Violence with Serious Psychotraumatic Consequences
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Materialist Feminism
9 / MATERIALIST FEMINISM A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives Edited by Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham ROUTLEDGE New York & London Introduction Reclaiming Anticapitalist Feminism Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham THE NEED FOR ClASS ANALYSIS OF WOMEN'S DIFFERENT LIVES We see this reader as a timely contribution to feminist struggle for transformative social change, a struggle which is fundamentally a class war over resources, knowledge, and power. Currently the richest 20 percent of humanity garners 83 percent of global income, while the poorest 20 percent of the world's people struggles to survive on just 1 percent of the global income (Sivard 1993; World Bank 1994). During the 1990s, as capitalism triumphantly secures its global reach, anticommunist ideologies hammer home socialism's inherent failure and the Left increasingly moves into the professional middle class. many of western feminism's earlier priorities-commitment to social transformation, attention to the political economy of patriarchy, analysis of the perva sive social structures that link and divide women~have been obscured or actively dismissed. Various forms of feminist cultural politics that take as their starting point gender, race, class, sexuality, or coalitions among them have increasingly displaced a systemic perspective that links the battle against women's oppression to a fight against capitalism. The archive collected in Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives is a reminder that despite this trend feminists have continued to find in historical materialism a powerful theoretical and political resource. The tradi- . tion of feminist engagement with marxism emphasizes a perspective on social life that refuses to separate the materiality of meaning, identity, the body, state, or nation from the requisite division of labor that undergirds the scramble for profits in capitalism's global system. -
Gender at the Crossroads of Home, Family, and Business from the Early Modern Era to the Present
INTRODUCTION WHAT IS WORK? Gender at the Crossroads of Home, Family, and Business from the Early Modern Era to the Present Raffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, and Manuela Martini 1. What is work? A fresh perspective from the (alleged) margins What is work? The question chosen as a title for this volume is an ambi- tious one. We are obviously aware that a huge body of literature on work exists, and we certainly do not pretend we can give a defi nite answer to the question,1 which may not even be possible.2 Instead, we will use this question as a tool to interrogate history, the social sciences, and also pol- itics. Such a question prompts us in fact to adopt a critical and diversifi ed view of work and, consequently, of economic and social policies, too. On the other hand, establishing the boundaries, implications, and stakes of a new characterization of work is a crucial issue in the contemporary de- bate, and is obviously also motivated by the ongoing dramatic economic, technological, organizational, social, and cultural changes affecting the world of work. Let us start with a telling example. “Italy is a Democratic Republic, founded on work,” article 1 of the Italian Constitution, written after the Second World War and enforced in 1948, authoritatively states3: this implied and still implies a kind of overlap between enjoying citizenship and working. When the Italian Constitution was enforced, according to the Italian population censuses as many as three-quarters of adult Italian women were not working or, more precisely, were economically “inac- tive.” What did they do? About 60 percent of them were housewives: 2 Raffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, and Manuela Martini they were therefore likely to actually work very hard. -
Prostitution, Trafficking, and Cultural Amnesia: What We Must Not Know in Order to Keep the Business of Sexual Exploitation Running Smoothly
Prostitution, Trafficking, and Cultural Amnesia: What We Must Not Know in Order To Keep the Business of Sexual Exploitation Running Smoothly Melissa Farleyt INTRODUCTION "Wise governments," an editor in the Economist opined, "will accept that. paid sex is ineradicable, and concentrate on keeping the business clean, safe and inconspicuous."' That third adjective, "inconspicuous," and its relation to keeping prostitution "ineradicable," is the focus of this Article. Why should the sex business be invisible? What is it about the sex industry that makes most people want to look away, to pretend that it is not really as bad as we know it is? What motivates politicians to do what they can to hide it while at the same time ensuring that it runs smoothly? What is the connection between not seeing prostitution and keeping it in existence? There is an economic motive to hiding the violence in prostitution and trafficking. Although other types of gender-based violence such as incest, rape, and wife beating are similarly hidden and their prevalence denied, they are not sources of mass revenue. Prostitution is sexual violence that results in massive tMelissa Farley is a research and clinical psychologist at Prostitution Research & Education, a San Francisco non-profit organization, She is availabe at [email protected]. She edited Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress in 2003, which contains contributions from important voices in the field, and she has authored or contributed to twenty-five peer-reviewed articles. Farley is currently engaged in a series of cross-cultural studies on men who buy women in prostitution, and she is also helping to produce an art exhibition that will help shift the ways that people see prostitution, pornography, and sex trafficking. -
