DOCSLIB.ORG

Toward a Feminist Sexual Revolution Author(S): Ellen Willis Reviewed Work(S): Source: Social Text, No

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Toward a Feminist Sexual Revolution Author(S): Ellen Willis Reviewed Work(S): Source: Social Text, No Toward a Feminist Sexual Revolution Author(s): Ellen Willis Reviewed work(s): Source: Social Text, No. 6 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 3-21 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466614 . Accessed: 26/01/2013 22:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Text. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Sat, 26 Jan 2013 22:26:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Towarda FeministSexual Revolution ELLEN WILLIS PREFACE The feministmovement is currentlyengaged in a passionate,explosive debate- or rather,a seriesof overlapping,intertwined debates - aboutsexuality. The argumentshave crystallizedaround specific issues: pornography;the causes of sexual violenceand how best to oppose it; the definitionof sexual consent;the relationof sexual fantasyto actionand sexual behaviorto politicalpractice (is theresuch a thingas "politicallycorrect" sex?); the natureof women'ssexuality and whetherit is intrinsicallydifferent from men's; themeaning ofheterosexuality for women; the political significance of "fringe"sexualities like sadoma- sochism.Each of theseissues has become a focusof deeply felt disagreement over the place of sexualityand sexual moralityin a feministanalysis and program.In one way or another theyraise thequestion of whethersexual freedom,as such, is a feministvalue, or whether feminismought rather to aim at replacingmale-defined social controlsover sexualitywith female-definedcontrols. Whilethere has alwaysbeen tension among feminists with differing sexual attitudes, it is only recentlythat the differenceshave come to the surfaceand definedpolitical factions, creatinga seriousintramovement split. The reasonfor this development, I believe, is therise of thenew right.The women's liberationmovement emerged in a liberalpolitical and social climate;like therest of theleft it devotedmuch of itsenergy to makinga radicalcritique of liberalism.Since sexual liberalismappeared to be firmlyentrenched as thedominant cultural ideology,feminists put a highpriority on criticizingthe hypocrisies and abuses of themale- dominated"sexual revolution."But as liberalismfell apart,so did the apparentfeminist consensus on sex. Confrontedwith a right-wingbacklash bent on suppressingall non- marital,non-procreative sex, feministswho saw sexual liberalismas deeply flawed by sexismbut nonetheless a sourceof crucialgains forwomen found themselves at odds with feministswho dismissedthe sexual revolutionas monolithicallysexist and sharedmany of the attitudesof conservativemoralists. In thisessay I argue thata sexual liberationistperspective is essentialto a genuinely ? ELLENWILLIS, 1982. A shorterversion of thisarticle will appearin TheScholar and theFeminist, Volume II: Class, Race, and Sex: theDynamics of Control, ed. AmySwerdlow and Hanna Lessinger,to be publishedby G. K. Hall & Co. Ellen Willis is a staffwriter at theVillage Voice and theauthor of Beginningto See theLight (Knopf, 1981), a book of essays on cultureand politics. She has been a feministactivist since 1968 and was a co-founderof the originalRedstockings. 3 This content downloaded on Sat, 26 Jan 2013 22:26:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 4 Willis radicalanalysis of women's condition.Much of myargument centers on thepsychosexual dynamicsof thefamily, where children first experience both sexism and sexual repression. This discussionrefers primarily to thefamily as itexists - actuallyand ideologically- for thedominant cultures of modernindustrial societies. Clearly, to extendmy focus backward to feudalsocieties or outwardto the ThirdWorld would require(at the veryleast) a far longer,more complex article.I stronglysuspect, however, that in its fundamentalsthe processof sexual acculturationI describe here is commonto all historical(i.e., patriarchal) societies. The traditionalpatriarchal family maintains sexual law and orderon two fronts.It regulatesthe relations between the sexes, enforcingmale dominance,female subordination, and thesegregation of "masculine" and "feminine"spheres. It also regulatessexuality per se, definingas illicitany sexual activityunrelated to reproductionor outsidethe bounds of heterosexual,monogamous marriage. Accordingly, the new right'smilitant defense of the traditionalfamily and its values has a dual thrust:it is at once a male-supremacistbacklash againstfeminism and a reactionby culturalconservatives of bothsexes againstthe "sexual revolution"of the past twentyyears. There is, of course, an integralconnection between sexism and sexual repression.The suppressionof women's sexual desire and pleasure, the denial of our rightto control reproduction,and the enforcementof female abstinenceoutside marriage have been - togetherwith our exclusionfrom equal participationin economicand politicalactivity - primaryunderpinnings of male supremacy.Conversely, a restrictivesexual morality inevita- bly constrainswomen morethan men, even in religioussubcultures that profess a single standard.Not onlyis unwantedpregnancy a built-inpunishment for female participation in sex (assumingthe prohibition of birthcontrol and abortionon theone hand,and lesbianism on theother) and thereforea powerfulinhibitor; it is visibleevidence of sexual "delinquen- cy," whichsubjects women who breakthe rules to social sanctionstheir male partners never have to face. Still, it is importantto recognizethat the right's opposition to sexual permis- siveness- as expressedin itsattacks on abortion,homosexuality, "pornography" (defined as any sexuallyexplicit material), sex education,and adolescents'access to contraception and abortionwithout parental consent - has consequences for both sexes. Gays and teenagersare obvious targets.But the success of the "pro-family"agenda would also impingeon the lives of adult heterosexualmen, who would have to contendwith the unwantedpregnancies of theirwives and lovers, women's increasedsexual fears and inhibitions,restrictions on frankdiscussion and public legitimationof sex and sexual fantasy,and a generalchilling of the sexual atmosphere.While some men are willingto acceptsuch constraints on theirown freedomin orderto reassertcertain traditional controls over women,many are not. The dual focus of pro-familypolitics, on feminismand on sex itself,has serious implicationsfor feminist theory and strategy.It means thatfeminists cannot define their oppositionto the pro-familymovement solely in termsof defendingfemale autonomy againstmale power, nor can theyignore the fact that conflict over sexual morality cuts across genderlines. If the women's movementis to organizeeffectively against the right,it will have to develop a politicaltheory of sexualityand in particularan analysisof therelation This content downloaded on Sat, 26 Jan 2013 22:26:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sexual Revolution 5 betweenfeminism and sexual freedom.Such an analysiswould help feministsto identify and avoid responsesto sexual issuesthat unwittingly undercut feminist aims. Itwould clarify many disagreementsamong women who regardthemselves as feminists.It would also enable feministsto seek alliances with male opponentsof the right'ssexual politics- alliancesthat are undoubtedlynecessary if the battle is to be won - on thebasis of a clear understandingof mutualinterests, differences that need to be resolvedto achievea working coalition,and issues on whichit is possible to agree to disagree.The intensityof current debateon sex amongfeminists and gay activistsreflects a visceralcomprehension - if not always an articulateunderstanding - of how much is at stake. At present,the right has its feministopponents at an enormousdisadvantage. The pro- familymovement has a coherentideology and programwhose anti-feministand anti-sexual aspectsreinforce each other.In contrast,feminists are ambivalent,confused, and dividedin theirviews on sexual freedom.While there have beenfeminist sexual libertarians in boththe 19thcentury and contemporarymovements, for the most part women's liberation and sexual liberationhave developed as separate,often antagonistic causes. The sexual libertarian movementthat began in the 1950s was conspicuouslymale-dominated and male-suprema- cist. Thoughit advocateda singlestandard of freedomfrom sexual guiltand conventional moral restrictions,it displayed no insightinto the social reasons for women's greater