by DGR News Service | Aug 12, 2022 | ANALYSIS, Pornography, Prostitution
Editor’s note: As an eco-feminist organization, Deep Green Resistance draws links between the exploitation and mistreatment of women, the destruction of compassion and solidarity, and the ongoing ecocide of the natural world.
Rates of sexual abuse today are staggering. On average nearly 500,000 people over 12 years of age — the vast majority of them female — are sexually assaulted each year in the United States. Some 12.5% of children are sexually abused.
In this piece, Jocelyn Crowley draws links between the mainstreaming of violent pornography and endemic sexual abuse — increasingly normalized as “rough sex” or kink, reminding us that we must not forget that sexual abuse of women is at the core of patriarchy.
NB: This piece contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse. Click here for information about stopping porn addiction.
By Jocelyn Crawley
While doing research for an article I recently wrote regarding the level of radicalism which can and might exist within mainstream realms such as rape crisis centers, I stumbled across a documentary regarding how sex traffickers now frequent drug rehab facilities for the purpose of recruiting victims. These traffickers lure victims away by proposing that the victims are being transported to another drug rehab facility.
Although I formerly worked for an anti-trafficking facility, this was all new to me. I listened in a state of deep horror as several young women described how traffickers repeatedly “sold them for sex” (paid rape) to various individuals. While everything stated by the brave survivors who were strong enough to tell their stories left a deep imprint on my consciousness, the most disturbing and transformative story was from a young woman who stated that while being trafficked, the trafficker stated “Did you know that four men just ran a train on you for $20? Just $20. That’s it.” Her point was plain. The trafficker was informing her that she was worth little to nothing and that, as a mere object, he maintained the subjectivity necessary to determine what the cost of her objectification would be.
It is well-known that pimps use these types of breaking strategies to convince victims that no one cares about them, and the strategies wouldn’t be repeatedly used if they weren’t effective. Yet the reason that her words were particularly jarring to me at that moment is because I had recently become reirritated by the reality of fake feminists and their inaccurate discourse, nonempirical understanding of gender, and superficial work that they do to uphold male supremacy under the guise of creating a more equitable world when they could actually join the radical feminist family in the unapologetic, unrelenting condemnation of men who subject women to any and all forms of sexual abuse.
I won’t go into deep detail regarding the asinine, ineffective efforts of the liberal feminist community here, but suffice it to state that they make things like the cultivation of good heterosexual marriages, equal pay for equal work, and abortion rights integral to their platform and diminish the role that sexual abuse plays in perpetuating male supremacy due to fear of truly speaking to power and recognizing that the men they serve are the biggest threat to the viability of the planet and half its population
Although the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade was a substantive blow to women, I agree with the radical feminists who argue that the sustained attention given to the abortion debate is actually a distraction and the diverting of female energy from the most significant source of women’s oppression: any and all forms of sexual abuse. Indeed, I think that radical feminist energy should be continually redirected to the recognition of, rumination regarding, and antagonistic response towards the variegated forms of sexual abuse that transpire in all realms, including the now sexually normative and culturally acceptable spheres of prostitution and pornography.
While other forms of gender-based abuse are problematic, rape and other forms of sexual assault and oppression are the most egregious because they reduce women to objects and revivify a cultural landscape in which individuals are reduced to a state eerily comparable to slavery in which their bodies are no longer their own but rather a resource that is extracted for capital and/or pleasure of nefarious masters (pimps, johns, boyfriends, husbands, and all other men who appropriate female bodies). (Also, if is true that prostitution is the oldest institution in the world, this would mean that it predates all forms of traditional slavery on the planet…and this would be saying a lot regarding which forms of oppression and against which groups are most deeply imbricated into the psyches of the citizens of the planet.)
While I have read much literature regarding rape and other forms of sexual abuse, I was most recently stirred by my rereading of Gloria Steinem’s stunning essay “The Real Linda Lovelace.” This essay recounts the horrific, brutal violence (both sexual and non) suffered by Linda Boreman at the hands of multiple men, including her former husband Chuck Traynor.
Much of Steinem’s retelling of Boreman’s sexual abuse stems from her awareness of the pornographic film Deep Throat. Although individuals immersed in malestream, normative thinking regarding gender and sexuality viewed the film as an intriguing and perhaps grotesquely fascinating representation of “sex,” radical feminists know that the accurate interpretation of this media representation is a replication of the culturally normative practice of treating women as sexual objects and physical receptacles (mouth, anus, and vagina are just “holes” for men to enter) who exist as such for male pleasure. This assessment is grounded in material reality rather than mere abstract philosophical speculation because we know the film involved a man inserting his penis in Linda Boreman’s mouth as well as a hollow glass dildo being stuck in her vagina while men sipped liquid from it.
Radical feminists can learn many lessons from these depictions, one of which is that culturally normative male sexuality is about disregarding the concept of female pleasure in sexuality or inverting it to promote the myth that women receive pleasure from giving men pleasure. These patriarchal myths are perpetuated through Deep Throat, and Steinem makes this reality plain upon noting that the director-writer of the film, Gerry Damiano, “decided to tell the story of a woman whose clitoris was in her throat, and who was constantly eager for oral sex with men” (267).
Here we see the inversion of biological reality, which is that the clitoris is a central and primary source of sexual pleasure for women, such that this component of female anatomy is geographically relocated to the back of a woman’s throat for the purpose of suggesting that having a penis inserted into a female’s mouth is physically stimulating in a manner that results in substantive pleasure. The reality, which Damiano diminished through this inversion of biological materiality, is that this form of oral sex has the primary impact of generating male, not female, pleasure. The pleasure is not mutual or equally distributed between both partners because the clitoris is indeed not located in the back of a woman’s throat.
Damiano’s mythological distortion of female sexuality and the female body reinforces male dominance by perpetuating the core patriarchal idea that women exist to service men. As a cultural artifact, the film reinforces the idea that this ideology can be legitimated through the development of fictional narratives regarding women’s biology.
