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"Feminism stresses the indistinguishability of prostitution, marriage and, sexual harassment"--Catharine MacKinnon in Feminism Unmodified
A January, 2006 television news program claims that 16 to 24 year-old wimmin are the most abused by the opposite sex in the united $tates. Majorities of college-age wimmin and even portions of men are reporting sexual harassment.(1) As in many other government- sponsored programs, in the imperialist propaganda, we obtain some stupid "how to tell" guidelines based on the usual Liberal presumptions.
In one version of the TV show we learn the stories of some young wimmin who faced repeated sexual violence; it was a very interesting choice of the Disney news network called "ABC" to air more often a version with lighter concerns of those same wimmin. MIM was concerned that showing a womyn yell in an angry voice "no longer will he tell me" what to wear or whom to speak with ended up misplacing priorities given that more serious things were going on than just clothing or speech. The end effect will be support of a stupid "how to recognize" guideline that men concerned about low-cut blouses are the ones who are going to grind wimmin into dust. That is just Liberal ideology in favor of more sexual exhibitionism and an examination of Third World men as they exist with opposition to Western clothing styles should be the obvious proof.
The usual emphasis in how-to-guides from the government is that some men are risky and detectable given a set of behaviors. Pseudo-feminists are liable to throw in a heavy dose of privacy rights against boyfriends. The emergent brew is a confusion of privacy rights and freedom that is incompatible with any two-way relationship which has to rely on consent. The incompatibility is built into bourgeois ideology for the same reason that the ideas of "informed consent," "buyer beware" and Ralph Nader appeared historically. Privacy and confidentiality can be excuses to cover up selfish huckstering; yet they are absolutely central to doing bourgeois business at the same time. It's little wonder that capitalism's contradictions inherently lead to war also.
What is going on in capitalist gender relations is often no different than what goes on in capitalist business relations. In business, companies protect their secrets against competitors or they go bankrupt, so these days many office employees have to sign contracts stipulating "non-compete" clauses and codes of silence on company secrets. At the same time, we have the bourgeois idea that a car dealer is not supposed to sell a lemon to the consumer and we have "the customer is king" also a part of bourgeois ideology. So there is also bourgeois ideology on why secrets are no good.
A secondary effect of the state-sponsored propaganda is that it scares wimmin into ties with the state while spreading a vague ideology for criminalizing men --a very useful ideology as George W. Bush found when he used it to win the 1988 election with an ad about a Black rapist.
Oddly enough, the January ABC News program on young Amerikan wimmin was more interesting than most similar programs because it suggested a different tactic than usual for government-worshipping propaganda usually filling the same social niche. The tactic emphasized was talking about what a positive romantic relationship should look like-- in other words, utilizing the power of romance culture fantasy. In that fantasy, there should be no fear or guilt. If there is fear or guilt, then we should explore why it is there according to imperialist propaganda advice. State-sponsored propaganda encourages wimmin to criminalize anyone who does not meet the fantasy.
Still, from thinking about fear and guilt, answers could arise that vary from people's being asexual and not belonging in relationships, to not being ready or to realizing that the partner is not really the one desired. We believe such fantasy goal-setting is a better way and more likely to provoke thought than a "how to" guide which was liable to end up in some kind of non-consensual and non-communicative practice guided by privacy confusions with a heavy dose of pseudo-feminism and white nationalism. (Typically the well-intentioned spreading this sort of propaganda fail to realize how mechanically it spreads--which is why it is important to remember from the beginning that these guidelines and government statistical reports blared by the networks are propaganda, even when they contain a kernel of truth that we must extract.)
The problem with the "how to" guides is that the underlying issues do not get digestion. Instead something like "don't tell me what to think" becomes the paradigm for everything. So when one partner or the other needs to know if the other has HIV, the answer is privacy or privacy-justified silence. If someone wants to know whether the couple is monogamous, the answer is "don't control me" or even an evasive silence on the question from both sides as both contemplate the comforts of privacy. The implication becomes that if the relationship is not the perfect "zipless" relationship with no words required, then both sides should break up, one implicit ultraleft fantasy behind much pseudo-feminism.
Men are controlling wimmin according to pseudo-feminism and that justifies lying and privacy instead of breaking up or not getting started on a romance, according to many state-financed organizations. Especially useful to such politics is conjuring up large portions of men as pathological criminals that our "how to" guides have somehow unearthed.
It's easy to see how problems never get resolved with Liberalism run amok, when essentially pseudo-feminism is there to justify lying and evasion in the name of privacy. In contrast, when MIM looks at men controlling wimmin we reach a different conclusion-- that entering relationships where lying privacy is necessary is not worth it. Asexuality is an option as is overthrowing the patriarchy instead of working on the problem by lying to one boyfriend at a time.
