Category: General (Page 15 of 27)

Sex Work, Leftwing Feminism, and Decriminalisation.

January 11, 2012 /

Written in comradely response to this post: http://www.gender-agenda.org.uk/discuss/733/sex-work-feminism-and-the-new-moralism/

I am what I think of as a “class struggle feminist”. It’s a label that I just made up, all by myself, for the purpose of this article. Why did I make it up? Because “socialist feminism” is too narrow a label – I’m interested in gender inequality, objectification and so on as well as in issues of class organisation – and because anarchafeminism doesn’t necessarily require paying any attention to class whatsoever, and frequently has more to do with radical feminism than I do personally. I also realise at this point that “anarchafeminism” isn’t recognised by MS Word, so with audience in mind, it might be wise to proceed by using language that we can all relate to.

So what do I mean by saying that I am a “class struggle feminist”, and how does it tie in with the fact that I’ve decided to write this article in response to Swyn Haf’s thoughtful, but I feel often naive, piece on a very specific, and contentious, subject? Continue reading

Questioning consent; when ‘yes’ might mean ‘no’

January 10, 2012 /

I have been reading a lot of articles about consent recently. I have been thinking a lot about what it means to say “yes” and what it means to say “no.” A binary approach to rape sentencing can certainly be helpful: it provides absolutely no get-out clause for rapists. They either raped or they didn’t.

However, sentencing aside, in the events leading up to a rape the idea that someone can simply state a definite ‘yes’ or a definite ‘no’ seems oversimplified. There are so many reasons why a ‘yes’ might mean ‘no’ and vice versa. I want to explore this idea – the difficulties of saying ‘yes’ – by sharing an experience of my own. I am going to outline the experience, and then consider why it suggests a complexity in a ‘yes.’

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Musings on Gender in Comics

January 10, 2012 /

Since becoming aware of the extent and nature of gender-related issues in my late teens, I have had to re-evalutate many things that I previously took for granted. Many of my posts last year on Gender Agenda came from looking at things like, Tennis, the Airline Industry and specific films in a new feminist light, and seeing how they fit in to the bigger societal picture.

Achieving this analytical feat is potentially less straightforward or rewarding when it is applied to things closer to one’s heart. In particular, I have struggled recently in working out how I feel about superhero comics. Continue reading

Sex work, feminism, and the new moralism

December 31, 2011 /

A few weeks ago, I joined some revolutionary socialists at a conference on objectification, which pitched itself against ‘the new moralism’ of some, mainly radical, feminists. I was forcibly struck by that tone of opposition – it threw a problem, which I already knew existed for feminism, into sharp relief: we allow our politics to be measured by how antithetical they are to the right wing. We really need to start measuring our policies according to how they (would) affect the lives of those they concern. It’s a false dichotomy, one of the many that plagues women’s lives, that to be ant-puritanical, anti-moralistic, anti-judgemental, you have to divorce sex from any more significance than that of pulling a pint.

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