new questions in feminism]
The new orthodoxy
Women and sex
Beginning a discussion about sexuality isn't easy. How do we define sex? Has it always been defined in the same terms? What place does or should it have in our culture? These are difficult questions mostly because sex and sexual images, by and large, are still taboo subjects for women. Sexual information and images are still, in many ways, hidden. Sex is still, in most cultures, a "forbidden" impulse. It is a denied aspect of our being as women. Even among socialist women a discussion about sex often becomes a discussion about sexual violence, rape and sexual abuse. These are important issues, but they are not the only issues. It is almost as if we shared the traditional notion that for women sexual pleasure should be a very secondary concern. Nancy Herzig The post-war economic boom in the developed world created the conditions which made a renewed interest in sexual freedom more feasible. It permitted larger sectors of the population to live outside of traditional family arrangements and closed community structures. The expansion of waged-labour in urban contexts opened a wider space for individuals to live alone or within non-traditional family structures or co-habitation arrangements. In so far as many traditionally domestic products or activities became commodities or services bought in the market, the traditional household ceased to the a key economic unit in society.
This prepared the ground for a new wave of feminism, of sexual activism and experimentation and for the weakening of the traditional family as the only source of emotional, affective, sexual relationships and affinities. The wave of feminism of the 1960s and early 1970s was partly a product of these changes. So was the consolidation and construction of gay and lesbian communities in the post-war era.
Of course, these changes had a varied effect in different social strata. White men 16 International Viewpoint #298
WHAT'S
AN ORGASM,
MUM? generally had better access to higher education than blacks or women. Then, as now, they had more access to betterpaying jobs and more job stability. Thus it has been easier (though never easy) for urban male white gays to create an autonomous niche for themselves within existing society than for lesbians, or gay people of
The post-war economic boom that extended wage labour, improved wages, brought women into work outside the home and attracted or pushed millions into the growing cities, also produced revolutionary advances in reproductive technology. During the 1950s and 1960s, it became far easier to separate sex and sexual pleasure from reproduction. Youth culture
The expansion of mass universities laid the ground for the rise of an alternative youth culture in the 1960s. This soon began to challenge traditional notions of sex and gender. Men let their hair grow longer, women started cutting theirs
Two of the most visible cultural figures of the epoch, Elvis Presley in the 1950s and the Beatles in the 60's, stirred controversy (and captivated an audience which included many young adolescent women thanks to their unprecedented sexual aggressiveness or their failure to respect established gender rules regarding outward appearance.
The right wing was scandalised: not only were the kids protesting against war and militarism, which was bad enough, but one could not even tell the boys from
Some of the challenges to traditional culture which flourished in that atmosphere, may - in retrospect - seem trivial, absurd or extravagant. Nevertheless, they helped to break old cultural moulds and to
TASK TELFATHER open up a new epoch. The sexual revoluton even gave rise to a new vocabulary. The very concept of "sexism," modelled on the term racism, is a well known and lasting example. Other examples of the new language invented by the movement to formulate its demands and to explain the changes it was effecting in society include "right to choose", "sexual preference" and "sexual orientation," "women's liberation" (derived from the term national liberation), "sexual harassment," and "reproductive rights." Health demands
The struggles for abortion rights, access to birth control and gay rights directly challenged the traditional notion that linked legitimate sex with reproduc tion, marriage and the family. New perspectives on sex and sexuality promoted a re-valorisation of sexual pleasure in general, and of the right of women to explore their sexuality - often hidden or denied in traditional culture. When the women's movement advanced the demand for women's sexual health and information, including the emphasis it put on women's orgasms, it did so with the fundamental idea that women are sexual beings, and thus have right to sexual pleasure as much as men do. It was in this context that many in the women's movement dared to challenge the dominant Freudian orthodoxy regarding "vaginal" orgasm, an ideology which openly equated clitoral orgasm and sexual aggressiveness in women with arrested development and emotional immaturity.
