Part of the reason that patriarchy remains the ruling religion of the planet such that men can exact a plethora of pernicious harms on and against women and girls is because of the way people, both male and female, think about the reality of sex and gender. The normative cognitive pattern is oftentimes convoluted and, as many radical feminists point out when examining the way mainstream people think about the issue, crazy. Examples of this craziness would be the widespread, common belief that there exists a relatively equal “battle of the sexes” in which men commit various physical and emotional deleterious harms against women as women conversely subject male people to a wide range of somatically and emotively harmful actions. The inaccuracy of this argument is understood in the radical feminist retort: “Oh, so a man rapes a woman and then she rapes him right back?” The fallacious reasoning and language that produces the commonly accepted idea that misogyny and misandry coexist in equal proportions is not the only concept which complicates and compromises our ability to accurately understand the male proclivity towards multifarious types of violence (including but not limited to “sexual” violence and non-”sexual” violence).  

Another concept which has made the attempt to establish radical, revolutionary ways of understanding and responding to the reality of male supremacy difficult is ongoing contention regarding whether the term “sex-based oppression” or “gender-based oppression” should be utilized to reference the processes  of degradation and dehumanization that women experience under patriarchy. In this post, I argue that both terms can and should be used to discuss patriarchy while acknowledging that the radical feminist norm is to only incorporate the former term into academic and non-academic discourse regarding the ongoing wars that men wage against women.  

To understand the issues that exist with respect to whether the term sex-based oppression or gender-based oppression should be used in discourse regarding patriarchy, one must consider the origins and ideological camps in which the terms are situated. Although difficult to pinpoint precisely, it seems that the term “sex-based oppression” is linked to the term sexism. Coined in 1965 by Pauline Leet during a forum at Franklin and Marshall College, the term was likely modelled on premises similar to those that gave rise to the word “racism.” Leet defined sexism as a process which involved using fallacious logic to legitimate discrimination against female people. The term was subsequently utilized by many other individuals, including Caroline Bird in her introduction to the text “Born Female.” As dissident and increasingly radical discourses and theoretical frameworks continued to surface, the phrase “sex-based oppression” appeared and gained prevalence in various feminist circles and academic groups. The term finds its home with radical feminists, and individuals of this ideological group utilize the term to advance the idea that the oppression women experience is rooted in biological sex (which includes things like physical vulnerability and reproductive capacities which exist because of the reality of female bodies). Radical feminists such as Gayle Rubin contributed to the development of a theoretical framework which enabled individuals to contemplate sex-based oppression without conflating biological gender and sex. Biological sex is distinct from biologically-related yet not bound understandings of gender, with gender being a social construct through which the application of certain values, attributes, characteristics, expectations, and social norms are projected onto both men and women based on their biological sex.  

Unlike sex-based oppression, the term gender-based oppression does not find its origins in the understanding of male supremacy as an ideology and practice which involves expressing  hatred and control of female bodies. Rather, gender-based oppression is rooted in understandings of how various sociocultural, political, and economic factors have given rise to the concept of gender, with this concept functioning as the springboard through which members of both sexes can be oppressed. In defining gender oppression, the Wiley Online Library asserts that:  

Gender oppression is defined as oppression associated with the gender norms,  relations, and stratification of a given society. Modern norms of gender in western  societies consist of the dichotomous, mutually exclusive categories of masculinity and  femininity. Developing in tandem with industrial capitalism and the nation-state, they had  particular consequences for women and men. While masculinity was to consist of  rationality, autonomy, activity, aggression, and competitiveness (all qualities that made  men the ideal participants in the emerging public sphere of economy and polity),  femininity was defined in contrast as emotionality, dependency, passivity and nurturance  -– all qualities that deemed women’s “place” in the private sphere.  

Within this framework, the reader can identify how gender-based oppression is rooted in the development of ideas regarding women and men which unfolded in context of specific ideological realities, including but not limited to economic norms. In this example, we learn that men come to be associated with masculinity, with this state being associated with the acquisition and possession of specific characteristics that are deemed positive, good, valuable, etc. Conversely, women are relegated to the sphere of femininity, being associated with attributes that are deemed less valuable and connotative of inferiority such as passivity, nurturance, and dependence. It is important to note that the aforementioned excerpt emphasizes that masculinity and femininity are conceptualized as mutually exclusive realities, meaning that this construction of gender conforms to the logic of domination’s inclination towards organizing individual identity and social life in terms of hierarchies and binaries. The hierarchical, binary-based organization of both race-based and gender-based realities works to reinforce inequality by emphasizing difference and division as the natural and/or inevitable ways to interpret one’s existence in relation to other individuals who are not a member of one’s invented “group.”  

Once the feminist reader grasps the historical development of the terms “sex-based oppression” and “gender-based oppression” as well as their signification within distinct ideological circles, she can begin conceptualizing how to utilize the terms in a manner that parallels her own belief system. Although I am a radical feminist, I deviate from the group’s norm of utilizing “sex-based oppression” and not incorporating “gender-based oppression” into discourse regarding how patriarchy adversely impacts women. I understand the argument against “gender-based oppression” and want to consider it briefly here. The argument against utilizing the term “gender-based oppression” is (rightfully) rooted in radical feminist hostility towards constructing and consciously or unconsciously maintaining ambiguous, vague understandings of how structures of domination, particularly patriarchy, operate. Specifically, to suggest that one is oppressed based on “gender” makes discourse regarding oppression notably broad and amorphous given that it could mean that one is experiencing subordination based on any aspect of the social production of gender such as hair color, weight, tone of voice, clothing preferences, etc. Also, gender-based oppression is a term used fluidly to refer to the subordination that both men and women can experience under patriarchy. Sex-based oppression, on the other hand, is a term that radical feminists use to reference the subordination that women experience from men within a patriarchal framework in which males constitute a dominant class while females operate as the subordinate class. The emphasis with the term “sex-based oppression” is to unequivocally convey that in our living world, it is primarily men dominating women within a framework predicated upon misusing and exploiting female bodies. The term “gender-based oppression” does not convey this profound structural inequity and thus, in the minds of many if not most radical feminists, fails to accurately convey what patriarchy is as well as the material impact that it has. I agree with radical feminists that the term “gender-based oppression” is ineffective in conveying what the term “sex-based oppression” does, but I do not agree that this means we should summarily eliminate the former term from our discourse regarding male supremacy. Rather, I argue that both terms speak to specific aspects of patriarchy and we can attain a more lucid, acute awareness of how male supremacy operates by incorporating each of them into our dissident discourse.   

