This essay first appeared in Cliterati on August 4th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.
Second-wave feminism in the UK has, like the first wave of the 19th century before it, devolved into a solution in search of a problem. In many English-speaking countries there are plenty of women’s rights battles to be fought, such as the brutal campaigns against abortion access in the US and a wide variety of vital issues in India. Even in Britain, there are a number of major problems it would be appropriate for feminists to address, but there’s a catch: they largely involve marginalized groups like sex workers and transwomen whom the remaining second-wavers consider to be enemies, or else nonwhite women they just don’t care about.
So just as the first wavers devolved from successfully crusading against the horrid Contagious Disease Acts to campaigning against things which made middle-class white women uncomfortable (including alcohol, sex work and masturbation), so second-wavers have followed up the monumental victories of the twentieth century with screaming about trivia. While transwomen are hounded to death, they obsess about the number of women’s pictures on banknotes. While sex workers are stripped of rights and repeatedly victimized by police, they aid the oppression by trying to criminalize our clients and destroy our means to work legally. And when we dare to challenge their war on us, they demand social media give them a means by which to censor us.
Yes, I realize that the rationalization used to demand the Twitter “report abuse button” was the horrible rape- and death-threats hurled against Caroline Perez, leader of the bank note campaign. I also realize that A) it’s already illegal to credibly threaten someone, and the proof of that is the arrest of Perez’s worst abuser despite the lack of a button; B) Twitter already has a means of reporting serious abuse, but it requires effort and is therefore difficult to exploit for coordinated mass reporting campaigns against targeted individuals; and C) Any quick and easy means of reporting abuse can also be misused by the many for silencing the few, such as the aforementioned exclusionary feminists silencing sex worker and transgender rights activists. When those with a history of attack, oppression and exclusion say they need a certain weapon for defense, you can be as certain as the sun rising in the east that it will also be used for offense; in fact, you can be sure that the offensive use is the intended one, and defense is simply the socially-palatable excuse.
The truth of this bait-and-switch tactic is revealed by the reaction of the “Lose the Lads’ Mags” campaigners to the news that a group representing the country’s largest retailers have now demanded that publishers encase the magazines in “modesty bags” to hide their covers. The crusaders’ original pretense was that “magazines and newspapers with naked women on their covers…[discriminate against]…employees uncomfortable with images of naked and near-naked women…”; if that were the real issue, the bags are an obvious solution because they remove the supposed offending stimulus (namely the pictures) from the workers’ environment. But this is not and never was the actual, narcissistic, censorious reason for their demand: those urging the stores to “Lose the Lads’ Mags” do not want these magazines to exist at all, anywhere in the world, whether within their line of sight or not; they believe that their privileged bourgeois feelings take precedence over everyone else’s rights, just as the temperance crusaders of a century ago did.
Third-wave feminism is generally inclusive, diverse and respectful of women’s individual choices, with the result that many if not most third-wavers find second-wavers embarrassing at best; many other women prefer to avoid the term “feminism” altogether, largely because of the sort of behavior described above. Second-wave feminism is therefore aging and shrinking; many more of its devotees die off every year than new ones join, and within a generation it will vanish entirely as a social influence. And given second-wavers’ fixation on their own petty concerns to the exclusion of those affecting women in general or humanity as a whole, that’s definitely for the best.
I guess in ‘third wave feminism’ you would include intersectional and anarcho-feminism (though both are into privilege checking).
I definitely agree with just about every word of your post – especially the bit about feminist issues in India, which are currently being addressed by some of the most feisty and determined feminists in the world IMHO (if you really want to meet feminists, go to the Travancore area of Kerala where equality – at least for upper and middle caste/class women – has been an absolute given for well over a century).
Most Western feminists seem to think the most pressing problem their developing world colleagues have are the hijab and burqa – whether they want to wear them or not.
I really don’t get too excited about “report abuse” buttons. Twitter is the property of … someone and if that someone doesn’t want his or her site used to advertise death threats – then that’s their right. There’s really no “right” to free speech on Twitter, YouTube, or any of the other millions of interactive sites on the net.
You know … we’re just really getting outmaneuvered on “common sense”.
