seriously, I envision that past some point our successor-"races" would be consolidated into a single "individual": the Avtokrator. If there is only one, then equality is surely not an issue...

Completely lost, sorry. The idea of having to give up any sense of self so that equality is not an issue reminds me of an abusive marriage, sorry. You are literally talking of one 'race' being more powerful, then merging into one entity - what happens to the other 'races', they are obliterated or absorbed - or, this being the future, hopefully escape to another planet, leaving the one entity to disappear up their own back passage, or less hopefully, escape to another planet whereupon the powerful entity uses all their resources to ensure the lesser race knows no peace.

I used the term "planned obsolescence" - as in, they allow themselves to go the way of the dodo, so to speak. I also used the phrase "humanity is the ladder that is to be kicked away". Suggestive, no? Also, catchy. You know, like Hitler. As an aside, it's really interesting how all my posts on this forum so far come together to form a coherent narrative.

Anyway, what is the use of one race once it has developed the next? Its survival defeats the point of having done so in the first place, unless hubris a la Skynet is involved. But whether by force or by agenda, humanity must go.

One person's coherence is another's madness. I can't have a serious debate with someone who references Hitler. Beyond offensive.

I don't understand. Are you confused about why I referenced Hitler?

"As an aside, it's really interesting how all my posts on this forum so far come together to form a coherent narrative."

Is it?

Going back to earlier posts ...

I've really enjoyed reading the analyses of the contemporary situation and the backlash. Lots to think about and very uplifting (which sounds odd because it's not precisely good news - but, on the other hand, it's great to start getting "the words to say it" and to know there are others who see and think the same things as oneself).

Another thing that I;d like any of your views on is this:

Does anyone else have this feeling about the 80s and 90s - That there was a massive disjunction between the feminism we/you/one was living and what we/you/I was being told was the reality and also what was "feminism" in the mainstream media and in more powerful (than the media we/you/I represented ourselves in and used to communicate)?

I'm thinking particularly about a real disjunction I experienced between being told in dominant media forms that my kind of feminism was "over", that there was no-one still "doing" that kind of feminism, that it had been superseded, and - actually - there was this new kind of "feminism" that "everyone" now upheld and subscribed to.

It really was massively out of kilter with my own experience, which was of ongoing feminist activism and political critique. And this "new" kind of feminism was not popular - or even really considered seriously feminist - by most feminists I knew.

And yet our voices (and experience) were drowned out by more powerful media forms - and our voices (and experience) were even labelled "inauthentic".

And I see this continuing, actually, when I read accounts of what is being called "second-wave feminism" right now, in the present.

It feels a lot like a double silence and I can't help but feel that it is taking as "Truth" what is actually a great deal of misrepresentation by ... (!) Powerful Blocs of REpresentation.

I'm thinking all this after having read what enzinma has written about her experience in the supposed "Wasteland" years, and also after what DonkeySkin said about defining feminism. I think there is a real issue in the definition of feminism, and the representation of feminism, and how definition-representation has actually been used to silence feminism, that we have lived through as our history, and is on-going as that history is re-told and defined.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Sorry, Montmorency, I'm aware that it's a bit of a thread hi-jack but I hope you don't mind about the re-direction of thinking on the thread. And I am assuming that you aren't so hung up on concepts such as ownership. So I'm thinking it's OK to pursue this direction.

You don't need my permission.

Are you touching on the rise of fashionable "pop"-feminism? That is what the news media prefer, I gather.

summerflower I haven't had much free time over the last couple of days but will come back and have a go at your question later on today.

Lots of interesting perspectives upthread on the 'backlash' and the Angela McRobbie interview. I hope it's not too late to respond.

I can't comment directly on cat's question about representation versus reality, because I was one of those who resisted the 'old' feminism back in the early 1990s. I'm trying to think why. It certainly appeared stodgy and dogmatic. I'd echo almondcakes' first point that materialist-inspired theory, in general, didn't seem to fit the experience of the 'MTV generation' or whatever we were supposed to be. I used to think long and hard about social class, but I could never locate myself using marxist terminology, and I had just as much difficulty imagining my gender to be a 'class' in any meaningful way.

Meanwhile, the teen magazines we read had dumped the old photo-story narrative where the sweet girl learns to cook and sew while waiting anxiously for the gorgeous hunk to notice her. Now they spoke frankly about work, leisure and sex. Many of us grew up with (more or less thwarted) feminist mothers or teachers; they drummed it into us that our biology was not going to shape our destiny. The concept of 'family' was being radically reshaped by divorce and unemployment, and I think the guiding principle for women of my background and generation was that we would need to be able to look after ourselves, just in case. And that's why I don't entirely disdain the process by which feminism became tied to concepts like 'independence' and 'agency'. Those things mattered to us.

And they helped us to muddle through. The 1990s were a time of extreme pragmatism. Thatcher's campaigns against the Left had torn communities apart, and we had grown up in a country riven by mistrust, confrontation and violence. We wanted to put that behind us. Ours was a mindset of repairing and bridge-building; it was forward-looking and uplifting, inspired by Live Aid, glasnost and Mandela. The Thatcher years, and more especially the legacy of Aids, had also taught us to appreciate how little power we had. We would get together to mourn and to raise money, but social and cultural change took place at the level of the individual. Again, I think this had a big impact on my approach to activism and, later, feminism.

Does this help explain why there seemed to be such a rift between the second and third waves? And why it took me so long to commit to calling myself a feminist? It's only one woman's opinion, but I hope it at least hints at some of the circumstances that shaped my activism, and adds some nuance to the labels of "liberal" or "fun" feminist which get lobbed at women like me.

I'm so glad I hunted this thread out - I almost missed your reply, ezinma. I found that utterly fascinating.
I also felt distanced from aspects of feminist theory (and socialist theory) but I think I always adopted a bit of a "pick 'n' mix" approach, which is probably why I found no difficulty in identifying myself as a feminist. I do wonder about that sometimes, though. Perhaps it was simply a kind of myopia on my part!
I really enjoyed your description of the 80s 90s and your perceptions/analysis of those years.

I really hope other people might add. I am really interested in analyses of the backlash, I'm sure I';m not the only one.