Liberal Feminism

[Doobigetta]

I'm confused. When I studied feminism 20 years ago, liberal feminism meant fighting for equality without changing the basic structure of society. So equal pay, the right to financial independence, not having access to certain occupations blocked because of your sex, etc. And radical feminism, on the other hand, believed true equality could only be achieved by fundamentally restructuring so that, for example, the state paid a wage for being a SAHP. But the definitions seem to have changed- "liberal feminism" seems to be shorthand for the "sex positive" stuff that started to appear in the 90s and is frequently not feminist at all, and "radical" feminism is just, well, normal feminism. Am I missing something? And if not, where did the proper hardcore separatists go and what is that called now?
I am NOT trying to be goady by asking this, please don't take it that way.

We have a long way to go yet in that area, and while porn isn't perfect, it's at least a place for LGBTQ young people to see that there's nothing wrong with their sexual desires

That's so stupid I don't know where to start.

I Googled "camming liberating" and came up with a bunch of depressing looking stuff including [[http://www.thestranger.com/features/feature/2015/06/10/22360297/camming-is-not-like-any-other-kind-of-sex-work this article] which strongly recommends it as a career choice for young women. By the time I'd read it I was wondering why I'm not doing it. Then I looked down.

Sorry, link fail. here it is.

Is that from the Upworthy, lass? Yes, stupid!

Yes Helen

I liked this one too

A lot of the same people who want to ban porn also want to ban abortion and outlaw same-sex marriage.

Aside from stylistically reading as if written by a 10 year old - "a lot of the same people who want to ban porn" are strongly pro-choice and same sex marriage.

This is really interesting, thanks everyone.
Someone mentioned Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs- that was the book that reawakened my interest in feminism after thinking we'd got to the point where the battle was won and we didn't need it any more.

And, sweet Jesus that upworthy article is badly written.

prawn I made that point about the traffic light to my six year old son on our walk to school (I sneak bits of feminism into my casual chats with the kids) and he pointed out "But who says that's a man? It could be a woman in trousers!". Had to admit he had a point

Anyway, nodding at all this, the goalposts have moved, as well as me getting older and seeing things I didn't see as a young woman. I still can't see "intersectionality" as anything but watered down to nothing feminism, weighing it down with qualifiers and get-out clauses. There's nothing new about analysing class, race, sexuality in conjunction with feminist politics but the trend seems to be to put women second to every other designated favourite group. It's not easy to question the "bathroom bill" in case people lump you in with homophobic fundamentalist Christians. It's not easy to express concern about the growing influence of Islam, an ideology which treats women appallingly, in case you get labelled a racist. I don't see too many young women prepared to grasp those nettles, or to see the contradiction in marching against Trump while remaining silent about so much other shit.

That up worthy article is terrible. Especially the "one scientist says porn is great and if you disagree with her you are disagreeing with SCIENCE and therefore likely to be a climate change denier and antivaxxer".

I stupidly just read this too www.everydaywhorephobia.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/swerfsterfs-the-westboro-baptist-church-of-feminism

The argument goes, people who don't whole heartedly embrace porn must hate sex and you don't want to be perceived as frigid so love porn!
Fucking hell. It's all so vacuous but yet preachy. And then we get told we don't understand things (by "we" I mean feminists that actually analyse things). So depressing.

That Upworthy article is like a list of bad argument styles all in one glorious mess. Guilt by association, false science, straw men...

Devi If you scroll down this link from the Whorephobia site you will see it's been endorsed by a well known kent face - the unlovely Mike Buchanan.

Passing Comment? | everyday whorephobia
everydaywhorephobia.wordpress.com/passing-comment/

For those of you upthread who like Ariel Levy, this was an interesting brief interview with her on R4 the other week. It's part of a series on how American writers will tackle Trump's USA. Unsurprisingly, she's not overly optimistic about how things will pan out for women...

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08bl2kp

lass huh. So we get called SWERFs and aspersions for sharing views with fundamental Christians but their views aligning with an anti-feminist MRA is just fine

This is all very depressing. One is told that progress is a linear thing, and the intuitive assumption would be that the ideas of liberal feminism become universally accepted and the ideas once considered radical feminist would be considered just normal feminism.

But it seems the opposite happened; mainstream got awarded the title of liberal feminism, and what would once have been ordinary feminism is now called "radical".

As for SWERF, it makes as much sense as saying that people trying to get safety precautions put in place for African mineworkers are doing so because they must hate the mineworkers.

Quite. The attempts to convince workers that unions are against their best interests were never as successful, though.

There is another element of absurdity to it - it quite obviously came after TERF and was modelled after that.

No woman ever excluded "Sex workers" from feminism. There are no "sex workers are not allowed here" signs on the doors of feminist clubs, or something. (While, yes, trans are indeed excluded from women-only things, because those are women-only)

I think this shows quite obviously that those words were invented by men.

If women want to accuse others of doing nasty things ... well, I can imagine a lot worse things than being excluded from something I do not at all need for survival.

But men apparently can't. To men, being excluded from women's spaces is the worst thing that ever happened to them. (Well, white men, though I suppose for MoC, excluding them is also the worst thing that women ever did to them.)

SWERF is a nonsense because feminism has been supportive of women exploited by the sex trade for more than 40 years: creating resources to help women who want to leave prostitution and working to make it safer for those who continue in it.