Feminists, as well as gay and lesbian activists, also questioned the theories and practices of many "experts" in medicine and psychology. And countered many areas of traditional advice with their own views, based on their own experiences and research. In 1971 the Boston Women's
the US, of a Right-wing backlash directed - - -
Collective published the first edition of the immensely popular Our Bodies, Our Selves, a health manual written by women, for women. Also in 1971 Shere Hite published the results of her pioneering research on women's sexuality. Her results challenged the traditional idea that women were not interested in sex, or that their tastes and preferences were more passive or less physical than men's. The emphasis on women's orgasms was very much part of a wider struggle for the right of women to define their own sexuality, of the struggle of women for their sexual autonomy and liberation. A new mood
As a result of all this, structures that had been accepted as natural, normal, unchangeable and pre-ordained began to be seen as cultural, conventional, historical and above all, changeable. One of the main - and most valuable - ideas which emerged from this challenge to the traditional link between sex, marriage and reproduction was the revolutionary notion that there is not one normal, legitimate or correct form of sexual enjoyment. Women's sexual liberation was not about imposing a sexual orthodoxy, but rather a struggle to give women full access to a plurality of sexual options and
While the feminist, gay and lesbian movements helped to change dominant attitudes, the ruling economic and market forces in the developed world wasted little time in adapting and taking advantage of the rapid changes in people's attitudes regarding sexuality. What emerged was a complex dialectic between changing social attitudes - at least in part promoted by the new women's, youth, gay and lesbian movements - and capital's interest in tapping the many new and promising opportunities opened up by a wider public interest and openness toward sexual matters: sexual images in film and print became more daring, sexual toys and products made their appearance, and information about sex and sexuality became easier
Perhaps the most controversial change, along with the publication and popularisation of sex manuals and the liberalisation (especially in the US) of obscenity laws, was the wider circulation of sexually explicit materials. Beginning in the late
1970s - with the founding of Women
Against Pornography - the attitude toward such materials would generate a long and bitter debate among feminists that would last through the 1980's and 90's. This is ironical. While feminism was both a cause and a product of the rapidly changing world of the 60s, the need to respond to many of those complex and contradictory changes in the area of sexuality was to sharply divide the feminist movement during the following decades.
Divisions within feminism
The mid-1970s saw the rise in much of the developed world, and particularly in against the gains of the feminist, gay and lesbian movements. Extremely conservative, well-financed and strongly militant religious organisations developed a wide-ranging political agenda which highlighted sexual and reproductive issues (abortion, pornography, contraception, sex education, sex among young people, gays and
This backlash has not deprived women of all their recent gains. But this should not lead us to underestimate the strength of this right-wing offensive. It is impossible to trace the evolution of the complex debates that this backlash has provoked among feminists during the last two decades. But one important shift is the growing challenge to the early assumption that sexual freedom meant a step forward for women. More, and better sex
The initial impulse of the rise of feminism in the 60s was away from any sexual orthodoxy and toward a defence of self-determination in the sexual sphere: women wanted more, better, and more varied sex. Many of these views began to be questioned as the 70s wore on. The challenge came from several distinct, although sometimes mutually reinforcing angles.
Some tendencies within feminism began to doubt that the new sexual "freedoms" were freedoms at all, or steps forward for women. The freer circulation of pornography, and the ease with which men now left their wives to pursue interests: were these really great advances for women? Needless to say, it was not hard for these tendencies to arrive at conclusions not too different from the views of many right wing traditionalists who had all along argued that sexual liberation would hurt women while giving men more freedom to do as they please. In the 1980s we witnessed the bizarre alliance of radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin with right wing fundamentalists like
Senator Jesse Helms in a common front against pornography.