So in the stereotypical case, the man tells the womyn how to dress so as not to appear too flirtatious. Countless government-sponsored programs see this sort of dreary conflict as the tell-tale sign of abuse. In fact, MIM has argued that clothing needs to tone down across-the-board. MIM does not intervene socially to get involved in that sort of conflict, but we find it absurd that state-backed pseudo-feminism actually still thinks that a "how to" guideline on this question is some productive way forward to sort out men. One thing we can be sure: whatever the government has advised on these questions has not worked for decades at a time.
It could be that men are overly possessive, but then again, we also hear much criticism from wimmin aimed at men for lacking in monogamous characteristics. There are abuses by possessive men, but we also need to include something else in our concerns, the suicides and suicide attempts by wimmin which are disguised cries for monogamy. If we could somehow slow down heterosexual men, we could reduce a problem that most pseudo-feminist organizations are loathe to include simultaneously in a discussion of privacy.
There has to be steering in one direction or the other. MIM holds that sexually active people in imperialist countries are not monogamous enough. There is no doubt that monogamy has its drawbacks, but we have to steer toward monogamy for sexually active people anyway. In capitalist society, there is no idyllic romance culture. If we do not steer for property-oriented possessiveness, we merely steer toward decadent one-night stands. Understanding this can even be helpful in seeing why Liberalism is a dead-end.
Liberalism about "who not to speak with" guidelines easily ends up in something else and it has for many decades now. If a couple is walking down the street and she is spending more time talking to random male passers-by than her date, there is possibly something wrong in that relationship. It's just that Liberalism will never admit that there really is such a thing as an overly self-centered individual. In its pseudo-feminist forms, Liberalism is about teaching wimmin in particular to be more selfish and then pretending astonishment when problems continue decade after decade. If people want to go beyond where they are now, then negating what men do through Liberal pseudo-feminism is not enough. Doing the best job of enacting Liberal pseudo-feminism only creates a selfish individual with new problems. Only a group- oriented approach truly targets relationships of all kinds.
It is Third World wimmin most likely to be appalled by the adjustment processes proposed by pseudo-feminism. The initial reaction of many Third World wimmin to Western pseudo-feminism is that it asks wimmin to be thoughtless sluts unconcerned about the society as a whole.
Liberalism really was not meant for generalizing about relations among people. That's why the spoon-feeding approach of "how to" guides is not thorough enough but always appears thanks to the vacuum left by Liberalism. The patriarchal culture alternates between a total illusion of individual freedom with no rules to state-backed guidelines on dating funded with hundreds of millions of dollars. It's crucial to understand that the same culture produces both the illusion and the government propaganda.
So there is a tension. On the one hand, it would be nice to say never to accept a man or womyn who tells one whom to speak with--and such will occur in the distant age of communism according to Marx. On the other hand, given the predominance of selfishness in a society of private property, that really is not possible right now. "How to" guides could tell men to break up before they ever utter the words "do not speak with X, Y or Z." Then those men would also face criticism for commitment- phobia and probably sexual harassment for pursuing womyn after womyn, often by the same articulate but inconsistent pseudo- feminists criticizing controlling men. As the review of Robin Morgan's work on terrorism points out, she criticizes "Lotharios" and people who have trouble with wimmin both. By the time she is done she has criticized every existing group of men, just by means of focus on one individual terrorist at a time. No direction emerges from her work, not even asexuality, and she openly says her point is calculated ambivalence.
In general, "don't tell me what to wear," "who to speak with," "where were you" etc. etc. are insecurity questions. They could be bogus, but they could reflect real commitment problems in the relationship. The question is where the main danger lies as we Maoists say about steering. MIM would break it into two: if one never wants to hear or never utter a limit on someone else's behavior, that is a good reason to be asexual. Alternatively, if one wants a monogamous commitment from someone, then we may have to support constraints placed by the other party. Those constraints arise partially from the continued existence of private property, so we can be sure there is no reservoir of unpossessive men who can walk the imaginary line between possessiveness and other forms of decadence. The worst combination is trying to have it both ways as if two self-centered people could meet and spontaneously achieve a guilt-free and fear- free joint life. That approach is likely to produce a long series of broken relations, which far from being the "happy medium" is actually the easiest form of decadence to recognize. When people do not measure up to Heaven, we feel free to break up with them with self-centered Liberal dogmas as the justification.
MIM tries to show the two-faced nature of Liberal pseudo-feminism to show how Liberalism is never going to solve the problems people have among themselves. The kind of Liberalism called pseudo-feminism has made the most effort in claiming solutions to romance culture problems. Yet the same wimmin decrying commitment-phobia are often the same educated wimmin who might fall for a "how to" guide that leaves open the basic question whether a relationship of two people can work if either or both people are self-centered. The state -backed social work and pseudo-feminism centers have adopted a Liberal position on "controlling men" fairly consistently. Only now with Republicans in power we start to hear more noise about commitment, usually in the context of family planning and welfare discussions. For the most part, the state pushes in a consistently divisive supposedly anti-crime direction with special concentration on repressing the oppressed nationality and lumpen men.
