Hard News: Feminist as crazy old man
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Regarding prostitution: Fark!! I know very little about prostitution. For my (untutored) part, very roughly, if a woman freely consents to sex work, then you go for it, girl.
Free consent is part of it: the other is the safety of those choices. It really came home to me when I read the OSH guidelines -- yes sex workers have workplace rights too, right down to humdrum rules about how many towels are to be provided.
And from the Prostitutes' Collective website, the first two points about the Prostitution Reform Act are so obviously important:
- You have the right to refuse to have sex with a client for any reason, or for no reason. No one- including managers, receptionists, minders, clients, other workers, etc., can force you to have sex with a client, even if he has paid. Managers cannot fine you for refusing a client- it is against the law for them to do so.
- You cannot be coerced (“induced or compelled”) into having sex by having money taken off you, etc., (i.e., fined, etc.), or threatened in any way. Section 16 of the Prostitution Reform Act states any person who does so “commits an offence and is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years”.
As you say, Deborah, sex without consent is rape. What that law did was make the issue of consent very explicit. It effectively affirmed in women performing this kind of work the status of citizens and human beings.
It bugs me greatly that Bindel (and Tanya Gold and others) will happily impugn the approach New Zealand has taken without ever seriously considering what our law actually does.
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"A male gender role in modern society is to take the lids off bottles."
Really?
In my whanau, everyone takes the lids off their own bottles, whether preserving jars or booze...everyone learns the tricks for the recalcitrant containers (e.g a smart tap with the back of a knife in 2 or 3 spots) and, as we grow older, everyone invests in the various cunning devices made for this job.
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Not if you actually explore what being a social male means. Because if one of the thing it means is not being able to have babies, then what about females who can't have babies - are they males?
Of course not. Being biologically male means, by definition, not being able to have babies.
But not being able to have babies does not necessarily equate to being biologically male.
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The role is based on biology, testosterone affects muscle mass and hence the gender role is defined by the biology..
That one is especially interesting since in athletics maleness is defined by how much testosterone is found in your body. And if you have too much of it, you transcend maleness itself and become disqualified. But I suppose you could say of many aspects of traditional gender roles that they are grounded in biology - however they are refracted to such a degree in the present that this has become quite meaningless in my view. I offered the example of the gay female couple who has a child through surrogacy upthread precisely because it did away with all the exemplars that Russell had included in one of his comments. And the understanding of gender as the socially constructed component helps in thinking about these issues, it's really all I'm trying to say.
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Being biologically male means, by definition, not being able to have babies.
Ah, semantics! Biologically male means man, not male. I brought the example of the pregnant male nary an hour ago.
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Still confusing sex with gender here.
Sex = male, female = biological.
Gender = man, woman = social.Females who do not have babies are not therefore males. However, it does affect their relationship with the socially negotiated role of 'woman'. That has changed a lot over the decades, especially with women allowed to venture further than the kitchen and nursery now, but it's still fraught.
It's one of the things I enjoy about Mad Men, watching how much some things have changed and how little others have.
Snap
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Ah, semantics! Biologically male means man, not male.
So my biologically male cat should actually be referred to as a "man"?
Dude, the scientists want their words back.
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It's one of the things I enjoy about Mad Men, watching how much some things have changed and how little others have.
Are you thinking of Mad Males?
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So my biologically male cat should actually be referred to as a "man"?
"Dude" will do, if you're talking about Colin
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Biology of Religion?
BBC ran a Doco which Dawkins scores low on the temporal lobe test/unable to lose a sense of self (egotist)/hasn't had a brain injury.
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I think I'll go re-read Angela Carter's Passion of the New Eve. It seems strangely apposite to what is going on here, and on the 'Reading Lust' thread. Carry on.
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So my biologically male cat should actually be referred to as a "man"?.
Touché.
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Still confusing sex with gender here.
Sex = male, female, biological.
Gender = man, woman, social.Isn't that the opposite of what Gio said?
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Sacha is right, I think the difference more appropriately is that male and female is sex, masculine and feminine is gender. I just hate to use masculine and feminine as nouns, it feels like I'm back in the seventies.
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Touché.
Also, his male-cat social behaviour has been fundamentally altered by the surgical removal of his testicles.
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As for Gender & sex, I just think there is a lot more fluidity to both camps than is given credit.
Essentialism of male and female, negates the value of either without children and I won't have the door closed on those or other aspects just yet. -
masculine and feminine is gender
Actually, that is less confusable than "man" or "woman", given common usage.
So what I wrote above would say:
Females who do not have babies are not therefore males. However, it does affect their relationship with the socially-negotiated feminine role.
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Also, his male-cat social behaviour has been fundamentally altered by the surgical removal of his testicles.
You're not suggesting that cats socially construct gender in the same way we do, are you? If you are, I hope you're bringing a powerful torch and good supplies into that cave.
We shall have feline discourse-analysis yet!
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In some circles, a bestseller to rival Why cats paint
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Julie Bindel has a day job -- and, I think, an important one: researching the sex industry.
And this is why what she and Tanya Gold are making up about the NZ sex industry concerns me so much - because there's debate in England right now about changing the law on prostitution.
This may be of interest: a blog by a sex worker who attended a panel discussion on sex work which included Julie Bindel. Bindel then joins in in the comments. And their response to the Bindel-Farley paper. (Farley? Worse than Bindel when in comes to prostitution.)
Also... if a British man wants to come to New Zealand and pay a willing sex worker for sex... what's wrong with that, exactly?
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You're not suggesting that cats socially construct gender in the same way we do, are you?
No! I'm saying that a biological intervention -- the removal of most of his supply of testosterone -- has significantly altered his social and territorial behaviour.
In humans, men produce between 40 and 60 times more testosterone than women. That does have an influence on male behaviour.
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Yes, fair enough. I can't really argue with that - perhaps I should find a way of bringing about a testosterone-fuelled enraged response.
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This may be of interest: a blog by a sex worker who attended a panel discussion on sex work which included Julie Bindel. Bindel then joins in in the comments.
Quick! Hand me a non-gendered insult!
Bindel really does come off as a dreadful piece of work in that comments exchange. Patronising, immature and arrogant.
And their response to the Bindel-Farley paper. (Farley? Worse than Bindel when in comes to prostitution.)
Massive amounts of pwnage. Their point about the absence of a control sample is compelling.
I also can't help but observe that their response is much better written than anything I've read under Bindel's byline.
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Bindel really does come off as a dreadful piece of work in that comments exchange. Patronising, immature and arrogant.
Yes, and what I said about popping down the pub with her, can someone please apply the redacted brush of 'WTFWITA' to that aberration. I'd rather have my nails removed with pliers.
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Bindel really does come off as a dreadful piece of work in that comments exchange. Patronising, immature and arrogant.
There are smart, smart British sex workers blogging on teh interwebz. Any one of them would be more deserving of Bindel and Gold's column space than they are. IMO, of course.
And now I've finished it, let me re-recommend that second link too, as a good summary of what's wrong both with the paper and the whole debate in Britain.
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