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Gender, Sexuality and Feminism

Gender, Sexuality and Feminism. Tyrone Connell and Mikaela Brusasco. Gender in debating. What is gender? Is gender a good or a bad thing? Is it opted into by individuals or imposed by society? Should society attempt to regulate expressions of gender ? Banning things (e.g. sexist films)

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Gender, Sexuality and Feminism

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  1. Gender, Sexuality and Feminism Tyrone Connell and MikaelaBrusasco

  2. Gender in debating • What is gender? • Is gender a good or a bad thing? • Is it opted into by individuals or imposed by society? • Should society attempt to regulate expressions of gender? • Banning things (e.g. sexist films) • Regulating things (e.g. equal gender ratio of tv content) • How effective is society at doing this? • E.g. TWS ban all advertising of products on the basis of gender, except where there is a specific and proven need to do so

  3. Sexuality in debating • Is sexuality individually or socially constructed? • Should society regulate people’s sexuality? • Banning and regulating • Subsidising things (e.g. paying for prostitution services for the severely handicapped) • How effective is society at doing this? • E.g. TWS ban all pornography • Since sexuality is an important domain for the expression of gender, debates about sexuality often engage questions of gender

  4. Feminism(s?) • There is debate about what constitutes feminism: • Radical feminism • Liberal feminism • Libertarian feminism • Women of Colourfeminism/womanism • Marxist feminism • Some argue that each of these is a valid expression of feminism of equal value. Others disagree. • Can a social movement function with disparate/conflicting elements? • E.g. That feminists should reject Slutwalk • Appropriation/parody or conformity?

  5. Where did feminism come from? • Western feminism: • 1st wave (turn of the 20th century) – women’s civil and political rights; the suffragette movement • 2nd wave (1960s-1980s) – social and sexual inequalities; reproductive rights; workplace rights • Divisions: the ‘Sex Wars’ • 3rd wave (1990s-present) – reclamation, individualism, WoC, corporate board representation, legal inequalities, intersectionality • Many liberal feminists have rejected elements of the 2nd wave which opposed liberal sexual expression • Feminism in non-western countries, womanism, minority feminism • E.g. Aboriginal feminism in Australia

  6. Has feminism succeeded? • 1) Feminism is largely failing • Radical feminists: since the Second Wave, liberal feminism has seen the reemergence of some harmful gendered practices • Pay parity has hardly shifted in recent decades, lack of corporate board representation • ‘on the wrong track’ • 2) Feminism is on a positive trajectory • While there is still much to do, there are many marks of progress: • Paid parental leave schemes, ERA in the US, increasing representation in the workplace/politics • 3) Feminism is over/complete (‘post-feminism’) • Quite difficult to argue in debating/objectively wrong

  7. Movements based around sexuality/gender diversity • LGBTIQ… • Lesbian rights – dealing with erasure of lesbian experiences from the social discourse, within the ‘gay’ discourse • Gay rights – ‘marriage equality’, historical repeal of sodomy laws, political representation, reform of religious doctrine • Bisexual rights – again, issues of erasure; conflation with stages of homosexuality, etc. • Transgender – access to state-funded surgery/debates within transsexual community about the gender binary, recognition of ‘third gender’ or ‘non-gender conforming’ identities • Do these groups all belong in the same movement? • What are their similarities? • What are their differences?

  8. Debates about sexuality • E.g. That we should criminalise the demand but not the supply of prostitution • E.g. That the BDSM movement is bad for feminism • What’s good about the BDSM movement? • What’s bad about the BDSM movement? • How do these things relate to feminism?

  9. Consent • A common justification for gender/sexuality practices that might (because of social norms, for example) seem harmful • Consent theory generally requires the proof of: • 1) access to information • 2) rationality • E.g. That we should regret the rise of the ‘hook up’ culture • Who’s consenting? • Questions of intersectional disadvantage • Power imbalances • Intersects feminist debate – libertarian vs. radical feminism

  10. Gender in ‘non-gender’ debates • TWS regret the federal government’s intervention in the Northern Territory • TWS not give development aid to countries without population control

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