inhibitionand conformityto moralnorms. On thecontrary, women were blamed - oftenin virulentlymisogynist terms - foradhering to thesexual prohibitionsmen and a patriarchal societyhad forcedon them.At the same timemale libertariansintensified women's sexual anxietiesby equatingrepression with the desire for love and commitment,and exaltingsex withoutemotion or attachmentas theideal. Fromthis perspective liberation for men meant rebellingagainst the demands of women,while liberation for women meant the opportunity (read obligation)to shucktheir "hangups" about casual sex. The questionthat remained unasked was whethermen had sexual hangupsof theirown. Was
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Split at the Root: Prostitution and Feminist Discourses of Law Reform
    Split at the Root: Prostitution and Feminist Discourses of Law Reform Margaret A. Baldwin My case is not unique. Violette Leduc' Today, adjustment to what is possible no longer means adjustment, it means making the possible real. Theodor Adorno2 This article originated in some years of feminist activism, and a sustained effort to understand two sentences spoken by Evelina Giobbe, an anti- prostitution activist and educator, at a radical feminist conference in 1987. She said: "Prostitution isn't like anything else. Rather, everything else is like prostitution because it is the model for women's condition."' Since that time, t Assistant Professor of Law, Florida State University College of Law. For my family: Mother Marge, Bob, Tim, John, Scharl, Marilynne, Jim, Robert, and in memory of my father, James. This article was supported by summer research grants from Florida State University College of Law. Otherwise, it is a woman-made product. Thanks to Rhoda Kibler, Mary LaFrance, Sheryl Walter, Annie McCombs, Dorothy Teer, Susan Mooney, Marybeth Carter, Susan Hunter, K.C. Reed, Margy Gast, and Christine Jones for the encouragement, confidence, and love. Evelina Giobbe, Kathleen Barry, K.C. Reed, Susan Hunter, and Toby Summer, whose contributions to work on prostitution have made mine possible, let me know I had something to say. The NCASA Basement Drafting Committee was a turning point. Catharine MacKinnon gave me the first opportunity to get something down on paper; she and Andrea Dworkin let me know the effort counted. Mimi Wilkinson and Stacey Dougan ably assisted in the research and in commenting on drafts.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 GOV 1029 Feminist Political Thought TIMES to BE CONFIRMED
    GOV 1029 Feminist Political Thought TIMES TO BE CONFIRMED: provisionally, Tuesday 1:30-2:45, Thursday TBC Fall Semester 2020 Professor Katrina Forrester Office Hours: TBC E-mail: [email protected] Teaching Fellows: Celia Eckert, Soren Dudley, Kierstan Carter, Eve O’Connor Course Description: What is feminism? What is patriarchy? What and who is a woman? How does gender relate to sexuality, and to class and race? Should housework be waged, should sex be for sale, and should feminists trust the state? This course is an introduction to feminist political thought since the mid-twentieth century. It introduces students to classic texts of late twentieth-century feminism, explores the key arguments that have preoccupied radical, socialist, liberal, Black, postcolonial and queer feminists, examines how these arguments have changed over time, and asks how debates about equality, work, and identity matter today. We will proceed chronologically, reading texts mostly written during feminism’s so-called ‘second wave’, by a range of influential thinkers including Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamith Firestone, bell hooks and Catharine MacKinnon. We will examine how feminists theorized patriarchy, capitalism, labor, property and the state; the relationship of claims of sex, gender, race, and class; the development of contemporary ideas about sexuality, identity, and gender; and how and whether these ideas change how fundamental problems in political theory are understood. 1 Course Requirements: Undergraduate students: 1. Participation (25%): a. Class Participation (15%) Class Participation is an essential part of making a section work. Participation means more than just attendance. You are expected to come to each class ready to discuss the assigned material.