Like the magazine covers … it just makes sense to do that, in my opinion. I am one of the most liberal Dads out there … but I like to educate my children on MY schedule – not some haphazard schedule based on “casual exposure” … like when I go with my kids into 7-11 to get a coke.
“Oh wait … I had my whole day planned and now I have to explain to my daughters why this naked woman is being led around by a dog collar on the cover of this magazine!”
Shit … and I was just on my way to take the kids fishing.
I live around Christians and, honestly … if I owned a convenience store I prolly would not sell these magazines … do they even sell anymore in the age of internet downloadable high-speed high definition porn? If I sold them – I’d put a bag on ’em. Don’t some of the publishers put a bag on ’em now anyway?
And yeah – I know that the advocates of those bags really want the magazines gone – so what? Why should what they think force me to take a position I consider to be nonsensical? It’s like the thing with late term abortions … it’s defended mostly on the grounds that the Pro-Life crowd wants all abortions gone. So we, on the Pro-Choice side, defend a pretty barbaric practice just because we don’t want them to have a victory.
Which is exactly the position they want to place us in.
What if there were a “report button” on this blog? Obviously it would quickly be gone without a general principle of free speech that extends beyond strict legality. WordPress, email providers, data centers, and ISPs are all “private” infrastructure that would surely block this content if they adhered to “politically correct” regulations. And the censorship isn’t entirely voluntary; Twitter is being indirectly and directly threatened by the UK police state.
The question is … can you force another to adhere to freedom of speech principles with regards to his private property or business.
My position is no – you can’t. And you shouldn’t.
Sooo … here’s another problem we can “bitch” about – but not anything more.
Put another way … if you support a guy’s right to put pornographic images at the checkout counter of his business.
Then you must also support his right to NOT put them there – or to cover them up – however he sees fit.
Pah, censorship of sexuality and nudity is ridiculous, as well as wrong because all censorship is wrong.
The idea that sex is something that needs to be hidden is a bag is not only foolish, its dishonest and counter productive. I remember being literally baffled as a child about the whole “stork” thing- it was so obviously a lie that the first things I learned about baby making were “adults are ashamed of it”. I also saw plenty of things having sex out in the world, from insects (dragonflys and such) to crabs on the beach, to dogs humping things, and it was not only baffling but actually a bit frightening that teachers and other people wouldn’t explain it to me.
If a kid sees an explicit S&M picture somewhere, its a simple thing to say “Some adults like to do that for fun. Its not safe for kids your age to do it, and I don’t really like that picture, so lets go look at something else now.”
You literally accomplished the same thing, which is to express your disapproval, but you didn’t have to lie or censor things in order to do it.
May up your mind, Krulac, either sex is evil, or it is natural and normal. You can’t have it both ways, and expecting the “age of Shazam” to happen at all (let alone “on your own schedule”) and suddenly make it all clear is ridiculous. If sex is evil, burn the magazine and get over it, if its normal and natural, then suffer through the explanation- you’ll do no one any favors coming off as an embarrassed liar to your kids.
I’m not advocating that the government enforce “censorship” here.
But you ARE advocating that the government FORCE a business to display images they don’t want to display.
When will you learn that you can’t force your views on others? What’s worse – censorship – or directing a free man or woman that they have to do things with THEIR business that they do not desire to do. So to fix one wrong – you go for another?
Nay, Nay, Sweet Toad!
Let’s all go masturbate in the streets … hey! It’s natural!
I think taking a dump is natural and normal too – but you can thank me for sparing you having to watch me do it in the middle of your cul-de-sac.
EDIT: When I say “Nay, Nay, Sweet Toad!” – I am not really calling you a Toad – so don’t take offense. That is just a line that I got from my Submarine School Instructor over 30 years ago … he told me “Nay! Nay! Sweet Toad!” every time I recited a wrong answer – and it my case – that was A LOT. The line is burned into my brain!
I just assumed it was a quote, it had that feel to it 🙂
They… don’t need to sell explicit magazines… I was only talking about the magazine thing, not the silly twitter thing.
I literally do not care about twitter, and I agree with you, they are a private company and they can do whatever they want as far as censoring their content. The government should literally say nothing about it at all.