Men and mainstream organizations have very seldom expressed concern for the well-being of prostitutes. Feminists, otoh, have been involved in all sorts of ways since the 1970s.
Accusations of SWERF and whorephobe are typically directed at women working to improve things for women and children exploited by the global sex trade. Julie Bindel is slurred as a SWERF for her many years of dedicated work in this field, as are many exited women who share their experiences to help others. I find it hard to credit the sheer audacity of describing women who have broken free as SWERFs, which means that sex workers are being accused of excluding themselves, ffs!

SWERF and TERF are both slurs. In a world in which identity politics have destroyed class analysis there is one thing that is forbidden, and that is naming or labelling anyone against their will. Everyone has the right to self define, however crazy that definition may be. Except, that is, feminists. Feminists are expected to go along with labels created for us by those who hate us. I wonder why that might be.

Yes, I've been wondering exactly how feminists have been "excluding" sex workers, and I can only think what excluding really means is not accepting the narrative that sex work is only ever a positive and empowering choice.

I guess that must be it, Mrsfrumble, although feminists don't exclude women who are happy being highly paid sex workers from anything. We just don't think there are many of them.

I think it's more than that. It boils down to the failure of feminists to concur with key tropes. We don't believe TW are women. We don't believe that sex work is a job just like any other. Our dissension from these "progressive" stances is unforgivable because we are women.

Men who don't think TW are women get clean away because the trans lobby know they can't force men to do - or believe - anything. But despite their claims most TRAs think like particularly arrogant, entitled men, and consider that they have the right to demand what they want from women. When women turn round and tell them "no" they go batshit. That's where TERF comes in.

As for SWERF, men who like to think they're "progressive" don't want to hear that porn and prostitution are damaging. They much prefer the narrative of the happy cam girl and get very aggressive when anyone tries to confront them with the harm done. In this case there are very few male voices raised against porn or prostitution. It's nearly all women. And men need to get us to STFU. How dare we argue against our lords and masters?

Liberal feminism is popular with men because it endorses their use of porn and prostitutes. It does nothing to inconvenience them, indeed it makes no demands from them at all. The sex-pos funfem is not feminism at all. It's light years away from the analysis and logic of mature feminist thought and those who lead the movement should be ashamed of the harm it is doing to young women.

The sex-pos funfem is not feminism at all.
Yes, agree.
It's bad for my blood pressure. Seems to be all about being nice and not judging men people. I'm waiting for criticism of paedophilia to be translated into kink shaming and a new -ERF to be born

In a world in which identity politics have destroyed class analysis

This is particularly worrying.

As a semi- young woman I have to respond to some of these assertions.

No one is saying that class analysis within feminism is a new idea. I think the issue is that many left wing enclaves are deeply misogynistic and have removed women's issues from their own class analysis.

I am dealing with an implosion within my own leftie circle where the nice ones are accusing feminists of liberal sectarianism, and the nasty ones are basically just rape apologists.

This is following some genuine concerns over allying ourselves with groups involved in the Comrade Delta scandal.

In my personal experience trans and non-binary people I know personally, are genuine helpful and thoughtful allies, but I am aware that is not everyone's experience.

I have no time for people preventing discussion in 'safe spaces' but am looking at being forced to implement one to shut up the rape apologists who are determined to shut down any suggestion that the fight against capitalism needs to be a fight against the patriarchy (and white imperialism for that matter).

So that's where the rad fems went. They were shut down by 'the left'.

Devi in case you had forgotten paedophilia being touted as a legitimate kink had its hey day in the late 70s, when old skool rad fems were out in force.

A bit unfair to blame young women for that one if it happens again

And sex positivity can an antidote to slut shaming in the right hands, and is part of a wider exploration of female sexuality and the spectrum that exists.

Do you not think the term "sex positive" is unhelpful? I think it sets up a false dichotomy.

Venus not really. What would that dichotomy be?

Sex positivity would include the exploration of asexuality alongside other non-heteronormative expressions of sexuality, and the patriarchal assumptions that inhibit their expression.

Devi in case you had forgotten paedophilia being touted as a legitimate kink had its hey day in the late 70s, when old skool rad fems were out in force.

A bit unfair to blame young women for that one if it happens again hmm

And sex positivity can an antidote to slut shaming in the right hands, and is part of a wider exploration of female sexuality and the spectrum that exists.

Oops stupid phone.
I don't think I said I blamed young women. I blame the fun fem movement that's around at the moment and largely seems driven by left wing men playing on the guilt complex and drive to be nice felt by lots of women.
Sex positivity is fine, I was a teen when girls were still "slut shamed" for a one night stand and it was awful. I'm glad if young women can own their sexuality and be liberated from other people's views of what sex should be.

Current "sex positivity" though seems to involve mainly men pushing boundaries and then complaining about "kink shaming" if you don't want to know all about their BDSM fetish or to see it in front if you in public. Being anti porn is seen as a bad thing and "slut shaming", despite the evidence that widespread porn consumption damages the actors, and damages young people view of a healthy sex life. "Vanilla" sex is talked about derogatorily. Anyone who disagrees with prostitution in any way is a "SWERF", probably frigid, not a feminist and a fundamental Christian.
Sex positivity seems very far from empowering sex for women and more about men getting to live out their fantasies, whether or not that's healthy for women. Plus ca change though.