Alas, Poor Dworkin
Just a couple of comments on Katha Pollitt’s excellent article on Andrea Dworkin. One to quibble, the other not.
The antipornography feminism Dworkin did so much to promote seems impossibly quaint today, when Paris Hilton can parlay an embarrassing sex video into mainstream celebrity and the porn star Jenna Jameson rides the New York Times bestseller list. But even in its heyday it was a blind alley. Not just because porn, like pot, is here to stay, not just because the Bible and the Koran–to say nothing of fashion, advertising and Britney Spears–do far more harm to women…
Not to quibble with Pollitt’s basic disagreement with Dworkin. But – ‘to say nothing of fashion, advertising and Britney Spears’ – I’m not sure I get that. Is there a huge difference between porn and ‘fashion, advertising and Britney Spears’? Or at least, wasn’t some of the kind of thing Dworkin thought harmful to women about porn, the same kind of thing that’s going on in fashion, advertising and Britney Spears? I would have thought so, frankly. I disagree with plenty of what Dworkin said – but it depresses the hell out of me that most women from the ages of six to sixty-six seem to feel obliged to look as much like prostitutes or porn stars in a state of violent sexual arousal as they can possibly manage. No no, they would all tell me with one voice, they’re ’empowered’ and ‘sex-positive’ and I’m just an angry ol’ puritan. But if it’s so empowering to mince around in catch me-fuck me shoes and tiny little camisoles and makeup and ringlets and all the rest of the nonsense – why don’t men do it? Hah? Why do men still slouch around in baggy shorts and t shirts and their regular old faces? Because they know damn well it’s not empowering, that’s why. (Okay, okay, that’s not the only reason, it’s also because camisoles and ringlets aren’t considered sexy on men. But you know what I mean!) I heard something similar on Front Row the other day, in a farewell discussion of Dworkin. Someone said Dworkin’s views would never fly now, now that every advert you see has a hypersexualised woman in it (or words to that effect). Well, yeah! I thought. That’s just it. It used to be thought (by the people who thought that kind of thing) that those ads full of panting quivering women were, you know, kind of objectifying. They haven’t become less so now just because they’re everywhere instead of just almost everywhere.
Sigh. Obviously that battle is well and truly lost, which is dispiriting. Pollitt is dispirited too.
These days, feminism is all sexy uplift, a cross between a workout and a makeover. Go for it, girls–breast implants, botox, face-lifts, corsets, knitting, boxing, prostitution. Whatever floats your self-esteem! Meanwhile, the public face of organizational feminism is perched atop a power suit and frozen in a deferential smile. Perhaps some childcare? Insurance coverage for contraception? Legal abortion, tragic though it surely is? Or maybe not so much legal abortion–when I ran into Naomi Wolf the other day, she had just finished an article calling for the banning of abortion after the first trimester. Cream and sugar with that abortion ban, sir?
I never thought I would miss unfair, infuriating, over-the-top Andrea Dworkin. But I do. And even more I miss the movement that had room for her.
Yeah. Me too. Boy, do I miss that movement. Where did all those pissed-off feminists go?
Into the sunset, I guess.
I think consumerism has really sounded the death knell of feminism. The emphasis on empowering women just got twisted into the idea that you should only care about yourself and your own gratification. ‘The Man’ won, he just made women think they wanted what they had previously fought against.
In a way, this has led to the equalisation of men and women to some degree, unfortunately, through a levelling down of expectations – now we can judge men by how they dress too. Go progress!
All true – on the other hand, boring policy stuff like anti-discrimination employment law and improvements in maternity benefits are more than just obfuscation. Yeah, they’re honoured in the breach, etc, but somehow I still think that the bread and butter issues of feminism have are more important than the ones that bang on about image all the time. That way lies Kristeva.
It’s like I’m some kind of materialist, isn’t it? I think that parenthood has concentrated my mind on this kind of thing.
Like with a number of areas of social legislation – perhaps we take so many of the things that now exist in legislated form promoting equal rights and criminalising discrimination, for granted. Victories have been won over the past century have been enshrined in law following the enormous sacrifices efforts of previous generations, but now we argue over single-issues, get wrapped up in niche politics and the latest boneheaded dogma rows (“let Muslim women decide to divest themselves of all these rights while living here”), all implying the main task of feminism as a ‘movement’ is finished. Job done ? Not for a minute. It’s just not interesting or fashionable enough, hopefully this is temporary…
I think feminism like enviro and animal rights movement stopped just short of getting the big picture connection of power-over dominance. They start taking on a tunnel vision approach, rather than appreciating other movements and trying to connect and join energies with other activists. In other words, they got stuck.
I, too, miss the big, righteous, pissed off feminists.
Feminism lost me when it became technophobic, when it became antirational, when it made vegetarianism a requirement, and when it, after throwing out that disgusting god, substituted an equally disgusting goddess. And then came the po-mo crap. It sure seemed like that was happening all around–these things seemed to get all the publicity. Over-the-top stuff always does, and practicalities get pushed aside–things that are relatively boring, or perhaps too painful to face…
I should say it almost lost me, for folks like Pollitt I appreciate. They will save feminism if anything will. I mean besides us saving it, by thinking instead of just buying.