The use of a hollow glass dildo in Deep Throat also upholds the mythology of male supremacy that is normalized within the pornographic realm. Steinem recounts this scene in context of the horrified response of Nora Ephron, a writer who, upon seeing this in the film, stated “All I could think about was what would happen if the glass broke” (268). I’m fairly confident that I would have responded similarly if I sat through a scene in which a hollow glass dildo was inserted into a woman’s vagina and then filled with Coca-Cola that was subsequently drunk through a surgical straw.
Yet when Ephron shared her concern with some male friends, they told her “that she was “overreacting” and that the Coca-Cola scene was “hilarious”” (268). This response reflects the desensitization that most people, particularly men, experience when confronted with the reality of female objectification coupled with the perpetuation of the idea that women’s bodies exist for the purpose of servicing men. In this case, the servicing grotesquely melded the realms of food and sex such that the source of male satisfaction involved being able to use a component of female anatomy for sexual titillation and the alleviation of thirst. (If the person who drank the Coca-Cola was actually thirsty, because it is quite plausible that he was not and just wanted to demonstrate the extent of his control over a female body by indicating that he could find more than one way to utilize her vagina and, given the opportunity, would do so. I think it’s also important to note that this component of the film reflects the male proclivity to utilize the power of creation and artistry in a perverse manner that involves misusing, obliterating, or disfiguring female bodies such that their process of “creation” is actually more comparable to “destruction,” making their “creative process” a patriarchal reversal (the opposite of what it claims to be). I think it’s also important to note what this specific form of patriarchal reversal might be rooted in, which is plausibly male jealousy over female anatomy and its capacity to give birth and life to a living thing, with the male perverted response being a proclivity for destroying the source of life, female bodies.)
The lies that men tell about female bodies through pornography are not limited to the mythology of a clitoris in the back of the throat or the insertion of a hollow glass dildo into a woman’s vagina. Chuck Traynor, Linda’s long-time abuser/husband, perpetuated myths regarding female psychology and anatomy by having her memorize a set of lies to recite regarding her role in pornographic films when interviewed by the public. This is why, when Nora Ephron interviewed Linda Boreman and asked how she felt about making Deep Throat, Boreman responded “I totally enjoyed myself making the movie” and “I don’t have any inhibitions about sex. I just hope that everybody who goes to see the film…loses some of their inhibitions” (268).
As Steinem notes, “Linda would later list these and other answers among those dictated by Chuck Traynor for just such journalistic occasions” (268). Furthermore, Traynor punished Boreman for showing any type of unacceptable emotion when he sold her for sex (paid rape). For example, Boreman cried after being successively raped by the five men Traynor sold her to. One of the men, apparently disturbed by her emotive response, refused to pay. Upon learning of this, Traynor punished her with physical abuse. In recounting this, Steinem notes that Boreman “had been beaten and raped so severely and regularly that she suffered rectal damage, plus permanent injury to the blood vessels in her legs” (268).
The reality of the physical and sexual abuse that Boreman suffered at the hands of Chuck Traynor as he sold her for paid rape is disturbing for several reasons, including the fact that it constitutes a form of severe dehumanization. This abuse is operative and real male depravity, not simulation or speculation.
Yet while the reality of male depravity is disturbing, the level of ignorance that the masses have regarding its occurrence within the realms of pornography and prostitution is perhaps even more disorienting. Collective resistance plays a key role in defanging male supremacy. Therefore, the reality that most individuals are not fully aware of the profound abuse that transpires within these realms of cultural acceptability means that there will be a lack of attention towards solving the problem because of a lack of awareness that there even is a problem.
Even though Boreman was forced to make the film Deep Throat at gunpoint, this is not what the viewers of the film saw. What they saw was her happy, smiling face in the film, with this depiction being utilized for promoting a multitude of male myths regarding female sexuality, including the fact that women are most sexually satisfied when they are satisfying men (which is one of the reasons that I think fellatio has become normative within heterosexual relationships despite how profoundly one-sided it is). The masses are unaware of the dynamic of violence that went into making this film and thus don’t even understand that Boreman was not a willing participant.
It is also disturbing to note that while many individuals may have been horrified to learn of the abuse behind Deep Throat, they would be unperturbed about watching a modern pornographic film in which a woman “willingly chose” to participate, but did not give consent for various sexual acts that were subsequently forced upon her — under the premise that “she is just acting” and therefore it’s “not real, just a creative depiction of sexuality without the typical inhibitions.” This type of abuse, along with so-called “revenge porn,” voyeur videos, rape fantasies, racist tropes, incest themes, and videos of child and adult sexual abuse, are common on modern porn websites that are accessible free, 24/7.
Thus while many people might be uncomfortable regarding the reality of a lack of female consent, they are unbothered by rape and abuse if it occurs in context of a “fantasy.” (I put the word fantasy in quotation marks here because the creation of pornographic films that involve this system of relationality is not entirely fantastical because the production required real actors and we also now know that many of the female actresses are not actually giving consent to portray themselves as not giving consent. Rather, they are actually being raped. In fact, many porn films are filmed rapes that were uploaded into communities of individuals who consume porn.)
With all of this in mind, there is an important point for radical feminists to consider: lack of female consent and arousal regarding forms of “sex” that take place in its absence appear to be a part of normative collective consciousness, also known as the mainstream. So, the low level of receptivity to banning porn and prostitution should perhaps be unsurprising and respected, meaning that radical feminists should perhaps redirect their energy away from convincing individuals who accept and appreciate the perversity of porn that it is a problem toward the development of alternative communities for those who want it to have neither central nor tangential impact and import in their lives.
As I continue to think critically about the sexual abuse of women, I find that new and old questions and concepts flourish in my psyche. One is an assertion that I have heard many ostensibly empathetic, sensitive individuals make regarding radical feminist discourse on sexual abuse. The assessment is: “Sometimes I think these radical feminists take the most grotesque, egregious cases of sexual abuse and present them to the public for either 1. shock value or 2. To promote the idea that these extreme cases are normative and widespread.”
