Sunday, February 13, 2011

Figleaf on the Myth of the Man-Hating Feminist




by Thaddeus Blanchette

Anti-sexist, pro-sex blogger Figleaf brings up an excellent point about the male origins of "feminist" male-bashing:


Kind of funny how many of the bitterly anti-male slanders, slurs, and stereotypes commonly attributed to "radical feminism" predate feminism. Sometimes by centuries. Occasionally by millennia! They were already highly common in American and English male-only dance halls and similar entertainment venues back when "mainstream feminism" meant the possibility of women owning property and "radical feminism" was the crazy idea that women might someday be allowed to vote.
I bring this up in no small part due to allegations that these are feminist in nature. And I bring that up in no small part because those allegedly feminist characterizations of men are nettlesome to men in general and extremely nettlesome to men's rights activists and their allies.
M'kay, and now, confronted with that sort of incontrovertible proof that sexist and/or "reverse sexist" stereotypes about men predate feminism and, indeed, often originate with men themselves, a lot of guys who are still nettled will say things like "yeah, well, some feminists still propagate those stereotypes so feminism is still all about hating men".

What's always bothered me about the "anti-male feminist myth" is precisely this point: the people perpetuating male-hating rhetoric are, in their great majority, not feminists at all

Again, I get to hear this sort of crap all the time in my fieldwork here in Rio, where gringo men constantly complain that "feminism" has turned European and North American women into greedy, self-absorbed bitches with an agenda who only want to take men to the cleaners. Typically, these guys say this while holding two prostitutes on their lap who, while generally not bitches, are very much women with an agenda which involves siphoning the maximum amount of money out of the guy's pockets.

And time after time, these guys tell me about how I "don't know what it's like up there" and how it's "impossible for a guy to get laid these days without risking his life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness". And every one of these post-modern Lotharios claims to have met legions of man-hating feminists.

Now, what bothers me is that when I lived in the U.S. back in the 1980s, I was a student at the U.W. Madison in the sociology department. One would be hard put to find a higher concentration of sho' 'nuff man-hating feminists than that time and place and it was hard to run into them even back then. These women had exactly ZERO impact on my sex life. They also had pretty near to ZERO impact on the campus cultural and political life. Mostly, they ganged together in their own café and bookstore, debating whether or not homosexuality was indeed the practice of feminist theory. Most of the lesbians in the community couldn't stand them, either. One only occasionally had to deal with them when they came out of their empowering lavender and pink "girls only" clubhouse for large community events like "Take Back the Night" or the anti-apartheid rallies.

Seriously, even in feminist-friendly, radical 1980s Madison, I would have been hard pressed to point to a more marginalized and irrelevant group than the radical man-hating feminists. These weren't folks that even a co-op-living, feminist-supportive, commie-loving, sociology major boy like me were likely to run into, but yesterday's fraternity Biffs and dormer Billy Bobs are now saying they've met literally tens of thousands of young  would-be castrators...?


Do tell, boys.

Now, I'm not saying man-hating feminists didn't have any influence at all. Pretty much every woman I know went through a "man hating" stage at some point - usually for a week or two during their first women's studies course - but that was more venting than anything else. And I do find that a lot of women will sort of unconsciously fall back on this stereotype when confronted with what they feel is an egregious example of male chauvinist pigism. Because of my work with prostitutes, I get to see a lot of American and European womens' knees jerk in precisely this fashion.

But this attitude is actually a good measure of how UNATTACHED these women are from today's feminism. The typical college educated American woman of my generation hasn't thought of feminism in theoretical, philosophical or even practical terms since her school days. ("Prostitutes' rights? What's that?") This is why you'll often the 30 to 50 set reaching for Andrea Dworkin when confronted with male behavior they don't like. It's reflexive form of defence, not some sort of deeply thought out political position and it's certainly not a plot to diminuish men. They just go for the largest rhetorical brick in their arsenal when a male does something they classify as "anti-woman".

