Good questions. As not a blogger or regular blog reader, I found Jessica's concerns difficult to follow. I don't mean wrong, just not accessible to me, and they made me want to know more. Is there a difference between generations that, unlike pleas to consider sexual attraction as empowerment, can point forward? I'd like Jessica to elaborate on that more, and I didn't find answers on her site. Questions of who's dismissing whom doesn't resonate with an outsider to blogging like me, and I don't think it's entirely because I'm male. As I say, it doesn't meant Jessica is wrong, but I'd just like more substance.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I think Jessica's comments were spot-on. When feminist writers like Ariel Levy and Pamela Paul write books like "Female Chauvinist Pigs" and "Pornified," which go after younger women for participating in the mainstreaming of pornography, they miss the point -- we should be going after the system which limits women's options and which constructs female sexuality in an oppressive and regressive way. When younger women feel like older feminists look at us as if we're all politically unaware pole-dancing victims of false consciousness, it's not helpful.

I don't think Jessica is saying that everyone has to agree with her, just that younger women shouldn't be continually derided for our perceived generational flaws. No one is begrudging productive conversation, but a lot of us are tired of reading entire books about how we're stupid and slutty and bringing down the movement.

I'm reading this discussion with interest, and also some puzzlement. But I do want add my own (completely anecdotal!) two cents to something Jessica said in her original post, as well as up thread here.

I can't count the number of dinner tables I've sat around and listened to young feminist women express frustration at not being taken seriously by older feminists. These are women with advanced degrees in women's studies and philosophy. They have written, they have taught, they have marched, and they have organized for feminist causes. And yet they get told they haven't paid their dues, because they weren't around in the bad old days when secretaries just had to expect a certain amount of ass-slapping. When, at conferences academic or otherwise, they raise questions, they are silenced with a condescending, "You'll understand when you've been doing this as long as we have."

And here, just now, as Jessica has tried to raise these questions, what's been the reponse from the second wave contingent? "What problem? There's no problem!"

What you describe, it's very ironic because boomer feminists should recognize it immediately, the movement then invented a term for this: "consciousness raising."

Then as now, the solution to raising consciousness about a problem that others don't see is giving people individual specific examples, not just talking generalities. Then you have something that leads to debate and people gaining more sensitivity to what's a hot button or what's troubling. A lot people are going to react negatively without specifics, it's just the way many brains work, communication occurs by putting yourself in another's shoes. Just braying about "I feel discriminated against" without specifics will not get good results except maybe from your Mom.

Your comment approaches a bit of clarity on what the problem is where her post didn't.

Maybe I'm not following, since I missed the whole Ariel Levy thing. But let me think on this some more. I do remember the 1980s Sex Wars, as I've told you elsewhere, and how personal that felt to me when I was young. But truly: no one can keep you out. You're in already.

what equates to female Hitlers
[cough]Feminazis by any name sounds the same Mary.
Just say it if you think it.
No need to dance around your inclinations to derogate feminist leaders.

As a white male who considers himself a feminist, I fear that this emphasis on intra-feminist conflict, while certainly important from an organizational standpoint, is becoming counter-productive.

Amanda, Jessica, et al. are right -- it is the larger culture, the culture that fetishizes sapphic love as something engaged in at boozy parties purely for the delight of heterosexual males, all the while denying full human rights to lesbians; the culture that elevates pornography into the mainstream discourse and insists that this is liberation (you don't have to be a Rightist to find this troubling, and indeed, given the frequent misogyny of porn, dehumanizing to all around) -- it is this culture that needs changing, rather than those captured by it.

This is not to deny agency to all the Girls Gone Wild and so forth; but it is to put forth a Left critique of a culture that has turned sex into a commodity, and that understands sexuality not as a deep and spiritual experience, but as bread and circuses.

I guess my point is that we should be keeping our eyes on the big picture here -- for fundamentally, feminism is a form of humanism, with its notion of the dignity and equality of all human beings. This is the message we need to be getting to the general public.

I would also note that for female equality to truly take hold, it needs the enthusiastic support of males.

Ben Cronin

p.s. Mary, I remain perplexed by the base level of hostility you bring to this conversation. What did Jessica ever do to you?

Oh please, just go over to feministe today to read about a transexual getting fired in Florida, then enter the comments to hear from other transexuals that say that feminists still don't consider them women.

Feminists don't consider M2F as women?

I blame the patriarchy! Right Amanda?

That darned USPS. You'll probably get your feminist credentials tomorrow, finding out they were delivered by mistake to J. E. Gaugh.