Feminist?

Want an article that fails to complicate feminism's relation to the sex trade?

Here it is:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/25/iceland-most-feminist-country

Apparently Iceland is completely closing down all strip clubs in the country, leading the article-writer to herald the country as "the most feminist in the world." Wha? From where I'm standing "feminists" have been asking to decriminalize the sex trade, not ban it.

According to the ban, this decision might be attributed to the lesbian prime minister or the many vocal feminist groups in the country. This article writer fails to even reference the common anti-porn/pro-sex debates common to feminisms before, fails to make any reference to the possibility that this might not be a win for feminism but the opposite.

This might lead us to the question: Have these stripping women been in the way of feminist change the entire time? How dare they! Don't they understand the ways that their choice to take off clothes for money keeps women from rising above oppression? No? Okay, let's put them out of a job; I've heard the economy's really good lately.

Andrea Dworkin writes of the ways that strip clubs, the porn industry, and the sex trade tells men that they should always have access to sex. These avenues teach men incorrectly that women's bodies should always be available to us. This logic follows objectification in any form to violence, from an American Apparel add to rape. I do not necessarily disagree with this logical tract, in fact I wish that this article on Iceland could have at least made some mention as to possible decrease in violence against strippers outside of their clubs that this might lead to. But it doesn't.

I do think that feminist responses to sex work, especially when the argument is to legalize sex work, needs to be very articulate about relationships between sex and violence. And I think we commonly are: when you criminalize these people who use their body for money you contribute to a prison industrial complex, one of the most violent institutions in existence.

Granted, I know nothing about Iceland's prison system. It will be interesting to see how this stripping ban shapes the political and feminist landscape to come. But articles like the one above makes me HATE calling myself a feminist, which I've come to understand as largely a too-broad-to-mean-anything-and-sometimes-dangerous-term. Just go ahead and google: "feminism" and "middle-east" if you want a world of complicated and fucked-up "feminist" reading.

hello again

i paid money to see that horrible film, Avatar 3D. and i will apologize in advance for what might seem like an incoherent rant.

starring a young white disabled ex marine twin who utilizes an avatar in order to infiltrate an indigenous community and resistance movement. and throughout the course of the film our white saviour - through a number of couragous able bodied hyper masculine acts- is accepted by the community and finds affinity with their cause. he is seen and sees.
(call and response interpellation ?)

what the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck.

1. why are the scientists left free of blame? excuse me. sigourney weaver being brought to the navi diety as the entire community prays for her human spirit to enter a native body. are you kidding me!

2. the discourse surrounding jake sully's romance with female lead, zoe saldana was disgusting.
and the part at the end when she holds his human self as a baby made me want to vom.

3. the part where jake sully dominates the giant bird thing and ascends to the symbolic throne of leadership and gains the silent respect of the new warrior king - dick fest.

4. jake sullys video diaries. fuck off.


the scariest thing about this film for me was the fact that it encouraged the very same kinds of multi-culti diversity post racial bullshit that perpetuates US imperialism in a very very real way and it does so through a weird retelling of indigenous struggle led by a white US marine.
the arc of the film pulls the audience in to empathetically identifiy with jake sully as a race traitor and with the indigenous people as spiritually pure underdogs. it focuses on jake sullys ability to become one with the navi people through his avatar. let me say that again.....
THE MOVIE REVOLVES AROUND THE FACT THAT (through technology) THE MAIN CHARACTER A FORMER MARINE CAN UTILIZE A NATIVE BODY IN ORDER TO BECOME A SYMBOLIC AND POLITICAL LEADER FOR AN ENTIRE ANTI-COLONIAL MOVEMENT. and this is the highest selling movie in America baby.

as you probably can see i have only half formed thoughts and fairly good amount of anger.
so for the purpose of furthering the convo to bring something good out of it... i will pose some reflective questions to help think through it all

how does this film make meaning out of bodies and which bodies, and what is that meaning used to do?

how is the nobility and innocence of scientific discourse upheld through the film in order to differentiate between good colonialism and bad colonialism. sigourney weaver wants to educate the natives and mine delicately for research whereas the big bad white dudes just want to mine for precious natural resource and kill anyone in the way. how do these two seemingly different approaches push and pull with each other to create good guys and bad guys and for what reason?

jake sully is taken as a joke by weaver for not being smart or well studied enough and by the marine general for being in a wheelchair. when do we get to see him shine with courage, quick wittedness, physical prowess, and sweltering romance? oh yea. thats right.

and of course there is more. but we will talk of it in later times i am sure.

and even more interestingly....
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/avatar-on-the-west-bank/