Sometimes I think the people who make this statement have been trained to recite a line for the purpose of perpetuating fake conversations and false consciousness rather than engaging in a potentially awkward or life-altering discourse, or perhaps they simply don’t want to believe that abuse is as common as it actually is. I haven’t drawn clear conclusions regarding the motivation for the recitation yet. Anyway, there are many problems with these assertions, but I only wish to address one here.
The individuals who assert that extreme sexual abuse (such as that experienced by Linda Boreman) is somehow detached from what transpires in the mainstream heteronormative culture are submitting a misleading supposition. This is the case because even though most men are not traffickers and pimps, and most women are not trafficked or prostituted by these men, the majority of the male populace consumes the sexual objectification and assault of women in the form of pornography, prostitution, and/or attendance in strip clubs (where many young women are seasoned to go from stripping to prostitution).
Additionally, while it is not the fault of women that men engage in these nefarious activities, the majority of the female populace creates the conditions necessary for these depraved behaviors to continue through self-silencing, victim-blaming, and becoming a male apologist (ie, “Oh, he’s really a good guy. What we saw right there is not who he really is, just a mistake he made.” Blah blah blah.)
This is what the people who say that radical feminists are presenting extreme cases that don’t reflect what most men and women think and feel or would consent to need to understand: “Literally millions of women seem to have been taken to Deep Throat by their boyfriends or husbands (not to mention prostitutes who were taken by their pimps) so that each one might learn what a woman could do to please a man if she really wanted to. This instructive value seems to have been a major reason for the movie’s popularity, and its reach beyond the usual universe of male-only viewers” (267).
In reflecting on Steinem’s assertion here, it should be plain that the production and consumption of media depicting the sexual abuse of women and thwarting/inversion of female sexuality is an unequivocally mainstream endeavor. While the abuse that Boreman suffered may be considered extreme and not reflective of what most women experience in heteropatriarchy, most of the American populace is now actively contributing to the sustaining of industries that profit from the violation of her and other women trapped in the realms of prostitution (including pornography) and trafficking.
In summation, male supremacy in context of abortion laws is a significant topic that should continually be addressed. Yet, this newest manifestation of male supremacy should not sideline radical feminist discourse regarding the most egregious form of patriarchy, sexual abuse. As such, let’s keep talking about the sexual abuse of women, please.
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
Works Cited
- Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1983.
Photo: MMIW marchers at a 2019 march in Washington D.C., taken by S L O W K I N G on Wikimedia. CC BY NC 3.0.
by DGR News Service | Dec 4, 2021 | Male Supremacy, The Problem: Civilization, Women & Radical Feminism
By Jocelyn Crawley
Women all over the world should be unequivocally enraged about the ongoing abuse, degradation, and harassment that members of the male-invented class “female” continue to experience in these ostensibly “progressive, postmodern” times. They apparently are not. I suspect this is because men in power have systematically obscured information that would enable women to understand the depth of hatred and contempt that men have for them. Ti-Grace Atkinson is aware of this patriarchal reality. In her book Amazon Odyssey, she explores the role that patriarchy plays in confining women to the realm of objectification and oppression which ensures the perpetuity of male supremacy. Atkinson is unflinching, unequivocal in her analysis and condemnation of male supremacy. All women who are interested in understanding and overcoming patriarchy should read it, carefully.
In Chapter One, Atkinson provides readers with a brief summation of why abortion should be legal by grounding her argument in context of property. Specifically, she argues that “The reproductive function has the status of property because of its definitive nature” (1). She goes on to argue that the relationship a woman has with an unborn fetus is analogous to the relationship a sculptor has with her art. Just as a sculptor’s art is her property, the fetus of the woman is her possession given her role in the creative/reproductive process. Atkinson argues that because a woman’s fetus can and should be construed as her property, the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States upholds her right to an abortion. Specifically, she writes that
“The Constitution of the United States, in the Fourteenth Amendment, clearly protects the life, liberty, and property of every person. Any legislation interfering in any way with any woman’s self-determination of her reproductive process is clearly unconstitutional…it would interfere with her property since her reproductive process constitutes, in the most integral and strictest sense, her property” (3).
Here, Atkinson provides readers with a new perspective through which to analyze abortion which expands discourse by moving conversations beyond the formerly centralized argument of “life” and into the perhaps more significant realm of belonging. Although I find the argument of property problematic as an individual who is anti-capitalist and envisions a world in which individuals cease to view selves, others, and all objects in the internal and external realm as things that they own (and thus have a hegemonic relationship with), this argument is compelling. It is logical to construe an entity growing within one’s own body as belonging to one’s self rather than being the property of an individual or institution in the external world which would seek to make decisions regarding the entity’s “right” to life.
As the text progresses, Atkinson proves that she maintains an unmistakably radical stance towards the multifarious horrors of patriarchy. In Chapter Three, she provides the readers with details regarding her resignation from the ‘feminist’ organization N.O.W. It is here that the reader attains a clear understanding of the ideological dissonance that transpires when a radical thinker attempts to assimilate revolutionary values into an ideologically mainstream organization. The ideological disparity within N.O.W. became evident when group “leader” Betty Friedan asserted that one of the feminist goals is “to get women into positions of power” (10). Atkinson elucidates the radical disposition towards power (repugnance and repudiation) upon noting that “We want to destroy the positions of power. To alter the condition of women involves the shifting of over half the population…To change that relationship requires a redefinition of humanity, of all the relationships within humanity. We want to get rid of the positions of power, not get up into those positions” (10). Not only did Ti-Grace and radical dissenters within the organization disagree regarding whether acquiring power in the external world should be a feminist objective, they also disagreed regarding the maintenance of a hierarchical structure within N.O.W. Specifically, Atkinson noted that “The younger dissenting faction of which I am a member has been trying for a long time to change the unequal power relationships within the organization, i.e., the power hierarchy represented by officers: Executive Committee, Board of Directors, membership” (10). The component of this text is particularly important because it provides readers with a representation of how simply asserting dissent from the dominant world order (patriarchy) is not enough to warrant a radical’s participation in an organization. Ideological alignment, not mere dissatisfaction towards the existing power structure, must be operative for a radical to be effective in authentically addressing the patriarchy. Simply replicating systems and structures of power in an attempt to quell power is ineffective because it reflects the fact that the ideology of the Master (with his corresponding slave) is operative. In discussing this matter, Atkinson stated that she resigned from her office upon realizing that “by holding this office I am participating in oppression itself” (10). Although the form of oppression she mentions here (which includes holding a position over others and thereby subjecting them to a system of subordination) is not as egregious in form or effect as the sexism women experience in real world contexts, it is nonetheless a replication of the hierarchical structuring of relationships designed by patriarchy.