That's why I agree that the people keeping the myth of the man-hating feminists alive are generally anything but feminists. Alot of the women who do this sort of thing are actually quite sexist and homophobic and "strategically remember" only those things about feminism that are contextually, rhetorically valuable to them at the time. Sort of a "pick and choose" version of feminism.

You want to see full-on, Dworkin-style man-hating feminist rhetoric? Don't talk to a feminist: talk to a 40-something, middle-class soccer mom with a BA in Comparative Lit (or Anthropology), 4 kids and a bills-paying husband. Tell her that you think that trafficking in women is by-and-large a moral panic and not a multi-billion dollar industry the way the media plays it out to be. Or say that you frequent prostitutes - whether you do or not, just say it. THERE'S your instant "man hating feminist": the woman who's lifestyle is maintained by a male's labour, who would be tossed into penury in an instant if she lost her mate and - worse - who is smart enough to know full well the bind she's gotten herself into. That's the most commonly encountered kind of woman who spouts "man hating rhetoric" these days, if only occasionally. A woman who considers Hillary Clinton to be the greatest statesperson of the age and Princess Diana to be the next step over from Mother Teresa. Someone who once dreamed of a fulfilling career for herself, but who became a professional mom through the force of circumstance of living in a country where the labor of raising a family is considered to be a "private" (read female) responsability.
 


And who can really blame her?

But dude, if THAT'S the kind of woman you've gone and married, then you've got a big load of blame to shoulder yourself, don't you? After all, you could've done the male version of Lysistrata a long time ago and simply insist that all the women you date pay 50/50 (or at least propostionately based on salary) for your common life together. You didn't do that and now you're bitching that women treat you like an ATM machine and it's all the "man-hating feminists'" fault, is it?

See this, man?


That's the smallest violin in the world and it's playing "My Heart Bleeds for You".

20 comments:

  1. Thaddeus e Ana Paula,
    Found your blog from Regina's. Very interesting. Love the name and picture of the Mangue. Brings back memories of my teen years.
    Thanks

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  2. I missed you, Thad. :D

    and simply insist that all the women you date pay 50/50 (or at least propostionately based on salary) for your common life together.

    Indeed. So, why don't they? It's only fair, the only thing that makes sense. I sure never felt comfortable with a guy who didn't expect me to contribute. Paying a dinner on a first date is romantic, maybe, but do yourself a favor and find a woman who doesn't expect you to pay and take care of everything. (Sure, it means you will have to do some house/domestic work, but the benefit is not having a man-hating... housewife as a partner. :D)

    A question, and then a confession:

    middle-class soccer mom with a BA in Comparative Lit (or Anthropology)

    The way you put it, it sure seems that anthropology is considered a light subject, something "nice" to graduate and then become a stay at home mom. I mean... WTF?

    I don't know... General population in my country never heard of anthropology and it's definitely not seen something as "appropriate for a young lady" to study.

    A confession:

    Or say that you frequent prostitutes - whether you do or not, just say it.

    I must admit I'd be shocked to hear someone says this. I don't know why. I guess I don't like when random people talk about their sex lives. I don't fucking care who you fuck, you know? But I don't want to be a hypocrite: it wouldn't be the same as hearing someone talking about a steamy threesome he had last night. I guess I know next to nothing about prostitution in the real world; I know it exists, but it's illegal and hidden and I know nothing about it. So hearing someone has a first hand experience with it... I guess I'd be shocked a bit.

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  3. Please, don't tell me my long (and insightful) comment was lost.

    Mira

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  4. The way you put it, it sure seems that anthropology is considered a light subject, something "nice" to graduate and then become a stay at home mom. I mean... WTF?

    The vast majority of anthro undergrads probably don't do anything with their degree, Mira. Surely you know this.

    I must admit I'd be shocked to hear someone says this. I don't know why.

    My guess is that it's because women in the west in general are educated to feel that prostitution is a thoroughly evil and degrading thing. You might even not intellectually agree with that, but viscerally you will, unless your upbringing was far out of the ordinary.