Personally, if you want to masturbate in the street, that’s your call. Or rather, it should be, because its illegal to do, right now. If you want to take a dump out in public on publicly owned land, well, that’s fine as long as theirs no health hazard (so, like, poop in a storm drain)
You are deliberately missing my point- the government should censor nothing, but that does not mean it should get in private owners way is a crazy anti censorship thing.
But, seriously, public displays of nudity, or even (le gasp!) sex? Not. A. Big. Deal.
No, you are deliberately missing MY point … Look up and show me where I said the government should censor the things you’re talking about?
I never said it once – it was invented within your imagination.
Hey now, no ignoring the second half of that sentence! My initial point was “its stupid to censor sex”. That was not a call for the government to begin holding sanctioned orgies or a demand to ensure every store in the country was stocked with the full range of porno magazines, and yet that is what you accused me of doing. You know that is not what I implied because you are smart, and you deliberately ignored that I was not saying that because… well, the why of that is your business.
So… who’s imagination is on the line here?
Well back to my original point – it’s not stupid to censor sex if you’re a business owner.
You agree with that at least – right?
Sure, right now, in this culture, yes.
However, the reason they need to is also stupid.
That depends on how your (actual and potential) customers feel about it.
The conservative sites are still going on about that bakery in Oregon that was “forced” to close after a court ordered it to serve a lesbian couple. It turns out that the court order had no effect on the outcome. The bakery closed because a coalition of gay groups spread the word and organized a boycott of the place.
This is why I believe that laws against discrimination by the private sector are not only wrong, but counterproductive. If someone is a bigot, the community will find out and deal with it just fine — without any force — unless government butts in and protects the bigot by forcing him to keep his mouth shut. Let him stuff both feet in it. The market will do the rest.
Problem is that the Market (and you might as well spell it with a capital M if you’re going to ascribe divine attributes to it) will do that NOW. And will do that IN THAT PLACE. There are places where gay activists wouldn’t be able to shut down squat, and it wasn’t that long ago that refusing to serve black people wouldn’t cause any boycott either. The public had to see that blacks and white eating in the same building wouldn’t cause the Downfall of Civilization, and see it for decades, before the market (the real one, not the Market) would take the sort of action you are talking about.
In general I agree that censorship is wrong. I think that local communities should have some degree of influence over what is openly displayed, with the caveat that if you are ready to stand next to a picture and make it your personal statement, then the prudes can go climb a tree (in the 1980s a woman erected a nativity scene on the steps of the Capitol Building during the Christmas season for several years running on this basis. The Supreme Court backed her). Sexual signals have a direct impact on the so-called ‘lizard brain’, and there are days when being surrounded by images of half-dressed (and heavily airbrushed) sex-kittens is like having poison ivy. But it should be local, and they shouldn’t be able to prevent people ordering or selling whatever they damned well please.
Sex isn’t evil, but it can be like fingernails on a blackboard; a high level distraction that is deeply annoying and very difficult to ignore.
What people want to do on their private land is their business, and the includes what can be seen by others.
Pictures of food have an effect on what you refer to as the “lizard brain” as does pictures of witches and zombies, ect. Should people be allowed to make noises because Halloween decorations give their kinds nightmares? No? Then same goes for sex.
If people want to band public nudity or sex or cats in their neighborhood, that’s fine as long as the neighborhood is privately owned and the government has literally nothing to do with it.
That’s all I’m saying.
You said this too
Which means you thing sex censoring is good at least some of the time.
That’s all I’m, taking offense to, on your part.
Why do you find it offensive that I don’t have to take time out of a fishing trip with my kids to explain a naked woman bound in chains?
Yes – I do think censoring is good some of the time. I censor myself a lot – I’m sure you do too. And while I COULD hang a pair of rubber bull testicles from the trailer hitch on my truck (like a lot of rednecks do) … I choose not to because it offends some people and I think it’s stupid anyway.
LOL – why is it considered “mature” or “heroic” to offend people needlessly?
What’s the statement behind a sculpture of Jesus made of feces? There’s only one message there and it’s … FUCK YOU!!
I’m sorry – but even this dum-azz country boy redneck doesn’t see the logic in pissing people off just for the sake of pissing them off. Though I’ve never advocated government censorship – I DO believe that people should have manners and be a bit respectful of the feelings of others.