Atkinson’s discourse regarding the patriarchy is not confined to the inefficacy of anti-patriarchal institutions. She also discussed the political nature of love and effectively integrates this concept into her delineation of how the patriarchy destroys the psyches of women. This analysis takes place in Chapter Six, which she titles “Radical Feminism And Love.” This chapter is important because it reemphasizes the author’s awareness of what it means to be ideologically radical. Maintaining a radical stance and searching for strategies and systems that enables one to more critique and summarily reject the dominant world order. I have repeatedly found that the most effective way to become increasingly radical is to read more radical writings. I became a radical through reading; realizing that the reason I was moderate and mainstream in my thought and praxis was because I was not repeatedly exposed to non-quotidian ways of thinking which provided a sustained and sincere critique of the innately oppressive regimes of heterosexuality and patriarchy.
Atkinson’s chapter on radical feminism and love enables the reader to reconceptualize the prototypical narratives of romance and sexuality which continually contextualize male-female interactions in context of a battle of the sexes, trouble in paradise, marital bliss, etc. This discourse obscures the reality of male violence and the unrelenting, ongoing war against women that men are winning. Atkinson draws awareness to this by explaining what a radical feminist analysis is. She argues (accurately) that it includes three suppositions: “that women are a class, that this class is political in nature, and that this political class is oppressed” (41). This analysis is radical because it analyzes the foundation upon which male-female relationships are predicated and rejects the prototypical (read: the patriarchal lie) suggestion that this relationship is good, natural, and/or inevitable. Instead of accepting this Big Lie, a radical feminist analysis of male-female relationships asserts that they are definitively oppressive as they unfold within a class context in which men are the upper class and women are the lower class. It is this assertion that makes the analysis of male-female relationships radical. It is radical because it does not accept the prototypical premises regarding the foundation of these relationships. Rather than asserting that the foundation is familial, erotic, amorous, or any other mainstream falsehood purported to mask reality and thereby keep women confused regarding how the sex/gender system works, the radical analysis gets to the root of the problem (men) by asserting that the foundation of relationships between men and women is one of oppression, not collaboration, cooperation, or community. This, in my opinion, is one of the most important concepts for a woman to grasp and accept as true if she seriously wants to abrade or eradicate the role that patriarchy plays in her life.
As Atkinson’s book continues to unfold, her radical political stance becomes increasingly evident. This fact becomes plain upon consideration of Chapter Fourteen, “The Political Woman.” Here, Atkinson distinguishes from mainstream, normative responses to the reality of male supremacy and a radical political stance. Daily logic involves women pretending to not grasp the depth or scope of male supremacy and the adverse impact it has on their lives by, as Atkinson notes, demonstrating “a certain reluctance to seeing men as the enemy” (89). Another normative, nonradical response is asserting that because she has found a ‘good’ male partner, the reality of men posing an intense ongoing threat to female vitality is somehow less significant and substantive. Atkinson articulates this antifeminist response thus: “Other women, no doubt, admit the logic of men as our class enemy. But, by some happy accident, their present boyfriend is one of the rare exceptions to this rule” (89). Atkinson goes on to assert the difference between the aforementioned ideology/praxis and a radical response. Specifically, she states that “The proof of class consciousness will be when we separate off from men, from these one-to-one units. (For example, marriage and motherhood) (90). I agree with Atkinson’s assertion and want to reemphasize that this is a radical position because it attacks the foundation of the problem, which is men and the institutions they have designed to legitimate and authorize their abuse of women (marriage and motherhood).
One of the most compelling chapters of this text is entitled “Self-Deception.” Here, Atkinson reiterates one of the most important conclusions a real radical can draw during the process of thoroughly intentionally extricating the self from patriarchy and all mainstream organizations that profess revolutionary praxis but then reinforce the status quo with normative ruminations and praxis. Specifically, Atkinson discusses her deep disgust with N.O.W. and her eventual revelation that the organization was not trying to do what they said they were trying to do, which was:
- Divest yourselves of all class privilege, and
- Struggle against oppression itself (213-214).
The aforementioned praxis is radical. N.O.W.’s attempt to pretend to engage in these activities without actually doing so proved that they were not radical. This was an important point but even more compelling was Atkinson’s distinction between how the women engaged in so-called political discussions during their special sessions. She writes:
“Your major activity is talking to each other in special sessions, which you carefully label “political.” This careful labeling distinguishes “talking” about your lives from the way you spend the majority of your time, which is in “living” them. There is no significantly observable truth connection between the two activities, at least not apparently to the individuals living this double-life. But you consciously and maliciously attempt to deceive others that there is a difference, that you are political. And you then use this deceit as a weapon against all outsiders” (214).
This passage was compelling because it unveiled what transpires within many organizations and media groups who claim to be radical. They sit around talking, call the talking political by selecting topics (read: talking points), and then conclude that the “thoughtful discourse” distinguishes them from other individuals who were not involved in the so-called political conversation. This process is both elitist and deceptive, and radicals need to know that before participating in any group discussions under the premise of attacking the foundation of oppression and challenging patriarchy. I would argue that an example of real radical discourse would be the feminist consciousness-raising sessions that transpired during the 2nd wave when women began discussing the reality of rape and batter, after which they recognized that male violence was a political, rather than personal-problem.