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  5. The vast majority of anthro undergrads probably don't do anything with their degree, Mira. Surely you know this.

    No, actually, I didn't know this. Or, shall I say, I didn't know it was a matter of personal choice. I knew it wasn't easy to find a job as an anthropologist, but I sure had no idea it was considered something nice and appropriate for future stay at home moms to study (nothing against them, but what is considered "nice and appropriate" for young ladies who will later marry and won't pursue career is usually not something challenging, "unfeminine" or unorthodox... And since when anthropology isn't intellectually challenging and unorthodox?)

    My guess is that it's because women in the west in general are educated to feel that prostitution is a thoroughly evil and degrading thing.

    I wasn't taught that prostitution was evil, but yes, I was taught it was degrading and that I should feel sorry for any woman who is forced to do this. So I guess hearing someone taking advantage of it would make me shocked.

    I guess it's difficult for me to think of prostitution in terms of "it's a job like any other; some women simply chose to do it". Not because having sex for money is the worst thing (I can think of more horrible jobs), but because- I guess- I still see it as something you do when you are so desperate and out of money and don't know what else to do and this is the only way.

    It's interesting to note that in my culture people (male people) have more respect for prostitutes than "regular" women, particularly regular women who are promiscuous. The idea is that prostitutes take money for sex so it's a honest deal, while promiscuous women are so stupid not to take anything, and are unworthy of their respect. (Because, as we all know, sex makes women dirty and unworthy of any respect).

    On an unrelated note, I do think "mental prostitution" (for lack of a better term) is both mean and degrading.

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  6. It's not that it's especially 'nice and appropriate': it's that college-educated women who get advanced degrees that don't allow easy market placement very often get married to college educated men. If said man ends up with a decent professional job, it often makes good economic sense for the woman to put her career on the back-burner and take care of the kids.

    In the U.S. the stereotypical degree for this sort of thing is Literature. I added in Anthropology because I didn't want to seem prejudiced against lit majors and because such a major is just as likely (or not) to lead to the bind I describe as lit.

    And since when anthropology isn't intellectually challenging and unorthodox?

    Since when is comparative lit not intellectually challenging or orthodox?

    I think you're extrenalizing your particulars, Mira. My point isn't that either of these two majors makes a person a particularly good wife (or not): it's that in a heteronormative family, the person whose career makes the least money ends up taking care of the kids. And that still usually means (ta da!) the woman, especially if her academic training is for some field with few paid vacancies and her immediate future employment is temporary office worker.

    So I guess hearing someone taking advantage of it would make me shocked.

    The whole "taking advantage of" and "exploiting" meme bothers me. You don't see yourself as "taking advatage of" somebody working the counter at a fast food restraunt, though in strict terms, that's exactly what you're doing. The question you need to ask yourself is why is it "exploitative" to pay someone for sex but not exploitative to use minimum wage, non-union, exploited and (in the U.S.)often illegal immigrant labor to satisfy your other physical needs.

    I still see it as something you do when you are so desperate and out of money and don't know what else to do and this is the only way.

    Every woman I've ever interviewed LEFT other jobs to work as a pro. Even here in Brazil So it's obviously not the last resort. That's a stereotype propagated by bad Hollywood movies and late Victorian ladies' novels.

    (Because, as we all know, sex makes women dirty and unworthy of any respect).

    It seems to me that many women think just this, at least subconsciously. If they didn't, they wouldn't hedge sex with so many qualifiers, splitting it off into "good" and "bad" varieties which are supposedly universally recognized.

    It seems to me that, when it comes right down to it, many women feel that sex makes women unworthy of respect unless it's contained withint very specific contexts, so it's a question degree when we're talking about what most women think about sex versus what most men think.

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  7. Since when is comparative lit not intellectually challenging or orthodox?