    [Show full text]
  • Remarks by Redstockings Speaker Marisa Figueiredo Shulamith Firestone Memorial September 23, 2012
    Remarks by Redstockings speaker Marisa Figueiredo Shulamith Firestone Memorial September 23, 2012 In 1978, at the age of 16, while In high school, I lived in Akron, Ohio. I went to to the public library on weekends and on one shelf were three books in a row that changed my life forever and are the reason I am here today: Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex The Case for Feminist Revolution, and Redstockings' Feminist Revolution. With my consciousness raised to the point of passionately identifying myself as a radical feminist in the tradition each book represented, I ardently wanted to connect with Shulamith Firestone and Redstockings , so I wrote to both. I heard back from Redstockings, not Shulamith, and since 1984, I have been active in Redstockings. On May Day in 1986, Redstockings organized a Memorial for Simone de Beauvoir and I felt deeply honored when asked by Kathie Sarachild to read Shulamith's Firestone's tribute she had sent to the Memorial. It was several sentences in Shulamith's beautiful handwriting saying that Simone de Beauvoir had fired her youthful ambitions at age 16 and my heart was pounding as I read it, because Shulamith had fired my youthful ambitions at age 16, too! In the early 1990s, Kathie Sarachild introduced me to Shulamith Firestone, and I remember immediately feeling Shulamith's intensity of observation and perception of details unnoticed by others. All this despite her physical vulnerability that overwhelmed me, which I soon learned from her, resulted from side effects of her medication and a recent hospitalization.
    [Show full text]
  • Globalizing Sexual Exploitation: Sex Tourism and the Traffic in Women
    Leisure Studies ISSN: 0261-4367 (Print) 1466-4496 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlst20 Globalizing sexual exploitation: sex tourism and the traffic in women Sheila Jeffreys To cite this article: Sheila Jeffreys (1999) Globalizing sexual exploitation: sex tourism and the traffic in women, Leisure Studies, 18:3, 179-196, DOI: 10.1080/026143699374916 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/026143699374916 Published online: 01 Dec 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 5017 View related articles Citing articles: 60 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rlst20 Globalizing sexual exploitation: sex tourism and the trafc in women SHEILA JEFFREYS Department of Politics and Science, University of Melbourne Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia Introduction Today there are many forces at work in the normalization of the international sex industry (Jeffreys, 1997). The sex industry has become immensely protable, providing considerable resources, not just to individuals and networks involved in trafcking women but to governments who have come to depend on sex industry revenue. One aspect of the industry in particular that governments have come to depend upon for revenue is sex tourism (Bishop and Robinson, 1998). It is the concern of this paper to present a critical analysis of the arguments of the normalizers, whether sex in- dustrialists or their spokespersons, that sex tourism or other forms of prostitution should come to be seen as a legitimate leisure industry, one in which women and children are literally ‘men’s leisure’.
    [Show full text]
  • The Literacy Practices of Feminist Consciousness- Raising: an Argument for Remembering and Recitation
    LEUSCHEN, KATHLEEN T., Ph.D. The Literacy Practices of Feminist Consciousness- Raising: An Argument for Remembering and Recitation. (2016) Directed by Dr. Nancy Myers. 169 pp. Protesting the 1968 Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, NJ, second-wave feminists targeted racism, militarism, excessive consumerism, and sexism. Yet nearly fifty years after this protest, popular memory recalls these activists as bra-burners— employing a widespread, derogatory image of feminist activists as trivial and laughably misguided. Contemporary academics, too, have critiqued second-wave feminism as a largely white, middle-class, and essentialist movement, dismissing second-wave practices in favor of more recent, more “progressive” waves of feminism. Following recent rhetorical scholarly investigations into public acts of remembering and forgetting, my dissertation project contests the derogatory characterizations of second-wave feminist activism. I use archival research on consciousness-raising groups to challenge the pejorative representations of these activists within academic and popular memory, and ultimately, to critique telic narratives of feminist progress. In my dissertation, I analyze a rich collection of archival documents— promotional materials, consciousness-raising guidelines, photographs, newsletters, and reflective essays—to demonstrate that consciousness-raising groups were collectives of women engaging in literacy practices—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—to make personal and political material and discursive change, between and across differences among women. As I demonstrate, consciousness-raising, the central practice of second-wave feminism across the 1960s and 1970s, developed out of a collective rhetorical theory that not only linked personal identity to political discourses, but also 1 linked the emotional to the rational in the production of knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • The Radical Feminist Manifesto As Generic Appropriation: Gender, Genre, and Second Wave Resistance
