Posts Tagged with ‘sexuality’
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BD/SM and the Sexual Reification of Patriarchy (Part 2/2)
14 Apr 2013
Part two of a two part series (part 1), this post explores patriarchy, power, violence and female sexuality, arguing that a BD/SM is not unproblematic, but as a reification of patriarchial sexuality it may be beneficial in making explicit the power dynamics and violence which exist in a less extreme …
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BD/SM and the reification of patriarchal sexuality (Part 1/2)
19 Feb 2013
The shift in feminism from the second to the third wave has seen a number of challenges arise to what was thought to be established feminist thinking. One of those challenges is in the rise in acceptability of BD/SM (Bondage:Domination/Sadism:Masochism) and the numbers of women who identify as feminists engaging …
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On Political Lesbianism and the Cotton Ceiling
12 Nov 2012
I was recently described by a man of my acquaintance as having "lesbian thinking" - I think he meant feminist. While lesbian is often thrown out as an insult to women who are not sexually attractive, or sexually available to men, the conflation of lesbian and feminist is all too common and not …
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Social Constructs and Biological Differences
05 Nov 2012
Feminism has been thrown into turmoil by the challenges raised by the third wave. One particular area of challenge to traditional feminist thinking is the rethinking of gender particularly in the light of the increased visibility of trans*, and the theoretical backing given to it by Judith Butler as probably …
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Privilege Theory and its use in Activist Circles
07 Oct 2012
The concept of privilege as a structural cultural entity can be traced back to Jean Baker Millar's Towards a New Psychology of Women in the mid-70s. From its roots in feminism, it has been extended to other forms of structural oppression, where a dominant and a subordinate group can be …
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Delusions of Desire: More questions than answers
14 Sep 2012
Guest post from Davy Marzella The politics of desire are failing us because they have been colonized, and are channelled into capitalist practices of consumption. Media promotes normative ideas about beauty and desire to sell us products that keep the capitalist system intact. Fat bodies, disabled bodies and racialized bodies …
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The Moralising of the Sluts
11 Aug 2012
Almost a hundred years ago, the Russian revolution saw a transformation in the status of women. Yet in the country of Kollontai, who foretold a land free of both marriage and prostitution, where sexual relations were as simple as sipping a glass of water and women could not be bought, …
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Review: Madonna – MDNA
23 Jul 2012
Madonna was the backdrop to my salad days. From her first appearance on Top of the Pops as a slightly chubby, yet vibrant young woman, I followed her closely through my youth. Like many others, I puzzled over "Like a Virgin", wondering if people (read men) could really tell; …
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Barcelona: The Barcafems
21 May 2012
Barcelona has a long and proud feminist tradition. In the Spanish Civil War, the Mujeres Libres were established to fight for a liberatory society prioritising the liberation of women. Although they worked closely with other aspects of the autonomous movement and the struggle against fascism the Mujeres Libres demanded …
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The Concentric Circles of the Unmen
15 May 2012
In the Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir states that whenever a woman seeks to act like a human being she is said to be imitating the male. For women are unmen, a lesser class, who in the eyes of the patriarchy fail at being human. She also raises the question …
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Male “feminists”: Creepy Sexual Predators?
22 Apr 2012
In an earlier post on pro-feminism, I made a slightly offhand allusion, picked up on by some careful readers, to something which does the rounds among feminist groups but is rarely spoken of openly, when I suggested that men who identified as "feminists" were often perceived as creepy sexual predators. Now, …
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Cougars, Aunties and MILFs: The sexualisation of older women
19 Apr 2012
Idly flicking through the stats for Village Aunties, a multi-author feminist blog, I write for from time to time, I came across something strange. Despite this being a Scottish blog, the majority of its readers would appear to be from India. I was a bit puzzled by this and explored …
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The Power of the Non-Euclidean
16 Apr 2012Mixing in a variety of circles you find terms which have slightly difference shades of meaning depending on the context of their use. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the epithet "straight". As I wander from one deviant community to another (as you do), I sometimes have to remind …
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A sort of friendship recognised by the police
14 Feb 2012
Having had to apologise twice in the last week for comments that were patronising or condescending, I'm quite sensitive at the moment about the manner in which I express my views. At the same time, the campaign for Equal Marriage is hotting up in Scotland, and I don't really approve. …
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Gay is the new Drab: Why Marriage Is Not The Answer
05 Dec 2011
The Scottish Government is currently in consultation over extending the right to marry to gay couples. Mixing in leftie circles, I find myself continually bombarded with people encouraging me to contribute to the consultation, always assuming that I would support such an extension, as is the dominant narrative on the left. When …
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Teaching girls to say “yes”
17 Oct 2011
In May this year a bill proposed by Nadine Dorries was narrowly passed which required that schools provided girls (only girls mind) with sex education which extorted the benefits of abstinence. Quoted in the Guardian, she states that she had spoken to many teenage girls "do not even think they …
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On Defeating the Kyriarchy
09 Sep 2011
Kyriarchy is a term coined in But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation by Fiorenza and adopted by many third wave feminists as a more encompassing view of power and privilege than the concept of patriarchy, which dominated the analysis of most second wave feminists. Understanding the concerns of, …