Oh, dang, angiportus, that’s not all of feminism! Not even close. There are plenty of Pollitt-type feminists still.
But that’s one reason the goddessy anti-rationality types piss me off – because people think that’s what feminism means now. Hell and damnation.
OB, (& Angiportus) “that’s not all of feminism!”
– Yes, but they’re the highly annoying ones who are loved in trendy ‘meeja’ circles, hence get the headlines. The ones who have worked within education, government, or as economists, as policy experts, or in corporate law, medicine, social care, etc etc; they’re the ones who go unsung but have undoubtably transformed what we now take for granted in terms of progressive change (at least as much as Blair or Clinton). Nevertheless, these people are are no match for global markets; global markets can and does readily sell anodyne images of ditzy colorful left’field’ idiots along side its Manolo shoes and pushup bras; it prefers not the tricksy niche markets of intellect and strong – dare I say it – sectarian or humanist convictions… plus ca change…
What frightens me is the level of ignorance among many college-age women. They were raised hearing about “girl power!” and told they could do anything, that no gender-based limits exist. And they believe it. They rarely (if ever) quesiton it. They think this exisitence is it, the equality their grandmothers longed for. When I dare to suggest otherwise in class, they sometimes accuse me of living in the past.
There’s hope that such young women may be forced out of this illusion, however. I overheard one job-hunting female undergrad say to another, “You, know, I’m starting to think they hold women to a different standard!”
Sigh!
Yeah. I still haven’t gotten over my shock at seeing (on C-Span) a young woman ask a panel of women (feminists) at the LA Book Fair, a panel that included Pollitt, why they were all so angry. They were gobsmacked, and so was I.
It will take a lot more to convince me that Dworkin was anything other than a man-hater. Have a look at http://www.reason.com/cy/cy041905.shtml
which goes to the bother of quoting what she wrote
I’m still not sure about what Dworkin really thought, but I remember that when I was a 15-year old boy, learning of Michael Moorcock’s (literal) embrace of Dworkin and many of her views profoundly shook my view of the world. Here was the utter dude, apologising for some weird foreign freak woman – maybe there was something in this feminism shit after all. Not, I hasten to add, that I became New Feminist Man immediately, or indeed subsequently. But it had an impact on me.
[NB – I recognise that the above is confessional anecdote with no necessary purchase on anything at all. I may well have been the only guy in the UK though thought that way.]
It’s remarkable how many young college women buy into this idiotic idea of empowerment through sluttitude. Years ago, when I was young and desperate, I foolishly got involved with an ex-prostitute-turned-culture-studies-major who spouted that nonsense with passionate intensity, even to the point of believing that her former occupation was a “valid lifestyle choice” in which she, through some mysterious Foucauldian alchemy, had all the power over johns and madams. But, when pressed, it turned out that–surprise!–she had been sexually abused as a child and routinely exploited as a “sex worker”. I can understand how someone as damaged as my former girlfriend could embrace such comforting delusions, but why would ordinary, well-adjusted, middle-class college women buy into it?
Karl – My girlfriend works with seriously abused children in a secure unit in the UK; these adolescents are often self-harmers or violent or both. Many have personality disorders or are mentally unwell, some very ill indeed. Many have been sexually abused by family or abusers’ circles, or been exploited in the porn industry or prostitution. They are wretched and many of them frankly are broken for life mentally and emotionally. My view of prostitution and pornography (I was a libertarian) changed dramatically as I got to understand these things a bit better; and to understand the economics and the enormous protection abusers are allowed to maintain for themselves. Sex is not rape, and Dworkin’s message may have come with a battering ram, but it certainly had substance.
I suppose there’s no surprise ‘middle class college girls’ do not see the appalling link between the black economy and the serious damage and degradation of individuals it relies upon; few people want to admit it.
Tragic indeed, Nick. Fortunately, my ex-girlfriend managed to avoid that spiral of self-destruction and has made a pretty decent life for herself: she’s married now to a sensible, reliable woman (she’s bi) and works as a reporter for a major newspaper. But she still clings to a stupidly romanticized view of the sex trade.
As to well-adjusted, supposedly intelligent college women buying into that crap, I guess it’s evidence of the power of relentless advertising and pop culture to override common sense.
Indeed. I wonder the same thing often – why so many women buy into it.
“I guess it’s evidence of the power of relentless advertising and pop culture to override common sense.”
That and peer pressure (or groupthink) – the three together form a kind of endless loop. It is powerful…
Quite so. But what, I wonder, is the precise nature of the nexus between peer pressure and the advertising/pop-culture industry? Marketing agencies have become very sophisticated in their methods, hiring teams of sociologists and anthropologists to identifying the “cool” individuals within various precisely defined sub-groups and then paying or manipulating these individuals to push Product X (a new electronic device, a new clothing style, whatever). And of course, nothing sells like sex. Push that envelope!
What’s truly pathetic is when academics–probably the least “cool” people on the planet–ape this deplorable strategy. (Why doesn’t reverse psychology kick in? You’d think that if your doddering old cult-stud prof extolled wonderbras and fuck-me pumps as “empowering”, you’d immediately organize a righteous rally and burn them in the quad. Whatever happened to the Generation Gap?)