To elaborate on my personal approach to utilizing the terms “sex-based oppression” and “gender-based oppression,” I want to first reiterate that I use both phrases because each term has distinct meanings which unveil the way male supremacy negatively affects female people. Under male supremacy, female existence involves sex-based oppression in context of the material reality of sexual dimorphism. To elaborate, men recognize that we are female because of our biological disposition and the distinct physical features that make us distinguishable from men. Men have and continue to utilize these biological and physically observable realities to argue that women are inferior and subsequently create written laws, social codes, and unspoken rules which contribute to our subordination. An example of sex-based oppression would be making abortion illegal because the issue pertains directly to the material reality of female bodies in context of our reproductive capacities. The oppression transpires as men attempt to control what women do with their bodies in the unique context of determining whether to sustain life in their physical wombs and subsequently release a sentient being out of their body and into the physical world.  

Unlike sex-based oppression, gender-based oppressions are the forms of discrimination which result from the socially constructed ideas (which may pertain to biology but also speak to invented ideas regarding female behavior) of women that exist within society and alongside sex-based oppression. An example of gender-based oppression would be job segregation, in which women are confined to lower-paying or no-paying jobs such as domestic work based on sexist, gendered ideas regarding what women can and should do. For example, women are gender-tracked into a plethora of “helping,” low-paying professions on the grounds that we are more caring and compassionate, with this process of gender-tracking contributing to the perpetuation of gender-based (and sex-based) economic inequality. 

When we think about examples of subordination that women experience as a result of the presence and proliferation of male supremacist values, it is important to remember that we can produce examples which represent the activation and agency of both sex-based and gender-based oppression. An example of this would be a woman being anally, vaginally, and orally raped after a man watches a pornographic film featuring a female person being subjected to this type of subordinating, “sexualized” violence and violation and subsequently concluding that he wants to experience the somatic realities depicted visually in a visceral, experiential way. (Yes, I am using this graphic example on purpose because I want people to recognize the depth and scope of deleterious harms which can transpire in context of the purportedly “harmless” use of pornography.) The sex-based nature of the oppression that the woman who is subjected to the sexual assault experiences results from the material reality of a female body being violable due to the male’s penis being pressed into a female vagina against her will.  The gender-based nature of the oppression results from the cultural construction of women as objects-not-subjects who enjoy or at least willingly submit to the dehumanization and degradation that transpires in violent porn. This gendered construction is culturally and socially sustained through a plethora of damaging practices and processes, including but not limited to the immersion of women and girls in forms of media (books, movies, television shows, etc.) which depict female people as visual objects rather than thinking minds who move freely and utilize their bodies independently.  

In conclusion, it is important for radical feminists to recognize that the words, phrases, and concepts we use to think about patriarchy matter. For many years, we have read, discussed, and thought about the way that male supremacy’s efficacy is related to and contingent upon men’s ability to control the language which constitutes the way we think about reality. In developing and modifying language to reflect feminist frameworks of viewing the world, we need to be cognizant of why we are doing so rather than robotically adopting any linguistic structure we see being appropriated from other real feminists and/or pseudo-feminists. Additionally, we need to recognize that rejecting or modifying any of these linguistic structures does not necessarily reflect a diminished commitment to radical politics but might rather convey mere dissent from specific points or ideological perspectives. Ultimately, we need to keep thinking about ways to use and modify the language that exists within feminist discourse so that we can continually cultivate a more acute awareness of how patriarchy operates and what we can do to problematize its presence and pervasiveness.  

            Although there are numerous pieces of radical feminist literature which enable readers to understand how the domain of sex is utilized to perpetuate patriarchal principles, Dworkin’s Intercourse may be the single most important one with regard to this topic. From Chapter 1 on, she reveals how the concept and reality of intercourse is organized around patriarchal patterns of thinking about women. As the text unfolds, Dworkin references another text entitled The Kreutzer Sonata in a manner which shows the reader how sex operates as a medium through which male contempt for female existence becomes evident. Specifically, she notes that The Kreutzer Sonata involves the author using the details of his sexual intercourse with his wife to convey his “deep repugnance” (4) for her. The repugnance is linked to ongoing sexual desire, and this reality might cause the reader to infer that the male character in the text is perhaps disgusted with both women generally and his inability to repress or control erotic desire for one woman (his wife Sophie) specifically. Irrespective of the origins and nature of his male desires, it is important to note that their sexual interactions culminate in him setting his wife aside with “rude indifference or cold distaste” (4). In making this culmination plain, Dworkin enables the reader to understand that prototypical manifestations of male sexuality involve first using female bodies to satisfy desire and subsequently viewing the woman who was used with sullen disregard.[i]

            As the text continues, the reader becomes more acutely aware of the aura of negativity Dworkin attaches to sex. In Chapter 2, she asserts that intercourse produces an internal landscape marked by 

violent upheaval, a wild and ultimately cruel disregard of human individuality, a brazen, high-strung wanting that is absolute and imperishable, not attached to personality, no respecter of boundaries; ending not in sexual climax but in a human tragedy of failed relationships, vengeful bitterness in an aftermath of sexual heat, personality corroded by too much endurance of undesired, habitual intercourse, conflict, a wearing away of vitality in the numbness finally of habit or compulsion or the loneliness of separation (25).