I happen to think it’s a GOOD thing that I’m not allowed to publish your medical records to the world. The government doesn’t consider that “free speech”. So there’s some censorship you can agree with. 😀
There’s DOZENS of other examples.
But lets face it – a lot of the people who dump on censorship – are simply against censoring things THEY LIKE, or censoring things that they know will piss off the people they hate. While – if it’s something that offends them – they’re all FOR censoring it! Go on any liberal news blog and you’ll find examples of people who really just LOVE “free speech” but boy … they sure would like to see FOX NEWS censored … or the DRUDGE REPORT … or BRIETBART!
I can see the point of the dung sculpture: if we’re talking about the same thing it was elephant dung, and dung is fertilizer anyway: all dung is seen as something good in a lot of cultures. So a sculpture of Jesus (I thought it was Mary, but no matter) in elephant dung could be seen as a positive statement, as something nurturing, with just the west’s negative view of dung against it.
I’m not advocating pissing people off for the sake of pissing people off and you know it!! Stop making stuff up!
My point, as it has always been, is that hiding sex from kids is dumb, and a society that cannot handle nude people or artistic depictions of sex is a stupid culture.
Also, to address you foolery-
1)You cannot publish my medical records because they are my property, and I would need to give you them for you to publish my records. Intellectual property control is not the same as censorship.
2) there are not dozens of other examples, because intellectual property protection is not the same as censorship. Censorship is when you tell someone they cannot say or publish their own intellectual property (ideas, writings, pictures, whatever). It would be censorship if the government forbid me to publish my own medical records, but not for them to prevent others from publishing them without my explicit permission.
I am against censorship in all its forms, even if something offends me. I don’t actually like seeing porno mags, I think their icky. But I don’t care if they are there, because it can’t actually hurt me! Its not like there pictures of me all over the magazines! (which is not a type of censorship, krulac) I also thought the naked statues I saw at museums were icky when I was little, and I am definitely not a fan of Sayter/nymph art in the Naples archeological museum.
Are you really acusing me of wanting to censor fox news, or cnn, or your face? Why would you think that. Stop making things up, its doesn’t help your point, it just makes you look like you can’t come up with a real argument!
I find it baffling that you would need to spend so much time explaining the woman in chains that it would interrupt your fishing trip. How long could it possibly take, and how is it more disruptive then talking about how cars work or what types of food they like?
StormDaughter, he wants to do it on HIS OWN TERMS, not the terms of the 7-11 owner.
My I presume from your posting name that you are female? Speaking as a male, I find certain kinds of sexy pictures extremely hard to ignore. I don’t think this gives me the right to have the government ban them, but (and I DON’T have a mechanism, so help!?!) I would like local populations to have some influence. The State and Federal governments can go hang (in fact, that seems to be getting more generally true every year I age).
There may simply be no way to do this without letting the Fainting Maiden Aunts ride roughshod over everybody else, in which case the heck with it. But I wish people would discuss options other than ‘let it all hang out’ and ‘everybody has to pretend that all women are pure and sweet’.
Of course there is a happy medium- Just don’t worry about it! If someone has a sexy magazine out, either leave the shop or ignore it or buy it or whatever, no shame need apply.
Seriously, claiming(or implying) sexy magazines “assault your brain” is the same as a fat person claiming their fat because McDonald is too go at advertising fattening food. It might be true, but it certainly isn’t McDonald’s (or the imaginary magazine peddler’s) problem, and no outside authority (community government, whatever) has the right to demand he take i down. If a community wants the shop gone, they just won’t shop there and that is that.
Now, if someone was breaking into your house and leaving unsolicited pictures of sexy ladies on your toilet seat, that would be cause to worry.
” If someone has a sexy magazine out, either leave the shop ”
But your whole argument is that no shop has the right to NOT leave it lying out, that’s the whole point. People can vote with their feet and only patronize stores that are discreet and circumspect, but when you say they have no business having porn and NOT showing it off to all and sundry, that’s where you and I have a problem.
You have no right to tell me I can’t censor my self and my wares in my own place of business.