The same educated pseudo-feminism covers everyone: monogamous heterosexual men are possessive controllers and patriarchs if they have children and they are commitment-phobic sexual harassers "hitting on" and "picking up" wimmin if they are not monogamous. Implicit is some impossible ideal heterosexual man on the one hand, or the reality that Western wimmin just are not that much interested in Western men as men (as opposed to men as bosses or rich people) and have not yet figured it out.
The fact that Japan has a greater emphasis on group and social solidarity and less emphasis on individualism than the West may exactly explain that its wimmin have radically cut back their sexual interaction with men now that their economic position has improved. Western culture leaves open impossible individualist dreams that Japanese wimmin would more likely find socially inappropriate. So instead of embarking on a long series of break-ups or all- encompassing excuses for why all men are no good and yet dating is still wonderful, Japanese womyn is hanging up the romance culture as we write this. It's also related to a general sensibility about pornography. Japanese womyn is more sensitive to group-oriented processes of shame. The constant Western chatter about sexual harassment, commitment-phobia etc. is something Japanese womyn is less likely to be involved in persynally. She will not absorb all that as an individual with an individual opinion about each man but as a member of society with certain norms. Those norms have now changed but one could argue that the Japanese still remain more group-oriented than in the West.
Studies show that a huge gap in the education levels between Amerikan wimmin and men is opening up, particularly among youth, with 57% of college students being wimmin,(2) and even higher percentages of graduate students and part-time students. It is hushed up, but the University of Georgia undertook an affirmative action program for men before being forced to stop.
The percentage of wimmin who can identify easily in a "how to" guide what is a "controlling" man is increasing, but the similarly educated level of men is decreasing. Adjustment ideologies will soon come into place justifying why men should be less educated than wimmin in a relationship.
MIM also sees a possibility that the system will not maneuver quickly enough, and some educated wimmin will think beyond Liberalism by seeing the group-level problem that is unfolding. We can be sure that pseudo-feminism will continue to gain natural converts, but the gain of educational status by wimmin relative to men we predict will not eradicate pseudo-feminist complaints but increase them. We find it unlikely that Amerikan wimmin will consciously find a Japanese exit. Amerikan wimmin are much more likely to go down a fascist road or wreak other kinds of havoc as they will not consciously give up individualist dreams without disaster first. Likewise, the labor aristocracy and the rest of the bourgeoisie is not going to give up the Amerikan Dream without a disaster first.
MIM works with all people whatever their views on pornography, privacy and monogamy questions. Part of what we are saying given what we have to work with is that we have no choice in the imperialist countries but to work with decadent people. For example, we could say we do not work with sexual harassers, but then according to American Association of University Women, we would not be working with 51% of male college students and 31% of female college students. Likewise, we could say that we do not work with people who do not respect the right to consent to sex, but surveys show that would axe a majority of Amerikans to work with by itself. So put together a few lifestyle rules like this and soon we have no one we can work with. It's easy to issue militant-sounding slogans, but MIM insists on knowing the proportions in reality as they actually exist and then concluding what can be done about the problem.
In addition to looking at the public, we at MIM say that we ourselves are decadent people unless we have just arrived from a non-imperialist country. We seek to show people how our views of the lack of a white proletariat and lack of a hundred million white feminist revolutionaries influence our strategy and tactics.
If we have legal working rights inside imperialist country borders excluding Russia, we accept the burden of being called exploiters and sometimes simultaneously "scabs" for our line on Mexico. Like Lenin we accept the burden of being called oppressor if we belong to an oppressor nation. Moreover, we also accept the burden of being called rapists if we are sexually active. So for anyone who thinks MIM is some kind of Christian organization calling for salvation through Jesus, because MIM opposes decadence, they should ask themselves what Christians are going to say "sterilize all men!" or "Open the borders!" We don't even care about masturbation because if it's not between two people or more people involving a group relation. MIM's opposition to decadence comes from a different place, and we consider Amerikan Christians to be just as decadent as everyone else as well. People can be exploiters, scabs, national oppressors and rapists and still be revolutionaries.
Finally, we hope to show ordinary people by a general approach that Liberalism among the people cannot solve problems among the people. It's not that we MIM comrades can solve them now either, but we hope to utilize the lessons on Liberalism and apply them to making revolution.
Notes:
1. http://www.aauw.org/research/dtl.cfm ; The Los Angeles
Times questioned the definition of harassment in this report as being
too broad.
2. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-10-19-male-college-cover_x.htm ; http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec02/college.html