Ask a Feminist: What Do You Think of Radical Feminist, Twisty Faster?

Image courtesy of LexnGer

This question is from male feminist and friend of NAW, Jeremy:

So I was reading Twisty's post today about the nude revolutionaries business and she argues that for western women to use their nude bodies for the purposes of subversion doesn't work because the nude female body is always re-inscribed into the male gaze. I wonder, then, if the female body must be hidden, how is this not simply placing the power over the female body back into patriarchal terms? She's right that a nude female body will be subject to the male gaze, but by hiding the body it is also responding to the shaping of the male gaze.

I couldn't remember if you had, so I was hoping you could point me to one of your blog posts that takes up this issue of female nudity, feminism, and the male gaze, or if you haven't written on it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. My initial reaction to articles on iblamethepatriarchy is usually one of resistance, but maybe because I think it's because I don't like that version of feminism because it feels to man-hating and second-wave-y to me. I'd love to learn otherwise, but from my infrequent reading, it sure seems that the spinster aunt doesn't like men, and doesn't like male feminists, so I end up being told that any response I might have is wrong or unwelcome right out the gate. Sure, that's what women have experienced for a very long time, but to try to shift the tables so men are then in the persecuted social position is the angry approach of second-wavers who seemed to often want to simply usurp the male authority rather than address the problematic social imaginary and logic that perpetuated the inequality and mistreatment.

Anyway, I'd love to hear your musings.



Now, ordinarily I'm wary of questions about man-hating feminists, since many people ask those questions out of ignorance. Their evidence for the existence of man-hating feminists tends to either come from pop culture representations of hot but angry women with short hair who say they refuse to shave their legs but who always have smooth legs on screen - or some people just get these questions from applying their pre-conceived notions of feminists in such a way that no matter what I say, they think anything other than "I want to obey a man" means "I want to dominate a man." I say, "You know, it's especially problematic that women are so often portrayed without faces in print advertising," and they say, "Sure, blame it all on the men!" Even though I never mentioned men. So, I'm normally cautious about those questions. 


But Jeremy's question struck a cord with me. Not only do I know Jeremy is himself a feminist who knows there are various camps in the movement and who does not buy into those stereotypes - I also know that Jeremy's asking about a specific blogger and about a recent post that left me with some similar questions. Plus, he's asking about a radical feminist that we at NAW kinda endorse by including a link in our blog roll. Awhile ago I posted about a conflict between Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy and a sex positive blogger (whom I linked once in my original post but am not linking again). See, Twisty uses a lot of anti-men rhetoric. This isn't to suggest that she hates all men - she has posted about male friends, for instance. But she is aggressively anti any form of patriarchy or femininity, as she sees patriarchy as the system at the root of all evil, and as she sees femininity as an unnatural system constructed to take power from women.


So recently Twisty blogged about nude feminists and explained why she saw a real reclamation of power in an Egyptian woman's decision to post nude photos in protest of restrictions placed on female attire in her home country, but why she saw a Canadian woman producing a pin-up calendar to simply play into patriarchal values. And that post is what inspired the first part of Jeremy's question - he wants to know my thoughts on this issue and whether I'd agree with Twisty. And, I am very much biased on this issue - we've discussed pornography at length on NAW since Erica sees it as (frequently) empowering, where I see it as (always) degrading to all participants, and usually degrading to women. Erica and I of course have our different biases - as someone who has never willingly watched anything that most people would call pornography, I feel outright traumatized if a pornographic image pops up on my computer. I feel violated - it is a violent experience for me. For Erica, the right kind of pornography can be quite liberating. So, we have different opinions. And there are a lot of different opinions out there. If I had my druthers, pornography would be illegal in the US, or at least more restricted. Yes, I'm that extreme. But I also recognize that quantifying and defining pornography is like trying to catch a shadow. While I see that vampire romance novel as pornographic, I know many people who disagree - and I don't have the right to make it illegal.


So I don't have a very good answer for this question of whether the pin-up calendar is liberating. If I had the stomach to click on Twisty's links to the calendar, I could tell you my opinion of that particular example of nudity-for-feminism. But I'm so opposed to pornography that I'm not about to click on something that touts itself as being in pin up girl style.


As for Jeremy's second question, about radical femininsts and man-hating, I have a few thoughts, but they're still conflicted. On the one hand, I don't share Jeremy's concern that Twisty wants to usurp male authority and set up a world where men are persecuted in the place of women. If anything, I get the impression Twisty just doesn't wants to live apart from men. Granted, she'll then go and post something about a male friend just to confuse me, and she says everything so tongue-in-cheek that I can never tell when she's serious. In fact, I've been chuckling over her posts for so long that it came as a shock to me when I read a recent post that is opposed to romantic relationships of any sort. When I saw the title indicating she was going to "give relationship advice to no one in particular," I expected something pithy about how damaging a certain type of relationship can be: instead, she advised all women to avoid relationship, even adding a note that homosexual relationships are just as damaging because they're based on heterosexual patterns.


And suddenly I sat back and thought, "Crap. She's serious." But even as I type this blog post, there's a part of me that thinks, "I don't know - she can't be against all relationships." But she says she is, and I think I'm guilty of putting up Twisty in my own image. So how do I feel about Twisty's message? I don't know!