I really don’t think anybody is claiming that. In fact, I think we’re all agreed that a store can sell sexy magazines, not sell sexy magazines, sell sexy magazines from behind the counter, sell sexy magazines in an open stand with hiding bags, sell sexy magazines in an open stand without hiding bags, or sell sexy magazines from a vending machine with bright lights shining on the uncovered covers and a magnifying glass on a dainty chain so customers can take a closer look if they want to.
Some of us wish they wouldn’t be so blatant about it, and some of us are fine with blatancy, and some of us don’t care one way or the other. But what a store is allowed to do? See above. Or at least that’s my take, and I think that’s Storm Daughter’s take as well, though I’m sure she’ll tell me if I’m wrong. Sometimes I am. Sucks, but hey.
I’m not advocating that local governments be allowed to “censor” … not at all. I think freedom of speech is almost … almost … absolute.
And … honestly … there’s nothing in porn that offends me, personally. Hell, I would LOVE to open a shop somewhere and hang a picture of the naked Maggie with her Red Umbrella in a prominent place right by the cash register.
But, as a business owner, my first responsibility is NOT to freedom of speech. In fact, it’s not a responsibility of mine at all. I live in the Bible Belt – most of my customers would be offended by images like that.
Now, LOL … it would appear that SOME people out there think I have a responsibility to some grand ideal of “freedom of speech” – so therefore I should place these images in obvious locations in full view, even though my customers might be offended by them – and STOP giving me their business.
I’m sorry – but I have no responsibility wrt that business but …
TO MAKE A PROFIT.
That is it.
And when we talk about “censorship” … let’s be careful not to demonize that word too much.
There are legitimate forms of censorship. War Plans … Top Secret Information … Individual Health Records …
We also “censor” false claims on drugs and food supplements.
Most people would argue that these are valid forms of censorship.
Do not be pedantic. You literally said you wouldn’t mind if people were required to put bag around porno mags, implying that you think sex should be censored from the general public, in general.
Censoring sex is stupid, but you don’t need to “fight the power!” about it. Just admit its stupid or that you think its not stupid. I didn’t ask if you thought the government should get involved, did I? Just whether or not you admit that censoring sex, even from tiny little kids, it dumb.
Censoring sex is not stupid if you’re a businessman – which is the very context I used from the very beginning of this sad thread – in which you are taking absolutist stands that you have no clue about what the repercussions are.
So yeah – I think censoring sex is entirely appropriate for an individual – and it’s even a smart thing to do.
I don’t allow pictures in my house hanging on the walls which depict sexual acts – so there ya go! I’m a CENSOR!!
However, I generally like to make company feel at home when they visit me!
And – if I owned a business – I’d censor it there too. And if a guy walked in reading a Playboy … I’d ask him to step outside and read it – because some of my customers are offended by it.
And – if a guy walked in wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe – I’d tell him to step outside too – because some of my customers are offended by it.
It’s MY business … I run it the way I see fit.
By the way … as a bouncer – I DO censor people all the time. Clothing is a form of speech … no? Well, try to get by me with a tank top on – you’re not getting into the bar. No shoes? You ain’t gettin’ in. Balls hanging out of the bottom of your kick-ball shorts? Nope – you can’t come in (and yeah – that happened!).
When I refer to “censoring” I’m referring to it as an institutionalized practice or edict done by a government. Enforcing a bar owners rules isn’t censoring in that regard.
OK, let’s stop pretending that for a private property owner to control his own business is “censorship”, because it isn’t. Censorship is ALWAYS from outside; that’s part of the definition. Pretending that personal taste and autonomy are somehow related to authoritarian repression is not only ridiculous, it’s obfuscatory to a meaningful discussion of the issue. So please, let’s cut that out.
Pah. I don’t care what you do in your house. I do care that it is still illegal to be naked in public, or on public TV, and I also think its idiotic that you can’t hang pictures of sex in your house and still expect to have friends.
The whole sex-art taboo is actually relatively new for humanity. Romans, Greeks, even Medieval art, has huge amounts of what would be that day’s equivalent of “explicit content” and people who were considered polite society had permanent frescoes of sexual content on their walls in their houses.
I’m saying the culture that wants sexual censorship is stupid, not that its stupid to do as Romans do in Rome, or in this case, Prudes do in Prude-land.
