This post almost made me lose faith in humanity.

I don’t want to be too harsh — it’s a thoughtful post and I agree with its conclusions, and I have a good deal in common with its author — but my heart was half-broken by just the title.

Can I Be a Feminist and a Bottom in Bed?

Uh oh.

Now, let me make this clear, in case I didn’t already: I agree with the conclusions of this post. I’m just really, really sad that we’re still asking this question.

The post continues:

One unfortunate consequence of feminism’s emphasis on the personal as political is that it becomes too easy to discriminate against people for not being “feminist enough.”

This is the opposite of what “the personal is political” is supposed to mean. “The personal is political” is not an excuse to bash other women or take away someone’s feminist membership card. It’s the idea that our ostensibly “personal” problems — like rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment — are actually part of large-scale systems of oppression. Many personal hardships are the result of political injustices.

Now, of course individuals should be held accountable for their own unfair or bigoted actions. But wearing lipstick — for example — is not an act of bigotry, even though it’s caused by a bigoted system. The fact that women wear lipstick is a function of the gender system, but the fact that women wear lipstick doesn’t itself cause sexism. We could have an egalitarian world with lipstick; we couldn’t have an egalitarian world with a wage gap.

I try to be comfortable with my naughty subservience, but as a feminist and a fiercely independent person, it’s an awkward thing to feel and admit to. I get this niggling sense that I should be large and in charge all the time, like my personal politics should be carrying over into my sexual preferences. I’m trying to overthrow gender roles, here. Being submissive in bed is a stereotypically feminine thing. Bad feminist!

I happen to be not at all stereotypically feminine, but nonetheless, I totally disagree that “stereotypically feminine” = “bad/worse feminist.”*

My best friend is a heterosexual with long hair, and I’m a dyke with a buzz cut. She can’t help liking men any more than I can help liking women, and she might feel as uncomfortable with very short hair as I would with a ponytail. Am I therefore a better feminist?

My girlfriend wears lots of dresses, jewelry and girly shoes, while I prefer to wear pants, t-shirts and motorcycle boots. We both wear the clothes we like, feel comfortable in, and look best in, and our choices are both, inevitably, influenced by the gender system. Am I a better feminist?

Of course I’m not.

So getting back to the original question:

Can I Be a Feminist and a Bottom in Bed?

I don’t know, can you?

Do you like being tied up because you think women are inherently inferior? While your partner is telling exactly you what to do, are you secretly thinking that the state should outlaw contraception? While you’re being spanked, are you thinking that boys shouldn’t cry and girls shouldn’t learn math? Are you thinking that everyone should be in a heterosexual marriage in which the man is the head of the household? Are you thinking that women who are date-raped and men who are raped prison deserve what they get? Are you think that sexism is permissible? That equal pay for equal work is a bad idea? While you’re having sex, what are you thoughts on suffrage? How about your thoughts on the ERA? Are you having on ideas about whether women should be allowed to own property?

Our actions are undoubtedly influenced by the gender system. People’s sexual proclivities may be influenced by the gender system — I honestly don’t know, and I really don’t care. At the end of the day, if you’re opposed to sexism — if you believe men and women should be equal, that the gender system in unjust, that our freedoms, both legal and cultural, should not be dependent on our genitals, chromosomes, or our gender presentation, that every person has a sovereign right to reproductive justice — then you’re a feminist in my book, regardless of how you choose to use or not use make-up and handcuffs.

* The author of the original post explains that she disagrees with this, too — this post is not a take-down of her post, really, just of the ideas that caused her to write it in the first place.

Posted under Politics, Sexuality

As a foreword, to make sure folks know where I’m coming from here: I’m a steadfast feminist and have been for many years. I consider it self-evident that the gender system is complex, cutting in multiple directions and intersecting with racism, classism, ablism, heterosexism, and other oppressions. I think it’s clear that the gender system is one of male dominance; I think it’s equally clear that men, like women, are profoundly damaged by it, that this arrangement is good for no one (that is to say, that we would all be much better off with open, egalitarian gender).

Also, if you are reading this as a gender-conforming person, and you think I’m making no sense, please consider that some parts of the gender system may not be apparent to you, in the same way that white people (like myself) sometimes say, in sincere but nonetheless damaging ignorance, that they “don’t see color.”

Introduction

Since I started getting heavily involved in feminism, I’ve had many different takes on gender and sexism. I’ve felt, at different times and to varying degrees, that gender itself is the problem — that this whole business of differentiating between men and women, between femininity and masculinity, is, at best, unnecessary, and at worst, catastrophically damaging. I no longer feel this way. While sexism and oppression are poisons to human happiness, I’ve come to see gender as a critically important part of identity and culture.

I do not know anyone to whom her gender is not a significant, meaningful part of how she sees herself. What that gender is varies widely, from masculine men and feminine women, to masculine women and feminine men, to something in between, to something that changes, to something outside of that, and more. Regardless of what someone’s gender identity is, regardless of whether it conforms to the dominant culture or not, people seem to strongly identify with their own. Gender is a very significant part of most of our senses of self — even those of us who are feminists or otherwise anti-sexism, and/or who don’t fit well into the gender system.

If you’ve ever had someone misread your gender, you probably have a very strong sense of what I’m talking about here. I’m a lesbian, the kind people can spot, and, as a I recently explained here (and do read that post; it’s very much relevant to this one), I sometimes feel like I’m lost in a quagmire between typical feminine presentation and identity and butch presentation and identity. I’m not butch, but I often don’t feel like a “real” girl, and I’ve sometimes had people tell me as much. I’m very happy being female and being read as female, but my queer identity is also very important to me. This ambiguity makes for a lot of misreading, which seems to scatter about equally between people misreading me as butch and people misreading me as straight and/or (for lack of a better word) femme. (Apologies for conflating gender and sexual orientation… They are, of course, often intertwined.) When this happens, in either direction, my heart sinks: I feel like I’ve failed at gender presentation. If it happens intensely, I start to feel sick, and start experiencing something like dysphoria. I get dizzy and nauseated, and begin to panic, losing my grip on my sense of self. “Who am I? Where am I?”

It’s an awful, awful feeling to have someone misunderstand your gender. So, I think that people all over and outside of the gender spectrum need cultural acknowledgment of their genders — not just tolerance, but recognition and affirmation. With this in mind, it is my sense that we can make a bigger, better impact on sexism and gender-based oppression by proactively creating more options, more gender designations, and working to make those accepted, than we can by only trying to tear down gender as it currently exists. A truly just gender culture is not a culture without gender, but a culture with respectful and non-coercive gender.

So, what would a just gender culture look like? What would it mean to have gender without gender oppression? Read More…

Posted under Culture, Sexuality