[LAF] anarcha-feminism vs pseudo-feminism

[Joy Wood]

Steve
 
In your previous email you made this plea:
 
"Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:39:01 +0000
> From: steveash_2001 at yahoo.co.uk
> To: laf at lists.aktivix.org
> Subject: [LAF] In responce to feminazism
> 
> 
> .....Please argue against what I actually saying instead of your opposing strawman arguements ....."
 
Yet the whole of your following email consists of strawman arguments and little but.  Furthermore your "conclusion" does not follow from the previous statements.  None of it is an argument.  The first six paragraphs are designed to set up your definition of a good woman and a bad woman, to clearly show which are which, to place anti-prostitution-pro-women feminists in the bad category and to encourage people both to pillory them and avoid being on the 'losing' side by expressing any kind of support for their struggle.
 
In response to your final paragraph, rather than being pathological it is instead robustly healthy to recognise and state that women who promote prostitution are not only supporting the view that sex work is good (rather than admitting what prostitution promotes, namely a denial of women's sexual freedom at the expense of some men's), they are also shoring up the status quo of treating women as primarily a resource for men's benefit and, in addition, by their support of the behaviour they are encouraging such abuse and causing it to increase.  In other words, I have read nothing on this e-list from anti-prostitution-pro-women feminists or pro-feminist males condemning women who work as prostitutes or saying that they should be banned from doing so.  All I have read is people pointing out the consequences which such promotion of abuse (ie prostitution) leads to.

 

However, I have read strawman arguments, including one mendaciously accusing the whistleblowers of calling women who work in prostitution "evil" and all this has done is change the subject so that instead of discussing the behaviour of people who exploit women, and the ideology of the people that support said exploitation, the subject has been dropped and, instead, the people who point out this abuse and challenge it are accused of being themselves the perpetrators of abuse.

 

Joy
 
> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:39:35 +0000
> From: steveash_2001 at yahoo.co.uk
> To: laf at lists.aktivix.org
> Subject: [LAF] anarcha-feminism vs pseudo-feminism
> 
> 
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> What is feminism? An attempt to counter phallocratric dominance and create equality of gender, a form of humanism with a special emphasis on the situation of women, and carried out by self-emancipating women, or a soapbox for frustrated and weak women, seeking to impose their views, hang ups and power drives on other people. 
> 
> The first is obviously compatible with an anarchism the second isn't. 
> 
> The screaming feminist raging against 'men' in defence of 'women' has obviously no concept of the individual person and their unique situation, or the slightest trace of empathy for another human being, they deal in such abstractions and generalisations as 'womankind' because these things exist in their own heads and not in the real world. They are only concerned with themselves and their own ideas, feelings and frustrations and the projections of these onto society at large. They talk about social justice and pretend to care about oppressed women, even giving genuine individual cases of such oppression, but when it comes to a solution the answer is always 'collective', we all have to do this or else (alas human nature is such that we will never all do the same thing so this automatically entails a fascist hatred of whatever minority doesn't play ball). The actual liberty of every individual regardless of gender, race or behaviour, is an alien concept to
> them. The individual cases they may give merely pawns in their arguement used to impose an ideology designed simply to empower them personally. This is essentially a soft form of fascism. It is even worse than the career feminist seeking to gain a place in a male hierarchy, at least such a feminist is honest. But I despise both, not as 'women' but as self centred individuals.
> 
> Anarcha-feminism is very different, and is only really practicable by actual individual women in their own personal lives, men can never be anarcha-feminists, though they can and should give support. The anarcha-feminist does not deal in abstractions or generalisations but actual concrete situations, there is no collective action in anarchism other than the mutual aid freely expressed on a personal level. Ideally the struggles undertaken by the anarcha-feminist are self emancipatory and do not emancipate other people or even attempt to, as the only person who can liberate someone is themselves. However they can and should form mutual aid pacts with the disempowered women in order to help those women empower themselves (if they have the inclination and time). 
> 
> In terms of sex work this means stepping in and helping sex workers free themselves from exploitation, not faffing on about what's right or wrong or lecturing people on how they should behave, but actually doing something practical to liberate those sex workers (female, male and transgender).
> Not liberating them from sex work itself (if that's what they freely choose), for sex and work are important elements of any society, but from exploitative forms of sex work, creating positive forms of sex work, regardless of whether this is charitable or pleasure giving to the worker.
> Any view that sex work itself is inherently bad clearly indicates a negative attitude to voluntary work or free sex that is frankly pathological. If women don't want to be sex workers that's fine too, few if any want to be exploited, but if they want to be non-exploited workers that's there right regardless of what anyone's ideology or social generalisations is imposed on them. 
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