Krulak, the magazines that are being complained about aren’t really porn: the covers don’t show anything more than magazines for women and probably less than a fashion mag like Vogue, say: Topless, but with covered nipples (and inside just breasts and buttocks). If anyone really wanted porn they wouldn’t with them (I can’t stick them myself).
I’d have no problem if you didn’t want to sell them in your hypothetical shop, though.
If anyone wanted porn they wouldn’t bother with them, that should have been.
Well that’s the whole point I think. If a publisher decides to encase his magazines in a “cover” … then he should be allowed to do that – even if the only reason he’s doing it is to escape the wrath of “Puritans”.
If he feels that the interests of the “Puritans” are important to his business – while the interests of the principles of “free speech” are not … then it’s totally appropriate for him to cover his mags and make the “Puritans” happy.
Not every decision a businessman makes is a “happy” one – or one that he agrees with. A good businessman knows that sometimes you have to eat a bit of shit to make a dollar … or keep making one.
Let me ask you this though- would you be more tempted to buy a magazine that shows a sexy lady, one one that might show a sexy lady under a cover?
Whenever I hear someone complain “I’m not comfortable with that” my first thought is “Whoever told you that the world existed to make you comfortable?”
My style of feminism was a more expansive, 70’s style. A style that enlarged women’s scope of opportunities, that demanded equality, and that encouraged women to live life to the fullest.
But even within that. there’s always been a small group who wants to draw a little circle around their safe little world, and bar anything that disturbs them from entering. Feminists aren’t the only group that likes to do that by far.
“lips that touch liquor shall not touch ours”
“It’s a deal!”
Exactly. To me that picture just says, “Another martini please.”
For the record, Maggie is completely right: a complaint button on Twitter would almost certainly be used by feminists to censor content they disapprove of. For example, Karen Straughan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=064ukK06C-w) has on several occasions had to mirror videos that were removed from Youtube because feminists have used Youtube’s complaint button to censor videos by men’s rights activists, even though those videos in no way violate Youtube’s TOS. This is very much a second-wave feminist tactic.
As for laddie mags, I was under the impression that British laddie mags were like Maxim in the US, with plenty of women who are MOSTLY naked, but with their naughty bits covered. How are we to distinguish between a Maxim cover and a Cosmopolitan or Glamour cover if that is the case? Clearly, Maggie is right, and this is a case of people who want to ban laddie mags entirely using whatever tools they can to move in that direction. That’s the way censors work, they are rarely able to achieve their goals in one go, so they push and prod and do whatever they can to get closer to their goal.
And while private businesses may have the right to do as they wish wrt naked women, they do have their customers to consider. Every guy who buys a laddie mag is casting a vote in favor of them, and in a much more tangible way that some Fainting Maiden Aunt who merely expresses disapproval of them — the laddie mag fans are putting dollars in the business’ pocket, the Fainting Maiden Aunt is not.
Twitter may put a complaint button option in there, but I suspect that MANY more group will abuse it than just feminists, and this could do some serious damage to their economic model. Granted, feminists will abuse it like hell, i
mmediately and thoroughly. It’s part of their modus operandi.
No – but “Fainting Maiden Aunt” may have the power to REMOVE more dollars from the business pocket than the guys who buy the “laddie mags” put into it.
THAT’s the issue. If grandma, and everyone in her church vote with their feet and go to “Cracker Barrel” instead of “Krulac’s Kwik Stop” … then I have lost my ass big time … while Cracker Barrel picks up more business!
Sounds like me and my business are a hostage don’t it? Well – welcome to the REAL world!
The shops were quite ok with selling them: they’re just responding now to a minority of people who might not even be customers but who were very good at getting publicity (sex, isn’t it?). And these people are not bothered about other magazines which are just as bad.
Well – that’s another issue. Are these “complainers” in the minority? Or are they actually a significant number of people?
And … what’s the LOSS if I DO censor these mags?
Well … even if the “complainers” are in the minority – does the MAJORITY feel so strongly that the mags SHOULD be displayed – that they will walk out and not do business with me if I don’t display them?
The answer is … of course … “no”.
If I loose 40 percent of my business when I start displaying Playboy – that’s not the majority of my customers – but it’s enough to put me out of business.
The question is … with that other 60 percent walk out on me if I DON’T display Playboy? Apparently – these publishers don’t feel they will.
