the problem with fun feminism
A while ago I read a post written by a young woman whose blog I follow through another interest of mine, wholly unrelated to feminism.
She wrote about her first real exposure to feminism and feminist activism, and it was really fascinating. At her uni, the campus paper published something sexist (wow, that’s a new one!), and a group of female students arranged a protest of sorts. It involved many of them wearing provocative clothing and proudly affirming their sluthood and whoredom and blah blah, amongst other things … similar in concept to the recent Slut Walk event (which is what prompted me to finally finish and post this). The blogger mentioned how it was nice that a lot of male students showed up to support the protest. But then she wrote about her discomfort at how the men were kind of jokingly jeering and wolf-whistling at them all. It made her feel self conscious, even though the wolf whistles were supportive, y’all. Then she felt dumb for feeling self conscious, because all the other protesters were having a blast, and obviously didnt feel conflicted about the male attention they were receiving that would have been construed as humiliating and degrading under any other circumstances. She couldnt shake the dissonance, and she was at least a little relieved when the protest ended.
She finished up by saying that she while supports the feminist cause and believes in it, it’s not really her thing. Even though she believes in it. It’s just not for her.
Basically, she was unconvinced.
That. Right there. That is what’s wrong with funfeminism.
It’s not convincing.
Young women see the malestream, and see that it forces them into the role of porn bots, piv-providers and kinky sluts.
So they may turn to funfeminism, and they see that it offers women the “right” to be porn bots, piv-providers and kinky sluts.
What the malestream and funfeminism offer women is the same, only the funfem version is more nervous and complicated.
If she chooses to roll with the malestream, in return she will get male approval. If she chooses to roll with funfeminism she will get some (more limited and highly conditional) male approval, quite a bit of male ridicule, and … ?
Not much else.
Young women aren’t stupid. Faced with the above options, they know which one offers them a better deal under the patriarchy.
Funfeminism is so intent on proving that it is SEXY!!! and FUN!!! that funfems twist themselves into all sorts of ideological knots, trying to integrate the idea that women are human beings with the idea that porn, piv, prostitution, bdsm, are all fine too! Really.
But those two ideas do not play nicely together and those ideological knots are not convincing. Women can see right through them, they know something’s off, even if they dont have the language or booksmarts to articulate exactly what it is. So instead they simply figure that “feminism just isn’t their thing”, and continue on their merry way.
That alone is bad enough. But then, there’s also the issue that funfeminism will never be able to compete with the malestream at being SexyFun anyway. SexyFun is defined by the malestream, and the malestream will keep moving the goalposts. Based on current trends, those goalposts are being moved into more blatantly misogynist territory with every porn vid that comes out. If funfeminism insists on trying to compete with the malestream for the SexyFun gold medal, or even just insists on trying to keep up with it, the road ahead is paved with failure and even more humiliation for women.
Here’s the thing, in order for feminism to be meaningful to women, it must offer some kind of meaningful alternative to the malestream. At the moment, it does not, which is why it is so ineffective.
The blogger I wrote about above is not the first young woman I’ve come across who has expressed something akin to disappointment at what modern feminism has to offer. For every woman who was dazzled by the prospect of taking part in something called Slut Walk, there was at least another woman or two who saw it and wondered what difference there is between men and feminists anyway, when both keep calling women sluts, and neither will shut up about how great porn is.
In order for feminism to be anything other than the internet exercise it mostly is now, it needs numbers. The only way feminism can get numbers is by getting more women on board.
The only way feminism will get more women on board is if it can offer something to women that isnt already being shoved down their throats by men.
Like this:
Filed under: feminism, feminist community, pornstitution | 26 Comments
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COMMENTS
i think we would all do well to assume that WOMEN ARENT STUPID, first and foremost, and work from there. instead of assuming the opposite. ALL women automatically assume other women are stupid, unless they have LEARNED AND PRACTISED NOT TO, because we are all self-hating misogynists. but women arent stupid. not by a long shot!
dworkin was clear in right-wing women that RWW arent dumb…even though that image of them dominates, and even “feminists” assume that because RWW (and others) arent joining their little party, it means they are DUMB. if they werent so DUMB, they would join, because we are feminists dammit (y’all!) welp…not so fast. as you say very clearly here miska, fun-feminism is actually missing few key ingredients: consistency for one thing, and woman-identified reality, for another. in other words, it doesnt make a lick of fucking sense, UNLESS you look at the whole thing THROUGH MENS EYES. sexual freedom = fucking tons of men. consent = just stop saying no. that kind of thing. not surprisingly, it leaves alot of women UNCONVINCED. perhaps women-identified-women would be the LAST ones to fall for this shit? if so, then i think woman-identified radicalism might have some appeal for them, if done right.
