Jaicee said:
Well..."absolute faith" is a strong term. I don't actually consider myself to necessarily be an ideological progressive, I just agree with the left the most on economics. I trust female progressives more than other candidates when it comes to the combination of economic and social issues, but that doesn't mean I actually have great faith in any particular kind of politician when it comes to women's issues. I think the left is often characterized, in part, by varying levels of left wing misogyny. If right wing misogyny refers to a belief that women should be the private property of individual men (i.e. patriarchy) then left wing misogyny refers to the belief that women should instead be the public property of all men. For example, since 2018, the official platform of Women's March, Inc. has included a plank advocating the legalization of prostitution. A classic example of what their advocacy around that looks like was seen last year when they protested the closing of Backpage.com, the internet's leading facilitator of child sex trafficking at the time, disingenuously claiming that "The shutting of Backpage is an absolute crisis for sex workers..." Jacobin magazine, the official publication of the Democratic Socialists of America, feels much the same way about prostitution. I just highlight the intersectional left's enthusiasm for prostitution here as a particularly clear example of what I mean. In this country, unfortunately we don't seem to recognize the existence of left wing misogyny and it's a major cultural blind spot. So to say that I have absolute faith in progressives in the area of women's interests is a stretch. I'm not a big fan of the sex industry, the beauty industry, gender identity, any of that sort of thing any more than I am the prohibition of abortion or intolerance for lesbians. Just for clarity! |
You truly are a radical feminist aren't you? I mean that ideologically, not pejoratively, of course. That's a very radical feminist position, the idea that prostitution is inherently bad for women from a power perspective, and thus should not be legalized. I'm curious, are you against pornography as well? The same logic would seem to apply, and it is another common radical feminist position that I've seen. Well, I say common, but I haven't actually had a conversation with many radical feminists. But at least from what I've read from them.
Personally, I am pro legalization, but not in the industry's current state. Surely decriminalization of sex work would appeal to you though? As in making it not a crime to be a sex worker, but still a crime to be a pimp? I think that would help to protect vulnerable women in that industry, and would probably be my first step if I had a magic wand that changed laws and politics. But what if a women genuinely wants to be a prostitute? Not from a position where she's coerced in any sense by the power dynamics of her situation, but because she evaluated the possibility and her own feelings about it and came to a rational conclusion that she was comfortable with sex work and in fact wished to pursue it? Shouldn't she be free to do so? For that to be possible, the industry would have to change, but the only way for that to happen is for it to be legalized so that a regulatory framework can be set to ensure that women aren't taken advantage of in any way. So to your point about prostitution making women "public property", that's only if they were working under a pimp, and even then, only if they didn't have absolute power to refuse any request without fear of backlash from her employer. In my mind, it's literally her body; if she wants to sell services with her body, that's her absolute choice and no one else's. So I would think legalizing prostitution without any fear of making women public property in the way you describe would require that pimps be outlawed, so that no one but her could have any contractual or legal say in the matter. If she were self-employed as a prostitute by her own rational choice, I don't see how you could credibly argue that she had become public property. In such a scenario, she is her own property. No man can claim ownership or entitlement to her services simply because she's a prostitute. So long as she had absolute right to refuse any service with any person for any reason without legal risk to her for doing so, I don't see how you could claim that she's anyone's property, public or private, except her own.
All of this said, I don't think misogyny should be ideologically labeled. It's like labeling terrorism after its ideological source. What does it matter? It's terrorism! If you don't simply call it what it is and instead attach a political or ideological label to it, all you accomplish is to divide society along political or ideological lines for or against you, and then you typically accomplish nothing, or if you accomplish anything, it takes a terribly long time. Furthermore, you can hardly say that the right wing of politics is the sole domain of those who would view women as private property, nor that the left wing is where you would find all those who view them as public property. For example college fraternity brothers are not remotely associated with the left, quite the opposite really, yet their culture often views women as the public property of anyone attending their party, or at least that's how some of them speak and behave. On the other hand, the Democratic party elite think that simply by being the less misogynistic party, that all women in America owe them their votes, which effectively means they view women as the private property of their organization. They spoke with such indignation at white women when they saw that Hillary had "lost" the white female vote. Nevermind that she had won just barely under half of them and thus the Dems were writing off effectively half of the white female population as if they counted for nothing just because they felt owed the other half, but would have written off the other half as not existing had their half been nominally bigger. And of course, there are plenty of right wingers that support legalization of prostitution, such as libertarians, and there are plenty of possessive boyfriends that vote Democrat and probably even some that call themselves democratic socialists, even as they treat their girlfriends like a piece of property. Then you have the up and coming specters of female sex robots and VR rape experiences, which are already attracting interest across the political spectrum for public and private use, and carrying with them all sorts of troubling implications. I guarantee you that while they might eventually get polarized as well as a more clear political narrative develops around them, there will still be an audience for them across the political spectrum using them in both public and private settings, regardless of what ends up being legal in the end. Misogyny is wrong, no matter who it comes from, or what ideology they use to justify it, and we're weaker in fighting it when we apply identity based labels to it that encourage people to take sides.
You listed the beauty industry alongside the sex industry and gender identity. Do you regard the beauty industry as left leaning? I mean I'd be hard pressed to make such a judgement but I guess the elites of the beauty industry probably lean left, but what does the larger political left have in its narrative that affirms the goals of the beauty industry? Because from what I see, the left as a whole tends to regard the beauty industry with disgust. Perhaps that's confirmation bias as I'm a psychology educated left-leaning environmentalist and animal advocate so I hate the beauty industry for the harm its done to the environment, animal rights, and the mental health of people, especially women, so I might just talk to a lot of likeminded people. But from what I read from most left leaning news outlets and pundits, there doesn't seem to be a lot of love on the left for the beauty industry. I haven't seen any left motivated arguments in their favor. Like, ever.