Ultimately, Atkinson’s Amazon Odyssey is a truly radical, unpretentious, text that provides readers with a critical, thorough analysis of patriarchy, why previous forms of feminism could neither contend with nor thwart it, and why radical feminism is the appropriate lens through which to conceptualize and grapple with male supremacy.
Oftentimes, radicals analyze the culture of hegemony and domination that currently constructs normative reality and wonder what the appropriate response to the lackluster nature of this heteropatriarchy is. As Atkinson outlines the solution is maintaining a revolutionary ideology and praxis rather than adopting moderate attitudes or seeking to share power with and/or replicate the mental and behavioral patterns of the Master. Although this truth has been articulated and reiterated by many radicals, it needs to be stated continually so that the truly radical praxis that is necessary to thwart the misplaced authority and agency of oppressive individuals and institutions can be effectively challenged.
Works Cited
Atkinson, Ti-Grace. Amazon Odyssey. New York: Links Books, 1974.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Deep Green Resistance, the News Service or its staff.
by DGR News Service | Mar 7, 2021 | Male Supremacy, Male Violence, Pornography, Prostitution, Rape Culture, The Problem: Civilization, Women & Radical Feminism
In Part Two of a two part article Jocelyn Crawley offers the reader a history and systemic analysis of the harms towards women. Part one has been published the day before.
One might hope that the patriarchal process of calling women who resist the sexual abuse and all other ideological inclinations of men would be a historical reality that lost traction and prevalence through time. However, this phallic phenomenon is an integral aspect of contemporary, mainstream (malestream) culture. In the chilling report “Booted: Lack of Recourse for Wrongfully Discharged US Military Rape Survivors,” readers learn that Juliet Simmons was drugged and raped in August 2007. The assault took place in her US Air Force barracks and she reported the abuse. However, her first sergeant made it plain that he did not believe her. Despite the fact that she continued completing her job-related responsibilities and received exceptional performance evaluations, she was discharged for having a “Personality Disorder not specified” after being sent to an appointment with an Air Force mental health provider.
As the report goes on to indicate, classifying women who resist sexual advances as mentally unstable is not an anomalous element of the military. In fact, the report documents the experiences of several other women who experienced similar modes of silencing and dismissal via the patriarchal mantra-modality “woman you are insane.” Like Simmons, Quinn was subjected to this patriarchal reversal in which the insanity of men is made to appear sane so that the perpetrator of a sex crime is recognized as innocent and rational while the victim is irrevocably depraved and maniacal. After joining the Navy in 2002, Quinn thrived and received awards but found that her vocational vitality was threatened after she rejected her master chief’s advances. Once this happened, she was informed that the master chief was waiting for her to commit a “mistake” so that he would be able to have her removed from “his” Navy.
Following these events, Quinn was raped by a Navy technician and did not report the abuse due to concerns regarding the fact that she had already been classified as a troublemaker. After suffering more abuse from shipmates who set her body on fire with a lighter, she was moved to another unit. While there, a first class petty officer groped her breast and verbally harassed her. Her transfer request was refused and she was then forced to complete a night shift with him. She refused to do so and was ordered to spend six to eight hours daily standing at attention. Shortly thereafter, she was discharged from the unit on grounds of her having a “Personality Disorder.” In addition to reflecting patriarchal society’s proclivity to dismiss and disempower women who resist sexual violence by asserting that they are mentally unstable, these real-life occurrences reveal the role that this phallic practice plays in destabilizing a woman’s job security (which in turn could increase her economic reliance on a man.)
As noted in her article “Price of calling women crazy: Military women who speak out about sexual assault are being branded with “personality disorder” and let go,” one component of a patriarchal society is accusing women who assert that they have been sexually subordinated of being crazy “while no one asks about the mental status of men who would do such things.”).
I construe this reality as a patriarchal reversal.
In her own work, Mary Daly talks about patriarchal reversals as men reconstructing reality in a manner which privileges them as innately valuable and superior to women. Within the realm of patriarchal reversals, male actions and attitudes are unquestionably right and any thought or behavioral pattern of women is immediately and incontrovertibly dubious. One of the most prevalent patriarchal reversals is that Eve came out of Adam’s rib, with this myth being utilized to promote the ideas that 1. men are the origin of life and creation and 2. “God,” like the male Adam, is male. In context of patriarchal reversals pertaining to mental health, the notion that women are less mentally stable than men works to perpetuate the myth that they are somehow more competent, logical, and therefore the ideal sex to “rule the planet.”
In her important article “Women Aren’t Crazy,” Jennifer Wright explains the role that portraying women as crazy plays in privileging men and creating environments through which members of the male sex can subordinate women. In her text, Wright notes that
“The notion that women who are not compliant are insane is one that’s been used to silence women for generations. One of the most remarkable things about the Harvey Weinstein scandal is realizing how many women would have been so easy to dismiss as crazy if they’d ever come forward before now.”
Wright goes on to elucidate this principle by articulating how absurd victims such as Rose McGowan would have sounded to most individuals upon stating that Weinstein had hired former Mossad agents to extract information from her and stifle forthcoming data regarding his behavior. Yet evidence exists that this is the course of action that Weinstein took for the purpose of suppressing information regarding his sexual depravity and abuse of women.
As made glaringly evident by the role that accusing women who challenge the patriarchal praxis of sexual abuse as being insane plays in structuring historical and contemporary society, this androcentric practice is designed to discredit members of the female sex who are not willing to passively accept malignant male activity. In discussing this in his piece “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England,” MacDonald writes that
“The authorities define insanity so that it invalidates the protests of its victims and use mental institutions as repositories for malcontents and rebels. The feminist model is essentially a variant of the neo-Marxist one: instead of paupers, the casualties of bourgeois capitalism, the victims of psychiatry are women, the targets of repressive patriarchy” (261).