Great post Miska. I had not thought about the few who were turned off feminism due the crappy funfeminism.
and wondered what difference there is between men and feminists anyway, when both keep calling women sluts, and neither will shut up about how great porn is.
Yeah, they are saying the same thing. No wonder funfeminism seems useless to the smarter ones. It makes no sense at all. As FCM said, it misses the key ingredients of consistency and woman-identified reality.
In my younger days, when I was not an active feminist, when I looked at porn, I just had that ‘feeling’ that there was something very wrong with it, although I could not put my finger on it (had not read anything feminist at that point). I got there in the end, particularly after digesting a few books on the subject, then it all made sense, it jelled with my instincts.
So hopefully that YW will discover the right texts in time, the feminism that actually makes sense.
Exactly! Funfeminism is not very convincing. A Radfem of the name Selah created an entry stating how funfeminism is just an antidote to real feminism-she’s right.
So not only is it unconvincing, contradictory-it’s also not affective.
If men like funfeminism right off the bat, there’s gotta be something wrong with it.
No one with a wider view of how women are really treated in society takes funfeminism seriously. Why should they,anyway?
@FCM
Exactly. One area which funfeminism completely fails is how it assumes all women are fucking stupid. They are obsessed with “educating”, they love their little “educational tools” like privilege check lists, and they see any disagreement as an opportunity to provide education, which must be lacking if someone disagrees with them.
I remember some of the very first comments I got here when I published my first trans posts were funfems posting links to trans 101 shit (and not responding to any of the arguments in my post), as if I hadnt read all of it already! Because I dont agree with them, I must be fucking stupid.
I think a lot of funfeminism is actually really condescending. I think that’s another thing that puts young women off.
@fablibber
See I think most women who get turned off of funfeminism never make it into radical waters. With the internet, funfeminism is basically a gateway, and if you dont pass through it you dont get anywhere. Unless someone is lucky enough to chance across a radical book, they pretty much have to go through funfeminism.
Every so often someone will send me an email or leave a comment, saying that they are so glad they’ve found my writing because they were really sick of the funfem stuff with all the porn-glorification and trans butt-kissing etc
I love getting those emails. BUT I also wonder, for every woman who saw through the funfem shit but eventually discovered radfem writing, how many saw through the funfem shit and never got as far as radical feminism? I think it is A LOT.
I think it is also worth noting that funfeminism is really intent on disproving the idea that feminists are hairy, ugly, fat, prudish cat-lovers. So they go to great lengths to shake off the bad image feminism has got, prancing around in their corsets, declaring they love porn, and that THEYRE REALLY FUN. And hot! Wheeee!
But you know, at the end of the day feminism still has an image problem. In the public’s imagination “Feminist” is still synonymous with “Fat hairy dyke who cant get a man”. This is because the men/malestream has decided this is what feminism is. No matter how much actual feminists try to change that perception, no matter even how much that perception isnt true, that’s still gonna be the default image of feminism. There’s no point trying to change it, so we might as well just give up on that and just get along with being feminists and doing feminist work.
Hi
Really interesting post, thanks! I am a relatively young feminist. I didn’t know of the term funfeminist. I do not think porn, male approval etc form my version of feminism but I do enjoy being female. I enjoy wearing makeup and getting dressed up and so on.
