RQ#96 - Online

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News from the Grassroots

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Two RQ Gender Forums

Complete theme sections from RQ #96 and RQ#101

• from RQ#101 - "What if the Earth Is Not Our Mother," by Keith Hennessy, Kirk Read, Rachel Kaplan, Jack Davis, Ravyn Stanfield
  
  
• from RQ#96 - "Undoing Sexism: A Forum," By Lynx, Donald, Keith, Phillipe, Rosa, Seed, Jonathan, Scarlet Harlot, and Luna
  
  
• includes original layout of article on this page

Click here to download RQ Gender Forums

Thoughts of Gender and Sexism

by Keith Hennessy

There is a commonly held belief that sexism, as well as other "isms" like racism and homophobia, don't exist in progressive communities.

I consider this to be a naive opinion held only by folks new to progressive political work. As soon as you've been through your first big organizing or action this image dissolves quickly. Who holds this belief? How does it get passed on? There are certain opinions that I read all the time, year after year, and each generation acts like they're the first ones to say it, e.g., the gay community has to begin to confront racism, or the peace movement has to begin to deal with sexism, racism, homophobia...

"freeing ourselves from old, deeply rooted beliefs and feelings towards other groups of people, be they people of color, women, queer and/or trans folks, Jews, etc." (from the Introduction)

Unfortunately, this sentence assumes that the reader (ourselves) is white, male and/or straight. The process of unlearning our internalized oppressions must also prioritize freeing ourselves from old, deeply rooted beliefs and feelings towards white, middle class, and/or men folks... because they exist in symbiotic relationship to our perceptions and ideas about anyone and everyone else, regardless of our own histories and identities.

Lynx's article on Sexism

This is a wonderful challenge to Reclaiming to wake up and increase their engagement in undoing sexism in the community.

There are 2 interconnected categories of sexism in Lynx's list, sexism in sexual intimacy, and sexism related to community process. With the latter, the sexism seems clear or at least easy to agree on: interrupting women, dominating group process, and not listening to women with respect are all actions that hurt individuals and weaken communities. With sexist patterns in sexual intimacy the oppressive behavior is not as obvious, especially to those of us with libertarian and radical queer sexualities. Nonetheless these patterns can be even more harmful to both individuals and communities.

Men and women are both socialized to be sexist, and many a man in progressive communities knows the experience of trying to intervene in sexist patterns, especially around sexual intimacy, only to have women reestablish the patterns. We enter a messy game when we assume that, ‘if it looks oppressive, it is oppressive.' The SM community has done a lot of important thinking about consensuality that challenges our perceptions about oppressive behavior. We all need to get smarter about sex and desire, and that is, among other things, a feminist act. Everyone confuses closesness with sex, and I'll bet that any study would show that women do this more often than men. And asking men to examine this behavior, or asking women to examine this behavior in men, will not change the overall social dynamic without persistent examination in all of us, by all of us. Not all men pursue connections with younger women (or men) but some of us do. Is that sexism? Sure that's a behavior that's encouraged by all advertising and media, and sure that's a behavior that changes in many when steps are taken to unpackage one's desires and fetishes, but is it wrong or bad or hurtful for some men in the community to be sexually attracted to younger adult women? When we aren't in partnership - men & women, straights & queers, polyamorous and monogamous -- it is easy to echo conservatively moralistic notions of sexual behavior. That's what happened when some radical lesbians conflated heterosexual sex and all pornography with rape. A libertarian and feminist unlearning of sex and gender oppression can't be afraid to entertain consensual, non-normative sexual behaviors, including age diversity and even male-dominant relationships.

Lynx writes:

We're not doing our beloved brothers any favors by not challenging them on their sexism.

As I pointed out above, this identifies brothers as the problem (and sisters as the community of readers). We're not doing anyone any favors by not challenging them on their sexism. Sexism is a social dynamic that we all learn from the same sources. Men and women teach sexism to their children, students, clients, and communities. In Reclaiming, I think we need more questioning of each other, more curiosity and more shared feelings, than we need challenges to each others' behavior. There's so much shame in our sex and gender expression, so much guilt and feeling of inadequacy, that challenging one individual's bad behavior rarely helps.

The Roundtable discussion

If only this had been around a table! There would have been some excellent disagreements and clarifications. Thanks for including me in such a good group.

AManda's well-considered response to sex work and healing

This is a strong piece. Many in recent years have argued the opposite side of this discussion, and others including whore-positive artist Annie Sprinkle, have written more complex pieces sharing both the feminist/healing perspective and Amanda's ouch-sex-work-continues-to-hurt perspective. The Sacred Whore is a newly reclaimed archetype and I think we have only begun to meet her and know her. The work of some sex workers in their attempts to embody her have been super useful to her re-emergence. If Amanda had been part of a spirit-based, body electric or tantra community, as a sex worker, she might see how some women and men are practicing sex work in ways that are empowering to both client and worker.

Re: Scarlot Harlot's interview

She is so smart and sensitive and has a strong overall view of the work, from it's worst to its visionary best. She also has a clear articulation and warning about feminism's most reactionary tendencies.

Thanks for reading this, I enjoyed the practice of responding and welcome the chance to get more articulate, more sensitive and more engaged with these issues in the community we love.

Thanks to all who worked on this special issue, George, Amanda, Lynx, Luna, Jonathon...

Keith Hennessy is a performance artist, dancer, Witchpriest, anti-war activist and director of Circo Zero.

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