MacDonald’s assessments are accurate and they reveal the role that accusing women of being insane plays in perpetuating the patriarchy. If dissidents (here defined as any individual who adamantly and unequivocally rejects and challenges patriarchal praxes such as sexual violence) run the risk of losing social power and cultural capital because they are characterized as insane for speaking to power, they are much less likely to express dissent and create the palpable dissonance necessary to inform the general public that something is disturbingly and dehumanizingly wrong.
When a woman’s voice is invalidated due to gaslighting and cultural consensus that her accusations amount to insanity, the male perpetrator of the crime is empowered to continue victimizing other members of the female sex who may also feel intimidated into silence on grounds that they will not be believed. As usual, the patriarchy-not women-is the problem.
The solution is to listen to women and review the empirical data that painstakingly elucidates the pernicious, patriarchal processes that men utilize to perpetuate the oppression of members of the female sex.
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her intense antagonism towards all forms of social injustice-including white supremacy-grows with each passing day. Her primary goal for 2020 is to connect with other radicals for the purpose of building community and organizing against oppression.
Works Cited
Carlisle, Marcia R. “What Made Lizzie Borden Kill?” https://www.americanheritage.com/what-made-lizzie-borden-kill#2. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Hendrik Hartog, Mrs. Packard on Dependency, 1 Yale J.L. & Human. (1989). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol1/iss1/6.
Human Rights Watch. Booted: Lack of Recourse for Wrongfully Discharged US Military Rape Survivors.https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/05/19/booted/lack-recourse-wrongfully-discharged-us-military-rape-survivors#. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021
Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Madison, Amber. “Stop Telling Women They’re Crazy.” https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2014/09/75146/stop-women-crazy-emotions-gender. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Marcotte, Amanda. ““Price of calling women crazy: Military women who speak out about sexual assault are being branded with “personality disorder” and let go.” https://www.salon.com/2016/05/20/price_of_calling_women_crazy_military_women_who_speak_out_about_sexual_assault_are_being_branded_with_personality_disorder_and_let_go/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1985). quoted in Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Wright, Jennifer. “Women Aren’t Crazy.” https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a14504503/women-arent-crazy/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
by DGR News Service | Mar 6, 2021 | Male Supremacy, Male Violence, Movement Building & Support, Pornography, Prostitution, Rape Culture, The Problem: Civilization, Women & Radical Feminism
In Part One of a two part article Jocelyn Crawley offers the reader a history and systemic analysis of the harms towards women. Part two will be published the following day.
When I first discovered how widespread acceptance of and/or compliance towards rape, pornography, pedophilia, prostitution, and sex trafficking are, I was enraged. I once viewed a documentary indicating that pimps systematically show little girls videos of women performing fellatio on men to “educate” them on how to provide this “service” to the males they are trafficked to. One thought I had while attempting to process what was transpiring was: this is crazy. In addition to drawing this conclusion, I was filled with unalloyed shock and deep ire. I then reconceptualized the prototypical way I interpreted reality (men and women coexist together in a state of relative peace marked by periodic hiccups, spats, “trouble in paradise,” etc.) and came to understand that patriarchy is the ruling religion of the planet with women being reduced to the subordinated class that men systematically subjugate and subject to a wide range of oppressions.
Part of patriarchy’s power is making its perverse rules and regulations for how reality should unfold appear normative and natural while categorizing anyone who challenges these perversions as insane. Insanity is defined as a state of consciousness confluent with mental illness, foolishness, or irrationality. According to patriarchal logic, any individual who attempts to question or quell its nefarious, necrotic systems and regimes is thinking and acting in an illogical manner. To express the same concept with new language to further elucidate this component of material reality under phallocracy: anyone who does not accept patriarchal logic is illogical or insane according to patriarchal logic. For this reason, it is not uncommon for women who challenge men who sexually harass or intimidate them into sex trafficking to be called insane. It is critically important for radical feminists to examine and explore this facet of the patriarchy in order to gain more knowledge about how phallocentrism works and what can and should be done to abrogate and annihilate it.
To fully understand the integral role that accusing women of being insane plays in normative patriarchal society, one should first consider the etymology of the word.
As noted in “Stop Telling Women They’re Crazy” by Amber Madison, the term hysteria entered cultural consciousness “when people didn’t want to pay attention to a woman” . When this happened, the woman was oftentimes taken to a medical facility and was subsequently diagnosed with hysteria. The phrase “hysteria” was an umbrella term meant to reference women who “caused trouble,” experienced irritability or nervousness, or didn’t reflect the level of interest in sexual activity deemed appropriate by men. The word hysteria is derived from the Greek term “hystera,” which means uterus. Thus the etymological history of the word informs us of the attempt to conflate the psychobiological experience of insanity with the material reality of being a biological female.
In recognizing the role that patriarchal societies play in attempting to establish confluence between insanity and the material reality of being a woman, it is important to note that individuals who take the time to carefully scrutinize patriarchy are cognizant of the male attempt to make mental instability a fundamentally female flaw. For example, Elaine Showalter has noted that the primary cultural stereotype of madness construed the condition as a female malady (Showalter, 1985, as cited in MacDonald, 1986). As noted by Julianna Little in her thesis “Frailty, thy name is woman: Depictions of Female Madness,”
“The most significant of cultural constructions that shape our view of madness is gender. Madness has been perceived for centuries metaphorically and symbolically as a feminine illness and continues to be gendered into the twenty-first century” (5).
In the twenty-first century, individuals who have wished to challenge the notion that the thoughts and emotions experienced by women are automatically and inevitably signs of insanity utilize the term “gaslighting” to refer to this insidious mindfuckery.
The history of men accusing women of being insane in response to accusations of sexual abuse is well-documented.