    Southern Journal of Communication ISSN: 1041-794X (Print) 1930-3203 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsjc20 The radical feminist manifesto as generic appropriation: Gender, genre, and second wave resistance Kimber Charles Pearce To cite this article: Kimber Charles Pearce (1999) The radical feminist manifesto as generic appropriation: Gender, genre, and second wave resistance, Southern Journal of Communication, 64:4, 307-315, DOI: 10.1080/10417949909373145 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10417949909373145 Published online: 01 Apr 2009. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 578 View related articles Citing articles: 4 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsjc20 The Radical Feminist Manifesto as Generic Appropriation: Gender, Genre, And Second Wave Resistance Kimber Charles Pearce n June of 1968, self-styled feminist revolutionary Valerie Solanis discovered herself at the heart of a media spectacle after she shot pop artist Andy Warhol, whom she I accused of plagiarizing her ideas. While incarcerated for the attack, she penned the "S.C.U.M. Manifesto"—"The Society for Cutting Up Men." By doing so, Solanis appropriated the traditionally masculine manifesto genre, which had evolved from sov- ereign proclamations of the 1600s into a form of radical protest of the 1960s. Feminist appropriation of the manifesto genre can be traced as far back as the 1848 Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention, at which suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin, and Mary Ann McClintock parodied the Declara- tion of Independence with their "Declaration of Sentiments" (Campbell, 1989).
    [Show full text]
  • Sexual Controversies in the Women's and Lesbian/Gay Liberation Movements
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 1985 Politics and pleasures : sexual controversies in the women's and lesbian/gay liberation movements. Lisa J. Orlando University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Orlando, Lisa J., "Politics and pleasures : sexual controversies in the women's and lesbian/gay liberation movements." (1985). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 2489. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/2489 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. POLITICS AND PLEASURES: SEXUAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE WOMEN'S AND LESBIAN/GAY LIBERATION MOVEMENTS A Thesis Presented By LISA J. ORLANDO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS September 1985 Political Science Department Politics and Pleasures: Sexual Controversies in the Uomen's and Lesbian/Gay Liberation Movements" A MASTERS THESIS by Lisa J. Orlando Approved by: Sheldon Goldman, Member Philosophy \ hi (UV .CVvAj June 21, 19S4 Dean Alfange, Jj' Graduate P ogram Department of Political Science Lisa J. Orlando © 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 All Rights Reserved iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following friends who, in long and often difficult discussion, helped me to work through the ideas presented in this thesis: John Levin, Sheila Walsh, Christine Di Stefano, Tom Keenan, Judy Butler, Adela Pinch, Gayle Rubin, Betsy Duren, Ellen Willis, Ellen Cantarow, and Pam Mitchell.
    [Show full text]
  • Susan Faludi How Shulamith Firestone Shaped Feminism The
    AMERICAN CHRONICLES DEATH OF A REVOLUTIONARY Shulamith Firestone helped to create a new society. But she couldn’t live in it. by Susan Faludi APRIL 15, 2013 Print More Share Close Reddit Linked In Email StumbleUpon hen Shulamith Firestone’s body was found Wlate last August, in her studio apartment on the fifth floor of a tenement walkup on East Tenth Street, she had been dead for some days. She was sixty­seven, and she had battled schizophrenia for decades, surviving on public assistance. There was no food in the apartment, and one theory is that Firestone starved, though no autopsy was conducted, by preference of her Orthodox Jewish family. Such a solitary demise would have been unimaginable to anyone who knew Firestone in the late nineteen­sixties, when she was at the epicenter of the radical­feminist movement, Firestone, top left, in 1970, at the beach, surrounded by some of the same women who, a reading “The Second Sex”; center left, with month after her death, gathered in St. Mark’s Gloria Steinem, in 2000; and bottom right, Church In­the­Bowery, to pay their respects. in 1997. Best known for her writings, Firestone also launched the first major The memorial service verged on radical­ radical­feminist groups in the country, feminist revival. Women distributed flyers on which made headlines in the late nineteen­ consciousness­raising, and displayed copies of sixties and early seventies with confrontational protests and street theatre. texts published by the Redstockings, a New York group that Firestone co­founded. The WBAI radio host Fran Luck called for the Tenth Street studio to be named the Shulamith Firestone Memorial Apartment, and rented “in perpetuity” to “an older and meaningful feminist.” Kathie Sarachild, who had pioneered consciousness­raising and coined the slogan “Sisterhood Is Powerful,” in 1968, proposed convening a Shulamith Firestone Women’s Liberation Memorial Conference on What Is to Be Done.