Hopefully your blogger will grow up and realise feminism is for her, we are all a little more insecure and self-conscious when we’re young.
yes, once again its a matter of seeing everything through mens eyes, and accepting their vision, and their interpretation of it. men think that engaging in PIV with women “makes them men” and in fact they arent wrong, if you accept that the entire category of MAAB represents people who are able to harm women with their dicks. so…they project the same bullshit on women: having PIV makes women, women. women who are PIV critical, or who arent getting any etc arent really women. women who dont want men, SHOULDNT BE LISTENED TO, because the consequences of that message spreading would be devastating. TO MEN. its all about them. everything we know about everything is through a male lens, its mens interpretation of it. everything. its stunning to realize that as women, we are unable to see the world through a female lens, but we arent. it takes conscious effort and vigilance.
it would probably be a good idea to take literally everything that we think of as “good” and ask “how does this benefit men?” and everything we think of as bad and ask “how does this threaten (or NOT benefit) men?” or even “how does this benefit women?” because thats probably the thought process that got us to these value judgements in the first place, we just dont know it, and thats exactly how they want it.
On some level I did think that funfeminism was a hijack/derail to make potential (real) feminists ineffective, and yes it is damaging and a danger.
On the other level, I sort of believe that they will eventually find their way through that muck and find real feminism, the radical unfun kind.
When I first discovered internet feminism I came across what we now call funfeminism (and what Biting Beaver described as Feminist-Lite), and I automatically read and dismissed those sites, even without a distinct label/categorisation system in my head. I accidentally found myself at a few radfem blogs and thought “yep, this is the right stuff, none of that superficial nonsense”.
Anyway, hopefully others will find their way too. Perhaps it stems from the belief that the discomfort one finds with the world (and funfeminism) won’t go away by just ignoring it, and eventually one will happenstance across radical feminism and find Home.
Exactly. One area which funfeminism completely fails is how it assumes all women are fucking stupid. They are obsessed with “educating”, they love their little “educational tools” like privilege check lists, and they see any disagreement as an opportunity to provide education, which must be lacking if someone disagrees with them.
Oh god, “educating” is the worst shit ever. The left is obsessed with that condescending bullshit. Thanks for saying this, it’s tragic-nice to know I wasn’t alone on the receiving end of that bs.
Hurray, Miska’s back with a vengeance.
I think FF is both unconvincing AND convincing. Those who are unconvinced either go looking elsewhere (I think a lot of them ended up on IBTP for some reason) or give up entirely, as you say, but with a twist. I think the utter confused nonsense that s.e. smith posited as her reasons for “leaving feminism” is a good example of the crazy mish-mush of FF which confuses even those who should absolutely be able to see through it. I’ve been trying to figure out what in the world inspired her to write that and now this post gives me a bit of an inkling.
But there are plenty who are convinced (at any given time, at least) because it’s the ladies auxiliary of the Pat and for various reasons, there always seem to be the next gen of women who will cling to such things. There’s enough of some kind of something there to keep just enough of them rolling with it.
My story sounds very much like FAB Libber’s actually in terms of just always knowing something was off, even about some aspects my mom’s righteous second-wave activism.
I wound up commenting at IBTP because Feministing was not happy with Twisty! I thought, Well it must be better than this incomprehensible, wishes-it-was-feminism junk.
And it was because following commenter’s blog links there, eventually led me *here*.
So, thanks funfems???
This is a really, really FABulous point you all have brought up.
I had a very good friend who was slowly coming out of a christian fundie cult-like upbringing and she was very turned off by feminism, partly, because it is associated with being pro-abortion, but she also said she had met feminists and didn’t like them. Indeed, I’ve heard that said quite a bit. “Ew, I’ve never liked the feminists I’ve met.”
Anyhow, when I introduced this friend to some radical feminist ideas, she did like them. Sadly, I’ve noticed that non-political women are more open to radical feminism than are self-declared “feminists.” (These are virtually always “funfems”.).
it would probably be a good idea to take literally everything that we think of as “good” and ask “how does this benefit men?” and everything we think of as bad and ask “how does this threaten (or NOT benefit) men?” or even “how does this benefit women?” because thats probably the thought process that got us to these value judgements in the first place, we just dont know it, and thats exactly how they want it.