TOWARD a FEMINIST THEORY of the STATE Catharine A. Mackinnon
TOWARD A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE Catharine A. MacKinnon Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England K 644 M33 1989 ---- -- scoTT--- -- Copyright© 1989 Catharine A. MacKinnon All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America IO 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 1991 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data MacKinnon, Catharine A. Toward a fe minist theory of the state I Catharine. A. MacKinnon. p. em. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN o-674-89645-9 (alk. paper) (cloth) ISBN o-674-89646-7 (paper) I. Women-Legal status, laws, etc. 2. Women and socialism. I. Title. K644.M33 1989 346.0I I 34--dC20 [342.6134} 89-7540 CIP For Kent Harvey l I Contents Preface 1x I. Feminism and Marxism I I . The Problem of Marxism and Feminism 3 2. A Feminist Critique of Marx and Engels I 3 3· A Marxist Critique of Feminism 37 4· Attempts at Synthesis 6o II. Method 8 I - --t:i\Consciousness Raising �83 .r � Method and Politics - 106 -7. Sexuality 126 • III. The State I 55 -8. The Liberal State r 57 Rape: On Coercion and Consent I7 I Abortion: On Public and Private I 84 Pornography: On Morality and Politics I95 _I2. Sex Equality: Q .J:.diff�_re11c::e and Dominance 2I 5 !l ·- ····-' -� &3· · Toward Feminist Jurisprudence 237 ' Notes 25I Credits 32I Index 323 I I 'li Preface. Writing a book over an eighteen-year period becomes, eventually, much like coauthoring it with one's previous selves. The results in this case are at once a collaborative intellectual odyssey and a sustained theoretical argument. -
Catharine Mckinnon Award Speech
Unequal Predation, Unequal Protection1 NOW Woman of Vision Award Acceptance Speech Minneapolis, 20 July 2019 © Catharine A. MacKinnon 2019 “Making law do something about women’s experience” – yes, Twiss, that’s it! Wonderful and amazing as this award is, and as much as the recognition that it confers is deeply appreciated, I know that all you activists for women will understand that the real honor for decades of work opposing sexual violation as gender inequality—the real affirmation of the vision—is when others see it the way you see it and stand up against it. As a result of that, we are, finally, in the middle of the first mass movement against sexual abuse in the history of the world. Global #MeToo sprung from the law of sexual harassment, quickly overtook it, and is shifting law, culture, and politics everywhere, bringing down a lot of powerful men who have been violating a lot of us for a long time. It’s only getting up steam. Framed as inequality, combining gender with every social inequality known to man through which it works—prominently race, immigration status, age, and 1 Some themes and locutions in this talk have previously appeared in op-eds published in the Guardian and the New York Times. Catharine A. MacKinnon, How Litigation Laid the Ground for Accountability After #MeToo, GUARDIAN, Dec. 23, 2017, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/23/how-litigation-laid-the-ground- for-accountability-after-metoo; Catharine A. MacKinnon, #MeToo Has Done What the Law Could Not, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/opinion/metoo-law-legal-system.html. -
Prostitution During the Pandemic: Findings Show Need for Nordic Model
Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence Volume 5 Issue 1 Article 7 8-2020 Prostitution During the Pandemic: Findings Show Need for Nordic Model Debra K. Boyer University of Washington, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity Part of the Anthropology Commons, Social Work Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Boyer, Debra K. (2020) "Prostitution During the Pandemic: Findings Show Need for Nordic Model," Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence: Vol. 5: Iss. 1, Article 7. DOI: 10.23860/dignity.2020.05.01.07 Available at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/vol5/iss1/7https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/ vol5/iss1/7 This Editorial is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Prostitution During the Pandemic: Findings Show Need for Nordic Model Abstract The impact of COVID-19 on sexually exploited individuals provides an opportunity to advance the Nordic Model approach and create lasting change. Although subject to gender-based violence and denied safety net services, commercially sexually exploited women are seldom seen as a “vulnerable” group in the pandemic. Interviews from social service agencies in Seattle, Washington show women are experiencing more physical and sexual violence from sex buyers and women who have exited prostitution are finding their stability and security in jeopardy. Advocates can make the case to address disparities with safety net guarantees and structural change with the adoption of the Nordic Model. -
