This post is likely to be a jumble of thoughts I'm having, possibly an attempt to put them together. Earlier today I logged onto feministing.com to see what was new. As usual, I was slightly disappointed with their narrowed view of feminist news. It seems as though every time I go onto that website all I find are articles about western feminism. The site never fails to produce news on American sexual education, transgendered activism and popular white homosexual male blogs (like Dan Savage). Now, there's obviously nothing wrong with having news about the U.S and sex education or transgender activism, but there just seems to be a lack of transnational feminism on the blog at least in my opinion. This may be unfair because i don't check it every single day, but it seems like a lot of what they talk about is coming from a strictly western perspective, also a very third-wave perspective. I just found it quite interesting that they haven't been blogging much about the recent decisions to ban the burqa in many places, if they have, they haven't given it near as much attention as they do the more western news. I could be wrong though, and let me know if i am!
Another train of thought chugging through my brain has been surrounding Dworkin's work on Marquis De Sade in her book "Pornography: Men possessing Women". I only know about De Sade from watching Pasolini's grim film, "Salo, 120 Days of Sodom" which is Pasolini's taking from Sade's novel "120 days of Sodom", in which De Sade illustrates the sexual torture he inflicted on children during his life way back when and mixing it in with Pasolini's views on fascist Italy in the 1940s. It's a difficult film to watch but strong in it's anti-fascist views. From watching the film, you get a real glimpse at the horrors committed by De Sade, but you don't get the full story. Andrea Dworkin took it upon herself to give a brief history of the man as well as many of the crimes he committed against prostitutes back in the 16th century (I believe this was when he lived). She talks a lot about how De Sade would often be imprisoned then released, only to attack again and again.
De Sade would often kidnap young women - rape and torture them. Many of the women he kidnapped died from the injuries they sustained. De Sade would stop at nothing to fulfill his need to inflict pain and degrade others. He fancied himself what I would consider a super sadomasochist. He would abuse, rape and torture women and children and is often studied now as some sort of "progressive". Since De Sade was a libertine, he was willing to take as much as he wanted to fulfill his sexual desires. Many self-proclaimed progressives study De Sade in some bizarre, sex positive light - he is the father of sadomasochism, basically! What a hero!
What I found important, however, is how Dworkin brought him up in the first place, and in such great detail. I don't think you could offer a proper critique of the industry of sexual torture without first dissecting the life and times of the father of S&M. The chapter on De Sade really sets the tone of her book, and the tone of the pornography she will be critiquing. So far, I'm incredibly impressed with Dworkin's ability to shake us to the core, insight anger in us and get us ready for action. She's truly missed.
It's amusing that you have reoccurring disappointment in your life based on the fact that nobody outside of a few people on the real fringe of sanity take Dworkin seriously. Why not just accept the fact that almost everyone not currently taking or teaching a woman's studies course at a university and going through their militant phase thinks that the woman is a ridiculous sideshow?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Owl Eyes, on the significance of Dworkin's writing as activist writing and cannot fully fathom all she was able to take on as subject matter. With the book from the 1970s, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and one worked on through the 1990s and published in 2002, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation--those two books alone contain truths that few would dare discuss unless to exploit and eroticise. And far fewer have dared to speak about them in a context of delineating the atrocious parameters, intersectional at that, of human degradation male supremacists have unleashed upon the world and continue to expand. She's one of the very few white feminist writers, in my experience, who never forgot to discuss class and race as well as sexual orientation. From her first feminist book to the last, she understood in a very clear way that if "feminism" is presented as white, Western, and class-privileged, it will fail to be revolutionary; in Woman Hating she looked to sheroes Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman as exemplars of feminist revolutionary courage and action in the U.S. Brava to Andrea. Brava to Sojourner and to Harriet. And brava to you for this post.
ReplyDeleteI find the most radical feminist activism happening practically everywhere else majority-white and/or white-dominated capitalist countries. It's discouraging to see that revolutionary and radical feminisms have all but disappeared in the white West among the ruling racial and economic classes in North America, UK/Europe, and Australia.
The revolutionary activism I'm aware of is happening among Indigenous women globally and also non-Indigenous women across Asia. To not report on what so many courageous women are doing across the globe is to be practice what white U.S. Americans generally practice: a willful refusal to engage with the world of human suffering and stamina--poor women of color's, more often than not.
@bertocoayla,
ReplyDeleteYour comment above would have little meaning to activists like Ruchira Gupta, Yanar Mohammed, Malalai Joya, and many other revolutionary, radical feminists across Asia. I'm guessing that the women of RAWA--the longest living revolutionary feminist organisation on the planet would not appreciate your conclusion that they are just acting out "a phase".
I find it not at all amusing that you would come to a radical feminist's blog in order to sarcastically psychologise and otherwise put down a woman who is genuinely interested in learning more about the depths of suffering caused by male supremacists and systems of male domination, exploitation, and violation--a subject few liberal-minded folks are willing to discuss honestly. You included, apparently. And in case you think those of us who identify as radical don't have a sense of humor, here's a joke for you:
Q: What's the quickest way to a man's heart?
A: Through his chest.
@Owl Eyes - more power to you.
Q: What's the quickest way to a man's heart?
ReplyDeleteA: Through his chest.
That need not be a sex-specific joke. =)
@Julian
ReplyDeleteI also am glad that Dworkin examines race and class, as so many people do not. I don't know how one can critique an industry like the porn industry, or any industry that gets their fuel from women's bodies without looking at the power hierarchies surrounding them.
I also enjoy her attention to detail, too. I wish more white feminist writers would look outside of their whiteness and really attempt to dissect and understand women as a class - worldwide. Hopefully more people will do this eventually...as it would better everyone, not just white women, or women living in the west.
Thanks for sticking up for me, too...That troll is getting on my nerves. Too bad he won't take a hint!