Here, the reader can juxtapose Dworkin’s concept of intercourse to popular patriarchal narratives which indoctrinate girls and women in propaganda regarding sex being a special, sacred experience which reflects intimacy, tenderness, excitement, pleasure, and/or attentiveness shared with a male who has expressed ongoing, unending devotion to them. Dworkin’s understanding of what intercourse oftentimes can be and frequently involves is instructional; we learn (and not for the first time, if we have been keeping up with our radical feminist analysis of the patriarchal world created by men who love prostitution and pornography) that intercourse oftentimes involves violence. We also come to understand that intercourse can be an unpleasurable practice which, rather than ending in an exhilarating orgasm, results in broken relationships. As the chapter continues, Dworkin’s lugubrious, pessimistic attitude towards intercourse continues and she notes that the tension created by it “is painful, lonely—apart or in sex, the sex being doomed by the necessity, the inevitability, of becoming separate, absolutely separate, again” (28). This part of the text enables the reader to grasp that sex operates as a site which induces separation, with this reality contradicting the normative narrative regarding intercourse creating unity between two distinct people who somehow become one during the act. The primacy placed on separation reemphasizes how a sense of loneliness and isolation can permeate itself into any space, including those we think will enable us to experience intimate, authentic connection.

  At first, it seems that Chapter 2 might wind up being gender neutral commentary regarding the risks and pitfalls of intercourse as they pertain to all people regardless of sex; it is not. As the chapter progresses, Andrea Dworkin references other texts in which the male proclivity for violence in context of sexual experiences becomes evident. For example, Dworkin references the book The Face of Another. In this book, a male character loses the skin of his face and makes a mask in order to continue having sex with his wife because she is repelled by the sight of his skinless face. The wearing of the mask escalates the psychoanalytic dimensions of their relationship, with the wife never experiencing substantive transcendence or transformation as they copulate this way. The husband asserts that it is the (presumably awkward and dissociative) practice of wearing the mask that prevents him from taking off his metaphysical “mask” and being vulnerable during acts of intimacy; the wife asserts that his opacity is rooted in his selfishness. In response to the humiliation he feels regarding being made vulnerable in acts of intimacy with his wife that pull him into a sphere of vulnerability even as she keeps him at arm’s length, the male character shoots her. In reflecting on this aspect of plot development, the reader can locate the feminist import of the narrative. While intercourse is problematic in and of itself, it is increasingly so when women venture to share intimate space with men because of the male tendency to allow violence to permeate all aspects of their lives–including their sex lives. 

The negative aura Dworkin attaches to intercourse is reemphasized when she summarizes elements of another text, The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams. Dworkin details events pertaining to the sex lives of central characters Serafina and her husband, Rosario, including the wife’s perception that she sexually “owns” her male partner due to intercourse. This inversion of the patriarchal order in which men are powerful and women are powerless in the domain of intercourse is subsequently subverted, however; when her husband dies, Serafina goes into a prolonged state of mourning. Specifically, she isolates herself within her house for a total of three years. Within the house, the ashes of her deceased husband reside in an urn which functions as an aspect of a religious shrine. In her analysis of this extended mourning, Dworkin asserts that it is “a prolonged sex act, lovemaking that never reaches a climax but becomes more and more fevered, a sexual obsession that is a passion sustained into near madness” (48). Here, Dworkin’s bleak interpretation of intercourse becomes evident as sex becomes synonymous with memories of death and dying that never end and, in being sustained indefinitely, induce a cognitive state that approaches insanity. 

As Chapter 4 unfolds, the reader becomes cognizant of Dworkin’s acute awareness of normative narratives regarding intercourse. Specifically, Dworkin writes 

In Amerika, there is the nearly universal conviction–or so it appears–that sex (fucking) is good and that liking it is right: morally right; a sign of human health; nearly a standard for citizenship. Even those who believe in original sin andhave a theology of hellfire and damnation express the Amerikan creed, an optimism that glows in the dark: sex is good, healthy, wholesome, pleasant, fun; we like it, we enjoy it, we want it, we are cheerful about it…(59)  

Dworkin’s awareness of normative paradigms that guide most people’s understanding of intercourse functions as the point of departure for her analysis of how this positive outlook towards sex aligns itself with patriarchal paradigms. Positivity marries patriarchy in a process through which, because we are supposed to believe that sex is good and thereby have a positive attitude about it, women need to be taught how to please their husbands sexually so sex can keep being had (since, after all, sex is the pathway to happiness). In conveying this reality, Dworkin references how 

Marabel Morgan’s The Total Woman (a manual for wives who want to get their husbands to fuck them and maintain a cheerful attitude and a belief in God all at the same time) spawned classes all over the United States, including in churches, to teach conservative, Christian women how to act out the so-called fantasies of their husbands with costumes and props (59-60)

Here, the reader is exposed to one of patriarchy’s most effective tools of the trade: finding women who will promote its propaganda so that slavish, subordinate behavior that might be deemed questionable is less questionable because it is being promoted by a member of one’s own sex and therefore must be rooted in reason, love, concern, or some kind of deeper and more empathic understanding of how delicate matters such as sex should unfold. Within this specific manifestation of women purporting patriarchal views for the men who benefit from the normalization of female sexual servitude, the dehumanizing, degrading process of reducing a woman-subject to a sex-object transpires in context of encouraging female people to deidentify with any identity they’ve been able to develop by adopting clothing that masks their true selves. (This is what costumes and props do, and this is what they are meant to do–hide the true self while displaying an invented one. Self becomes other and, within this sexualized framework, the self-as-subject becomes self-as-object and therefore not-a-self-at-all given our binary-based understanding of subjects and objects.)

