Hi all. Sorry I don't mean to kill the discussion - just widen it.
WiLLiam: I think certain aspects of Dworkin's thought are highly eccentric, but I nevertheless think her one of the most unfairly underacknowledeged thinkers of the twentieth century. My allusion was complimentary.
I did not say that feminism per se is responsible for dick pics. Rather my point is that liberal post-feminism has bought into hook-up culture and a very utilitarian conception of human sexual relations (see pro-porn types like Laurie Penny etc. Even Laura Bates says porn should not be regulated because state interference in the sexual marketplace would be 'authoritarian'). They have gone along with sexonomics and now it has backfired.
Batteries: My point is that FEMINISTS would not necessarily castigate the same sexual behaviour in women that they would in men. Specifically feminists. My criticism of them then is that if you argue that is wrong to see women as sexual utilities, then it is also wrong to see men in this way too.
Freshwater: I really meant that many feminists have no positive conceptions of masculinity. They see it as wholly negative while reserving the right to hang on to the feminine side of patriarchy.
I agree that feminisation is a good thing and that we should accept people as people with preferences, strengths, weaknesses etc. But the question remains of what preferences and strengths people should aspire to. What sort of society and economy should house this genderless egalitarianism? In case you haven't noticed there are less and less traditionally masculine jobs by the day. What is the unemployed ex-docker to do? Become a receptionist, secretary or PR assistant? Automation and austerity economics change everything.
But also some preferences are wrong. Suppose I am a woman and want to be a porn actress. That is my strength and preference. But is that right or wrong? I would say it is wrong and such a career should be discouraged. Liberals who reject social values are left with the problem of what we should replace them with other than individualism and choice. Pro-sex feminists say that all consensual sexual acts are fine: simulated rape, whatever. Lucy Cosslet, in one of the most irresponsible things I have ever read, said that teenage setting is normal and healthy. Right: so a teenage girl makes sexualised videos of herself that will likely end up on some dark recess of the internet to be masturbated to by paedophiles - and this is in keeping with feminism? Stupid woman.
See you are talking as though people develop these strengths and preferences in a socioeconomic vacuum. There is no original person beneath the socially constructed identity. Without thinking about it, you're subscribing to a very late capitalist conception of human identity: that people can just sort of do what they want without being oppressed by power structures. But power structures are necessary and an ethical culture that curbs the vicious tendencies of human nature is crucial to social health. Feminism in one sense is quite right-wing - saying that women should more or less do as they please and fight their way to the top etc; while another tendency is quite left-wing: outlaw prostitution, regulate porn etc.
Finally, as any intersectional feminists will tell you, systems of oppression are never simply binary but involve class, race and other designations. Hence the man begging outside the cafe I am sitting in with a horrible growth on his face patently has less power than Sheryl Sandberg.
The dirty little secret of the last thirty years is the way men and women have been turned against one another by the capitalist system. Without realigning itself to socialism, feminism makes no good sense. You can only have equality when positive form of secure social and economic identity is provided to all. Otherwise you just have this nihilistic me me me world.