The Tensions Between Feminism and Libertarianism: a Focus on Prostitution, 3 Wash
Washington University Jurisprudence Review Volume 3 | Issue 1 2011 The eT nsions Between Feminism and Libertarianism: A Focus on Prostitution Nahid Sorooshyari Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence Part of the Jurisprudence Commons Recommended Citation Nahid Sorooshyari, The Tensions Between Feminism and Libertarianism: A Focus on Prostitution, 3 Wash. U. Jur. Rev. 167 (2011). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence/vol3/iss1/6 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Jurisprudence Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE TENSIONS BETWEEN FEMINISM AND LIBERTARIANISM: A FOCUS ON PROSTITUTION NAHID SOROOSHYARI* INTRODUCTION This Note explores the tensions between feminism and libertarianism. In practice, feminism and libertarianism align on several issues. Historically, feminists and libertarians fought together to abolish legal barriers to women's participation in the economy and in the political system.' Currently, feminists and libertarians align on the issues of abortion and birth control.2 Any overlap between the two philosophies is, however, shallow. For feminists, patriarchy is the enemy, and it exists today despite the legal equality of women.3 For libertarians, the state is the enemy, and institutional harm to women only exists in the government- sanctioned oppression of women.4 Now that there are no legally- sanctioned barriers to women's participation in economic and political life,5 but still inequality between the genders,6 the tension between feminism and libertarianism is illuminated. -
Wages, Housework, and Feminist Activism in 1970S Italy and Canada
HOUSEWORK AND SOCIAL SUBVERSION: WAGES, HOUSEWORK, AND FEMINIST ACTIVISM IN 1970S ITALY AND CANADA CHRISTINA ROUSSEAU A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HUMANITIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO December 2016 © Christina Rousseau, 2016 Abstract My dissertation, Housework and Social Subversion: Wages, Housework, and Feminist Activism in 1970s Italy and Canada, presents a history of the Wages for Housework movements in Italy and Canada (1972-1978), looking at the parallel development of autonomist feminist politics in these locations. Based on a series of interviews with feminists involved in the movement, my dissertation highlights the significant political value in the way the group’s theoretical perspective influenced our current understanding of social reproduction. Social reproduction refers to the unpaid activities associated with family and societal maintenance – procreation, socialization, and nurturance – as well as paid work in social sectors such as health care, education, childcare, and social services. In the context of Wages for Housework, my dissertation re-examines the movement’s understandings of wages, housework, and the gendered relations of production in the home. In critiquing the capitalist, patriarchal, imperialist nuclear family, they re- conceptualized wages and housework in a way that allowed for the uncovering of the most hidden aspect of housework: emotional labour and care. Looking at the parallel development of Wages for Housework movements in Italy and Canada, I also highlight the emergence of similar tensions regarding the demand for wages and the role of the working class housewife in their analyses. -
Using Invitational Rhetoric to Read Silence, Women, and Nature in Chaucer’S the Canterbury Tales
USING INVITATIONAL RHETORIC TO READ SILENCE, WOMEN, AND NATURE IN CHAUCER’S THE CANTERBURY TALES A Thesis by RACHEL SASSER Submitted to the Graduate School at Appalachian State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2019 Department of English USING INVITATIONAL RHETORIC TO READ SILENCE, WOMEN, AND NATURE IN CHAUCER’S THE CANTERBURY TALES A Thesis by RACHEL SASSER August 2019 APPROVED BY: Alison Gulley Chairperson, Thesis Committee Kathryn Kirkpatrick Member, Thesis Committee Bret Zawilski Member, Thesis Committee Tammy Wahpeconiah Chairperson, Department of English Mike McKenzie, Ph.D. Dean, Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies Copyright by Rachel Sasser 2019 All Rights Reserved Abstract USING INVITATIONAL RHETORIC TO READ SILENCE, WOMEN, AND NATURE IN CHAUCER’S THE CANTERBURY TALES Rachel Sasser B.A., Appalachian State University M.A., Appalachian State University Chairperson: Alison Gulley The role of nature in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is not a new topic of discussion among medieval scholarship or literary scholarship in general, but it is my hope that this thesis’s focus on the way the women of the Tales interact and coexist with nature, the ways both are mutually oppressed, and in turn how both entities still exert power and wield agency might reveal empowering readings of the text that show how women and nature use silence for their own benefits. Using the concept of invitational rhetoric from Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin’s essay “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for Invitational Rhetoric” as a framework and method of writing this thesis, I wish to propose my ideas in feminist fashion rather than through what Foss and Griffin believe is the masculine/patriarchal practice of traditional rhetoric, or persuasion. -
