Feed the FAQ: the policing of women’s sexuality and double standards

Crowd-sourcing time! From KellyK in the Suggestions thread:

Can you add “slut-shaming” and/or “mother/whore dichotomy” to Clarifying Concepts? A classmate of mine posted something I found mildly offensive and I’m having trouble elucidating why it strikes me as sexist, and would really like something to point him to when he inevitably asks what I’m being so critical of. (We’re reading The Economics of Attention and he’s arguing that the author favors attention itself over substance–using whores and mothers as a metaphor for this, complete with the tropes of “whore=deceptive”, “mother=wholesome.”)

There’s a lot to unpack in this, and I’d appreciate some input on how best to start. Please share links to relevant posts that analyse/explain how slut-shaming etc attitudes work to constrain and otherwise harm women, and feel free to share your own thoughts as well. Then I can use your input and provided links to write up an FAQ.

FAQ: vagina vs vulva and public “faces of feminism”

Q: A celebrity feminist said something about the incorrect usage of vagina vs vulva and I want you to explain every nuance of her thoughts to me and why feminism thinks that way.

A: “Feminism” doesn’t necessarily think that way just because that celebrity feminist does.
Possibly there is controversy about her opinion.
Possibly her opinion is highly unpopular.
Also, just a thought, possibly she didn’t actually say quite what you think she said?

This same sort of “justify feminism’s opinion on this” request gets made all the time based on the media asking celebrity feminists to opine on various matters, but the vulva/vagina distinction is a golden oldie, so why not let it be the model?

OK, let’s start with some anatomy revision.

FAQ: Rape Culture 101

This post was written by Melissa McEwan and originally published at Shakesville on October 09, 2009
Editor’s note: this post does not follow the usual FF101 FAQ conventions, but it’s being included in the FAQ list anyway.

[Trigger warning.]

Frequently, I receive requests to provide a definition of the term “rape culture.” I’ve referred people to the Wikipedia entry on rape culture, which is pretty good, and I like the definition provided in Transforming a Rape Culture:

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

But my correspondents—whether they are dewy noobs just coming to feminism, advanced feminists looking for a source, or disbelievers in the existence of the rape culture—always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like?

It is not a definition for which they’re looking; not really. It’s a description. It’s something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery.

Press Release from Equality Now

Remember the RapeLay video game, written about by Melissa and Cara back in February? Equality Now has been working to persuade Japan to uphold its obligations under UN conventions with respect to material that normalises and/or promotes violence against women and girls.

EQUALITY NOW CALLS ON NEW JAPANESE ADMINISTRATION TO BAN ALL GAMES THAT PROMOTE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

JAPAN MUST FULFILL ITS OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE UN WOMEN’S CONVENTION BY IMPLEMENTING RECENT RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CEDAW COMMITTEE

Equality Now calls on the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the country’s newly-elected administration recently sworn into office, to ban all games that normalize and promote violence against women and girls. During a recent review of Japan’s compliance with its obligations under the UN’s Women’s Convention (CEDAW), the CEDAW Committee strongly urged Japan “to ban the sale of video games or cartoons involving rape and sexual violence against women which normalize and promote sexual violence against women and girls.”

This follows wide public debate including about computer games produced in Japan such as RapeLay in which players simulate the rape and sexual abuse of women and girls. Equality Now launched a global campaign in May 2009 targeting corporations involved in the production and sale of such games, known as hentai, as well as the then ruling party of Japan. Post-elections,
Equality Now’s campaign will continue to pressure the corporations as well as urging the new DPJ administration to comply with its international obligations.

On the Mommy and Daddy Binary

[this post was originally posted on Shakesville with the title Mommy v. Daddy ]

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Via Media Matters, I find this gendered analysis of Tuesday’s debate in the LA Times:

The late conservative economist Jude Wanniski once dubbed Republicans the “Daddy Party” and Democrats the “Mommy Party.” On Tuesday, Obama seemed to prove his point by laying out the more expansive government role in caring for middle-class Americans. And he mentioned not only his mother, but his wife and grandmother too.

First, let’s talk about how this is insulting to men, via its implicit contention that men don’t care for other people, and, quite specifically, if one takes this tired metaphor to its logical conclusion, that fathers don’t care for their children. Men are there to provide and discipline; women are there to care. This lie is the foundation for every damnable binary about sex and emotion in our culture—men are rational; woman are emotional—and it is on what we’ve based our pernicious refusal to regard the most destructive versions of emotions like anger, jealousy, possessiveness, vengeance, apathy, and selfishness as not emotions at all, but merely biological evidence of strength, as long as they emanate from men.

On Gendered Language

[this post was originally posted on Shakesville with the title I Write Letters ]

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Dear English-Speaking World:

Pursuant to yesterday’s letter regarding the cessation of your use of the terms “man’s man” and “ladies’ man,” I would also like to request that you jettison the following from your vocabularies: “He’s all boy” and “She’s all girl.”

These terms are used to refer to children, anywhere from infancy to about 10 years of age, who are regarded as conforming nicely to the sex- and gender stereotypes prescribed by The Patriarchy^TM. Sometimes, their use is only as pernicious as reinforcing an exclusionary narrative like all male humans like sports or all female humans like fashion.

On The Feminine as an insult

[this post was originally posted on Shakesville with the title Seriously, Learn To Equality ]

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In an uncanny timeliness, given today’s discussion thread, I got an email earlier from Shaker PatC, who provided last night’s QotD. Quoted with permission:

Thank you so much for using that as the QOTD! I’m so excited to have been quoted as “her”! I’m working on a paper on 18thC sexuality right now and so gender bending is topical for me (full disclosure, I am biologically and identify as a man). Regardless, thanks for using my idea. Shakesville kicks ass.

Cheers,
PatC

I had no reason at all to assume PatC was a woman, and I’m frankly not sure why I did; I’ve had female and male friends called Pat, and my email correspondents collectively skew slightly more male. So big wev to me: lol my gender assumptions.

What was more interesting to me was my reaction to PatC’s email: I was surprised, relieved, and grateful that he wasn’t insulted by having been presumed a woman.

And it was sad to me that I found it notable when his response wasn’t aggrieved.