    I guess it is, but I wouldn't know. To be honest, people who graduate at this sort of things (interesting, yet not profitable) are often seen as insane. But there are not many stay at home moms in my culture; women are expected to work as much as men, so I guess people see degrees such as literature or anthropology as time wasters.

    I think you're extrenalizing your particulars, Mira.

    Perhaps. Dare to say, probably. But it's interesting to observe cultural differences.

    The whole "taking advantage of" and "exploiting" meme bothers me. You don't see yourself as "taking advatage of" somebody working the counter at a fast food restraunt, though in strict terms, that's exactly what you're doing.

    Who says I don't? Many people work for minimal wage here, even less that that and are denied basic rights and nobody cares about it. So it's quite degrading, all in all.

    Still, it's not seen as degrading as prostitution. So I guess what I subconsciously think of it in terms of taking advantage of someone's misfortune, to a greater level than taking advantage of a worker at a supermarket; more along the lines of taking advantage of a beggar.

    The question you need to ask yourself is why is it "exploitative" to pay someone for sex but not exploitative to use minimum wage, non-union, exploited and (in the U.S.)often illegal immigrant labor to satisfy your other physical needs.

    It is. Why do you assume I don't consider this to be exploitative? Still, it's not because I'm teh special and full of understanding; I was raised to see capitalism as something very bad.

    Every woman I've ever interviewed LEFT other jobs to work as a pro.

    Well, I guess I have some prejudices when it comes to this. I had no idea it was like that.

    It seems to me that many women think just this, at least subconsciously.

    It's because people (often female people) see females in good girls/bad girls dichotomy.

    It seems to me that, when it comes right down to it, many women feel that sex makes women unworthy of respect

    Women are taught that men won't respect them if they're promiscuous and that they have to be "good" girls in order to gain a man's respect. Then again, many men follow this rule: they really don't respect promiscuous women. So the only question left is: WHY are women so crazy about gaining men's respect? I have some potential answers, that concern wanting a serious relationship, but also wanting pure sex.

    so it's a question degree when we're talking about what most women think about sex versus what most men think.

    What do you mean by "question degree"?

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  8. Who says I don't? Many people work for minimal wage here, even less that that and are denied basic rights and nobody cares about it. So it's quite degrading, all in all.

    OK, Mira. I'll bite. You show me three mainstream movements made up primarily of women who see minimum wage work as exploitative as sex work and I'll change my opinion.

    So I guess what I subconsciously think of it in terms of taking advantage of someone's misfortune, to a greater level than taking advantage of a worker at a supermarket; more along the lines of taking advantage of a beggar.

    So you're already operating on the presumption that prostitutes need must be degraded people. I think this settles the point: you DO INDEED consider this sort of work to be more exploitative than minimum wage service work. That is something almost every prostitute I ever interviewed was quite quick to deny.

    Then again, many men follow this rule: they really don't respect promiscuous women.

    Let me break you in on a piece of male reality, Mira: the kind of guy who doesn't respect a promiscuous woman is PRECISELY the kind of guy who won't respect a non-promiscuous woman either. The male stereotype on this is the "happily married" man whose also paying for sex on the side.

    Tell me: do you REALLY think he's respecting his "good girl" wife?

    ^Question of degree, not "question degree".

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  9. OK, Mira. I'll bite. You show me three mainstream movements made up primarily of women who see minimum wage work as exploitative as sex work and I'll change my opinion.

    I was talking about MYSELF, Thad. You assumed I didn't see minimum wage workers as someone who is exploited. But I do. It's quite degrading.

    I think this settles the point: you DO INDEED consider this sort of work to be more exploitative than minimum wage service work. That is something almost every prostitute I ever interviewed was quite quick to deny.

    I do not see the work itself as more degrading (having sex with clients as the opposite of working as a cleaning staff at a supermarket) or more exploitative. But I guess I was raised to see sex workers as someone in worse financial situation, closer to the beggars. (Now, whether prostitutes - or beggars for that matter- are indeed in such bad financial situation is another matter).

