22 August 2009 /
On the occasion of being used: speaking back to feminist men
/ 18 COMMENTS
Blog
- New Zeroes: A Wayback Machine for everything else
- Here’s Your Fucking Jetpack: The 00’s & the Sex Future That Wasn’t
- Doing It Professionally
- “Dear Internet”
- Under the umbrella of sex: or, Foucault’s wet dream
- Blonde Salvation
- New York (The First 6 Months, roughly)
- “where is your line?”: how we’re opening up consent
- Naturally Indignant
- Claiming “Spitzer 2.0″ as a headline before everybody else does
Bravo, Melissa. This world needs more brave women like you (as well as a greater capacity to listen to brave women like you).
A whole bowl of awesomeness, Melissa. This is really great.
And I’m sorry that “feminist” was such a dick.
Thanks, Melissa. This is really great. I appreciate your honest and thoughtful perspective.
That *any* supposedly “progressive” person thinks that “the policeman is your friend” speaks to an astonishing amount of blind privilege they’re still carrying around. White man much? And apparently he’s just into feminism to patronize a new group of women. Sheesh. Props to you for showing the patience I’d lack. Keep fighting the good fight!
WORD, Melissa. Goddess damn FREAKIN’ WORD.
The reason I became a supporter of “sex positive feminism” as a Leftist Black man (and yeah, I know, “sex positive” is kinda problematic to some, but it’s the best way I know for now to define my position on the nexus of free sexual expression, sexuality, and women’s equality), is exactly due to the inanity of “progressives” like that idiot who thinks that just because he mouths the word “feminist” he is authorized to lecture women on how they should behave and what they should think. How interesting that he claims himself to be a follower of “radical feminism” and a supporter of women’s autonomy…yet he won’t even listen to the experiences and beliefs of women even when they tell him TO HIS FREAKIN’ FACE what they want.
The really sad thing is that certain “feminists” who would otherwise prat on about the evil of men actually give him praise for this nonsense…and grant him more political power to undermine real women.
“Progressive”?? I don’t think so.
Brava, Melissa, for saying what needed to be said.
Anthony
Excellent piece. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, as a man who sometimes has the audacity to call himself a feminist, for speaking.
I also hope, though this guy came off as a prick in your essay, that some women will have the courage to continue speaking with groups like this who I believe really do have substantive points and ideas. There really is such a thing as human trafficking. It is appallingly common, and it needs to be addressed.
You’re right that it needs to start with listening. And maybe stay with listening for a long time. But that is easier said than done. How does one advocate for the invisible groups in our society without co-opting and patronizing those groups, but also without any clear easy way to hear their concerns, or even better – encourage them into leadership?
Thank you Melissa.
Hey, thank you everyone for the good comments.
Direct to Aric: I’m not sure, from Bob Brannon’s comments, if “substantive points” were introduced at the panel, or in their literature, or in the research they use when lobbying to intensify police power to intervene in cases of human trafficking. To be clear, I am not contesting that human trafficking is real. But I do not believe that further empowering law enforcement is a solution. This is a labor issue more than a criminal justice issue. Introducing law enforcement, especially federal agencies like ICE and the DEA, is a dangerous move when essentially what we are talking about when we are looking at trafficking is a) already criminal (rape, violence) and b) part of an informal economy susceptible to corruption, like bribery and extortion — including sex traded to the cops in exchange for “protection.”
This is well-documented to rights’ groups who do have a positive working relationship to people who sell sex, both under fair working conditions and under coercive and abusive conditions. One valuable resource — which I linked to in the body of my post — is the research conducted by the Sex Workers’ Project, a program within New York City’s Urban Justice Center. This a program that does an outstanding job of listening, listening grounded in valuing the contributions of people who sell and trade sex as essential to advancing social justice, and listening that turns to action in the form of court support and policy advocacy on behalf of people who do not have the capacity day-to-day to take out from the business of survival.
On my own semantic note, I don’t put a lot of stock in terms like “invisible” or “voiceless” to describe people. Sex workers are only absent and silent in our conversations about selling sex to the extent that sex workers’ contributions are not considered important. There are many projects worldwide that support grassroots leadership from people who sell and trade sex, many of which you can find through the Network of Sex Work Projects.
If you want personal stories from sex workers impacted by trafficking, the videos collected at Sex Workers Present are an excellent place to start, especially “Caught Between the Tiger and the Crocodile,” made by sex workers in Cambodia.