            Although Dworkin offers many important insights regarding the lackluster nature of intercourse, I submit that her most substantive supposition unfolds with stunning lucidity at the onset of Chapter 5. Here, she writes

Intercourse is commonly written about and comprehended as a form of possession or an act of possession in which, during which, because of which, a man inhabits a woman, physically covering her and overwhelming her and at the same time penetrating her; and this physical relation to her— over her and inside her— is his possession of her. He has her, or, when he is done, he has had her. By thrusting into her, he takes her over. His thrusting into her is taken to be her capitulation to him as a conqueror; it is a physical surrender of herself to him; he occupies and rules her, expresses his elemental dominance over her, by his possession of her in the fuck (79). 

These sentences are important because they demystify intercourse and display it as what it can be and often is: a patriarchal process which involves men possessing women. Yet Dworkin takes her analysis beyond just the negative import we might attach to intercourse upon noting that it constitutes the site of men oppressing women by possessing them. She also asserts that intercourse is the sphere through which men occupy women.[ii] This term suggests that women have lost the agency and autonomy which is associated with being a self who, in being a self, takes up space in various modes of self-expression. To be occupied means to no longer take up space for oneself but rather to have lost space so that another individual can abide in one’s space; the female self thus lacks space, loses space, or is spaceless in intercourse where her vagina is penetrated by a penis. Capitulated, occupied, possessed, and conquered: these are the concepts that Dworkin attaches intercourse to. And these are the concepts which help the reader understand the radical, dissident outlook that she has towards intercourse. Rather than perpetuate the normative idea that sex can and does make us happy and subsequently using that logic as motivation to go out and tell women that they should learn how to engage in intercourse in ways that please men and thus will presumably make them happy, too, Dworkin adopts a refreshingly cautionary tone which is rooted in radicalism rather than conservatism. Specifically, her wary disposition towards intercourse is not rooted in conservative mantras regarding what morality is and how being resistant to intercourse proves that one is indeed moral; instead, the wariness results from awareness of how sex is a domain through which women can be subordinated and therefore denied their subjectivity.

Viewed as a whole, Dworkin’s Intercourse is an incredibly important book for those seeking to expand their consciousness regarding what radical feminism is while also learning to think about intercourse in non-patriarchal ways. Many people will not wish to depart from normative, patriarchal ways of viewing intercourse because doing so challenges the legitimacy of the institutions (like marriage and procreation) which give them their (typically false or superficial) identity. It is the role that Intercourse can play in challenging the viability and desirability of intercourse and the normative, patriarchal institutions attached to it that makes the book dangerous. The danger is that the ideas in the text might cause the reader to question whether her or his sexual and social practices make sense. This questioning can produce internal and external tensions which result in disloyalty to patriarchal norms. Therefore, the book is dangerous because it is dissident, and its dissidence can lead to substantive dissonance. Good.

[i] This patriarchal pattern surfaces in a plethora of literary texts, including the rape of Tamar as recorded in II Samuel 13. After raping Tamar, Amnon tells her to get out of his sight and forces her to leave his room, thereby compounding the reader’s ability to grasp how male force is used both to convey perverse desire for a female being and the perverse authority to express indifference and contempt for the individual who has been used.

[ii] The word “occupy” is important here because it conveys that aspect of patriarchy which involves denying women space; this process transpires in innumerable ways, including the process of manspreading. This process transpires when men sit in public transport spaces like buses with their legs apart. This stance enables men to take up more than one seat and has been cited as evidence of the form of male entitlement which involves men feeling as if there is nothing wrong with them occupying a disproportionate amount of space. 

“The door-opening pretends to be a helpful
service, but die helpfulness is false. This can be
seen by noting that it will be done whether or
not it makes any practical sense. Infirm men and
men burdened with packages will open doors for
able-bodied women who are free of physical bur¬
dens. Men will impose themselves awkwardly and
jostle everyone in order to get to the door first.
The act is not determined by convenience or
grace. Furthermore, these very numerous acts of
unneeded or even noisome “help” occur in
counterpoint to a pattern of men not being help¬
ful in many practical ways in which women might
welcome help. What women experience is a world
in which gallant princes charming commonly
make a fuss about being helpful and providing
small services when help and services are of little
or no use, but in which there are rarely ingenious
and adroit princes at hand when substantial assis¬
tance is really wanted either in mundane affairs
or in situations of threat, assault or terror. There
is no help with the (his) laundry; no help typing
a report at 4:00 A.M.; no help in mediating dis¬
putes among relatives or children. There is noth¬
ing but advice that women should stay indoors
after dark, be chaperoned by a man, or when it
comes down to it, “lie back and enjoy it.” …

“The gallant gestures have no practical mean¬
ing. Their meaning is symbolic. … So the message is that
women are incapable.”

from “Oppression”, Marilyn Frye [bold mine]

https://ia902308.us.archive.org/3/items/AnarchismRadicalFeminism4/Oppression-Marilynfrye_text.pdf

The word “humor” is associated with that which is comical or funny, these terms being associated with amusement or laughter. We could assert that what one finds humorous is a product of subjectivity, upbringing, class status, habituation, etc. However, what needs to be asserted is that the realm of humor–as with every other domain of the sentient, living world–has been infected with the logic of patriarchy. It is for this reason that, when the issue of humor is discussed, many people find themselves adhering to the sexist adage “No one likes a funny girl.” 

Where does this expression come from? It comes from the social conditioning, from gender roles that imply that women should laugh at men’s jokes; they should not be the ones making the jokes.   After all, doing so would constitute a display of subjectivity, inventiveness, and wit, attributes oftentimes deemed undesirable or at least unnecessary in female people. Within the heteronormative framework through which women are forced to see the world, female people are continually taught to appreciate a man who makes them laugh because humor constitutes an attribute they are supposed to deem desirable: intelligence. Conversely, men are taught to desire a woman who will laugh at his jokes, a woman who will give him such supportive, subordinated attention.  If we recognize that humor has historically been a masculine characteristic associated with the convergence of intellect and dominance, we can see how and why the expression “No one likes a funny girl” gained traction within mainstream/malestream spaces in which women are expected to conform to aspects of femininity, which include operating in supportive, modest ways that are antithetical to the displays of singularity and subjectivity associated with telling jokes (whether on stage or in the midst of any given audience). Within this framework, the phrase “No one likes a funny girl” actually means “No one likes a female person who deviates from prototypical, patriarchal scripts which reinforce male domination and female submission as appropriate, ideal, and/or unavoidable modes of being in the world.”  