During the 1970s and 80s some tendencies within feminism embraced the notion of a specific "feminist", "liberated"
or "women's" sexuality. The rise of two currents of thought played a key role in this area: radical lesbian-feminism in the
1970s and difference or cultural feminism in the 1980s. Both tendencies shared a regrettable willingness to classify and extol certain sexualities as "liberating"
while condemning others as "oppressive"
Radical lesbian perspectives
The emergence of a radical-lesbian tendency became quite visible in the late
1960s when the leadership of the National
Organization for Women (NOW), the largest women's organisation in the US, carried out a purge against openly lesbianfeminists in its ranks. NOW's homophobic leadership - deeply concerned at the time with building a mainstream organisation and maintaining a "respectable" image for the US public - expelled lesbian feminists new questions in feminism? and openly refused to embrace the demands of the gay/lesbian community. This open display of homophobia within the women's movement helped crystallise a militantly political lesbian tendency. Lesbianism, for this current, was not only a legitimate sexual option for women: it became the prototype, the program and the practice of a liberated sexual practice freed from sexism.'
Radical political lesbianism argued that a close look at women's lives in the present and the past revealed how women - in spite of the restrictions imposed by patriarchal culture - had persistently sought to build truly fulfilling emotive and sexual bonds with other women. A key aspect of the patriarchy was precisely its age-old struggle to separate women from each other. The term lesbianism was thus expanded to include not only certain sexual preferences, but almost any emotional or physical bond between women which was judged to run against patriarchal rules. This tendency logically concluded that building and strengthening those repressed but persistent social and sexual bonds between women was the key task of a feminist culture and movement.
Through its critique of "compulsory heterosexuality" , political lesbianism highlighted as never before the fact that dominant sexual and gender definitions are historically constructed. Women should question what they have been taught about sex. And not assume that what "comes naturally" is indeed natural.
Nevertheless, the radical lesbian feminists' belief in a trans-historical lesbian impulse tended to undermine this important contribution. There was another problem: what about heterosexual or bisexual women, women who enjoyed sexual relations with men and even lived with them?
Were they betraying themselves - were they collaborating - by sleeping with the enemy? If lesbianism is liberating, is heterosexuality necessarily coercive, enslaving or degrading? This was indeed the conclusion of many militants within this current. And this is the problem with any position that takes up the defence of a particular sexual practice or practices as liberating for women: it ends up discounting
Fx new questions in feminism
-- -and disregarding the views and preferences of the many women which are bound to disagree with any particular definition of what sex should be like.
Cultural, difference & identity feminism
A diverse range of currents born in the
1970s and 1980s share the notion that there is a specific feminine culture, sexuality or nature.? According to these activists, women are more nurturing and more sensitive, than men. They value intimacy and reciprocity, tenderness and commitment, love and understanding far more than men. Their sexual desire is more diffuse, less aggressive, and less obsessed with the relentless phallic drive toward orgasm.
Men's sexuality, on the other hand is not only irresponsible, but potentially lethal to women: it objectifies women, shirks long lasting commitments, and tends to separate sex from any emotion. The more extreme radical feminists (see Dworkin's book Intercourse) conclude that male sexuality is always, by its very nature, Violent, egotistical and misogynist, and that all sexual encounters between men and women are indeed rape.
It is surprising how this allegedly radical perspective ends up resurrecting the traditional stereotypes about women which the earlier sex liberationists had rejected as limiting and oppressive to women. Such as the old myths that women are more spiritual, and less interested in orgasms than men are. Sex and danger
This type of analysis often argues that sex is fundamentally dangerous for women. And the most consistent defenders of this line have concluded that until sexism is laid to rest celibacy is the freest option for women! Freedom through sexual renunciation: one could hardly imagine a sharper reversal of the earlier demand for more, freer, more varied sex for all women. It is not difficult to see why traditional, right-wing religious organisations do not feel threatened by this type of feminism and have even adopted some of its arguments, in their attempts to censor pornography, for example.
No-one denies that sex can be dangerous. Rape is indeed a tragically common event, heterosexual relations in all cultures are usually quite unequal, and men are often irresponsible toward women and their feelings. But, as distasteful as it may be, a consensual sexual act, even one marked by some degree of sexism, is not the same thing as rape or forced sex. Little is to be gained in the struggle to better understand our experiences as women by erasing this difference.