For the record – I’m not offended by Playboy – and I’m not offended by the covers (even were I in the store with my kids). I think the women on them are beautiful. Hustler? Different story there – they trod upon the wild side a lot. Be that as it may – though I have no problem with Playboy being displayed – I certainly wouldn’t stop patronizing a shop that refused to sell it. Not unless it was very convenient for me to do so.
I think that’s the way most other people are too.
But now … if my local 7-11 started selling Jihadist Magazines … then I’d be pissed off enough to drive to the next state to avoid doing business with them.
Bullshit! Tesco still sells The Sun, with topless girls on “Page 3”, there are two major differences, any kid can thumb through and buy The Sun and The Sun sells. If the arse hadn’t fallen out of the Lads Mag market they wouldn’t be covering them up now. It’s noteworthy that Tesco is the only supermarket covering up the lads magazines, which only have pictures of busty girls in bikinis on the front cover and topless women inside. Why is that?
Maybe it’s because their customers don’t buy them and they are planning on withdrawing the mags in a couple of years and want to grab a few headlines but it has nothing to do with a bunch of irrelevant feminists. For Christ sake this is Tesco we’re talking about, which makes this so laughable.
Lads Mags (not laddie mags) were big in the 90s but they don’t sell much any more. The whole idea behind them was the promotion of the lad culture. The tits got men to pick them up but the articles were the reason they bought them, and btw they were popular reads with young girls too. I read them in the 90s. The journalists who were writing for lads mags were bloody good, but the internet has been killing lads mags. That is the reason that Tesco are covering the mags up, they couldn’t give a rat’s arse what a bunch of feminists think. This isn’t censorship, it’s business.
“In the autumn of my Madness,
when I was quite naive,”
Procol Harum, “In Held T’was I”
The “second wave” feminists think because they have what they want, they don’t need to fight for anyone, or anything, else.
Fools!
And look at us: we are arguing about displays of magazines, not why women get only $0.77 for every $!.00 that men do; or that there is a concerted effort on the right to take away a woman’s right to have control of her body, not simply have abortions, which, if things continue as they are, will stick women’s rights back into the 1950’s, perhaps even the 1920’s, within 10 years.
1) Censorship is wrong.
2) reintroduce and pass the Equal Rights Amendment in order to guarantee the rights of women, as well as members of the LGBTQ community.
3) Start fighting for this now, because when they are done disenfranchising women and LGBTQ people, they will get people for color, religion, and wealth, or perhaps I should say the lack of wealth, next.
The enemies of freedom are the oligarchs who are trying to set-up a formal aristocracy that has more rights than the commoners, because of the protections provided by corporations, and the upholding of Citizens United.
The ERA failed because it was incredibly bad legislation, and still is. It would have outlawed ANY distinction between the sexes…that means no sex-segregated facilities or programs of any kind (including women’s shelters, etc). You could also kiss feminist sacred cows like VAWA goodbye. ERA failed because even the feminists eventually realized they really didn’t want it.
Maggie# But, women still need a constitutional protection against discrimination, not the patchwork crazy quilt that we now have. Did the ERA have faults: hell yes! Let’s fix the faults and pass a good piece of legislation to amend our Constitution to give everyone equal protection regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Until the ERA is passed, women and LGTBQ’s are second class citizens whose rights exist at the whim of legislative bodies, courts, and public opinion.
I disagree. Any flat statement of equality will work against women, just as the ERA would’ve. There’s virtually no such thing as direct sex-based discrimination any more; nowadays it’s all defined into existence using excuses like fetal personhood and “sex trafficking”. And what you don’t seem to realize is that something like the ERA would set a strong precedent for fetal personhood and a number of other really bad ideas.
Well, I would certainly include some sort of biological exception–looks like it is time to go research again–to prevent such perversions. However: IMHO, that we are one Reaganesque reactionary moment from women losing everything they ever fought for, and only a Constitutional provision can protect that.
I would like to submit the following as Defense Exhibit No. 1:
http://www.newslo.com/evangelical-leader-claims-forced-birth-laws-will-fix-climate-change/
If a trader doesn’t stock a product because there’s no call for it in a particular area, or because stocking it would lose him customers, that’s one thing – demanding that ALL shops should remove certain merchandise IN CASE it upsets SOME people is another matter all together.