But back to Jeremy's request for links to NAW posts dealing with issues of nudity, the male gaze, etc. 


First off, one of our earliest posts came from Erica in 2009, "My Body's Politik," where Erica discusses these issues in the context of her own body and her conflicted emotions about weight loss.


Then I've got a post from last year where I listed off various discussions involving feminism and the body, "Bodies and the Blogosphere." Incidentally, that post includes a brief discussion of Twisty's views on pornography.


If you want to see a full-on conversation about pornography, Erica and I had a conversation in a series of posts last year. First Erica responded to "Bodies and the Blogosphere" (above), in "Porn, Porn, Porn." I then did some research in order to provide an articulate answer and wrote, "The Problem with Porn: Part 1" and "The Problem with Porn: Part 2." Sadly, I never felt that I'd finished that discussion. The timing was just bad - it was the beginning of a particularly stressful period of my life, a period which never quite ended (I know, I know, Rich World Problems and all that). 


You might also appreciate Erica's discussion of "Self-centered Sex Differences" and how the concept of penis envy assumes a penis inherently brings power that breasts and a vagina don't. And then there's Michelle's post about the class virgin/whose (false) dichotomy, "Caught Between an Angel and a Prostitute."  And there's also my post from Fall 2010, "Naked Skin: Why I Love My Face Without Makeup."


And then you really should just look over the entire month of January 2011, as our theme was the body. I also kinda wish I could find an earlier post where Erica pointed to a plus model who was in a relatively tame commercial but who faced a strong retaliation from family-minded folks who interpreted her curves as pornographic. Which is, again, why I recognize that pornography is a tricky, tricky, tricky subject.

Links of note

Right- so I've fallen behind in news posts because being "funemployed" means that I spend way too much time on Lamebook and not enough time engaging in important issues. Gotta love it! So here's my attempt to put on my grown-up pants and get back into the swing of things.

First, I've got a heartbreaking piece from Janell Burley Hoffman about fat-shaming and her seven-year-old daughter, which is a quick peek into the challenges parents face when raising their kids in a culture that makes it okay to shame bodies. As a non-parent, I don't have to respond to my young daughter's desire to have a flat stomach, but this piece raises questions for me about my language and what I am and am not modeling for young women in my life. How can all of us be more conscious of our words and gestures so that young girls- young people- don't grow up with the same prejudices and self-loathing that so many of us did?

Along the same lines, Heather Cromarty has a few choice words for the Marilyn memes out there. While I can see how easy it is to reduce Marilyn Monroe to her appearance- that's what we do with famous women, right? Especially the ones who were typecast as sex symbols- it's important to take the time to break down what exactly we're saying when we make the claims we make (especially the ones in these memes).

Next up, an informal study by Becky Chambers raises some interesting points about sex and gender representations and choices in online roleplaying games. My partner was actually the first one to send me this link, and the subject is something we've discussed repeatedly over the course of our relationship (we're both nerds). Basically, it can be summarized as "lots of cis guys like to play female characters in games." What makes this article so cool is that the author gets some feedback as to why, and it's more than just "if I'm going to look at a character on a screen for six hours, I want it to be a hot female." No really, it is. It's a long article, but worth reading as it breaks down not only the responses of the players but also the gendexing of the game developers.

Finally, this piece about Cynthia Nixon's recent remarks on her sexuality left me speechless with awe. The "choice vs. born this way" argument about sexuality has always left me a bit uncomfortable because each side has its openings for bigotry and persecution (nouveau eugenics, anyone?) and it seemed like a waste of energy. Who cares why anyone is or isn't gay? Nixon does a beautiful job of articulating this sentiment and illustrating it with her own experience, so I highly recommend that you check it out. If you're too lazy to click the link, I leave you with this quote:

I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate.

That is all.

Parts in the Press

In keeping with the theme of the month, I thought I'd post some articles that deal with a body image and weight loss topic that always seemed ridiculous to me: pregnancy and weight gain. Sure, too much weight gain during pregnancy and a person can develop gestational diabetes- not fun- but too little weight gain and that person isn't really doing their future child (or themselves) much good. But since most countries in the "West" are obsessed with weight, high expectations are often set by the media and enforced by our peers (and, lamentably, our own inner voices) about how our bodies should look before, during, and after pregnancy. Here are some links, with commentary.

First, commentary from Amy Adams about pregnancy and her upcoming movie revealed more than intended. Not only did she play up the uber-motherhood angle (especially being "vulnerable" and "softer"), but she also revealed that she loved the physical changes she underwent while pregnant: "The whole purpose of my body was no longer to fit into a sample size. It was to nurture another being. So I always felt great, no matter what I was wearing." Hooray for admitting that being bigger felt good! Unfortunately, that message is quite lost in an article that's filled with photos of her looking skinny and quips from the author about "just how much weight" Amy's lost.