    So while I don't see the work itself as the most degrading, I do have this (mis)conception of prostitutes as people who don't have any other choice or option but to work on streets. Then again, it's what media and legal system wants me to see, I guess. Poor (mainly Gypsy) women in dirty revealing clothes, some pregnant, most hungry and in a bad condition. There's a less talk about students and young (wo)men who choose to offer sexual services so they can have a higher standard of life than their parents can afford them.

    Let me break you in on a piece of male reality, Mira: the kind of guy who doesn't respect a promiscuous woman is PRECISELY the kind of guy who won't respect a non-promiscuous woman either.

    Oh, I know this. It's true. That's why I advise women to stay away from guys who claim they would "respect" you if you withhold sex. These men operate under the strict standards that make them see all women as not really human in full sense of the word: she is basically reduced to her vagina (whether she lets men enter it or not), so anybody who respects a women based on her vagina is, well, not somebody you want anything to do with.

    Good, you might say, so the only thing you can take from these men is casual sex, right? Wrong. It's not that his lack of respect is something you'll miss, so "testing" men this way might seem like a good idea (you have sex with them soon, or whenever you feel like it; if he leaves because you're not a nice girl in his eyes, good, at least you find out who you're dealing with early on).

    But as practical and good this advice sounds, it doesn't work in reality. Because men- in my opinion (and I'm not the only one)- make very lousy casual sex partners. Many simply won't bother about your sexual needs and having a casual sex with someone very uninspired is a waste of time. (It is true that men, in general, will invest some energy and care about woman's needs only if, paradoxically, they want to see you again, outside sexual context. They don't invest themselves in casual sex at all, which is a bit strange- isn't impressing a casual partner, and an experienced one at that (men believe women who don't withold sex to be very experienced, which might not be true)- isn't impressing her with your sexual skills more important than impressing a woman you're in a relationship with (and who will probably want to be with you even if you didn't give her multiple orgasms on the spot?)

    Tell me: do you REALLY think he's respecting his "good girl" wife?

    No. Men who base their "respect" on women's vaginas are not the ones respecting women, period. No woman should want to be in a relationship with a man who only respect her if she witholds sex.

    ^Question of degree, not "question degree".

    I still don't get what you wanted to say.

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  10. I was talking about MYSELF, Thad. You assumed I didn't see minimum wage workers as someone who is exploited. But I do. It's quite degrading.

    I'm not not talking about you in particular, Mira: I'm talking about society's views, in general.

    But when it comes to you in particular, how about this: show me some blog post or commentary where you've publically worried about minimum wage workers and their degrading jobs to the degree that you worry about prostitutes' degrading jobs here.

    It's easy to SAY that you feel the same thing about these two types of work, but somehow people who feel moved to comment about degrading sex work and claim to feel the same way about other kinds of work generally never get around to publically critiquing that other sort of work with anything like the same degree of frequency or perpacity with which they comment on sex work.

    At least in my experience.

    If you're a general anti-exploitaton activist, great. But if you're like most people who make the claims you do, Mira, you're not: you just find it convenient to remember that you're against all sorts of exploitation, in theory, when a prostitutes' rights activists asks why you're commenting on the problems of sex work in practice.

    Somehow, antiexploitation activists who comment on prostitution and how bad its labor conditions are never get around to commenting on - let alone attempting to fix - labor conditions in the rest of the economy. But if those conditions WERE fixed, then there would be a hell of a lot less prostitutes in the world as prostitution generally isn't most peoples' first choice of a job.

    In other words, make more and better jobs in the straight economy and you'll generally decrease the exploitative conditions of sexual labor. So if you're truly a general anti-labor exploitation activist, my question would then be "Why are you even worried about labor conditions in sex work right now, given that these are overwhelmingly driven by the rest of the labor market?"

    But I guess I was raised to see sex workers as someone in worse financial situation, closer to the beggars.

    Mira, to me it seems that you're waffling: you don't like the charge that you distinguish prostitution as a worse form of work than other sorts of work (i.e. more degrading or more exploitative), but you want to hold to a distinction that sets sex workers off from other kinds of workers.