Yes, exactly. Look at marriage, it’s “good”, and it’s supposed to be good for women. But when you look at the stats, single women are happier than married women, and married men are happier than single men. Marriage benefits men, far more than it benefits women. But based on the the messages in the media, and”common wisdom”, that holds marriage as THE road to happiness for women, you would never, ever know it (unless youre a radfem, in which case you would probably suspect it anyway)
@noan
I think you’re probably right that a lot of disillusioned funfems end up at twisty’s. Which is why ibtp is only halfheartedly radical. Also, that link is hilarious. Way back when I wrote my very second post “the fallacy of cis privilege”, that meloukhia person was one of those who bagged me out over twitter, and gave me a lot of my initial traffic, lol. But now he’s leaving feminism, cause he hasnt been able to transjack it as much as he wanted to? We wont miss you! Bye!
I am almost embarrassed to describe my journey through online feminism. I was following a blog of someone who amongst other things, was a sex pozzer. Through that blog I found the wider sex-poz blogosphere. Eventually that led me to the libfem blogs, and then eventually to the rads. The big thing for me was that I had read some radfem stuff when I was in my teens, so I knew that the sex pozzers and libfems didnt represent the entirety of feminism.
I gave the sex-pozzers a chance though. For months they were the only feminist blogs I read, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Still ended up in the rad camp though. Heh.
i too was fortunate to have learned many years ago that there are more than one “kind of feminism.” i learned this in a survey-of-feminism type course in college, and yes i think it did give me that extra layer of support when i read the fun-fem blogs and thought “WTF?” honestly, the “more than one kind” thing is all a ruse, since the ONLY real feminism is radical feminism (obvs!) and all the others are male-placating and/or male-identified bullshit…but still. when i read the shit about trans-inclusion and owning your cis-privilege, i knew better. i really think that helped.
but i have to say, when i was brand-new and still finding my way, miska was brand-new too and i saw right away that we were kindred spirits. she was the ONLY one that was regularly-updating at the time, that was doing trans-critical work. you helped me find my way, miska! so, thanks!
@laur
Anyhow, when I introduced this friend to some radical feminist ideas, she did like them. Sadly, I’ve noticed that non-political women are more open to radical feminism than are self-declared “feminists.” (These are virtually always “funfems”.).
I would agree with this, and I’ve noticed the same thing. When we take away all the fancy language radical feminist ideas are actually very simple: PIV is harmful to women. Prostitution is harmful to women etc. A woman does not need any sort of political background to understand these ideas. And probably most women will have had some kind of first hand experience with the harms of PIV anyway. Non-political women are often open to radfem ideas because these ideas describe their reality.
But funfeminism and its ideological knots make these radfem ideas problematic. They aren’t “knotty” enough. They will reject something as simple as “PIV is harmful to women” because if something doesnt take chapters upon chapters of background queer theory in order to understand and decode it, then it must be wrong.
@FCM
Thanks! I remember when I started you (and UP) were the first regular commenters I got, and without the encouragement I wouldnt have gotten past the first couple of posts, and I really mean that. Also, it’s got to be said, thanks to you FCM, I will NEVER look at piv in the same way, and that has been perhaps the most significant part of my radical journey, both politically and personally.
the ladies auxiliary of the Pat
Brilliant!
thanks miska! its kinda my thing.
Really interesting post. I do think that the majority of women are against pornography and prostitution almost instinctively and most women also reject the idea of transsexuality. It takes years of being exposed to the toxicity of queer and pomo and funfeminist ideologies for women to be turned into proponents of this shit. Also the punishment and shunning of women who go against the grain on these issues within the malestream leftist and queer politics is enough to keep most women who identify as feminist firmly in line. Given that most women who identify as feminist, learn their feminism from these sources such as the malestream left, queer and gender studies at uni etc… this is a worrying thing.
wow, Miska. Thank you. What to talk about, which point to choose? It’s all so good. At first I thought this my pick:
If funfeminism insists on trying to compete with the malestream for the SexyFun gold medal, or even just insists on trying to keep up with it, the road ahead is paved with failure and even more humiliation for women.
but hafta go with this:
The only way feminism will get more women on board is if it can offer something to women that isnt already being shoved down their throats by men.
Can I have it on a t-shirt? I’ll wear it to the SlutWalk.
And that’s the only reason I’d go, btw. Just to prance around in that thing. Make sure eveeeeeeerybody sees it.
Thank you for writing this!