Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon has another one of those silly moments where she forgets that anti-feminists know so much more about feminism and what it really means.
[Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online] is the first to line up to explain to all the stupid feminists why we’re so stupid thinking we actually enjoy contraception, sex, and having choices.
In an otherwise largely celebratory forum on the pill at CNN’s website, Republican strategist and book publisher Mary Matalin cleverly and jarringly wrote: “Packages of portable liberation ushered in a generation of women determined to break free from their inferior patriarchal oppressors. And how did they manifest their superiority? Their freedom? Thanks to The Pill, by casual, drive-by sex. Whoa. That really showed those stupid boys.”
They can keep telling us that feminism is about hating men, and therefore we’re breaking our own rules by having good relationships with them and (if we’re straight) enjoying sex with them, but it’s not sticking. Perhaps they’re wrong about what feminism is? I don’t know; I’m just an actual feminist. So when I say that feminism is about women’s equality and creating a non-patriarchal world where men and women are freed get along as equals, I don’t know what I’m talking about. The only people who get to define feminism are people who oppose it.
Say what you like about Sigmund Freud but I think the world is a better place for his articulation of projection — the tendency to see in others the evils one perpetrates, or at best most wishes to perpetuate, oneself.
I mention this because for all that anti-feminists claim they’re standing up for the definition of men as… well… by-definition superior to women, they’ve got some seriously, seriously man-hating tendencies.
I mean yeah, Lopez is dumping on women for having Teh Sex with men but… but… some times you just gotta ask yourself why she’d think that would be a problem. And the answer, I’m pretty sure, boils down to one of three possibilities:
1) she thinks men are disgusting creatures who’s penises by their very existence sully women. Or
2) she thinks men are lazy animals who can’t be persuaded to do anything at all, let alone anything productive, couth, or genteel, unless they’re positively starved for sex. Which starvation will never take place if women succumb to their own “animal” instincts and “give it up” for free. Or
3) both #1 and #2.
Lopez, who hates men, projects this hatred onto feminism. Which she also hates. Furthermore, she then hates feminism worse for “contradictions” she perceives between how feminists behave and how she thinks feminists ought to behave.
The problem being that Lopez confuses “patriarchy,” which feminists rightly oppose, with “men,” who feminists can get a little impatient with but with only the occasional exception feminists don’t hate at all.
Clue time? Patriarchy is not limited to men. Patriarchy is a coed enterprise. Lopez isn’t a dupe or a thrall of patriarchy, nor a collaborator with it, nor is she a “useful idiot” of patriarchy (though, sorry, she is an idiot!) Instead she’s a fully-invested, active agent of it, a would-be architect of it. And as part of the patriarchy she hates men even worse than she hates women who have sex with them.
Now as to the substance of Lopez’s claim I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if you go on the pill just so you can let men have “casual” sex with you then… then I think it’s a good idea to maybe rethink both your relationship to men and your relationship to sex and who your sexuality it’s really for. And about. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to rethink your relationship to the pill, as Lopez would have you do. The main thing the pill does, or any other contraception does, is help couples, of whatever duration, avoid pregnancy. Who one has relationships with, and why, is an issue contraception really isn’t going to help, except possibly to the extent it helps avoid obstacles that make exiting an unfortunate relationship very much more difficult.
Oh and can I just add one more thing about Lopez and the pill in particular but contraception in general? Who does she thinks uses contraception here? It’s at least as common among married and/or partnered women as it is among “casual” sex-having single women. And if you take into account the married women who are currently actively seeking planned, wanted pregnancies I’m… pretty sure married women who aren’t trying to get pregnant are even more likely to use contraception. So WTF with her implication that the pill primarily enables casual sex? As opposed to sex inside established and even long-term committed relationships.
When you see patriarchal framing you probably want to call it. Lopez is a patriarch. Framing contraception in terms of “casual” sex and “letting” boys have sex with you? That’s patriarchal framing.
Sometimes my mind makes the
Submitted by fiveofnine (not verified) on Sun, 2010-05-30 03:33.Sometimes my mind makes the oddest link. After reading this post, I remembered a fellow WAC saying, “I joined the Army so that I could learn self discipline.”
Might I suggest that this
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Sun, 2010-05-30 15:39.Might I suggest that this sort of thing is more common and generally applicable than one might think? I’ve noticed that very often when someone hates a particular group of people, they usually don’t understand that group’s motivations and/or viewpoint. They generally end up coming up with theoretical motivations and/or viewpoints based on extrapolations of their own. And then they either consider that group to be supremely hypocritical due to the disconnect between that theoretical and the actual behavior, or else evil and/or insane based on that theoretical alone.
People who understand the actual motivations and/or viewpoints may sometimes pity those who hold them if they strongly disagree, and/or see them as lost children who need to be led to whatever the opposite of “astray” is. But they rarely hate them.
[Nicely put, Nightfall. I agree projection is extremely common. And for some categories of behavior I’m guilty of “othering” people myself. Generally, though, it’s not that people are insane-insane as operating, often with a great deal of intelligence and nuance, under a handful of very, um, limiting assumptions. I have a hard time being patient with that, especially when the consequences are widely destructive while the results are only narrowly beneficial. One example would be people who are just dead sure that the best way to scare people out of having sex is to make it as dangerous as possible via deliberate strategies of misinformation and withholding of care. Their compassion may be admirable but their results are generally anything but! Thanks. —fl]
Great post Figleaf. I
Submitted by Selina (not verified) on Mon, 2010-05-31 06:29.Great post Figleaf.
I agree that opinions like Lopez’ really set feminism back. She’s only looking at this from a man-hating women’s point of view. What about a man’s point of view? Not every man wants to be loved and left. Not every man wants to fuck around all the time without the responsibility of making a family. Not all men (or women) are the same. Silly of her to think in stereotypes.
What needs to develop alongside feminism is masculinism – it’s time for the world to re-think what it means to be a man and change the status-quo. Patriarchy is oppressive to men as well as women. The idea that men have to fit into a very narrow way of being it tough for some men to live with. you have to be the “man of the house” when we all know that women really are in charge. You have to be strong, dependable, sexually predatory, wear suits and other very boring uninspired clothing. Now that women have the freedom to control their reproductive systems, earn their own money, wear what they like, sleep with who they like, it’s time for men’s role/behaviour in society to change as well. Don’t you think it’s high time that men were allowed to express their soft, vulnerable, emotional, femine sides without being ridiculed, abused or pigeon-holed as “gay”?