One significant case which should be a part of public consciousness is that of Alice Christiana Abbott. Abbott poisoned her stepfather in 1867 and, upon being questioned, stated that he had had an “improper connection” with her since she was thirteen. After informing others of this, the majority believed that “something was the matter with her head.” However, there was nothing wrong with her head. In fact, I argue that she operated according to a rightness of mind which recognized sexual assault as fundamentally wrong. Abbott’s stepfather threatened to have her put in reform school if she spoke of the abuse, and this was the assertion that prompted her to act. When her case took place in the Suffolk County Grand Jury, Abbott was committed to the Taunton Lunatic Asylum (Carlisle, “What Made Lizzie Borden Kill?”) That the sentence for challenging a man who sexually abuses a woman incorporates classifying her as insane indicates the patriarchy’s ongoing attempt to construe its malevolent, depraved rules and regulations (which include normalizing and in some cases valorizing the sexual abuse of women) as natural and appropriate.
(The historical reality of men accusing women of being insane and utilizing the assertion to severely limit their life choices and thereby sustain patriarchy is not limited to issues of sexual abuse. In fact, men have appropriated the accusation of female insanity against women who committed any acts which challenged their power. This fact becomes plain when one considers the case of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. Packard married Theophilus Packard and experienced ideological disparities with him pertaining to religious philosophy. Specifically, Packard began demonstrating interest in the spiritual ideologies of perfectionism and spiritualism (Hartog, 79).
Perfectionism is a thought system advocating the notion that individuals could become sin-free through will power and conversion. Packard also assented to the notion of spiritualism, with this religious movement promoting the idea that the souls or spirits of dead individuals continued to exist and were also capable of communicating with living people. Theophilus Packard maintained conservative religious views that stood in diametric opposition to the aforementioned ideologies, with his own perspective including the notion of innate human depravity. After Elizabeth Packard began openly questioning his ideas and exploring her own, their ideological dissonance led to his accusation that she was insane. The accusation was officially made in 1860 and Packard decided to have his wife committed. Elizabeth Packard learned of his decision on June 18, 1860. It’s important to note that the patriarchal nature of this scenario is not limited to the interactions and ideological disparities existing between Elizabeth Packard and Theophilus Packard as two individuals. In fact, state law revealed its own patriarchal proclivity for privileging male interpretations of reality for the purpose of disempowering and dehumanizing women. This is the case as when, in 1851, the state of Illinois opened its first hospital for those who were allegedly mentally ill, the legislature passed a law which enabled husbands to have their wives committed without their consent or a public hearing.)
To be continued . . .
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her intense antagonism towards all forms of social injustice-including white supremacy-grows with each passing day. Her primary goal for 2020 is to connect with other radicals for the purpose of building community and organizing against oppression.
Works Cited
Carlisle, Marcia R. “What Made Lizzie Borden Kill?” https://www.americanheritage.com/what-made-lizzie-borden-kill#2. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Hendrik Hartog, Mrs. Packard on Dependency, 1 Yale J.L. & Human. (1989). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol1/iss1/6.
Human Rights Watch. Booted: Lack of Recourse for Wrongfully Discharged US Military Rape Survivors.https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/05/19/booted/lack-recourse-wrongfully-discharged-us-military-rape-survivors#. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021
Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Madison, Amber. “Stop Telling Women They’re Crazy.” https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2014/09/75146/stop-women-crazy-emotions-gender. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Marcotte, Amanda. ““Price of calling women crazy: Military women who speak out about sexual assault are being branded with “personality disorder” and let go.” https://www.salon.com/2016/05/20/price_of_calling_women_crazy_military_women_who_speak_out_about_sexual_assault_are_being_branded_with_personality_disorder_and_let_go/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1985). quoted in Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Wright, Jennifer. “Women Aren’t Crazy.” https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a14504503/women-arent-crazy/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
by DGR News Service | Jul 21, 2020 | Women & Radical Feminism
Radical feminism has for decades contained a tension between separatism—the idea that women can and should organize separately from men—and men’s involvement in the political process. As Susan Hawthorne writes in her 2019 book In Defense of Separatism:
When a political group wants to strategise so that its members can arrive at agreed-on political tactics and ideas, they call for, and create, separate spaces. These might be in coffee shops, in community centres, in one another’s homes or in semi-public spaces such as workers clubs, even cinemas. When the proletariat was rebelling, they did not ask the capitalists and aristocracy to join them (even if a few did); when the civil rights movement started it was not thanks to the ideas and politics of white people (even though some whites joined to support the cause); when the women’s liberation movement sprang into life, it was women joining together to fight against their oppression.
The difference is that women are supposed to love men.
If radical feminism centers women, what is the role of men and boys in the struggle? How should radical feminists relate to men who hope to be allies?
In this piece, Jocelyn Crawley reflects on Andrea Dworkin’s writing around rape and her demand that men “step up and sort this out.” Jocelyn highlights her disagreements and agreements with Dworkin’s speech. Not all will agree with her analysis, but it is a critical conversation.
Deep Green Resistance is a radical feminist organization, and yet is made up of both men and women from all over the world. We uphold the importance of women’s separate spaces, and our organization works to struggle internally and externally against patriarchy. We welcome debate and engagement around these critical topics
Is Dworkin’s “I Want A Twenty-Four Truce During Which There Is No Rape” Radical Or Reactionary?
by Jocelyn Crawley
“I Want A Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape” is one of my favorite texts from Andrea Dworkin. However, I find this speech problematic in several ways. The primary issue is that Andrea Dworkin appears to be appealing to the conscience and consciousness of men in this speech. While the Radical Feminism that functions as the ideology and praxis behind Dworkin’s work can be defined diversely, I have never known it to place primacy on men in a manner suggesting that they possess the potential and desire to condemn patriarchy and cultivate equitable relationships with women. Rather, the primary attitudes and actions I have seen in the Radical Feminist Movement reflect awareness that the oppressor (men) never concede power and must be abandoned entirely or dynamically forced to cease reifying the Master/slave, subject/object system of relations.
Without a doubt, Dworkin is acutely aware of the role that men play in actively (and oftentimes unabashedly) oppressing women.