As a radical feminist, it is important for me to assert that I like funny women and understand why many people don’t. One reason many sexist people don’t like funny women is that when female comics speak, they are oftentimes doing so from a feminist perspective which involves calling sexist men out and questioning patriarchal ideologies (such as the idea that rape jokes are funny). This type of truth-telling infused humor isn’t going to be funny to people who operate within mainstream/malestream cultures, especially since part of participating in a patriarchal discursive formation includes telling and laughing at sexist jokes that minimize female experiences and deny that women are fully human.  

  Relevantly, the “type” of woman who chooses to become a comic (meaning that she is thinking and writing and willing to share her thoughts with a scrutinizing public) is going to be off-putting to sexist men and women who would prefer that women just conform to the patriarchal edicts of smiling docilely, shutting up (how often is a girl told to ‘Be quiet’?), and not thinking too much. Although there is actually no “type” for a comic, women who choose this occupation are oftentimes the “type” that sexist people don’t like, which is a woman who is 1. thinking and 2. thinking dissidently. 

  To expound on the low level of patriarchal receptivity to the female assertiveness that comes to life when women tell jokes, it is important to note what antipathy towards funny female people says about the maintenance of male supremacist values. Specifically, male supremacist values maintain that it is still inappropriate for women to express themselves publicly when the expression is not one of objectification or the purporting of patriarchal paradigms such as a wedding in which the bride is displayed as an object to be given from one man to another. Women going public to express thoughts or convey dissidence (rather than to present their bodies as objects that exist for the visual pleasure of women) will be reprimanded through the punitive process of not enjoying the sense of belongingness that results from being liked. (Yet why should thinking women seek inclusion and belongingness within a sexist community or mourn their exclusion from its patriarchal parameters?)  

Note that this issue of women not being liked for humor also extends to the realm of writing. Like women who think humorously, women who think through writing are oftentimes not liked due to their displayed ability to process reality independently and autonomously. This independent and autonomous thinking oftentimes surfaces in antagonism to patriarchal forms of logic which require women to exist within a framework in which they are ancillary and subsidiary to men. With these things in mind, it is important to draw attention to Joanna Russ’s important book How To Suppress Women’s Writing, which exposes why and how women’s writing is suppressed by the patriarchal powers. 

Note also that understanding the patriarchal underpinnings of suggesting that women aren’t funny does not mean that every female comic is. Every female comic, to be clear, isn’t. But this does not mean that judgments regarding funniness are not oftentimes clouded by patriarchal programming pertaining to why some people—women—come to be thought of as the people who are not allowed to be funny. 

In summation, I like funny women. What I don’t particularly like is the perpetuation of a patriarchal culture in which the wit and talent of female people is not appreciated. I also don’t like how, within a patriarchal culture, forms of “humor” that reflect perversion and woman-hating, such as rape jokes, are actually considered funny. All sorts of disturbing forms of logic exist to legitimate the notion that a joke about rape could be funny, and none of them ever make a modicum of sense. In her important essay “The New Misandry: Man-Hating in 1972,” Joanna Russ points out that “in the small town I live in there were several incidents of rape last year, and a common response to them was laughter.” Thus the problem is not only that people attempt to justify the egregiously inappropriate nature of rape jokes with arguments regarding the realm of humor having no creative bounds or that this form of humor works to help individuals process trauma; the problem is also that when rapes occur, people actually laugh. 

So again, the problem is not that no one likes a funny woman. The problem is that the perpetuation and proliferation of the patriarchy shapes what people think is funny and who can be perceived as funny. In recognizing these realities, radical feminists and any other individual who has pledged their disloyalty to the patriarchy are free to think critically and complexly about what they actually find humor in. Personally, I prefer jokes that unapologetically poke fun at the patriarchy.  

Read it. Then read it again.

            Words, amongst many things, are the vehicles through which meaning is conveyed. They convey thought, provide contexts for experiences, and enable the transmission of ideas from one individual to another. In many cases, words operate as a medium of communication from one society to another. In recognizing the profound and powerful impact that words can have in individual lives and society as a collective, it may seem surprising that people would attach the term “only” to words. The implication made with the phrase “only words” is that terms have limited power. The assessment is problematic for many reasons, including the fact that words have seemingly unlimited power, being the catalyst for wars, death, suicides, genocides, and numerous other atrocities.

            The phrase “only words” can also be contextually problematic, such as when it is used to legitimize the production and proliferation of pornography. The individuals who make this assertion do so to ensure that pornography is not censored, made illegal, or subjected to other forms of monitoring which might limit its consumption and cultural normalcy. In her important book Only Words, Catharine MacKinnon draws attention to this issue, honing in on the false claim that pornography is only words in order to reveal that it much more than words. It is words that act hatefully or, to paraphrase MacKinnon, act as hate speech.    MacKinnon opens her text with a direct reference to the torturous nature of sexual abuse that exists, with this reality grounding her work within a radical feminist context that refuses to downplay, minimize, or ignore the gravity of sexual assault. Specifically, MacKinnon writes

Imagine that for hundreds of years your most formative traumas, your daily suffering and pain, the abuse you live through, the terror you live with, are unspeakable-not the basis of literature. You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs. When you are older, your husband ties you to the bed and drips hot wax on your nipples and brings in other men to watch and makes you smile through it. Your doctor will not give you drugs he has addicted you to unless you suck his penis (3).