That’s not good trading practice, that’s censorship.
I left a comment on the Cliterati piece back when you first posted it, but it looks like it didn’t get through moderation.
Basically, I agreed with you on everything except your optimistic view of the future of feminism. I just don’t see any evidence of a third-wave feminism that’s “inclusive, diverse and respectful of women’s individual choices”, not in the UK at any rate.
The feminists picketing supermarkets over bikini models on magazine covers, lobbying for the Swedish model, or campaigning to shut down strip clubs, aren’t ageing second-wavers who were around in the 70s. Most of the leaders of large feminist organisations like Object or UK Feminista are in their late 20s/early 30s, with many of their activists members of University FemSocs. These are feminism’s mainstream activists, the ones with influence in education, media and politics, and from what I can see most of the new women entering feminism are following their ideology.
I find that the new generation of feminist activists are more consistently and dogmatically puritanical and authoritarian than the “wave” they’re replacing. Look at pretty much any feminist protest against some element of the sex industry, like these anti-porn or Playboy club protests for example, and you’ll see plenty of younger women. On average, the sex-positive feminists I follow online are older, and if anything it’s them who I see losing their remaining social influence.
If that wasn’t the case, I’d expect to be seeing some effective feminist opposition to those mainstream feminist campaigns, and I’m afraid I see little sign of that.
Probably because you’re getting your ideas of what feminism is from the mainstream media and they have no interest in promoting something that’s not either authoritarian, scandalous or both.
Try googling ‘intersectional feminism’ or ‘anarcho-feminism’ (or ‘anarcha-feminism’ which seems to be superceding the term I grew up with) and you’ll see a lot of UK groups promoting them.
See What the fuck is anarcha-feminism anyway? if you’re interested.
I’ve done that bit of googling and I don’t see a lot of groups promoting those kinds of feminism. I see individuals, and some collaborative blogs, identified as sex-positive, pro-sex worker, anarcho-feminist, or whatever, but certainly nothing comparable to large feminist organisations like UK Feminista, the Fawcett Society, or the London Feminist Network. I certainly don’t see any evidence of them growing in number, or the influence of those mainstream feminist groups waning.
It isn’t just a matter of the media only choosing to show one kind of feminism. That’s the feminism that’s out on the street, running large conferences, or orchestrating letter writing campaigns and petitions with thousands of signatures. Where’s the response from “intersectional feminists” when the puritan feminists are out marching or picketing?
I think I’ve seen more organised opposition to authoritarian mainstream feminism from liberal Christians and Libertarians (themselves a fringe group in the UK) than I have from other kinds of feminism.
My view of these soi-disant“feminist” attempts to censor by massively using “report abuse” buttons has nothing to do with whether censorship is acceptable or not. The reason any groups do it is because they want to silence a viewpoint, and the method often works.
I think that “feminists” are more likely to use the method (rather than say, militant Druids, pre-rapture millenialists, or Fabian socialists) simply because they are women. Why are women more likely than men or mixed groups? Because the specific behavior is variant of an ancient behavior, arguably wired into mammalian female DNA.
The behavior, as outlined by Eric Berne decades ago, is called Let’s You and Him Fight. It is related to a kind of mate selection, where a female chooses her mate as the winner of a contest between two suitors.
Pressing the “report abuse” button is easy to do. It sets in motion a contest between the owner of the offending item and the owner of the website. The implied promise to the website owner is that the reporter will choose them if they defeat the owner of the offending item.
Yes, the implied promises to the website owner and the offending item owner are not quite symmetrical as in the mate selection process. But that process, as Berne noted, can have variants as well, say where the woman sometimes runs off with a third party while the two suitors fight.
I find that raising Berne and his theories of transactional analysis seems to push a lot of people’s abuse buttons ;).
Heh. I don’t doubt that. I’m no shrink. It just made more sense to me than anything else at the time. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but I would love to see modesty bags on Nuts, Zoo etc with the clear plastic printed with an an opaque burqua (or is it niqab?) covering the models, specially for the co-op. I wonder if they’d stock it then?
The strip club I manage to go to once or twice a year has no sign. Apparently they aren’t allowed to.