In my first year, I was also assigned second wave readings.
The content of the class had no real impact on me; at that time Dworkin
represented the ‘feminazi’ I had heard about coming into Gender Studies.
Fast-forward 3 years to this week and internal me was
whooping and cheering in agreement with MacKinnon and Dworkin. Explaining rape
as a social condition resonated with what I knew. “Ending rape … is the only meaningful
commitment to equality” (Dworkin). I could see it is obviously problematic for
MacKinnon to describe a homogeneous, fearful women, however (as came up in the
discussion class) I can understand that making such a bold statement was necessary
during that time.
Unfortunately when I stopped to think on the details of
MacKinnon’s argument in particular, I was troubled; I’m having some sort of
personal crisis. She argues consent is not a meaningful concept, because all
women are forced and coerced by compulsory heterosexuality. In law and social
conceptions, consent is the only distinguishing factor between rape and other sexual
acts. To my understanding, MacKinnon was saying that only under the current realities
of gendered structures, compulsory heterosexuality and the eroticisation of
domination is rape indistinguishable from ‘normal’ heterosexual acts, leaving open
the possibility for consent to become a meaningful concept.
However decades later the analysis still seems pertinent and
we have not seen massive social upheaval. This left me with the idea that I’ve
made no real, meaningful choices in my relationship. Obviously this is
unsettling as I would like to think I have total control over what my sex life
means.
“Equality is a practice. It is an action. It is a way of life. It is a social practice. It is an economic practice. It is a sexual practice. It can't exist in a vacuum. You can't have it in your home if, when the people leave the home, he is in a world of his supremacy based on the existence of his cock and she is in a world of humiliation and degradation because she is perceived to be inferior and because her sexuality is a curse.” – Andrea Dworkin.
I’m still not comfortable with saying I have no agency. While
here Dworkin hasn’t really helped me out on giving meaning back to me and my
life choices, this quote reminded me why I’m here. Sexual violence isn’t just
about me or my experiences; it’s a gendered crime that is disturbingly
widespread.
I think perhaps structural agency and individual agency are two different entities. I think MacKinnon and Dworkin are referring to women and men as social constructs rather than as individual persons, and that if we consider MacKinnon and Dworkin operating under structural agency approach we can find the space for individual agency. MacKinnon and Dworkin speak about sexual assault as a structural issue, so I believe it only makes sense to think of men and women as socially constructed beings. Even if women are predetermined to be victims of sexual assault without agency, I still believe that on an individual level a woman can be and is an active agent for her own body.
ReplyDeleteHi Loretta,
ReplyDeleteI also found the conclusion of Mackinnon’s analysis troubling and unsettling. But I do appreciate how it reveals forces that are acting on women and men that shape the conditions under which consent is or is not given. Someone in my discussion group Friday said something that really summed it up for me nicely. To paraphrase she said: feminism is about choice, but it also about realizing that some people don’t have a choice and understanding that choices can be limited. So although I think Mackinnon’s statements in particular are inaccurately absolute and don’t take into consideration the spectrum of power and privilege different women experience, I think her discussion is useful for understanding the less outwardly obvious and violent forms of sexual assault that women experience.