This fact becomes evident at many points in the text, especially when Dworkin’s consciousness of male supremacy resurfaces when she tells us what it means: “It means you can rape. It means you can hit. It means you can hurt. It means you can buy and sell women”. In addition to demonstrating consciousness of how patriarchy operates, Dworkin’s speech indicates her awareness that the oppressor seldom makes substantive, significant shifts away from his perverse power. This reality becomes plain when Dworkin states that “Now, the men’s movement suggests that men don’t want the kind of power I have just described. I’ve actually heard explicit whole sentences to that effect. And yet, everything is a reason not to do something about changing the fact that you do have that power”.
Despite this understanding of sex-based oppression dynamics and the reality that men rarely give up patriarchal power, Dworkin’s tone in this piece is profoundly inclusive and collaborative. Specifically, she appears to be appealing to work towards ending patriarchy by confronting other men who, potentially, are participating in it. At the same time, she appears to be accepting the powerlessness imposed upon her as a woman by the patriarchy and using the reality of her minimal female agency to push men into action. For example, she challenges men thus: “Tell the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the warmakers. Tell the rape apologists and the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues…Tell Larry Flynt. Tell Hugh Hefner. There’s no point in telling me. I’m only a woman. There’s nothing I can do about it”.
None of this “tell another man” rhetoric feels unequivocally right or radical to me, which makes this speech a substantive divergence from the way I typically interpret Dworkin’s work.
Generally, the Radical Feminist Ideology includes an unequivocal acknowledgment that men are the root of the problem (patriarchy) coupled with an awareness that women will play an integral role in speaking to power. The question whether men should be part of the Movement at all or to what extent has been open-ended and answered differently by various Radical Feminists. Yet in this piece, Dworkin seems to suggest that men have to be the solution to the problem because women can’t do it. Not only is this analysis wrong (men don’t have to participate in radical work for results to be attained and many women have engaged in numerous anarchic activities that have substantively challenged patriarchy), it’s somewhat enervating to witness a radical woman concede that more power be transferred from women to men (even if the acquisition of this power serves the purpose of condemning or quelling patriarchy.)
Another thought that has been surfacing in my psyche regarding this piece is that it seems to instill the type of false hope that Derrick Jensen has spoken about in his critique of the world’s normative regimes. At one point, Jensen asked a group of individuals who were listening to one of his talks to define the phrase ‘false hope.’ They said the phrase meant ‘a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency.’ In the context of Dworkin’s speech, I think the false hope surfaces as she comes to think that men will play an integral, inalienable role in challenging sexism. In considering the history of the Women’s Rights Movement, I am thinking of women demanding that men give them the right to vote and recalling the Civil Rights Era during which women built rape crisis and domestic violence shelters. While there are certainly examples of small groups of men operating against the patriarchy in profoundly radical ways, this is very rare. In many cases, male absence from Radical Feminist work results from the belief that resistance movements should be led by individuals who are members of the group being oppressed.
In other words, women are most familiar with the experience of being oppressed by men.
The experiential knowledge they acquire through the degradation that transpires with sexual harassment, street harassment, rape, and other forms of male violence is why they-not men-should be leaders in the fight against patriarchy. This is an informed construance and prevents men from reifying two patriarchal modalities. First, it prevents men from attempting to operate as male saviors for women who are thought to lack the physical strength, emotional intelligence, or intellectual aptitude necessary to accomplish significant feats on their own. Secondly, it precludes men from subordinating women by having them play secondary or marginal roles in the Movement Against Patriarchy.
While many conscious men avoid playing primary roles in the Radical Feminist Movement because they view doing so as a potential reification of patriarchal norms, I would venture to say that the majority of men are absent from the Women’s Movement because 1. they view Women’s Rights as secondary to “more important issues like capitalism or white supremacy” or 2. they enjoy male privilege and have no long-standing interest in dismantling the system that makes this privilege possible. I think Dworkin knew all of this, and this is why her appeal to the conscience and consciousness of men in a manner suggesting that they take the lead in the war against women seems illogical and perhaps performative.
In terms of performativity, I am thinking that the form and content of this speech may have been designed to elicit the power of pathos for the purpose of generating an emotive response from men which translated into radical action despite the speaker’s knowledge of the fact that the desired outcome necessitated conformance to prototypical scripts for female speech (which included feigned/learned helplessness while excluding the radical work of unequivocally speaking to power). In recognizing Dworkin’s extensive knowledge of Radical Feminism and commitment to the Movement, I also think that her appeal carried with it a sincere weight. Specifically, I think she may have understood that men might do little to advance the Movement while simultaneously recognizing the need to confront them with their own sexism and thereby cause them to engage in an introspective process marked by thorough self-examination.
In considering Andrea Dworkin’s rhetorical strategy of turning to men as leaders against patriarchy while also suggesting that women lack the sociocultural capital necessary to effectively fight male oppressors, I find my mind wandering to a potentially troublesome question.
Can Radical Feminism actually work when even the most erudite, devout proponents of it periodically abandon its tenets in a manner that reifies assimilationist (anti-anarchic) values?
My questions have engendered some answers which, while not entirely cohesive yet, have generated clarity. Specifically, I do think that Radical Feminism can work despite the ideological vacillations and periodic pandering to men that even the most radical women engage in. Self-defense trainings, the emergence of natural birth control methods, radical underground operations, and other material manifestations make the presence and power of Radical Feminism known despite our simultaneous awareness that we are living in a profoundly patriarchal world. Mary Daly’s term “metapatriarchy” is particularly pertinent as we come to recognize our ability to transcend, move beyond, or develop real, subjective existence within psychic and material spaces that are still ruled by sexist men.
Ultimately, the sex of the people doing the work against androcentrism is important for many reasons, one of which is that it may provide us with empirical evidence regarding the degree to which men and women (as distinct sexes) are willing to conform to or depart from the patriarchy. Yet irrespective of which sex does the work and how much, the work needs to be done for the purpose of creating a new world predicated on freedom from sexual violence.
As Dworkin cogently states in the final paragraph of her essay, “If you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong”. She is right.
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her intense antagonism towards all forms of social injustice-including white supremacy-grows with each passing day. Her primary goal for 2020 is to connect with other radicals for the purpose of building community and organizing against oppression.