MacKinnon uses this descriptive reference as a precursor to explaining how the sexual abuse that is done to women does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it exists within a pornographic framework in which the sexual abuse that transpires is oftentimes recorded in video or picture format. These recordings and/or photographs are then circulated amongst men who enjoy seeing women experience pain or, alternatively, enjoy pretending to think that women experience pleasure in being raped or subjected to violent forms of “sex.” In addition to drawing attention to the degradation that women experience through these sexual assaults and their recordings, MacKinnon brings the reader’s awareness to what I refer to as a triple dose of dehumanization–the process through which a subordinated individual is subjected to three forms of dehumanizing humiliation through one subjugating act. In this case, the triple dose of dehumanization transpires as, in the process of 1. being sexually assaulted and 2. being filmed throughout one’s subordination, and 3. being forced to smile throughout one’s subordination. Specifically, MacKinnon writes of men who find pornographic pictures thus:

fathers, husbands, and doctors saw the pictures, liked them, and did the same things to them, things they had never done or said they wanted before. As these other women were held down, or tied up, or examined on the table, pictures like the pictures of you were talked about or pointed to: do what she did, enjoy it the way she enjoyed it. The same acts that were forced on you are forced on them; the same smile you were forced to smile, they must smile. There is, you find, a whole industry in buying and selling captive smiling women to make such pictures, acting as if they like it (5).

            Here, the multi-faceted dimensions of pornography’s degradation of women becomes plain. In addition to being subjected to pain, the production of pornography involves denying individuals the subjectivity involved in being able to authentically, accurately convey their real thoughts and emotions.  Instead, women are reduced to robotic, vapid smiles. In her important essay “Oppression,” Marilyn Frye points out that women being constantly told to smile functions as an oppressive tool which reduces female people to the sphere of acquiescence. Specifically, she writes “it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signal our docility and our acquiescence in our situation. We need not, then, be taken note of. We acquiesce in being made invisible, in our occupying no space. We participate in our own erasure” (2). The forced fake smile that women are forced to wear thus engenders two undesirable outcomes: slavishness and erasure. The smile functions as part of the process of bringing to life the paradoxical existence that women are forced to live out: appearing and not appearing, being physically present and somehow literally absent as their personhood is reduced to an identity prop which bolsters false notions of the omnipotent male to whom the weak and inferior female lovingly submits. When the forced fake smile patriarchal sequence surfaces in pornography, it speaks this same subordinating language over and over again, reminding consumers that women do not exist as real material sentient beings with thoughts and emotions; rather, they are mutable malleable non-subjects that men can shape and mold to any form they desire. And as made evident by pornography, that form is nonexistence insomuch as existence necessitates a being who thinks and feels above and apart from the orders of an other.

            When one becomes aware that pornography is a form of speech which works to erase women through the process of depicting them in subordinating, slave-like positions, the reality of this mode of communication constituting hate speech should become glaringly evident. Yet, as MacKinnon points out, the proponents of pornography insist that it is not hate speech insomuch as hate speech is conceptualized as words that cause harm. According to MacKinnon, individuals who support pornography’s production and consumption and who argue against the notion that it is harmful suggest that “The pictures themselves do nothing. They are an expression of ideas, a discussion, a debate, a discourse. How repressed and repressive can you be? They are constitutionally protected speech” (5,6). Yet, as MacKinnon shows throughout her book, pornography cannot be accurately conceptualized within the frameworks of 1. harmlessness and 2. ideational expression that its proponents attempt to advance. Rather than agreeing that pornography is simply speech, MacKinnon, in consonance with Andrea Dworkin, argues that it is deleterious speech because of what it does. Specifically, MacKinnon and Dworkin define pornography as “graphic sexually explicit materials that subordinate women through pictures or words” (32) and go on to point out that it promotes sexual abuse. Within MacKinnon’s definitional framework, what pornography says and does becomes evident. As she states, her definition “includes the harm of what pornography says—its function as defamation or hate speech—but defines it and it alone in terms of what it does—its role as subordination, as sex discrimination, including what it does through what it says” (22). MacKinnon’s definition is consonant with reality and antithetical to the fallacious understanding of pornography purported by its proponents; indeed, pornography incorporates acts of harm which include but are not limited to the torture and murder of female victims.

            As MacKinnon’s text progresses, her awareness of the role that racism plays in perpetuating hateful, sexist speech-based value systems becomes evident. For example, she notes that the “sexualization of racism” (23) is as an aspect of the hate speech that exists in pornography. MacKinnon goes on to discuss how words used within work spaces can and do constitute vitriolic expressions designed to harm black people. She also draws attention to how the court system has been effective in picking up on the presence of this hate speech and critiquing excuses made to legitimate its expression. For example, MacKinnon notes that “One court rejected the defendant’s argument that because racial slurs were common parlance, they did not have racial overtones” (48).  Here, MacKinnon explains that the racist verbage articulated by the individual in question was followed by an excuse designed to prevent the racist nature of the words from being assessed; the excuse was that because the racial slurs were commonly accepted and integral to normative discourse, the words did not convey subtle racism.  Clearly, the commonality or normalcy of racist verbal expressions does not function as proof that they are not meant to convey racism. For example, the “n” word can be repeatedly used such that individuals within any given ideological or cultural milieu are acclimated to its utterance, but their acclimation to its utterance does not negate or even diminish the racist import of the word. It simply means that it has become common to articulate racist sentiments aloud. This is the reality that the court apparently comprehended when rejecting the defendant’s attempt to have his racial slurs excused and interpreted as non-racist, harmful words.  

In noting a court’s ability to accurately define hate speech as hate speech and juxtaposing it to the court’s resistance to construing pornography as detestable, harmful language, we can see a central idea which MacKinnon expresses and reiterates throughout her text: sexist pornography, like racist speech, is not just words which constitute creative expression or harmlessly reiterate social norms. Racist speech—such as racial slurs—is the expression of racism. Sexist pornography, contrary to what its proponents regularly assert when its existence and expression is challenged, is the expression of sexism. More specifically, it is hateful and hurtful speech in the contexts of both how the films and images are produced (a process which involves physically harming women) and how they are reused in other spaces, such as the work world, to sexually harass and intimidate women.