    [Show full text]
  • Mainstream Feminism
    Feminist movements and ideologies This collection of feminist buttons from a women's museum shows some messages from feminist movements. A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought. Groupings Judith Lorber distinguishes between three broad kinds of feminist discourses: gender reform feminisms, gender resistant feminisms, and gender revolution feminisms. In her typology, gender reform feminisms are rooted in the political philosophy of liberalism with its emphasis on individual rights. Gender resistant feminisms focus on specific behaviors and group dynamics through which women are kept in a subordinate position, even in subcultures which claim to support gender equality. Gender revolution feminisms seek to disrupt the social order through deconstructing its concepts and categories and analyzing the cultural reproduction of inequalities.[1] Movements and ideologies Mainstream feminism … "Mainstream feminism" as a general term identifies feminist ideologies and movements which do not fall into either the socialist or radical feminist camps. The mainstream feminist movement traditionally focused on political and legal reform, and has its roots in first- wave feminism and in the historical liberal feminism of the 19th and early- 20th centuries. In 2017, Angela Davis referred to mainstream feminism as "bourgeois feminism".[2] The term is today often used by essayists[3] and cultural analysts[4] in reference to a movement made palatable to a general audience by celebrity supporters like Taylor Swift.[5] Mainstream feminism is often derisively referred to as "white feminism,"[6] a term implying that mainstream feminists don't fight for intersectionality with race, class, and sexuality.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Is Womanism Feminism?” by Angela Bowen
    Journal of International Women's Studies Volume 22 Issue 8 The Practice and Legacy of a Black Lesbian Feminist: Selections from the Archive Article 41 of Dr. Angela Bowen (1936-2018) August 2021 2002 conference talk “Calling the Question; Is Womanism Feminism?” by Angela Bowen Angela Bowen Follow this and additional works at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws Part of the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bowen, Angela (2021). 2002 conference talk “Calling the Question; Is Womanism Feminism?” by Angela Bowen. Journal of International Women's Studies, 22(8), 118-130. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol22/iss8/41 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. CALLING THE QUESTION: IS WOMANISM FEMINISM? Panel presentation and workshop; double session NWSA conference. June 15, 2002. Las Vegas, Nevada BOARDROOM C EXPLAIN WHY ELIZABETH HADLEY IS NOT THERE, THEN START WITH INTRO AND A 2-MINUTE REVIEW OF LAST YEAR’S “IS WOMANISM FEMINISM?” I. Where black women were once in the vanguard of a political movement for radical change (Combahee Statement, for instance), addressing race, class, gender, and sexual orientation in a simultaneity of oppression and of consciousness of that oppression, challenging and pushing the edges, we can no longer claim that edge if our feminist politics becomes a matter of identity only. The women of the Combahee River Collective was a group of black lesbian feminists of the 1970s, who used their ethnicity to construct a carefully considered analysis of the simultaneity of oppression, a new concept then but one of the earliest theories that fledgling women’s studies students grasp and reiterate easily.
    [Show full text]