Why are so many women hellbent on acting against their own interest?

[thedankness]

From TWAW, pro "sex-work", "kinky sex" and porn, plastic surgery, accepting low standards in relationships with men, being anti-abortion to more trivial things such as wearing heels, and yes, shaving, and so much more, so many women will defend these things to the hilt. They refuse/are unable to see how these things are bad for themselves and/or women generally, even after presented with arguments. Obviously some people will disagree with points made in an argument, but I just don't see men subjugating themselves en masse like I do women.

I feel sad. Why can't we as women just love ourselves and look out for ourselves? I feel like we are groomed into self-hate. Is the notion of female self-acceptance and worth truly so radical that a significant number can't even fathom it as a possibility for themselves?

Why is it so common for women to act against their interest? And can or should we do anything about it?

This is a bit poorly-worded, have thoughts but am interested to hear others' opinions.

I purposefully added it to the list because the logic use by anti-abortionists is exactly the same - they are "protecting" women and their "babies", abortion is harmful, it leads to depression, prevention is better and so on, and Im sure some of these people genuinely believe those arguments

there are places where prosecuting customers is illegal and yet prostitution still exists and the illegality of it puts women at risk...so how are you exactly helping anyone by making it harder for women to report assault if this is their line of work?

@sanluca skimmed it for now, but what jumped out at me was some of these cases carried previous history of actual violence - would it not make more sense to just simply not allow bogus claims in court

it sounds very similar "she wore lace knickers so it clearly wasn't rape"

there are places where prosecuting customers is illegal

I am saying customers will be prosecuted. This also protects women as if they do get hurt, the customer will be prosecuted, not the women. Making prostitution legal leads to trafficking as demonstrated in the Netherlands and Germany.

the logic use by anti-abortionists is exactly the same
In the case of abortion it is very easy to demonstrate anti safe abortions is not protecting women at all, so their 'logic' falls down at the first hurdle. I don't get why women must not argue for the banning of (commercial) surrogacy and prostitution because some people will try and reuse (and fail) to use the same type of logic to ban safe abortions.

In all these situations (making surrogacy, sex work illegal and providing safe abortions) the goal is to protect vulnerable women from being exploited and endangered. Yes, you have the right to bodily autonomy but you should not have to decide between food or a penis in your mouth. Stating a penis is ok because it will get you food is a massive failing by society.

Can you explain how you will know when something that happened is bogus when one party is dead?

easy - its impossible to not know you're killing someone.

sorry, i meant prosecuting customers is legal route - had brain fart there

the thing is that women who rely on sex work for their income and who are already vulnerable do not profit from prosecution of their customers, in fact they are still at a risk of blackmail and violence, especially because it is in the interest of customers to not be found out

I used to have very similar black-n-white views until I spoke to sex workers. Sending law enforcement after them / their customers is not saving their lives

I am saying woman A telling woman B what to do while working to make other choices socially unacceptable or illegal is control.

Most of the choices that have been raised in this context are issues where Woman A is completely unaffected by Woman B’s choice.

If that were true the verdict of manslaughter wouldn’t exist.

Criticism is not control.

in this particular case it should not be applicable - you're not accidentally killing someone by dangerous driving which, while stupid, was not intended to harm anyone

you cannot accidentally choke someone and the fact that it seems to only be ever brought up in scenario of sex only proves how much of a lie this claim is

but its not because women like kinky sex that men kill them - its because any stupid excuse apparently works when harm is done to women

@thedankness
Thank you for the long and detailed reply. To answer your questions:
Are you implying that posters on the thread are advocating for that because I haven't seen any evidence of it?
Not on this thread, these are lists of examples I have come across where many women feel they have a right to interfere with other women’s choices.

Do you think that part of this liberation also includes respecting our biological differences in the context of our relative vulnerability and need for boundaries? What you call “respecting” is actually matriarchs deciding on behalf of other women what they can or cannot do with the excuse that it is for their own protection. So no, I don’t think that is part of liberation, that is part of making women feel dependent on elite women through the use of coercive fear.

Gendered social norms constrain us and can lead to little or no choice in practice-
This we agree on. Where we disagree is you must think gendered social norms should stick around and the only difference is to have them be dictated by elite women (and influenced by elite men) rather than abolished altogether.

