Sometimes you get something more blended. Dworkin was great at that because you can absolutely see where she’s coming from and get her line of thinking, but also she totally missed the part where most women want to have sex.
Here’s the basic line of thought:
Men occupy a more powerful position in society due to the generally patriarchal structures. Women occupy a less powerful position than men, even when a particular women holds more overt power (e.g., a woman that’s a CEO). As a result, sexual relationships between men and women always have a power imbalance; that imbalance of power means that women can never really be consenting, since there’s always some form of ‘threat’ involved. A woman that believes she wants sex believes that way because society has conditioned her to be that way, rather than that being something she chose in a vacuum.
And theoretically, this is all true, kind of. But it also isn’t, because that would mean that women can never have any agency over their own body or their own sexual choices. …Unless they “choose” to be lesbian, which isn’t actually a choice at all.
Wouldn’t that line of thinking imply that women don’t have any agency about anything? Whatever they decide can be framed as a reaction to internalized fear.
Not to mention that gender roles also affect men.
Yeah it does and you couldn’t really change it. As women would act based on internalized sexism and even if a man wants to respect the wish of a woman and give her 100% control, she would act in the sexist norms, which would signal to the men that women want those sexist norms. So men would continue to “enforce” those norms as women would fear to stop the men.
So sexism can’t be solved; and then we can ask why bother trying to change it then?
Stupid line of thinking that is insulting to both, women and men. No means no, my friends. No means no. Respect your fellow humans.
No, it’s not all true, not even theoretically. The idea that women can’t consent to sex is complete and utter horseshit, not to mention insanely sexist.
Okay, let’s put it this way.
Let’s say you’re a woman, and you’ve been pulled over by a male cop. He’s got you dead to rights on possession of cocaine with intent to distribute after spotting the bales of cocaine in your back seat. He’s willing to just give you a ticket for a burned out tail light, but only if he can fuck you, right then and there. Can you, in that moment, morally and ethically consent to sex with him, when he has the legal authority to arrest you and ensure that your life is fucked forever if you do not consent? Most people would say no, that entire environment is coercive, so there’s no way that, within that framework I’ve presented, that the woman could morally or ethically consent to sex in order to make her ‘little problem’ go away.
2nd wave feminism presented all male-female relationships in that way, although usually with a less blatant abuse of power going on. If you assume that patriarchy stacks the power deck in favor of men, then there’s very little basis for women to ever consent to sex with a man, because she is never able to have an equal position of power within society from which to consent. But that’s also a problem, because it abstracts people to the point where it’s almost meaningless on an individual level.
Right, and that stance is complete and utter sexist horse shit for both genders. It’s saying that women don’t have any agency over their actions at any time, and that all straight men are guilty of raping their partners. It’s also discounting the fact that women can and have raped men.
I’d be willing to bet that most people who believe this have some form of PTSD from the actions of a male, which would be a completely understandable viewpoint to have in that situation.
But, a viewpoint being understandable doesn’t make it reasonable, valid, or healthy. If someone truly believes that no women can ever consent to intimacy with a man, they need to speak to a mental health professional.
It’s no more valid of a viewpoint than saying all white people are racists.
☝️my mother in a nutshell. She said my grandmother warned her about what we now know as “The Second Shift” (working outside of the home then coming home and ALSO planning/doing most household maintainence tasks) when my mother was younger and was part of the first generation of women to work outside the home. But her understanding after years of this was somehow “mom was right” instead of “make him do his own laundry and if he refuses get a divorce.” At this point I’m just like women and the general cultural concept of femininity have shot ahead by miles in the last century. Men are welcome to do the same whenever they’re ready, but for now a lot of men are just coping by crab bucketing this shit and bringing women back down.
I’m generalizing here, but men’s lib looks VERY different to women’s lib. Women started from a position of very low power, liberation was nearly a continuous improvement for all but the most privileged women.
Men’s lib requires first giving up a lot of patriarchal power before gaining the benefits of men’s lib, which in my opinion far surpass those of patriarchal power. There are a lot of barriers to this. First, most “online” feminists talk only about giving up patriarchal power. This feels hostile to most men and has bolstered misogynist influencers like tate et al. Second real life men and women are typically both complicit as men in enforcing patriarchal views of what a man is supposed to be. You can see experiences of men crying or expressing real emotion in front their prospective significant others as a prime example of this. Third there is no easy to access popular description of the benefits to men of men’s lib. There are great examples, but they aren’t as culturally relevant as patriarchal influencers yet.
The path to men’s lib is complex and has very different challenges than women’s lib. I think we’re getting there, but it’s certainly a slow process and at this time I think the counter reaction is more prevalent and popular.
Men are welcome to do the same whenever they’re ready, but for now a lot of men are just coping by crab bucketing this shit and bringing women back down.
Stop pretending like you know jack shit about men’s issues.
It’s only to/about men do you mfs say this type of shit.
“Oh, men are depressed and have insanely high suicide rate? Have they tried smiling more?”Men are welcome to do the same whenever they’re ready
We’ve been ready for a very long fucking time.
When will society be ready to actually fucking listen for once?
It’s fuckin sad that the only people able to talk about men’s issues are either fucking grifters (Andrew you know who) or aren’t even men.
Just STFU with your copout bullshit.Hey, what’s up with the tone my guy? Message me if you need to talk fr
Regarding the subject at hand,
Evidently women still have many issues coming from male dominant culture formed before the industrial revolution, there has been good progress but there’s still a long path ahead.
Men have issues coming from cultural norms too. imo the biggest hindrance for men at the moment is not nearly enough people talk about men’s mental health.
MOST IMPORTANT NOTE IS:
Promoting solutions for women doesn’t mean ignoring men’s issues.
Promoting awareness to men’s issues is not against women’s interests.
When someone is promoting progress, let’s not jump to “there are bigger problems elsewhere”
If you want to promote change via debate, being aggressive is the worst strategy. Why not say “hey, I hear your argument for women, and on this note I’d also like to raise this other related subject about men’s issues.”
That’s a win win conversation
Oh hey guys what’s going on in this thre…
