Comments Elsewhere

My last general overview touched on a lot of things I wanted to say, but I realized that I spent enough time on it there that I never got around to directly answering Robert’s direct questions. Again, speaking for myself; what Roderick agrees or disagrees with I’ll let him say.

The essay that we presented at APA (with the sections we didn’t have time to read restored for your reading pleasure) should be posted online as a draft-in-progress soon. I’ll post a URI when we have one.

Let me start by saying that when I single out “I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape” for praise, I really mean it—it’s an essay that fundamentally changed how I think about myself as a feminist. I don’t think of it as a great piece of libertarian feminist writing, but as a great piece of feminist writing simpliciter. Which, I’d argue, is good enough on its own; the problems with patriarchy aren’t all reducible to problems with sexist governments (although there are many such problems), and insofar as patriarchy is a system of oppression often allied with, but independent from, statism, feminist activism and theory can have independent merit without saying much or anything about the need for anti-statism on a particular occasion.

Of course, that’s a raft of assertions that are contentious. I’ll bracket the discussion of whether patriarchy is in fact real, pernicious, autonomous from statism, objectionable even when autonomous from statism, etc. for now; it’s an important discussion to have, but right now let me put it out there as one position among many in the space of libertarian positions, and address to what degree Dworkin’s work is compatible with that sort of feminist libertarianism. Here’s what Robert mentions regarding “I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape”:

“Here is one passage that I think might deserve comment. Keep in mind that the essay is not based on a speech that Dworkin gave to the tribal elders of Waziristan. It is based on a speech that she gave to the National Organization for Changing Men, in St. Paul, Minnesota:

‘We women. We don’t have forever. Some of us don’t have another week or another day to take time for you to discuss whatever it is that will enable you to go out into those streets and do something. We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us.’”

How you react to this passage is likely to depend a lot on what you think about the prevalence and effects of male violence against women. Since Robert marks out this passage without any comment further than saying it deserves comment and that it was given in Minnesota rather than Waziristan, I’m not sure what he means to ask about it, but it seems that he might find it an overstatement. (If that’s not what he meant to say, I apologize, and look forward to being set straight.) What I can offer is this: in a society in which (according to rather conservative measures of the CDC’s National Violence Against Women Society), about one out of every four women has been attacked, in the form of battery or rape or both, by her husband, fiancee, boyfriend, or date, Dworkin is right. I think we know enough about rape and battery at this point to know that she is also right that they are part of a larger cultural system that denigrates women and proclaims men’s right to control “their” women (wives, girlfriends, daughters), and that rape and battery are the nominally illegal but frequently excused expressions of that system in the form of violence.

The point of the passage is to urge pro-feminist men to take serious political action against gender violence now, because the problem is overwhelmingly large and urgent, and women who are facing the threat of rape or battery don’t have time to wait on the sort of touchy-feely guilt politics that was somewhat popular in the “pro-feminist men’s movement” of the 1970s and 1980s. I agree, and I think that the point applies quite broadly to a number of political tendencies that have urged feminists to hang out and wait until some magic bullet (e.g. overthrowing capitalism, ending racism, smashing the state, creating a culture of individualism, etc.) solves the problem.

Back to Campbell:

“A good deal more in this speech is worthy of comment, but I want to give priority to Dworkin’s conclusion:

‘Even in wars, there are days of truce. Go and organize a truce. Stop your side for one day. I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape.

‘I dare you to try it. I demand that you try it. I don’t mind begging you to try it. What else could you possibly be here to do? What else could this movement possibly mean? What else could matter so much?

‘And on that day, that day of truce, that day when not one woman is raped, we will begin the real practice of equality, because we can’t begin it before that day. Before that day it means nothing because it is nothing: it is not real; it is not true. But on that day it becomes real. And then, instead of rape we will for the first time in our lives—both men and women—begin to experience freedom. If you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong. You cannot change what you say you want to change. For myself, I want to experience just one day of real freedom before I die. I leave you here to do that for me and for the women whom you say you love.’”

Well, what needs comment here? Isn’t it true that if you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong? Isn’t it true that a society in which rape is extremely prevalent will therefore be seriously retarded in any attempt to practice both equality and love between those who are made to live in fear of rape and those whom they are made to fear? Shouldn’t we long to experience a day of freedom from the threat of sexual assault?

Of course, no-one seriously thinks that a one-day “truce” like this is possible. I take it that if someone is reading this as a suggestion of political strategy for pro-feminist men rather than a visionary political fantasy intended to get the point across—that a commitment to freedom for women needs to include a serious commitment to ending rape—then that is a pretty curious form of uncharitable interpretation.