Do you think there are no choices that are beyond reproach?
Obviously some choices are not beyond reproach; such as choosing to abuse, neglect or murder children. When a choice adversely affects another person in a measurable and material way, then society has a reason to regulate or ban choices. I don’t agree that prostitution or surrogacy affect women “as a class” to the extent that they need to be banned. I think they can be regulated to protect the women making these choices- fully recognising that no choice is a free choice. As paintedegg put it, banning choices that don’t personally affect you only drives it underground to the black market where risk of trauma and death for women exponentially increases.

It's paternalist maybe, or anti-libertarian, but it's not anti-feminist because validating the choices of individuals because they are female was never the goal of feminism.

[you is plural below; not you personally but the feminism you are representing on the thread]

Yes, the anti-feminism you espouse is paternalistic (maternalistic if no men are involved) and anti-libertarian. Feminism was and is all about liberating women from paternalistic control; securing us the same rights, choices and opportunities as men.

Feminism has never been about “validating choices” because that is what your anti-feminism is actually. You analyse and then validate individual choices as feminist or anti-feminist. You then work from discouraging to eliminating the existence of choices depending on how damagingly anti-feminist you think each one is.

@sanluca
Making prostitution legal leads to trafficking as demonstrated in the Netherlands and Germany.

No it doesn’t. Sex trafficking exists everywhere regardless of whether prostitution is legal, no matter how tightly or loosely regulated, or is illegal.

What certain policy makers thought was that legalising prostitution would naturally (magically even!) eradicate sex trafficking. The Netherlands and Germany proved this assumption to be wrong.

@sanluca
In all these situations (making surrogacy, sex work illegal and providing safe abortions) the goal is to protect vulnerable women from being exploited and endangered. Yes, you have the right to bodily autonomy but you should not have to decide between food or a penis in your mouth. Stating a penis is ok because it will get you food is a massive failing by society.

Abortion isn’t really in the same category as surrogacy and sex work because we fought for women to have the right to choose an abortion, or to not choose one. No one is being forced to have an abortion or have a baby, they can choose no matter how feminist or anti-feminist another woman might think it is.

That is completely different from saying we need to ban sex work and/or surrogacy to protect women because you are actively fighting for women to not have the right to choose. You are saying no sex work, no surrogacy, we elite women have made the choice for you. You are too infantile to make your own choices.

I think you meant that a woman shouldn’t have to put a penis in her mouth to obtain food so am replying on that understanding. The problem with society isn’t that women turn to sex work to make ends meet, so there is no point banning it. It won’t fix society. Society’s failing is that welfare is not enough. Banning sex work mean women who must earn food in a cash in hand way, no choice to do sex work safely when the other option is to starve to death.

The approach I’d rather do is fight for better welfare benefits such that the only women who end up choosing to earn through sex work are the very few that like it as a job and they are supported with rights to safety and the ability to call the police without fear of being thrown into jail and/or losing their children.

if we are going to discuss sex work lets discuss the issues that lead people to engage in sex work - outside of the few unicorns who may genuinely enjoy this line of work

poverty, desperation, debts, legal issues, issues with legal work...prosecuting their clients, i.e. their source of income, without replacing it with a comparable amount, is not helping women to get out of sex work.

I would recommend mission-freedom.de/en/ for an insight what happens when a country legalises prostitution. It is not elitist women telling other women they can't do something, it is saying to society you can't buy a womans body like that, to use and abuse and then discard.

If women want to have sex with men or give someone their baby, then they still can. They just can't be forced to do it, nobody can make money of forcing them to do it. And when rich or even middle class women start doing this in droves, then I might start believing sex work or surrogacy is a choice. Until then I think of the trafficked young girls for sex or pregnancy and I know society needs to take better care of the vulnerable than that.

If that were true the verdict of manslaughter wouldn’t exist.

I don't see many drunk drivers (for example) claiming that their victim consented to /had fantasies about being run over.

Yes, I know what the pitfalls are of different legal models surrounding sex work. I have read extensively across many countries. Sex trafficking is everywhere. Legalising prostitution does not “lead to” sex trafficking like you said @sanluca.If it did, then we would not have sex trafficking in countries where prostitution is illegal, but we certainly do. Perhaps you need to read a bit more widely to understand this. If you have only read about countries where it has been legalised to certain extents, I can understand how you might see a causal relationship that does not exist.

“They just can't be forced to do it, nobody can make money of forcing them to do it.”