In other words, a "radical" return to the traditional domestic values of an alleged women's culture is not the answer.
Difference feminism tends to consider not only men, but the many women that disagree with it as hopelessly misguided, and in need of a Big Sister to protect them from themselves. Faced with the objection that many women seem to consent to 18 International Viewpoint #298 sexual relations with men, difference feminists have often argued that since women have been shaped by a deeply sexist culture they cannot truly consent to anything. Their apparently consensual choices are in fact the product of sexist manipulation. Since most women cannot really choose, to limit some of their alleged "choices" (censoring pornography, for example, which some women do like) is not an act of repression, but a legitimate attempt to protect them from the sexist culture they have internalised. The authoritarian dangers of this perspective are quite evident. Not surprisingly, difference feminists have tended to be quite intolerant and dismissive of other currents.
Of course, the results of the sexual revolution have been highly uneven as far as women are concerned. We live within a fundamentally sexist culture, and all of us have, to one degree or another, internalised its values and categories. Most societies have traditionally segregated some areas of social activity as women's spheres, thus tending to create some typically (although never static) male and female personality traits. Radical, difference or cultural feminists have not invented the problems which they discuss. But they have tended to approach them in rather unilateral ways. And their attempt to define some sexual practices or attitudes as more feminist or liberating than others has proven to be a dangerous dead end. Sexual autonomy, social equality and cultural diversity
One cannot embrace a project of women's self-emancipation, while presenting oneself as the visionary vanguard or minority which has somehow discovered what "correct", free, "feminist" sexuality
On the contrary, in the struggle for a freer sexuality we should oppose all attempts to impose a "correct" sexual line, whether they come from the religious right-wing or from "feminists" years, religious fundamentalists and conservative "feminists" in a number of countries have sought to legislate sexual codes of conduct which often include new restrictions on young or unmarried or the censorship of sexually materials. This unholy feminism and conservatism exemplified by the anti-porn cr
We should reject both the complacent
"post-feminist" perspective which advises us to jettison our anti-sexist agenda, and the authoritarian materialism of those feminists who feel they are authorised to impose their views about sex on the rest of us. We need an approach which is critical and at the same time democratic, participatory and tolerant of the diversity of our sexual desires. A new, freer, and richer sexuality can only emerge to the extent that people, and women in particular, are guaranteed the possibility of freely and consensually exploring their desires, interests, preferences and fantasies; of learning from their own and other women's experiences; of arguing, debating, critic-
Several basic principles follow from this perspective of self-emancipation. First of all. nobody should be forced to engage in any sexual act, relationship or practice against their will. Likewise, nobody should be denied the right to their sexual orientation or preference or to consensually engage in certain sexual practices because some other person or group finds it offensive or objectionable. What we need is an ethics of relationships" and not a "morality of acts": as a movement we should worry more about how something is done (consensually, by mutual agreement, in terms of equality, etc.) than about
Women's ability to make freer individual choices in matters relating to their sexuality does not only depend on the absence of censorship or repressive legislation (as liberal feminists tend to think). It also depends on the effective presence of certain very concrete, material and social
The emphasis on the fact that economic well-being is not enough to end sexism has led some to forget that it nevertheless remains a key element in the struggle for women's liberation.
Guaranteed income, stable employment, reliable and good quality child care, housing, health services, and reproductive and abortion rights all extend the material conditions that enable self-determination for women. They enhance women's personal autonomy, which allows them a wider set of sexual choices, and permit them to refuse unwanted sexual and/or emotional relationships or encounters. * Notes 1. A key text in the evolution of this tendency is Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience" in Powers of Desire (Monthly Review, 1983). 2. Important critiques of this tendency are Alice Echols, *The New Feminist of Yin and Yang in Powers of Desire and Raquel Osbourne, La construcción sexual de la realidad (Catedra, 1993). 3. This distinction comes from Jeffrey Weeks, Invented Moralities (Columbia University, 1995).