I comment a bit, briefly, on the issue of collective guilt and class analysis in reply to Aeon; Roderick’s talked about the need for libertarian class analysis at somewhat more length elsewhere.

“Keep in mind, too, the definition that Dworkin puts forth in the same essay:

“And by rape you know what I mean. A judge does not have to walk into this room and say that according to statute such and such these are the elements of proof. We’re talking about any kind of coerced sex, including sex coerced by poverty.”

I think that Dworkin is mistaken to assimilate otherwise unwanted sex that results from economic necessity with rape. But I think she’s right that the two have more in common than many people care to admit and that it’s important not to lose sight of those similarities even as we insist that, from the standpoint of the law and the defensive use of force, the two have to be strictly distinguished.

As for the use of “coerced,” well, I think there are two different ways the term is used, as I mention in my response to Mark Fulwiler, and that the important thing here is to give the standard libertarian arguments that violence is only justified as a defense against coercion in the narrow sense. But Dworkin’s use of “coercion” here is not particularly unusual or any more egregious than the broad use of “coercion” by Leftists and conservatives alike (Leftists frequently use it in reference to harsh economic realities; conservatives often use it in reference to pervasive cultural pressures; I think that both have a right to use the word that way but that both are quite wrong to take that as a grounds for calling in State violence).

“The same goes for Dworkin’s views on sexual intercourse, which she insists have been so grossly misrendered.”

Dworkin’s views on heterosexual intercourse have been grossly misrendered. Broadly, the theses of INTERCOURSE and similar work elsewhere are: (1) that patriarchal culture makes penis-in-vagina intercourse the paradigm activity for all sexuality; other forms of sexuality are typically treated as “not real sex” or as mere precursors to penis-in-vagina intercourse and always discussed in terms that analogize them to penis-in-vagina intercourse; (2) that penis-in-vagina intercourse is typically depicted in ways that are systematically male-centric and which portray the activity as iniated by and for the man (as “penetration” of the woman by the man, rather than “engulfing” of the man by the woman, or as the man and woman “joining” together—the last is represented in the term “copulation” but that’s rarely used in ordinary speech about human men and women); (3) that the cultural attitudes are reflective of, and reinforce, material realities such as the prevalence of violence against women and the vulnerability of many women to extreme poverty, that substantially constrain women’s choices with regard to sexuality and with regard to heterosexual intercourse in particular; (4) that (1)-(3) constitute a serious obstacle to women’s control over their own lives and identities that is both very intimate and very difficult to escape; (5) that intercourse as it’s actually practiced occurs in the social context of (1)-(3), and so intercourse as a real social institution and a real experience in individual women’s lives is shaped and constrained by political-cultural forces and not merely by individual choices; (6) that, therefore, drawing the ethical lines in regards to sexuality solely on the basis of individual formal consent rather than considering the cultural and material conditions under which sexuality and formal consent occur makes it hard for liberals and some feminists writing on sexuality to see the truth of (4); that (7) they therefore end up collaborating, either through neglect or endorsement, with the sustanence of (1)-(3), to the detriment of women’s liberation; and (8) feminist politics require challenging both these writings and (1)-(3), that is, challenging intercourse as it is habitually practiced in our society.

(Which is, I will add, not the same as declaring the anatomical mechanics of intercourse somehow antifeminist, or equating all heterosexual sex with rape, or coming out against sex.)

“Finally, I am curious to know what Roderick and Charles think of an op-ed from 2002, which praises the city council of Glasgow, Scotland, for enacting a ban on lap dancing. Including their interpretation of the final line.”

Well, I think that she’s wrong about the law and right about lap-dancing (and strip clubs, generally). But libertarian feminism broadly, and a libertarian feminist appreciation of Dworkin’s valuable work on rape and battery specifically, is to some degree a separable issue from whether you agree or disagree with her about whether strip clubs and lap-dances are pernicious. “Libertarian feminism” as such leaves that question open for feminists to argue over, and only demands that whatever they decide, government force neither used nor be confused with cooperative community action.

As for the last line, I take it to be a pretty common form of rhetorical excess. People often talk about beating people that they think hold scummy positions, forcing them to read some important work at gunpoint, etc. as a way of sharply pointing out what a sleazebag or doofus they think the person is, without seriously meaning it. It is enough to point to Dworkin’s endorsement of government force to find a point at which she is wrong; there’s no need to make an uncharitable reading in order to manufacture others.

This is only the beginning of what should by rights be a vast discussion; but I hope that it’s helped Robert understand my position a bit better.