When sex work is banned/illegal, women are still sex trafficked and forced to have sex with men. They tend to be in a more vulnerable position because they cannot go to the police/authorities, especially in countries where police get paid off to turn a blind eye to sex trafficking. Money is made off them, a lot of money.

“And when rich or even middle class women start doing this in droves, then I might start believing sex work or surrogacy is a choice. Until then I think of the trafficked young girls for sex or pregnancy and I know society needs to take better care of the vulnerable than that.”

You do know the difference between being illegally trafficked/raped and legally choosing/consenting? And that banning prostitution will not stop trafficking?

Too right. Punishing desperate women isn’t going to magic up honest work at a living wage that puts food on the table.

Manslaughter is always an option for the jury in murder trials. I can’t see that changing.
You may be right that the actual incidence of rough sex has no connection with its use as a defence.
I still can’t believe that it’s a good idea. I’m not convinced there’s a safe way to strangle a person that couldn’t result in permanent injury or death - especially if there were some unknown medical condition. Like self-injury, i just think it’s a bad thing.

I kinda agree with you on everything but makeup. i love makeup and my look is pretty natural- bb cream, a bit of highlighter blush, eyeliner, a bit of shadow and mascara. i really do wear it for me, i used to put it on when i was at home during the pandemic cos i would catch myself in the mirror and be like , oh i need a bit of liner and then i would put the rest of my face on. Sometimes when i am watching netflix in bed after having showered and washed my face, i would idly put on some makeup just to have something to do with my hands!

I often don't shave (thank goodness for british weather so i wear tights most of the year) and am au naturel down there. i wear contacts (cos i hate glasses) dye my hair (box dye as i started dyeing my hair to try something new after the pandemic and now that colour feels like me) and cleanse/moisturize my face (for comfort as it gets dry and feels awful without) but its the extent of my other grooming practices. No heels and comfortable loose fitting dresses. occasional spritz of perfume.

I think a lot of it is habit tbh for a lot of women. If you start doing a certain grooming practice, it becomes part of your life. this is why i am wary of starting anything new like i refuse to go for manicures or pedicures or start doing eyebrows or exfoliating my body cos i dont need a new grooming practice i am at my bandwidth. I even have a list of my grooming products on my notes so that I can keep on top of it and it doesn't become excessive.

this should not be allowed as a defence in the same way in which if you "accidentally" spank someone so much you break their back. It even sounds stupid, the only reason why courts allow this bullshit defence is biased against victim. This is the exact same logic that translates clothes victim was wearing into consent for sex.

Saying women should not have kinks, even weird ones, is like saying women should not drink because it may get used against the victim in case of the assault. While the truth is that a woman should be able to have whatever sex she likes, wear whatever she likes and drink alcohol is she likes without fear of getting raped and murdered

Haven’t rtft but there’s a fair few posters who let everyone know they don’t care, or worse ‘no one cares’

It’s probably political loyalty in many cases as the centre left is more aligned to trans activism than women’s rights

You can see that reflected in the media too

“Strangulation risks brain injury and death as well as other adverse
outcomesi
. The neck contains vital structures including blood vessels,
which lie close to the surface. These can be blocked by strangulation,
affecting the brain’s blood supply, resulting in brain damage. That damage
can result in life-changing physical and psychological difficulties, and even
death. This can happen in seconds, and does not require significant
pressure – in fact, the pressure required is less than it takes to open the
ring pull of a can of drink. Strangulation can damage blood vessels in the
neck, leading to blood clots forming which may result in a stroke. The
stroke can happen anything up to a year after the strangulation. The
person who had been strangled would not necessarily know that they had
this silent time bomb until the stroke happened. Evidence suggests
strangulation is the second most common cause of stroke in young
women.ii”
https://ifas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/There-is-No-Safe-Way-to-Strangle-IFAS-Position-statement-22-November-2023.pdf

My emphasis.

the study quoted looked at the domestic violence cases

which to me sort of supports my point - consent is an excuse that should not be allowed in those cases. If someone is subjected to domestic abuse then its not a fetish - its just an abuse

if it was genuinely so easy to accidentally choke someone there would be so much more of those cases, especially as according to this thread it was normalised and popularised by society

either it's not popular at all or people don't accidentally cause their partner to have brain damage during sex

To be honest, this thread has a scent of victim blaming or at least blaming women for abuse that happen to other women

Consent isn’t a defence but the narrative somehow seems to work.
I don’t know how widespread sadomasochistic strangulation is but I don’t think you should just blithely say it isn’t dangerous.