    I think you can't have it both ways. While sex work has specific conditions of labor, some of which can be stunningly bad, it's hard to say that it is ipso facto qualitatively different from all other forms of labor.

    And workers are not beggars, no matter what field they are involved in. Although James Scott has an interesting new theory re:"redistributive labor" and he would perhaps slot both beggars and prostitutes in as "redistributive workers" rather than "productive workers".

    I think that your particular take on "prostitutes = beggars", however, comes from growing up in a formally marxist educational system where prostitutes and beggars were both understood to be lumpen, living parasitically off the working class. Scott's new theory challenges the Marxist view that all labor needs must be productive under post-industrial, post-scarcity capitalist conditions, however.

    Re: "question of degree". When it comes right down to it, both men and women think that women having sex - outside of a few very specific contexts - degrades the woman and makes her unworthy of respect. Men are perhaps more actively and loudly militant in this view, but many, if not most, women share it to some degree or another. That's why it's a difference of degree when we come to men and women's positions on women having sex, not an absolute difference.

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  11. It looks like my comment is too long, so I'll try to break it into parts.

    I'm not not talking about you in particular, Mira: I'm talking about society's views, in general.

    I never said society, in general, sees prostitutes and minimum wage workers to be degraded in the same way.

    But when it comes to you in particular, how about this: show me some blog post or commentary where you've publically worried about minimum wage workers and their degrading jobs to the degree that you worry about prostitutes' degrading jobs here.

    I don't have such blog posts; I don't blog about that stuff. It's not because I don't care- I generally don't blog about this sort of issues, or any serious issues at all. It is my choice and it has nothing to do with how I feel about this issue. I rarely blog about my family, and I care about them. So I wouldn't say someone's online blog represents a clear image on person's beliefs.

    Also, you seem to forget I don't come from a capitalist country. "Whining" about worker's rights and hating on those (countries) that treat workers like cattle was strongly criticized while I was growing up. We are all made it to see that as a bad, horrible thing. Now, situation in my country today is horrible, and many people are degraded not just to minimal wage work, but less than that, and stuff such as: illegal work (even for citizens), people with masters degrees working as cab drivers, employers who don't pay (not just on time... don't pay at all), who refuse to pay your pension and health care, who refuse to employ people older than 30, who refuse to employ men, who ask questions such as "do you plan to get married and have kids" in an interview, who fire pregnant workers... all of this mess is reality here, and government doesn't give a fuck. Meanwhile, people whine, but they don't have the motive they had 10 years ago, when they opposed Milosevic. We had our revolution, we hoped for better situation in our country, the situation is not getting better, so most of the people are so disappointed to even do something. Meanwhile, EU, US and other powerful structures still fuck us in the brain by treating us as unworthy shit, so it all just adds to the crapiness of the situation.

    All in all, do not tell me I don't care about these issues just because I don't blog about them.

    generally never get around to publically critiquing that other sort of work with anything like the same degree of frequency or perpacity with which they comment on sex work.

    Well, it's their problem, not mine. I never criticized sex workers or blogged about them either.

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  12. If you're a general anti-exploitaton activist, great. But if you're like most people who make the claims you do, Mira, you're not: you just find it convenient to remember that you're against all sorts of exploitation, in theory, when a prostitutes' rights activists asks why you're commenting on the problems of sex work in practice.

    I admit I was never involved in any kind of protest or activism concerning prostitutes (save for a few angry letters, but it's not much).

    Somehow, antiexploitation activists who comment on prostitution and how bad its labor conditions are never get around to commenting on - let alone attempting to fix - labor conditions in the rest of the economy.

    Because those people don't think there's something wrong in the labor conditions in the rest of economy? How should I know why they do it?

    But if those conditions WERE fixed, then there would be a hell of a lot less prostitutes in the world as prostitution generally isn't most peoples' first choice of a job.