One of the many effective examples MacKinnon provides to illustrate this point reads thus:

In a case involving pornography as sexual harassment, the employer argued that pornography at work was protected expression, something the workers at Jacksonville Shipyards wanted to say to first-class welder Lois Robinson, their opinions about women and sex. Their “views” included naked women supposedly having sex with each other; a woman masturbating herself with a towel; a nude woman on a heater control box with fluid coming from her vaginal area; a woman with long blonde hair (like Lois) wearing only high heels and holding a whip (one welding tool is called a “whip”); and countless women in full labial display. When Lois Robinson protested, the men engaged in more of what the ACLU brief against her termed “speech” by posting a sign stating “Men Only.” Suddenly, because Lois Robinson’s sexual harassment complaint centered on pornography, her sexual harassment claim invoked the First Amendment, at least so far as relief was concerned (53).

Here, the hateful nature of what sexist men are “saying” to Lois Robinson becomes plain. They are saying that women exist for male sexual pleasure, and this construct of pleasure transpires within a dehumanizing framework in which female people are reduced to sexualized objects, rather than being viewed as sentient living entities with thoughts and feelings, by representation as their sexualized body parts. They are presented thus in order to convey the male preference that they simply exist as entities who titillate men by engaging in intercourse with one another or by displaying their genitals in a manner which conveys that they are ready and willing to have sex with the man or men observing them.

            When Lois Robinson objects to these dehumanizing displays of female people, what the men “say” to her is that she will be punished with sex-based ostracization. Specifically, since she will not consent to being sexually harassed with dehumanizing images of women and therefore express agreement with their ideal image of a sexually objectified woman, they will excommunicate her from their social realm by stating that only men are allowed to engage and interact with one another. Both the men’s display of pornographic material and the posting of the “Men Only” sign constitute acts of hateful sexism; the first reinforces the notion that the ideal woman is a sexually submissive non-sentient entity who appears and acts in “sexual” ways that please men,[1] while the second reiterates the idea that women who refuse to express approval of these images and the ideologies they represent will be subjected to exclusion from interaction with other members of society. Clearly, the speech submitted by the men is not a collection of harmless signs and symbols which constitute debate and discussion. They are, rather, discriminatory acts. That they are acts and not mere speech is perhaps most effectively elucidated when we consider how the posting of the “Men Only” sign constitutes the process of segregating men from women; here, the act is physically separating males and females so that they do not occupy the same space based on a member of the latter group’s refusal to accept and adopt the sexually subordinating logic of the former group. To paraphrase, the separation is a form of segregation and it is a punitive act.

            As MacKinnon’s text draws near to its conclusion, she reemphasizes the way the legal system ensures the ongoing violation and degradation of women through assent to the idea that pornography is protected speech. To do so, she references the principle of First Amendment absolutism, the legal philosophy which indicates that there are no exceptions to the prohibition of the government limiting freedoms of speech, press, religion, etc. Specifically, MacKinnon asserts that “it was the prospect of losing access to pornography that impelled the social and legal development of absolutism as a bottom line for the First Amendment …” (97). To paraphrase, insistence that the First Amendment can and only should be interpreted as allowing all types of speech to exist without government prohibition was rooted in the proponents of pornography wanting to ensure that they would maintain continual access to it. MacKinnon goes on to point out that interest in promoting equality functions as an argument which delegitimates assent to interpreting the First Amendment through the lens of absolutism. In making this concept plain, MacKinnon states that “Wherever equality is mandated, racial and sexual epithets, vilification, and abuse should be able to be prohibited, unprotected by the First Amendment” (108). To paraphrase, in regions of the country where equality is legally required (rather than only culturally or ideologically approved), speech that constitutes the expression of racist and sexist sentiment should be deemed impermissible, and, in these cases, the First Amendment should not be interpreted to legitimate their expression. MacKinnon’s conclusions, amongst other things, reveal that the First Amendment can be used to bolster or discredit hate speech, meaning that its value in context of creating argumentation against pornography is rooted in its interpretation. To paraphrase, the First Amendment can be made to say whatever people within any given ideological realm want it to, and those who support equality should be cognizant of this when they challenge the production and proliferation of racist, sexist speech.

            When considered as a composite whole, Catharine Mackinnon’s Only Words is a radical feminist masterpiece which, through the use of logic and sustained analysis, reveals the role that male supremacy continues to play in shaping law, public discourse, the ongoing degradation of women, and the valuation of male prurient proclivities over the humanity of female people. Individuals who choose to read this text will attain the expansive awareness of how patriarchy operates, an awareness that is necessary to continue addressing its harms and devising tenable solutions which will contribute to the development of a world that is safer for non-whites and non-males.

[1] To further understand why the patriarchal reconstruction of woman into a nonthinking sexualized object constitutes hatred, consider how it represents resistance to the idea of a thinking female being who, through the act of thought, could actively resist her identity being muted or mutated to fit within a sexually subordinating framework she views as demeaning or otherwise inappropriate. This is what woman-hating is truly about: hating the aspect of female humanity-cognition-which could resist and reject the male attempt to diminish womanhood to the realm of objectification. What is being hated about a woman therefore is 1. Her capacity to think and 2. Her capacity to think outside of the objectifying ideologically framework devised by men.

Interesting thread over at clovenhooves:

https://clovenhooves.org/showthread.php?tid=1616&pid=5639#pid5639

Well worth the read. And it’s great to be able to search imdb.com (film database) by director, for your next watch!

