Re: Feminism, Kate, and Sex-Positive Feminism

[fox@panix.com (Lou Fox)]

Douglas Alan (nessus@mit.edu) wrote:
: Actually ...  Kate herself in at least one interview has mildly
: disparaged Feminists and has said that she does not consider herself
: to be a Feminist.  How can it be that an enlightened member of 
:society...  The mainstream impression of the Feminist
: movement is of seperatist, androgynous, lesbian, pro-censorship,
: anti-pornography (unless it is lesbian pornogrpahy) men-hating women.
Well, my friend, the mainstream impression is wrong. It is fostered by a 
conservative media that does not want to give any credit to feminism and 
shows it merely as a radical fringe group. That is how someone as 
intelligent as KT can be lulled into thinking that feminism is not 
something she believes in. Which, I believe, is false judging by the 
strong female-focused energy in her songs. She may not call herself a 
feminist because of all the backlash against the feminist movement, but 
she writes lyrics like one.
: of the organized Feminist movement but became 
:disillusioned with it
: and left.  They felt that a vocal intolerant minority of the movement
: took control and has successfully foisted their agenda on the
: mainstream of the Feminist movement.  These women therefore don't like
: to call themselves Feminists.
I"m truly sorry they feel that way, however, I believe they are in the 
minority. 
 :  Instead of insisting on lesbianism,
: they feel that in addition to lesbianism, bisexual and heteosexual
: lifestyles are also perfectly acceptable.  They are opposed to
: censorship and feel that heterosexual erotica (even erotica that is
: often called pornography) has a useful purpose in society.  They
: sometimes refer to themselves with the term "Sex-Positive Feminists".
: They believe that it is perfectly okay for women to be feminine,
: rather than androgynous, and they like many men rather than thinking
: that all of them are to be shunned.
As do most feminists. There is not some huge feminist control group that 
decided women must be a certain way and that sex was bad, etc. Instead, 
there are radical feminists that choose to question the basic assumptions 
of our heterosexist, patriarchal society. It is these women, naturally, 
who get the most play on the media and that is because the media has two 
main purposes: to sell products and to enforce a vision of reality. In 
the media's vision, all feminists must be portrayed as radical to keep 
other women and men from finding out the ideas at the base of feminism 
because then it is possible that real social change could happen. 

 
Your experience with Feminism may be different, since certainly all
: Feminist organizations are not the same; however, you should be aware
: of why Feminism has gotten a dirty name in some circles, since
: with such knowledge you can fight against becoming irrelevant.
Well, the black power/civil rights movement also is a dirty word in many 
parts of this country. Would you agree that the media always fairly 
reports on the issues of racism and on the leaders of the 
African-American movements? Or do you turn a blind eye to the media's 
false portrayal of feminism only? Is the black power movement, by 
analogy, thus irrelevent?

: P.S. I asked a pannel of Sex-Positive Feminists what they thought
: about Feminist claims that such magazines as Playboy and Hustler cause
: great anxiety and eating disorders among women by institutionalizing
: an ideal of beauty against which most women cannot hope to attain.
: The consensus was that although there is a grain of truth to this, it
: is women's magazines such as Vogue that are infinitely more
: responsible for this, and this is where Feminists should look to
: counter this problem--if they really cared about solving the problem
: rather than needing an excuse to justify latent puritanicalism.  The
True, Vogue is worse for women's self esteem issues that deal with unreal 
beauty. However, porn magazines lend to the general feeling in this 
country of women being the passive objects of male desire. Women in most 
porn are seen only through the eyes of men; they are merely things on 
which/with which to obtain male pleasure. And feminists do work against 
the negative beauty images in fashion magazines; in fact in NYC during 
Fashion show week, there was a whole symposium sponsored by NOW about the 
fashion industry. 
: Sex-Positive Feminists also though that censorship and the stigma of
: pornography causes there to be a more limited spectrum of pornography
: available, and that if censorship were quelled and society came to
: appreciate the value of pornography, then this would result in a wider
: spectrum of pornography and thus a more representative spectrum of body
: types.
I agree that there needs to be a wider spectrum of sexual images 
available. I am not an anti-pornography feminist, and the majority of the 
activists I know aren't either. We're too busy defending clinics and 
working to keep Daycare in the NYC budget to worry about the blantantly 
unreal and plasticized women in Playboy. 
: Of course, this does not mean that there would still not be ideals of
: beauty that would be difficult for many people to obtain, but on the
: other hand Michael Angelo sculpted David rather than me, and I can
: live with this.
True, but you don't have to look at david everyday, whereas everyday women 
have to look at ads, etc. that portray a distorted body image.
Anyways, don't dis feminism unless you have something intelligent to say, 
not merely re-iterating attacks from the "mainstream" media.
BTW, the mainstream music media doesn't consider KT to be very relevent; 
does that mean we should all change our beliefs?

But don't take this as a personal attack, just an attack against media 
false information.

Jennifer@ Casa Lou
Research by Addelaide the Cat