The Strange Case of French Feminism. Blurring the Line of Feminist Epistemology: a Materialist Questioning of the Sex/Gender System
The strange case of French feminism. Blurring the line of feminist epistemology: a materialist questioning of the sex/gender system. Grazia Dicanio Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Gender Studies Centre for Gender Studies University of Oslo Blindern, Norway May 2019 Abstract This study originates from the urgency to reflect on theory and epistemology in the light of a divide between academia and political movements. The study was thought out as an attempt to interrupt the chrono-logic cycle of old theory vs. new theory or theory vs. post-theory and possibly re-constructing a bridge to re-establish a contact with a stigmatized past in feminist genealogy and epistemology identified with the 1970s. My analysis revolves around French feminism as a theory by looking at how it was received, appropriated and, as some would say, invented. What makes a theoretical strand? Is there a French feminist genealogy we did not know of? What kind of epistemological stance does this genealogy advocate for? And what are the consequences of an appropriation? To try and answer these questions I take into account three of the most important French materialist theorists and delineate a theoretical path in French feminism that is almost totally unknown or misconstrued in our institutionalized feminist epistemology. A constant question I have in the back of my mind while writing is: who has and has had the primacy to establish a mainstream genealogy in feminist studies? And what has this done with our, personal and political, knowledge of the sex/gender system form different points of view? Acknowledgements Thanks to STK and Helene Aarseth for giving me the opportunity to do this research. -
Autofiction” Esthétique Et Politique Dans L’Autofiction Des Femmes Contemporaines
AESTHETICS AND POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S “AUTOFICTION” ESTHÉTIQUE ET POLITIQUE DANS L’AUTOFICTION DES FEMMES CONTEMPORAINES Mercédès Baillargeon A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages (French). Chapel Hill 2014 Approved by: Dominique Fisher Richard C. Cante Oswaldo Estrada Lori Saint-Martin Jessica Tanner © 2014 Mercédès Baillargeon ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Mercédès Baillargeon: Aesthetics and Politics of Contemporary Women’s “Autofiction” (Under the direction of Dominique Fisher) This dissertation takes as a point of departure the generally accepted idea of the “death” of French literature, which often includes accusations of overemphasizing individualism and encouraging political apathy; these critiques appear in a more exaggerated form in discussions about French literature because they stand in stark contrast to its traditional characterization as politically engaged. My dissertation, entitled “The Personal is Political: Aesthetics and Politics in Contemporary Women’s Autofiction,” argues the opposite. This project encompasses the controversial reception of some women’s writings that combine the paradoxical styles of autobiography and fiction, what is today called autofiction. Looking particularly at the works of Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume, and Nelly Arcan, these writers maintain a particularly tumultuous rapport with their public, both through their highly personal (or semi- autobiographical) texts and through their public performances in the media. I simultaneously examine how the media stigmatizes the authors, and how the authors manipulate media culture as an extension of their literary work. My research therefore raises important questions relating to the media’s complicated relationship with women writers, especially those who discuss themes of trauma, sexuality, and violence, and who also question the distinction between fact and fiction. -
Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking and Their Implications for Identifying Victims in Healthcare Facilities
The Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking and Their Implications for Identifying Victims in Healthcare Facilities Laura J. Lederer* and Christopher A. Wetzel** INTRODUCTION [W]hen I turned 13 I’d had enough of the abuse in home and I ran away. I didn’t know where to go so I went to the center of town and stood by the town hall. A man saw me hanging around there and he said that he was looking for a ‘protégé.’ I didn’t know what it was but it sounded fine to me. He said that I could stay at his house if I didn’t have a place to stay. When we got to his house he pulled out a bottle of gin and had me drink and drink. The next thing I remember is waking up drunk in his bed all wet and hurt. He took me out on the street and told me what to do . During that time I saw 10 to 20 men a day. I did what he said because he got violent when I sassed him. I took all kinds of drugs— even though I didn’t really like most of them . Over the years I had pimps and customers who hit me, punched me, kicked me, beat me, slashed me with a razor. I had forced unprotected sex and got pregnant three times and had two abortions at [a clinic]. Afterward, I was back out on the street again. I have so many scars all over my body and so many injuries and so many illnesses.