Despite popular opinion to the contrary, Andrea Dworkin never asserted that “All heterosexual sex is rape.” She did, however, draw attention to the parallels that exist between heterosexual sex and rape. Specifically, in her important text Intercourse, Dworkin asserted that “Violation is a synonym for intercourse.” To understand the significance of the assertion, let’s view this section of the text together: 

A human being has a body that is inviolate; and when it is violated, it is abused. A woman has a body that is penetrated in intercourse: permeable, its corporeal solidness a lie. The discourse of male truth—literature, science, philosophy, pornography—calls that penetration violation. This it does with some consistency and some confidence. Violation is a synonym for intercourse. At the same time, the penetration is taken to be a use, not an abuse; a normal use; it is appropriate to enter her, to push into (“violate”) the boundaries of her body. She is human, of course, but by a standard that does not include physical privacy. She is, in fact, human by a standard that precludes physical privacy, since to keep a man out altogether and for a lifetime is deviant in the extreme, a psychopathology, a repudiation of the way in which she is expected to manifest her humanity (154). 

Here, Dworkin references how male-dominated spheres–such as literature, science, philosophy, pornography–conceptualize the penetration that transpires in heterosexual sex as violation. She goes on to point out that this penetration/violation is not conceptualized as abusive but rather a practice of normalcy and appropriateness. In recognizing these assertions, the reader can note the significance of Dworkin stating that “Violation is a synonym for intercourse.” She means that heterosexual sex involves a man penetrating a woman’s vagina with his penis; this process is viewed as a form of violation and the violation is not viewed as a problem. Dworkin problematizes this patriarchal view of intercourse in many ways, including by drawing attention to the way that women who refuse to engage in this heterosexual sex are deemed insane–deviants who are inundated in a realm of psychopathology which constitutes a deviation from the societal norms which construe female humanity in context of willing submission to heterosexual intercourse. 

Furthermore, thinking of intercourse as similar to or a lot like rape is something that individuals who are regularly exposed to mainstream/malestream logic regarding sex will be disinclined to do, likely due to their immersion in patriarchal systems of thought which want to ensure that men are never punished for subjecting women to sexual violence. After all, one way to ensure that men can evade social, cultural, and legal punishment for raping women is to assert that what transpired–no matter how violent, coercive, or nonconsensual–was actually sex, not rape. This is at least part of the reason why phrases such as “bad sex” or “rough sex” frequently begin to circulate when a woman asserts that she has been raped. Mainstream/malestream people, who are essentially male apologists who work to legitimate and perpetuate male power by pretending that men can do no wrong, quickly rework reality with rhetoric that moves minds away from conceptualizing rape as rape while moving minds towards viewing rape as sex. If rape is viewed as sex, a man who rapes a woman need not fear punishment from people, court systems, and any other sentient force capable of administering a penalty.  

Next, it’s important to understand why an individual might suggest that a feminist has made an assertion such as “All sex is rape.” I suggest that the intent is to insinuate or openly state that feminists regularly make ludicrous statements and therefore, they, along with their ideology, are absurd and not to be listened to. To elaborate, “all sex is rape” resituates the ideology and practices of radical feminists as outside the normative discourse which mainstream/malestream individuals promote through phrasings such as “bad sex” and “rough sex.” Within mainstream/malestream logic (which is also illogic), rape cannot happen because its existence would lead to awareness of male depravity. Therefore, women who come forward with accusations of rape are suppressed and silenced with rebuttals that include illogic like “You were not raped; you had bad sex and now regret it” or “You were not raped; you simply had rough sex and perhaps did not enjoy the more violent aspects of it.”

Finally, and per conversation with Peg Tittle, it is important to understand the role that the phrase “nonconsensual sex” plays in enabling us to comprehend the mainstream/malestream’s attempt to pretend that rape doesn’t exist while also asserting that individuals who discuss it are only doing so in nonsensical ways that involve suggesting that all sex is rape. As stated earlier, individuals who promote male supremacy do so by articulating their own illogical understandings of rape through masking terms such as “bad sex” and “rough sex.” This is why phrases like “nonconsensual sex” are not normalized when discourses regarding what rape is and whether rape has happened arise amongst individuals who promote mainstream/malestream logic. The reason the phrase “nonconsensual sex” has not been normalized (while phrases such as “rough sex” and “bad sex” have) is to continually erase from consciousness the reality that nonconsensual sex is happening. This is why patriarchal powers do not want the word “rape” and the phrase “nonconsensual sex” circulating during discourse pertaining to whether a woman has been raped, whether rape is a substantive problem, and whether punishments for rape should be more severe. The patriarchal powers that exist, as well as the individuals who have chosen to ideologically align themselves with those powers in order to gain social privilege and avoid the risk of losing various resources, want euphemisms or words that blatantly misrepresent reality.

The linguistic erasures pertaining to rape are not confined to utilizing terms like “rough sex” and “bad sex” in place of “nonconsensual sex” and “rape.” It also pertains to the realms of prostitution and sex trafficking. Specifically, individuals who operate in mainstream/malestream communities rarely use the phrase rape slaves to describe prostitutes, nor do they use the term paid rape to describe the process of men buying women. Yet this is exactly what happens within the institution of prostitution. Men pay to subject women to various forms of violent sex, including rape, with rape being the process through which a thinking feeling sentient being is reduced to a robotic slave who follows the orders of a male master. Yet, within mainstream/malestream realms, the depth of these horrors must be masked with terms like “sex work” that disguise oppression as a vocation involving consensual sex. The use of masking terms like “sex work” disguises the system of oppression so that, in thinking that prostitution is simply a process of exchanging sex for money, people will find no fault in it and allow slavery to keep existing without contention.

To repeat, Andrea Dworkin never stated that “all sex is rape.” However, radical feminists can learn a lot regarding how male supremacy and the people who support it operate by examining why she has been accused of making this assertion. Ultimately, the accusation that Dworkin asserted that “all sex is rape” reveals how individuals who support patriarchy seek to make their illogical understandings of rape and sex seem rational while rendering the logical analyses of radical feminists insane and unworthy of consideration.