This is why I doubt that men can, really, be feminists. They are not women, cannot and should not speak for us, and DEFINITELY have no place building careers off “saving” us. They can certainly be allies (though this man is not, given the true colors that emerged), but how can they be feminists when they don’t even understand us–or care to?
Melissa,
Thanks for responding. I am in total agreement about the dubiousness of police involvement or any kind of “enforcement” on issues like this – with the possible exception of enforcement on the client side. I am in full support of arresting men who go abroad to avail themselves of sex workers who are often underage slaves.
Double thanks for pointing out ways I can listen. You’re right of course that being “invisible” is mostly a function of society not paying attention.
I was once told that men can have a place in the feminist movement – doing the photocopying and fetching coffee. A joke, obviously, but one with a legitimate point. I am continually reminded just how poor a job I’m doing of shutting up and listening. As “Used My Ass!” has said I cannot and should not speak for, well, anyone but myself. Even so I muddle along hoping to be corrected when necessary, but also actively trying to help my sons and my friends be better human beings. Sometimes that involves attempting to impart my best understanding of the experience of women and strangers. The act of imagining another person’s experience is crucial to the development of empathy. How else are we supposed to get better at this?
Thank you so much for this. When I sought assistance for domestic violence, my caseworker or whatever her title was, actively didn’t like my rejection of the dominant narrative. I was supposed to be a victim, and act like one, not demand better services and break the fourth wall by having agency and making nuanced choices and wanting to understand the role of culture and wondering where the perpetrator services were, because there were none in NYC if you were not involved with the legal system. Victim, dammit, victim!!
Uh-oh, looks like someone is very, very deluded.
Darling, having gone to a higschool that had “a paste-up riot grrrl inflected underground newspaper” and where a friend “from Gay/Straight Alliance turned [you] on to Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, and Huggy Bear” doesn’t establish your “cred.”
Far, far from it!
Rather it shows that you come from a background of some privilege and great whiteness, utterly unlike that of the vast majority of “sex workers”, in America and throughout the world. You’d be hardpressed to come up with anything that demonstrates less “cred” actually.
The post further demonstrates that while you really, really enjoy talking about yourself, the process doesn’t seem to have given you much insight into yourself. Or the world. Or how things work.
On the plus, side you are one fucking funny princess and all around droning narcissist.
Please keep the laughs and horrifically misguided self-promotion coming.
Paola –
You’re correct, I did enjoy popular music as a teenager. I still do to this day. This must explain why I am such a terrible activist.
I admit this blog entry isn’t the best way to get to know the whole of my work as a human rights activist, but I’m not sure how I can begin to address your comment. You came here with a load of assumptions about my experience and privilege and didn’t unload any information about your own.
Starting with questions would get you some answers, maybe?
It appears Paola is accusing you of hailing from Canada. It’s a serious charge.
I think you experienced something that all members of ‘fringe’ phenomenon do when outsiders are seemingly authorized to deliver the macro view, they do so vociferously and with the sanctimonious airs of Woodrow Wilson and his little brown brothers the world ’round.
or am I wrong?
I facebooked this link in all its glory.
I’m afraid men like that are part of what gives feminists a bad name, and why i no longer self identify as one, a movement that used to be about equal rights for women has become about PC sanctimony, and replacing patriarchy with matriarchy. If one tries to be a reasonable excuse for a human being, true feminist principles come naturally, and i don’t expect to be congratulated for it.
I stumbled upon your article while sex-negativity within the fat acceptance movement. I do not know why Google sent me here. But anyway… Your prose is entertaining and kudos to you for speaking truth to sex-negative, civil liberty negative PC power. But, I really, really wonder how relevant Brannon’s sex is to your critique. You could have documented his scary sex-negative ideology without bringing focusing on how his behavior fits with stereotypical male behavior. Your narrative seems to posit his MAB-ness (Male At Birth*) as the cause of his behavior. Taking a snarky swipe at a MAB feminist plays well to the peanut galleries and generates the necessary comments of “Yeah! fucking male assholes! Who do they think they are?”, but it really fucks things up for a MAB Genderqueer like me, for politically aware Transwomen and for man-identified progressives.
Brannon would have been just as sanctimonious and annoying if she had been anti-porn FAB RadFem. If overcompensation is at play than we can also look at why MAB Feminists feel the need to overcompensate.
Your Truly,
Jasper Gregory
*MAB = Male At Birth. I use it or MAAB not for PC reasons, but because it seems to be acceptable to both Trans Activists and their RadFem opponents
Trackbacks