    Well, you seem to agree with my original statement now (that prostitution is something people do when they are in so bad financial situation and are unable to find a different kind of job).

    It contradicts your idea of prostitution as a careers choice.

    In other words, make more and better jobs in the straight economy and you'll generally decrease the exploitative conditions of sexual labor.

    Well, sexual labor needs to be legalized, at least in a way. Before that, it's a crime, and while something is a crime whoever does it can't expect any help or support from government and other institutions.

    But in a country when even those jobs that are legal employers don't follow the law, how could anybody expect for people to be protected in illegal activities? (Unless there are "noble pimps" who do not take advantage of their girls the way employers do of their workers).

    "Why are you even worried about labor conditions in sex work right now, given that these are overwhelmingly driven by the rest of the labor market?"

    I told you: I guess I believe that, if the labor market is horrible as it is, it can only be worse for sex workers, since they are not legal in any way.

    but you want to hold to a distinction that sets sex workers off from other kinds of workers.

    Yes, but not in moral sense. If I say working as a fruit picker is "worse" than working as a lawyer, I don't think that there is anything morally degrading or even dirty about people who pick fruit. But I guess I wouldn't feel as sorry about lawyers and their financial problems as I'd feel about fruit pickers. People rarely choose fruit picking as a career; you do that when you can't find anything else, and as soon as you do find something else, you stop picking fruit.

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  13. While sex work has specific conditions of labor, some of which can be stunningly bad, it's hard to say that it is ipso facto qualitatively different from all other forms of labor.

    Even if it's not legal?

    Though, paradoxically, you are right: many people work illegally in my country, so maybe there ISN'T, after all, that much of a quality difference.

    I think that your particular take on "prostitutes = beggars", however, comes from growing up in a formally marxist educational system where prostitutes and beggars were both understood to be lumpen, living parasitically off the working class.

    No, not really. The general idea of both groups was not "they are lazy and exploit the working class", but patronizing: "we should be sorry for these poor people". But in the last 10 or so years, this idea about beggars evolved, especially if said beggars are Gypsies: they are seen as people who trick you; they don't work but beg, and then build houses with large pools with all this money.

    Men are perhaps more actively and loudly militant in this view, but many, if not most, women share it to some degree or another.

    Well, men can be more aggressive about it, but I wouldn't say they are more active or loud about it. Women are quite loud about it, too.

    That's why it's a difference of degree when we come to men and women's positions on women having sex, not an absolute difference.

    Well, I am not sure if you can quantify something like this anyway. Saying "both oppose women having sex, but to a different degree" doesn't mean anything. At least I am not sure if you can "measure" who disapproves of women having sex more. (It's like I am not sure you can measure who "gets it worse", black men or white women). It's all individual, and the degree of opposition against women who have sex doesn't seem to be related to person's gender.

    In other words, both groups oppose women who have sex. They might show it in different ways, but I am not sure if the opposition can exactly be measured.

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  14. Mira, first of all regarding your commentaries...

    They are falling into the spam-blocker for some reason. I have NO idea why. Usually this occurs because someone is swearing alot or because they use horribly bad sentence structure. Neither of these problems pertain to your case, so I don't know what's going on.

    If your post doesn't immediately come up, patience: I will be along to rescue it in a day or so. I'm checking in here once a day just for this purpose.

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  15. I never said society, in general, sees prostitutes and minimum wage workers to be degraded in the same way.

    Yes, I know. I said that.

    I don't have such blog posts; I don't blog about that stuff. It's not because I don't care- I generally don't blog about this sort of issues, or any serious issues at all. It is my choice and it has nothing to do with how I feel about this issue. I rarely blog about my family, and I care about them. So I wouldn't say someone's online blog represents a clear image on person's beliefs.

    My point is this: and yet here you are, commenting on the exploitation inherent in prostitution.