Second comes the "let's conceal the pregnancy bump!" from Natalie Portman. The article lauds Portman's choice of dress at a recent awards show because it "artfully" conceals her baby bump. To this I have to ask: when someone's pregnant, what's wrong with their baby bump? Are they not allowed to have a bump because they're a celebrity or because they're human? Since when is it considered a wise choice to try and hide a pregnancy that's already been announced to the world? If you're pregnant and announcing it, why bother?

Third isn't really a news link, but an example of how hegemony culture has valorized skinniness to the point where doctors and nutritionists have to warn us not to try and lose pregnancy weight the way celebrities seem to. Unfortunately, the article still focuses on "getting your body back," as though pregnancy and childbirth aren't things that can alter your shape forever. Think about it: the process of being pregnant stretches your skin, loosens your ligaments, and even alters your bone structure. Looking the same as you did before pregnancy not only hides the fact that your body's done something incredible, but also buys into a culture that suggests that the physical act of becoming a parent turns your body into something shameful because it's no longer been used just for sex. Remember: bodies are pleasing and fun, but bodies do a lot more. Valuing your body for all that it's done (and will do) is a much better idea than lamenting the fact that the hegemony doesn't categorize you solely as a sex object anymore.

And beyond pregnancy, I bring you a very exciting article from (of all places) the Daily Mail, in which Raven Symoné of "The Cosby Show" and "That's So Raven" says that she liked her figure better when she was heavier. Read that again. She liked her figure better when she was heavier. How many people can claim that, both publicly and shamelessly? I think it's especially encouraging that she pointedly talks about the gazes she receives, and how before she lost weight people "were actually looking at me for a real reason" instead of just looking at her body. While I'm not sure I believe her story about why she lost weight- she claims a lack of stress- I like what she has to say. Wouldn't it be great if we could all like our bodies the way they are?

This concludes our brief journey through bodies in the news. If you're wondering why so much of this article is celebrity-focused, think about it: not only are celebrity bodies a constant topic of conversation in the gossip press, but in a world where Americans are surveyed to find out which celebrities they want to get plastic surgery to look like, how celebrities are shaped and talk about their figures- and how newspapers, tabloids, and we talk about their figures too- has a great deal of influence over how we view our own.

The "Perfect" Size

The Daily Mail- the British rag I love to hate- has a piece out today about size 12 women (approximately the equivalent of a U.S. women's size 8) and whether this is the "perfect" size. It features short pieces from five different cis women who fit that size, with their height, weight, and waist measurements listed, and then gives each of the women an opportunity to comment on her feelings about her body.

I'm somewhat ambivalent about this article. On one hand, why is it that articles like these are always about bodies? Why can't articles like these focus on other body shapes and sizes- including bodies that are considered plus sized? On the other hand, there's part of me that was excited by the display of measurements and photos...because it emphasized the diversity that bodies create. Not all people wearing the same size are built the same. I'd have loved to see more emphasis on that.

Questions in the news (from Erica)

Now that the master's degrees are out of the way, I can finally come back to the bloggosphere and bring you some interesting editorial items that have been catching my attention for the last few weeks! In no particular order, but probably oldest first...

Here's an article about a sex ed campaign in the UK that emphasizes- wait for it- masturbation. The campaign's point is that sexual pleasure is a natural drive of most adolescents, and that instead of expecting teens to be fully abstinent, we should be teaching them to find ways of indulging that don't put themselves (or others) at risk. My two cents? Brilliant idea. While I have no delusions that masturbation promotion will eliminate risky sexual behaviour amongst teens, it'll probably reduce it- or at least give teens to learn about their bodies in ways that don't involve others trying (and failing) to do so for them.

Then, of course, the retirement of Justice Stevens from the U.S. Supreme Court has garnered attention for political pundits everywhere. A lot of this attention, of course, dichotomizes attention to the law and attention to "morality" (however you define that term)- which is a really bad idea. The law COMES from a moral structure, and professes to uphold it. This is a decent editorial that provides an interesting layout of how, exactly, morality and the law often go hand-in-hand for the benefit of people and their civil rights.

Vanity Fair ran an interesting piece on the cost of the Republican Party these days, examining how much money we spend on them to stand around and say "no" when they could be doing something useful for the world. My only complaint about the article? I'd love to see it in a side-by-side comparison with the cost of the Democrats, since while I'm pretty far left in my political leanings, I'm not naive enough to believe that the Republicans are the only ones with bloated staff and benefits.

Here's an interesting post from Ephphatha Poetry, asking us to consider how the media and the public would handle Tea Party (and Conservative in general) behaviour if the racial demographics of its participants were different. I won't waste space by describing it- he's very eloquent- but instead I strongly encourage you to go read it for yourself!

And finally, I'm embedding the YouTube copy of a Lane Bryant ad that's got people all riled up:

What's got them upset, you might ask? Well, since major networks (including Fox, CNN, and ABC News) decided to pull it, many people have been bringing this question to as much attention as possible. The answer, of course, is that the model is plus-sized. It has nothing to do with the relative amount of nudity pictured- not with ads for Victoria's Secret, Viagra, and hell, even just cars on display through the same networks. It's simply the fact that there's a buxom, beautiful woman being displayed. And that makes people angry, apparently.

Happy boobquake everyone!