    My point being, Mira, that alot of people are theoretically against all forms of work exploitation, but they generally only sound off about it when sex work is being discussed. This, to me, is a problem and indicates underlying unexamined prejudices regarding sex work: folks feel compelled to talk about "exploitation" when the jobs involve sex; they don't when the jobs involve flipping hamburgers, for all they might be theoretically aware that the second job may be more exploitative than the first.

    ...people with masters degrees working as cab drivers...

    To paraphrase Vaugh Bodé's Cheech Wizard, "Welcome to the West, commie!" :D

    http://newsfeed.kosmograd.com/images/futuresystems/cheech_01.jpg

    Well, you seem to agree with my original statement now (that prostitution is something people do when they are in so bad financial situation and are unable to find a different kind of job).

    It contradicts your idea of prostitution as a careers choice.


    Not at all. Note that I said "good jobs", not "any jobs".

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  16. Most of the women I interview would indeed leave sex work PROVIDED they could find work that gives them anything like the cash they get from sex work.

    Thus it's not "I became a whore because I couldn't get any other job", it's "I became a whore to leave the minimum wage ghetto behind."

    Anti-prostitution activists frequently propose that prostitution be substitued with minimum wage work in the female labor ghetto. Every prostitute I've interviewed so far went into prostitution to ESCAPE said ghetto.

    So yeah, if you were to make scholarships available to these women and give them employment that not only paid a living wage but allowed them some room to express their ambitions in life, then probably most (but never all) would go for it.

    To do that, however, would require reqiring capitalism and that's why abolitionists don't want to deal with this problem: it pisses off their allies on the far right.

    So we continue to make believe (here in Brazil, at least) that teaching prostitutes to knit or to paint fingernails is a viable means of providing them with an alternative income.

    But in a country when even those jobs that are legal employers don't follow the law, how could anybody expect for people to be protected in illegal activities? (Unless there are "noble pimps" who do not take advantage of their girls the way employers do of their workers).

    Interesting point, except that it can be turned right over on its head: in a country which doesn't even protect its legal workers, how does one expect illegal workers to be treated?

    Legalization isn't a panacea, but it's a huge step forward.

    If I say working as a fruit picker is "worse" than working as a lawyer, I don't think that there is anything morally degrading or even dirty about people who pick fruit. But I guess I wouldn't feel as sorry about lawyers and their financial problems as I'd feel about fruit pickers. People rarely choose fruit picking as a career; you do that when you can't find anything else, and as soon as you do find something else, you stop picking fruit.

    But that's a false dichotomy, because we're talking about jobs where the workers are exploited. Lawyers don't generally fit into that category (though I hear that may be changing nowadays).

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  17. Can you explain this to me, elsewhere you have pointed out that feminism produces misinformation about rape, which obviously is going to create misandry, and here you have said that most women you know that go through a man-hating stage were influenced by "womens studies" classes .. so doesn't that point to the existence of man hating feminists?

    Also, the violin reminded me of this article.

    "Perhaps I am giving feminists a bit too much credit here — many of them probably do understand, and through a selfish sort of justification process have convinced themselves that the problems other people face as a result of their policies are due to their inferiority as people. This is one of the fundamental problems with liberals; they tend to dismiss people negatively affected by their actions and politics as stupid and ignorant, and therefore deserving of it."
    http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/04/20/gun-rights-and-slut-rights-an-analogy/

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  18. Hmmm. I think that there are a lot of good reasons for women to hate men - and vice versa - and a women's studies class can trigger some of those reasons, bring them to the fore for a short while. I wouldn't say that's feminism creating man-hating, however. More like a feminist perspective enabling man-hating for a short period of time, until people get over themselves.

    Women have taken quite a bit of shit from men and if one stops to reflect upon that, the natural response would be man-hating, at least until one's perspective matures a bit more.

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  19. Hello Thaddeus,

    I quoted part of your article at Feminist Critics---

    if you would like to see the cacophony that ensued:
    http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2011/05/18/questioning-%E2%80%98sexual-slavery%E2%80%99-at-the-good-men-project-rp/

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